Despite their usual lack of rigor, the latest articles from Lundimatin (for french readers only) on cybernetics provide good clues to explain the success of this obscure vocabulary. I believe this success should be interpreted as the aggregation over decades of several categories of very different actors who have an interest in taking this vocabulary seriously (rather than highlighting its lack of scientificity). In roughly chronological order, these groups could be:

  1. Researchers in applied mathematics and engineering (Wiener, Shannon) who produce mathematical models to describe the operation of certain machines, and make a very broad conceptualization of them with metaphors that can be appropriated. The dissemination of these metaphors brings them great notoriety, without necessarily their equations being taken up.
  2. Researchers in natural sciences, who see an interest in extending the use of these modelling methods to their field of research: Bertalanffy, meteorology, complexity science (Li Vigni 2020), systems ecology and earth systems sciences (Walker 2020), etc. They find useful tools and also receive notoriety by participating in the dissemination of this vocabulary.
  3. Researchers who only use metaphors, and not equations, whether because the equations do not apply well to their field of research, or because the field does not lend itself well to mathematical formalization in general. These fields are for example sociology, political science, organizational theory, Morin's writings on complexity.1 They receive strong symbolic benefits by citing the founding fathers of more legitimate sciences (who use mathematical approaches), while boasting of anti-reductionism.
  4. Consultants in management, engineering, pedagogy, who only use the metaphors: Stafford Beer (Morozov 2024), systemic management, quality, systemic design, continuous learning, etc. They gain a competitive advantage in the consulting market with this exotic vocabulary, distinctive visuals and references to formalization.
  5. Far-left intellectuals (autonomists, technocritics), who claim to produce a critique of cybernetics based on some of the imaginaries or "concepts" associated with it. The uncovering of a supposed ideological foundation of contemporary society, based on quantification and control, allows them to accredit their critical convictions of management and calculation.
  6. Environmentalist groups and intellectuals (collapsers, degrowthers), who find in these metaphors ("system", "tipping point", "feedback") an impactful way to express what is wrong with society, while referring to certain scientific works that have contributed to their awareness (climatology, earth system sciences, population dynamics).

What I find very interesting in this phenomenon is that these extremely diverse groups seem united by a skepticism towards "science"2 and quantification, but benefit from the legitimacy of this vocabulary through a reference to quantification. The case of autonomist intellectuals3 is striking: to be able to criticize cybernetics, one must first recognize that it participates in forms of control through quantification, and that it is not just marketing.

This was already noted by Chiapello and Gilbert (2020): "technophobes" and "technophiles" have in common that they attribute to technology, science or quantification a capacity to transform society by itself, sometimes against the will of those who deploy it. And, I might add, they often share the same fascination for certain technologies presented as "new".

In short, to return to cybernetics,4 I think that the first step to make a somewhat serious socio-history (and critique) of it would be to temporarily stop taking this knowledge seriously. One cannot study such a vaporous phenomenon solely through the cognitive contribution of these theories. We must describe the boundary work and the mechanisms of capital accumulation (symbolic, economic, social) that can explain the local appropriations of the vocabulary of cybernetics.

Bibliography

Chiapello, È., & Gilbert, P. (2020). Sociologie des outils de gestion. La Découverte.

Li Vigni, F. (2020). Normativité des modèles et régimes du futur. Revue d’anthropologie des connaissances, 14(1), Article 1. https://doi.org/10.4000/rac.4261

Morozov, E. (2024). Les Santiago Boys. Divergences.

Walker, J. (2020). More heat than life: The tangled roots of ecology, energy, and economics. Palgrave Macmillan.

  1. There are formal applications of cybernetics to social sciences, such as the field of "social complexity". But they are marginal in their disciplines. ↩︎

  2. The critique of science is often limited to "cartesian" or "reductionist" science, the definitions of which have always seemed dubious to me. ↩︎

  3. Such as the writings of Tiqqun on the "cybernetic hypothesis": https://translationcollective.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/cybernetique.pdf ↩︎

  4. Or systems theory, complexity, or whatever you prefer. ↩︎