Hi Peter, thanks for making this free free free and for that beautiful aside up there: "I want everything and everyone in the whole world to be free, but we’re not there yet." Dunno why, but the yet in that sentence really gave me joy.
Not yet. But soon.
I wanted to ask you about another point you make in your text. You write: "here we have another reason to take the pandemic and the realities of chronic illness and air pollution seriously. A culture in which mask-wearing is normal is good for everybody. Well, everybody except for cops and CEOs, but their existence is a threat to our survival, so…"
I have had moments, when i was really pissed off at people, for using medical masks for the sole purpose of concealing their identity. Don't get me wrong. Obviously i understand the need to do so, especially for, but by no means restricted to, someone like Luigi.
Meanwhile we see the emergence of mask bans, and these often get justified because of the masks worn during protests. And it goes without saying who will pay the biggest price under mask bans. They will result in even greater social isolation, for those of us who NEED to wear masks for medical reasons.
As i said, i don't have a clear position on it yet. Help me think it through.
The main reason it has pissed me off in the past, is when i saw many activists here in Europe praising the anonymity that a medical mask grants them during protests, but they then ripped them off as soon as they went back at the social centers or bars or whathaveyou. I have tried to convince several anarchist gatherings to have a mask requirement, to be anti-ableist and inclusive for chronically ill and disabled folks. But they just ignored me. With open hostility!
In other words, if they had worn these masks in solidarity, at the bar or their gatherings, i would not have minded as much. But they explicitly used them for anonymity purposes.
So how to solve this problem? Masks worn by activists purely as a way to conceal their identity will lead to more mask bans. At the same time, we do need to fight for the right to cover our faces. Yet that ship has already sailed years ago in many countries. Here in Switzerland laws are already in place that ban face coverings during protests.
I think one possible solution might be, to create a huge wave of solidarity by framing mask wearing as an anti-fascist praxis. Mask bans are a form of fascism, regardless of whether they are aimed at protesters or the immunocompromised (and we are many). The more of us that wear masks, the harder it will be to outlaw or ban them. AND at the same time the better protected will those of us be, who are still endangered by the current or future pandemics or by pollution or police work or ...
I think I understand how frustrating and upsetting it can be having masks valued for what they grant in anonymity, protection against surveillance, but totally discounted for their health benefits and how they can especially help protect disabled and chronically ill folks. I'm sorry you have to deal with that so much in your environment.
However, as much as this unfair juxtaposition clearly suggests an opposition between masks for health and masks for anonymity, I don't think this is an opposition that serves us at all. I don't think people using masks for anonymity in any way hurts the interests of those who would primarily wear a mask for health reasons. However, those who ignore or disrespect those health reasons are definitely acting harmfully (and it doesn't matter if they believe in protection from surveillance or not).
One thing I think is incorrect, and a potentially damaging assertion, is this one: you write "Masks worn by activists purely as a way to conceal their identity will lead to more mask bans." Resistance does not cause repression. States cause repression. Often, in periods of little or no resistance, governments will take advantage of their strong position to pass stricter laws around surveillance and repression. And on the flipside, when they are facing strong resistance or a practice of resistance has won widespread support and participation, the State's hands will be tied and they won't be in a position to increase repressive measures.
I can only half agree with that. You are right that state repression needs no justification, or rather it will find or invent justification however or wherever it can. But at the moment mask bans are justified with exactly that argument, the masks worn during protests. So i would correct my statement as follows: "Masks worn by activists purely as a way to conceal their identity will get used by the state to justify and will thereby lead to more mask bans." Which is basically what i meant all along, if you read what i wrote straight afterwards.
But one further aspect is much more important to me, the wave of mask bans that we are currently seeing goes in tandem with the manufactured end of the (ongoing) pandemic, or what the Death Panel podcast has dubbed the "sociological production of the end of the pandemic". Along with many other disability justice activists i really hope that these mask bans will be understood for what they are, state repression setting an eugenic precedent, and as a result will mobilize a wave of protests. https://soundcloud.com/deathpanel/mask-bans-are-everyones-fight-082224
Hope dies last, but after my experiences here in Europe i am not at all optimistic that this will happen here.
Where i live, here in Switzerland, several Kantons have had a so-called Vermummungsverbot (a law forbidding concealing your identity) in place, some as far back as 1990. Starting this year in 2025 the burka ban will get enacted, and because of the vague and broad way it has been formulated for implication many disabled and chronically ill folks fear that it will also be used to harass us for wearing respirator masks for health reasons.
