Home > Catalogo > Annali di Ca’ Foscari. Serie occidentale > 53 | Supplemento | 2019 > Utopia, determinismo tecnologico, ingegneria sociale: la dianetica tra scienza e fantascienza

Annali di Ca’ Foscari. Serie occidentale | Vol. 53 | Dicembre 2019

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Articolo

Utopia, determinismo tecnologico, ingegneria sociale: la dianetica tra scienza e fantascienza

Giulio Argenio    Università Ca’ Foscari Venezia, Italia; Università degli Studi di Padova, Italia; Università degli S    

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abstract

In May 1950 L. R. Hubbard published in a science fiction magazine “Dianetics: The Evolution of a Science”, which would later form the basis of Scientology. Emerging from the technocratic mindset typically associated with the periodical, the article considered the human brain as a computer in need of rewiring, giving birth to a peculiar kind of utopian thinking whose aim was not the creation of a ‘new man’, but the return to an original perfection of the mind. Through an examination of this text and its context, I propose to investigate the relationship between engineering culture and literary fictions, trying to understand how the mind-computer analogy shaped the vision of a regenerated society.

Pubblicato
27 Novembre 2019
Accettato
27 Maggio 2019
Presentato
21 Marzo 2019
Lingua
IT

Keywords: Technological utopianism • Technocratic culture • Science fiction • Human mind • History

permalink http://doi.org/10.30687/AnnOc/2499-1562/2019/01/031

Copyright: © 2019 Giulio Argenio. This is an open-access work distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction is permitted, provided that the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. The license allows for commercial use. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.