January 6, 2009

Zizek on Science

In his book Violence, philosopher Slavoj Zizek has an interesting take on science in society:

'Science today does effectively compete with religion, insofar as its serves two properly ideological needs, those for hope and those for censorship, which were traditionally taken care of by religion.

Science and religion have changed places: today, science provides the security religion once guaranteed. In a curious inversion, religion is one of the possible places from which one can deploy critical doubts about today's society. It has become one of the sites of resistance.'
(p. 81-82)

True, but from society's standpoint, dangerous: I fear that the resistance and doubt may be applied toward science itself...

No comments:

Post a Comment