What most able-bodied people forget is how for a brief moment, at the start of the pandemic, when the various laws against concealment were lifted, as a mitigation measure of sorts, and people were actually wearing masks at protests, for us disabled/chronically ill this meant that more participation was possible. The mask bans confine us back into isolation.
I disagree with your first point. It doesn't really matter how the State justifies a mask ban if you're confusing the cause with the justification. States repress because that's their nature. They'll invent any excuse to justify it, and if they have no excuses they'll try to do it without justification, if they can get away with it. So in a way, but conflating a cause and a justification to describe state repression, you're naturalizing it.
On the other hand, I really agree with your last paragraph and how important that point is. I really wish we didn't have a shortage of solidarity, care, and empathy in our own movements!!!
Sure, keep hammering the same point. I get it, you are saying it does not matter how repression is justified, the state will always find reasons to repress us. And i agree with that, and already said so above. But to brush of the justifications that are given wholesale is also lazy. Because there is some nuance here. The justification that was given has implications in and of itself. If only to create infighting.
Let me try one more time. What you ignore, or leave out, is the before/after in this current situation. There was a time when masks were allowed again at political protests, which, among other things, helped disabled/chronically ill folks to feel more included. Then that changed. People stopped masking (in Europe) out of-i honestly dunno why, laziness?- and then came the mask bans.
And for the latter it was the medical masks worn *purely* as a way to conceal identity that were used in its justification, that's just a fact. All mask bans contain medical exemptions, which is a pro forma exemption, granted, that will lead to black and brown and lgbtq folks getting harassed, granted. But the medical exemption is in there. Why?
For me, as someone who is among the group will suffer the most under mask bans, the word *purely* is the most important word in my sentence you object to. As i wrote above: " if they had worn these masks in solidarity, at the bar or their gatherings, i would not have minded as much. But they explicitly used them for anonymity purposes."
That is the reason why i, and other anarchists, have felt abandoned by our former comrades. Literally. At this point i don't even know if can consider myself an anarchist anymore (and i have done so for well over 40 years) after what i have experienced here. And to be honest, your principled response here does not exactly help.
I began my very first response and ended my most recent response, sympathizing and agreeing with you about how much ableism in our movement sucks. It is awful and I'm sorry you've been met with hostility for bringing it up.
I wish you would also hear what I am saying, especially since you literally asked for me to help you think through it, and since your position is also potentially harmful.
Dude, i did hear what you were saying and agreed with it from the very start. Your response to me from the start has been a bad faith reading, with you focusing in on one turn of phrase that might in isolation sound bad. Since then i have been trying to explain the nuance, that this is not a black and white issue. Yes, states will repress and on a principled level it does not matter how the repression gets justified. But the fact is that they do offer justifications and there are certain cases where these justifications have implications in and off themselves. This is one such case.
I think this in some ways fetishizes indigenous mysticism and oversimplifies science. Indigenous cultures have their problems as well. While there is tremendous knowledge in indigenous cultures, there's also some that have killed people they believe to be "witches" like the Bakweri or Kwe in Cameroon just as the Europeans did during the witch trials. What they had in common was an unscientific belief in witches and tens of thousands were killed because of it.
Science isn't some cold, unfeeling approach to life. Look at scientists like Carl Sagan who approached life with more wonder, curiosity, and enthusiasm than most people, scientific or not. When unscientific beliefs and insane conspiracy theories (like flat Earthism) are returning, there is danger in rejecting science. Colonialism is driven by greed but also frequently by unscientific religious dogma.
In the same way that many indigenous cultures rightly see all life and ecosystems as connected, science shows us that too: that we are made up of all the same building blocks, that we all have the same origins, that we are intimately linked to our environments through nitrogen and carbon cycles, etc. There are evil scientists too who only care about profit and see technology as a solution to everything but it's not black and white.
You may find some of these exact counterarguments addressed in the linked article "Science Revisited". In general I feel this sort of reaction is just refusing to see the scientific paradigm as a tightly bound network of institutional practices, culture, and power dynamics with a specific history, arising in a certain moment, and with a specific history, regardless of the individual intentions of specific wonderful dudes like Carl Sagan. It feels a little naïve and disingenuous to treat it as just a collection of individuals, and yet also insist that the good parts it reflect "science" while the bad parts are "not science". Almost religious, if you will.
