Avoiding contradiction, assembling ambivalence. Social theory and technocratic politics

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the socio-political construction of ambivalence in contemporary society, meaning for “construction” a specific strategy of the ruling classes. Since the 1980s, contemporary to the rise of post-industrial society, the concept of “contradiction” has been side-lined and several scholars, including new left intellectuals, have started to speak of complexity and ambivalence. At the centre of such a change is the problem of the nexus between technoscience and politics: technoscience has become increasingly important as both a productive force and governance apparatus. Our thesis is that ambivalence can be seen as an assembly principle of technocratic politics, useul for avoiding systematic contradiction in an ambiguous and potentially disruptive socio-political situation.