Scientific reified models acquire objective power over humanity’s self-conception

Evidence

The depoliticization of the mass of the population, which finds its legitimation in a technocratic consciousness, is at the same time a self-objectification of humanity in categories that are those of purposive action and of adaptive behaviour in equal measure: the reified models of the sciences find their way into the sociocultural life-world, and acquire objective power over the view humanity has of itself. The ideological core of this consciousness lies in the elimination of the distinction between practice and technology, a mirror imagebut not the definitionof the new pattern of relations that has arisen between an institutional framework that has been deprived of power, on the one hand, and a system of purposive action that has taken on a life of its own, on the other. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 2702

Categorization

• XREF: Echoes Lukács’s concept of reification and the science-as-ideology theme running through the Frankfurt School. — connects to: Both nature’s mechanism and history’s determinism oppress the modern self — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 163; Reified social wholes are objective forces that decide individual existence — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the…, 735; Computational governance’s metric requirements force a mimicry-based view of humanity. — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1392 (+1 more)
• DEEPTHINKING: The claim that the technocratic ideology’s core is erasing the practice/technology distinction, with science’s reified models colonizing the life-world’s self-image, is a dense, paradigm-level formulation.

Broader Connections

• Both nature’s mechanism and history’s determinism oppress the modern self #corroborates (0.85) — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 163
• Scientific rationalism becomes an instrument of social domination #corroborates (0.85) — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man, 141
• Reified social wholes are objective forces that decide individual existence #corroborates (0.82) — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man, 735
• Computational governance’s metric requirements force a mimicry-based view of humanity. #complicates (0.72) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1392