And ignoring the historical people who were most important in establishing scientific practices and institutions, and the philosophies behind it all, that's also a bit too sloppy for my taste. Chalking it up to some "evil scientists too" is pretty ahistorical.
I am curious. You seem fine with analyzing colonialism as a system and not just an arbitrary word given to a smattering of individuals. Why not so with rationalism or science?
I would love it if you would provide a quote that demonstrates the fetishization you're talking about, or claims that all Indigenous practices are good, or that no non-Western society has ever engaged in repression of some kind. That would make it much easier for me to engage constructively, because without that it sounds identical to me to the knee jerk reaction I've come across dozens of times, and I don't want to give you a knee jerk reaction if you're critiquing actual problems that actually appear in the text.
I don’t see science as a collection of individuals or institutions. Science to me is just the pursuit of truth and how the universe works through the scientific method, a tool that can be used for both good and bad. Every culture uses it just by learning through experience and experimentation. But most (self-described or not) scientists in history were not a part of the ruling class with some exceptions like Tycho Brahe. Many were prosecuted by the ruling class for proposing ideas like heliocentrism and a spherical Earth that were disturbing to religious institutions. But since capitalism, patriarchy, and racism have infected every part of life, including science, we see scientific gatekeeping, discrimination in rich universities, museums, and laboratories, as well as copywritten information that should be free, and science being used for destructive technologies like biological and nuclear weapons, pesticides, herbicides, GMOs, fracking, and other extractive technologies. But none of these things have to do with the pursuit of knowledge, only the pursuit of profit.
I think the scientific method is incredibly important because it helps us to understand the world and without it, we are beholden to superstition and dogma, which can cause a lot of harm. Nothing in the universe is certain or predictable without an understanding of gravity, weak force, electromagnetism, thermodynamics, etc. Rationalism is more philosophy than science. The scientific method is based on empiricism, and I think the diverse history of science doesn’t take away from the reality of gravitation as an example or give credence to any myth or superstition. When you talk about Vanuatu "magic," this is what sounds like fetishization to me and when you equate calling it superstition with racism. It's not a racist assumption to refute magic or the idea that people (indigenous or not) can control the weather or the sun with magic stones.
The post doesn't argue indigenous cultures are devoid of problems & doesn't make any claims which are contradicted by indigenous cultures having problems. It also doesn't criticize science for being "cold" or anything like that. It attacks the imposition—by force—of science as a way of knowing & learning things onto peoples who have other ways of knowing & learning things, & points out that this is explicitly part of colonial genocide. It's unclear why mysticism is being brought into this, unless you believe that anything that isn't scientific is mysticism.
Criticism of science as cold: "whereas the scientific knowledge system is amassed by treating everything—including other humans—as dead material to be experimented on, to take apart and put back together like Frankenstein." Science is rarely ever forced on anyone as a part of colonial genocide. Colonists aren't forcing courses on quantum mechanics or relativity on indigenous peoples. They're forcing Christianity and other religions. For about 2000 years the Church suppressed science and forced religious dogma on the world. Where's the discussion of this?
This is historically just incorrect. Would it be alright with you if I anonymously quoted some of what you're writing here in a piece about different understandings of what is entailed by "science"?
Are you saying it's not historically accurate to say colonists forced religion onto indigenous peoples or that it's not accurate to say science was not? I can't imagine you're implying the former. As you know, the Spanish colonists forced Christianity onto Native Peoples of Central and South America with the exception of Brazil where the Portuguese did. The English forced Christianity on Native Peoples in North America, India, and Australia. Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Portugal, Spain, and the UK all forced their religions on Africa. If you're arguing science has been forced on Native Peoples, can you provide some examples? I'd rather have a conversation about it than for you to pick apart what I'm saying in an article that I can only respond to in the comments section. But it doesn't seem like you're really interested in that, which is unfortunate as I think most of your writing is very good and I agree with you on most topics
I'm arguing the latter: Western science was an instrumental participant in colonialism, it would never have evolved as such without the experience of colonialism, and the forced imposition of Christianity and brutal destruction of Indigenous ontologies, knowledge systems, and spiritualities did not disappear or decrease as European powers shifted to scientific methodology, they just adopted the new methodology and imposed different beliefs and practices.
