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- Bertilsson, Fredrik, 1978-
(författare)
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Source Criticism as a Technology of Government in the Swedish Psychological Defence : The Impact of Humanistic Knowledge on Contemporary Security Policy
- 2021
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Ingår i: Humanities. - : MDPI AG. - 2076-0787. ; 10:1, s. 13-
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- “Source criticism” (källkritik) has become an essential part of the Swedish government’s activities against false information, deception campaigns, and propaganda, which are viewed as fundamentally destabilising forces that can potentially undermine the democratic system, the public debate, and political decision-making. The purpose of this article is to explore source criticism as a technology of government focusing on the Swedish Psychological Defence. I analyse the way in which source criticism is brought to bear on Swedish national security policy in the light of Foucauldian theories about modern governmentality and technologies of the self. Source criticism is seen as an example of a contemporary form of government that entails a redistribution of responsibility from the state to the individual, who is provided with certain “technologies of self” to master an unpredictable political environment. With this case study as empirical example, the aim of the article is to contribute to the research on the influence of humanistic knowledge in security and defence policy domains. This prompts further discussion about what happens with the democratic and critical potential of humanistic knowledge as it is enrolled in government operations.
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| 2. |
- Johansson, Anders E., 1963-
(författare)
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Small Revelations, ... Maybe Not Even with an Apocalyptic Tone
- 2021
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Ingår i: Humanities. - : MDPI AG. - 2076-0787. ; 10:4
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This article tries to be funny in a very serious way, following Virginia Woolf's call in Three Guineas that, in the face of man-made disasters, we may have to make fools of ourselves in relation to common sense. Apocalypses, such as the Anthropocene, climate change, and mass extinction require-like the Second World War that Woolf refused to simplify-a tentative search for knowledge, not controlling and predictable methods in the search for a solution. The article is based on how Jacques Derrida's discussion with Immanuel Kant regarding how truth should sound before the apocalypse over the years has increasingly come to describe contemporary doxa, within which there is only room for mystagogues, who inaugurate followers in the "real truth" behind "fake news", or scientisticists, who believe that facts and truth are the same thing. When Derrida shows how these two positions depend on each other, sharing the modern belief that knowledge is associated with development, boundaries and control, he also shows how this narrows knowledge down to the predictable, and, thus, makes it complicit with the mistaken efforts of control responsible for today's challenges. Against this background, the article analyzes works by the artist, Eva Lofdahl, and links them with questions concerning connections between truth, knowledge, art, and science.
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