hat tip for the Source: Enenews
Alain-Marc
Rieu (2013) Thinking after Fukushima. Epistemic shift in social sciencesAsia Europe Journal March 2013,
Volume 11, Issue
1, pp 65-78
Abstract
The Fukushima catastrophe is a turning point in the conception,
role and management of technology in industrial societies. As did Hiroshima (on
another dimension) after 1945, the Fukushima nuclear accident questions and
transforms established conceptions and values concerning the relations between
technology, politics, industry, society and the environment. It has become
impossible to think after Fukushima as we did before. This catastrophe
initiates a major epistemic and conceptual shift with long-term consequences.
This paper focuses on a powerful conceptual complex associating the notions of
risk, trust and knowledge society. This complex associates discourses, theories
and policies. The objective is to criticize this conceptual complex in order to
explore how to rethink, after Fukushima, the relations between technology,
politics, industry and society.
EXCERPTED page 16
One thing is known for sure: society
will never be able to control a sovereign technology and sovereign industries,
which require an aggregation of power and resources beyond political oversight. Such a power structure cannot be
controlled by a democratic society.
Therefore nuclear technology and industry defy and deny
democracy. This is the reason why nuclear plants should be closed and the
nuclear industry stalled as long as advanced industrial societies have not
imagined and implemented the political reforms able to produce knowledge, organize debate and implement
reliable democratic control with respect to this technology.
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