ABSTRACT
Building on the previous chapter’s analysis of the technicization of science, this chapter examines its second defining feature: societization. This term captures the reorganization of modern science as problem-solving knowledge, a framework directed at addressing “vital needs”. Drawing on Hannah Arendt, the chapter locates the origins of “society” as a modern construct that redefines human coalescence around the fulfilment of the necessities of life. Within this horizon, the human condition mutates into that of an active social animal, while science becomes the specialized labour tasked with resolving those vital needs. By retaining this role, science preserves its constitutive bond with truth (albeit reconfigured as performativity and efficiency), yet it also grows vulnerable to being reduced to sheer utility and, more importantly, to external demands, such as those from industry and the state (typically calling for alignment to military agendas); this gives rise to well-known phenomena such as those of marketization and politicization of science. However, we argue that the contemporary age exhibits a specific derailment, for which we coin the term “policyzation”, which denotes the subjugation of science to a relentless process of informing “policies”, purportedly addressing grand “transition challenges” (such as digital, green, etc.). The Evaluation Machinery aligns with such “policy factory”, ratifying the replacement of science’s pursuit of vital needs of society with compliance to the (always only brandished) operational effectiveness of policy. In doing so, it traps science in a perpetual state of transition and in the illusion of a future where scientific worth can be measured with perfect objectivity and universal consensus. Finally, science itself dissolves into officially certified and sanctioned policy implementation.
