Part of
Science and Democracy: Controversies and conflictsEdited by Pierluigi Barrotta and Giovanni Scarafile
[Controversies 13] 2018
► pp. 109–126
Edited by Pierluigi Barrotta and Giovanni Scarafile
[Controversies 13] 2018
► pp. 109–126
Chapter 6Save the planet, win the election
A paradox of science and democracy, an Israeli perpetuum mobile and Donald Trump
Science and scientific institutions are not necessarily passive players in the power and manipulation games which constitute democratic elections. In this paper, I shall present a seeming paradox, in which a party well-aligned with science is vulnerable to attack which claims access to alternative and superior science. The argument is demonstrated by the Israeli elections of 1981, won by a party which presented the public with a Perpetuum Mobile, two days before the elections. My analysis, indebted to Hans Jonas’s model of interregnums of values and norms, seems to justify this maneuver and render it rational, in a sense restricted to election campaigns. The analysis was used to predict the victory of Donald Trump in the US elections of 2016.
Article outline
- Introduction
- Scientists and democratic politicians
- Parties and elections
- The Israeli elections of 1981
- Meridor’s invention
- A symbol of radical interregnum
- Jonasian politics
- Donald Trump, post-truths and alternative truths
- In conclusion
-
Notes -
References
References
Agamben, G.
(2005) The State of Exception. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Avneri, A.
(1993) The Defeat: The Fall of the Likud Government 1977–1992. Tel Aviv: Dani Books.
Bauman, Z.
(2012) Times of interregnum., Ethics & Global Politics ,, 5(1). 
Bradley, C. P.
(1985) Parliamentary Elections in Israel: Three Case Studies. Shoe String Press Inc.
Fruend-Avraham, Y.
(2015, April 4). Redeeming Zion: The Invention That Almost Changed Israel. Retrieved April 9, 2017, from NRG: [URL]
Gramsci, A.
(1971) Selections from the Prison Notebooks. (Q. Hoare, & G. Nowell-Smith, Eds.) London: Lawrence & Wishart.
Greilsammer, I.
(1986) The Likud. In H. R. Penniman, & D. J. Elazar (Eds.), Israel at the Polls, 1981: A Study of the Knesset Elections. Indiana University Press.
Gui, B.
(1991) The conduct of the Inquisition of Heretical Depravity. In W. L. Wakefield, & A. P. Evans (Eds.), Heresies of the High Middle Ages (pp.375–445). New York : Columbia University Press.
Johnson, R. A.
(1974) The origins of demythologizing: Philosophy and Historiography in the Theology of R. Bultmann. Leiden: Brill.
Jonas, H.
(1934) Gnosis und spätantiker Geist. Teil 1: Die mythologische Gnosis. Gottingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht.
(2001) The gnostic religion: the message of the alien god and the beginnings of christianity. Beacon Press.
Kleinberg, A.
(2016, October 18). Zvi Razi, In Memoriam. Retrieved March 29, 2017, from Zvi Yavetz School of History, Tel Aviv University: [URL]
Leff, G.
(1968) Paris and Oxford Universities in the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries: An Institutional and Intellectual History. London: John Wiley & Sons.
Lehman-Wilzig, S.
(1983) Thunder Before the Storm: Pre-Election Agitation and Post-Election Turmoil. In A. Arian (Ed.), The Elections In Israel, 1981. Tel Aviv University: Ramot Publishing.
Olsen, H. L., Dugger, G. L., & Shippen, W.
(1973) Preliminary considerations for the selection of a working medium for the solar sea power plant. John Hopkins Univ, Silver Spring, MD (USA). Applied Physics Lab.
Parry, R.
(1993) Trick or treason: The October surprise mystery. New York: Sheridan Square Publications.
Peres, S.
(1999) The Imaginary Voyage: With Theodor Herzl in Israel. New York: Arcade Publishing.
Scholem, G.
(1995) Redemption Through Sin. In G. Scholem, The Messianic Idea in Judaism And Other Essays on Jewish Spirituality (pp.78–141). New York: Schocken Books.
Sternhell, Z.
(2009) The founding myths of Israel: Nationalism, socialism, and the making of the Jewish state. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.