Evidence is medical testing on Indigenous populations, all the university and museum basements that are filled with Indigenous corpses and stolen artifacts, the suppression of far more intelligent Indigenous ecological technologies with total derision towards supposed "superstition," exhibiting some of the same racist arrogance I think comes off in your first message. And one place where we can see the results of this imposition is in the California wildfires.
I do appreciate you saying you'd rather talk about it than have to read some article you might feel misrepresents you or doesn't give you opportunities to respond.
If we were neighbors and could actually talk, I would gladly meet for a tea or coffee and discuss it with you. But long drawn out virtual conversations, especially with someone who as far as I can tell isn't reading any longer sources where all of these arguments are already made or dismantled, is not really something I'm interested in or have capacity for.
If you'd be open to it, I think the two Alex Gorrion articles I mentioned already take apart the exact arguments you're making, and I think whether you agree with that or not, "Decolonizing Methodologies" and "Inflamed" are two excellent books that anyone who is opposed to racism, colonialism, and capitalism, like you are, would get so much out of (and you would probably appreciate the tone and the research foundation much more than the AG pieces).
I hope you're well, and dealing with all the depressing aspects of this ongoing apocalypse as well as possible.
I never derided indigenous ecological technologies. I said there is tremendous knowledge in indigenous cultures in my first message but there is also superstition, as there is in all cultures, and superstition can be deadly as in the witch hunt example. I do not believe in magic as there is no evidence for it. As I said, there is nothing racist about refuting the existence of Vanuatu "magic" or the idea that people (indigenous or not) can control the weather or the sun with “magic stones.” I think it is racist to imply indigenous people are somehow inherently different or "magic."
If you read about the history of science, you will see the Church suppressed science and scientific facts like heliocentrism and spherical Earth for thousands of years, and the state never became scientific. It is still religious. Science is self-correcting and self-questioning. It doesn't accept arguments just because they are made by authority figures. It is evidence based. In this way it is the opposite of religion.
I read most of Alex Gorrion’s science article but I don't think it's worth reading. He literally argues for murdering scientists. “Any scientist that can be killed, should be. Why not?” He also argues science is a “direct ideological descendant of Christianity.” This exhibits not only ignorance of history but of the definition of science. He even finds a way to blame science for witch burning: “It is no coincidence that the countries where the witch burnings were most thorough and the bloodiest forms of Protestantism most active would also be the cradles of scientific rationalism.”
He argues “observation always changes that which is observed,” which is a fallacy. As stated there are physical laws of science that do not change. The laws of gravity do not change whether we observe its effects or not. The observer effect in physics doesn’t change physical laws either. He attacks the idea of objectivity and claims scientists are presenting all theories as absolute truths without recognizing that science constantly evolves, and there are plenty of disagreements among scientists. As humans we all have biases, but that is what makes testing hypotheses so important. It doesn’t matter what we want to believe if we can test our beliefs.
I don’t see how a conversation can be had if we can’t agree what words mean. Merriam Webster defines science as “knowledge or a system of knowledge covering general truths or the operation of general laws especially as obtained and tested through scientific method” This is what I mean by science. Gorrion claims others use the scientific method without believing in science, which is absolutely true, but therein lies their hypocrisy. They use the scientific method when it confirms their own biases and reject it when it doesn’t. Gorrion also seems to refute the theory of evolution, despite the myriad of evidence.
It is funny to me he thinks we live in a “society that holds science as sacred” when 85% of the world believes in religion and ideas like Flat Earthism are making a comeback. He also confuses rationalism (philosophy that knowledge comes from innate ideas, not experience) and empiricism (knowledge comes from experience and testing). They are literally opposites. He says “police today, like most other professions, conduct themselves scientifically” Yet pigs are perhaps the least scientific bunch of people you’ll ever meet who cling to ideas of “God and country”
It seems like you don't really want to engage with what I’m saying about people using the guise of science to justify capitalism or my argument that real science recognizes our inherent sameness and interconnectivity. Capitalists and state have tried to coopt everything and use it for their own benefit, science included. But we can distinguish science as the search for truth no matter where it leads and “science” twisted to serve capitalists in a similar fashion the Soviet Union claimed to be “socialist” or “communist” or the way anarchism was co-opted by capitalists and transformed into the oxymoron of “anarcho-capitalism” I'll look into "Decolonizing Methodologies" and "Inflamed". I would recommend reading Science as a Candle in the Dark by Carl Sagan if you're open to it.
