Technocratic illusion legitimizes depoliticization by presenting policy as mere administration

Evidence

The problem that arose was: how to make plausible, to citizens of a democracy, the avoidance of any public discussion of practical goals and the fact that the actions of those in power were being guided solely by a search for answers to technological and administrative questions. It was an advantage to those in power that the vast increase in the extent and complexity of economy, technology and science made it easier to create the impression that laws immanent to these spheres were producing a sheer force of events that politics must simply obey, in order to continue to provide its substitute programme. Just as the exclusion of questions of practical and educational relevance from the sciences was no problem at all for scientistic philosophies of science, the technocratic illusion became, for the depoliticized mass of the population, a justification for their depoliticization and for their exclusion from decision-making processes that had important consequences for society as a whole. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 2699

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines the ‘technocratic illusion’ — the appearance that politics merely obeys technological-economic laws.
• XREF: Connects to Habermas’s concept of technology as ideology and the depoliticization thesis, relevant to broader Critical Theory. — connects to: Technocratic illusion justified mass depoliticization and exclusion from decision-making. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 2699; Technocratic consciousness is less visible as ideology yet more harmful than older ideologies — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 2700; Technocratic realism is descriptively accurate but costs citizens their political autonomy — Jürgen Habermas, A New Structural Transformation of the…, 102 (+7 more)

Broader Connections

• Domination in advanced capitalism is masked as neutral administration and objectivity #corroborates (0.92) — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man, 186
• Frame cultural-policy choices as technical rather than political serves dominant elites #exemplifies (0.88)
• Technocratic consciousness is less visible as ideology yet more harmful than older ideologies #expands (0.85) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 2700
• Technocratic realism is descriptively accurate but costs citizens their political autonomy #expands (0.82) — Jürgen Habermas, A New Structural Transformation of the…, 102
• Best practices exemplify neoliberal governance’s soft power and antipolitics #exemplifies (0.80) — Wendy Brown, Undoing the Demos, 262
• Technocratic consciousness suppresses the communicative interest at the core of socialization #expands (0.78) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 2691
• Academic success can convert a political-intellectual project into a depoliticized abstraction #exemplifies (0.78) — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 127
• Utopian techno rhetoric is strategic propaganda that legitimates surveillance capitalism’s drive toward totality #exemplifies (0.75) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1284