Hi Peter, thanks for making this free free free and for that beautiful aside up there: "I want everything and everyone in the whole world to be free, but we’re not there yet." Dunno why, but the yet in that sentence really gave me joy.
Not yet. But soon.
I wanted to ask you about another point you make in your text. You write: "here we have another reason to take the pandemic and the realities of chronic illness and air pollution seriously. A culture in which mask-wearing is normal is good for everybody. Well, everybody except for cops and CEOs, but their existence is a threat to our survival, so…"
I have had moments, when i was really pissed off at people, for using medical masks for the sole purpose of concealing their identity. Don't get me wrong. Obviously i understand the need to do so, especially for, but by no means restricted to, someone like Luigi.
Meanwhile we see the emergence of mask bans, and these often get justified because of the masks worn during protests. And it goes without saying who will pay the biggest price under mask bans. They will result in even greater social isolation, for those of us who NEED to wear masks for medical reasons.
As i said, i don't have a clear position on it yet. Help me think it through.
The main reason it has pissed me off in the past, is when i saw many activists here in Europe praising the anonymity that a medical mask grants them during protests, but they then ripped them off as soon as they went back at the social centers or bars or whathaveyou. I have tried to convince several anarchist gatherings to have a mask requirement, to be anti-ableist and inclusive for chronically ill and disabled folks. But they just ignored me. With open hostility!
In other words, if they had worn these masks in solidarity, at the bar or their gatherings, i would not have minded as much. But they explicitly used them for anonymity purposes.
So how to solve this problem? Masks worn by activists purely as a way to conceal their identity will lead to more mask bans. At the same time, we do need to fight for the right to cover our faces. Yet that ship has already sailed years ago in many countries. Here in Switzerland laws are already in place that ban face coverings during protests.
I think one possible solution might be, to create a huge wave of solidarity by framing mask wearing as an anti-fascist praxis. Mask bans are a form of fascism, regardless of whether they are aimed at protesters or the immunocompromised (and we are many). The more of us that wear masks, the harder it will be to outlaw or ban them. AND at the same time the better protected will those of us be, who are still endangered by the current or future pandemics or by pollution or police work or ...
Thoughts?
Hi, sorry for taking so long to respond to this!
I think I understand how frustrating and upsetting it can be having masks valued for what they grant in anonymity, protection against surveillance, but totally discounted for their health benefits and how they can especially help protect disabled and chronically ill folks. I'm sorry you have to deal with that so much in your environment.
However, as much as this unfair juxtaposition clearly suggests an opposition between masks for health and masks for anonymity, I don't think this is an opposition that serves us at all. I don't think people using masks for anonymity in any way hurts the interests of those who would primarily wear a mask for health reasons. However, those who ignore or disrespect those health reasons are definitely acting harmfully (and it doesn't matter if they believe in protection from surveillance or not).
One thing I think is incorrect, and a potentially damaging assertion, is this one: you write "Masks worn by activists purely as a way to conceal their identity will lead to more mask bans." Resistance does not cause repression. States cause repression. Often, in periods of little or no resistance, governments will take advantage of their strong position to pass stricter laws around surveillance and repression. And on the flipside, when they are facing strong resistance or a practice of resistance has won widespread support and participation, the State's hands will be tied and they won't be in a position to increase repressive measures.
How do you feel about that perspective?
I can only half agree with that. You are right that state repression needs no justification, or rather it will find or invent justification however or wherever it can. But at the moment mask bans are justified with exactly that argument, the masks worn during protests. So i would correct my statement as follows: "Masks worn by activists purely as a way to conceal their identity will get used by the state to justify and will thereby lead to more mask bans." Which is basically what i meant all along, if you read what i wrote straight afterwards.
But one further aspect is much more important to me, the wave of mask bans that we are currently seeing goes in tandem with the manufactured end of the (ongoing) pandemic, or what the Death Panel podcast has dubbed the "sociological production of the end of the pandemic". Along with many other disability justice activists i really hope that these mask bans will be understood for what they are, state repression setting an eugenic precedent, and as a result will mobilize a wave of protests. https://soundcloud.com/deathpanel/mask-bans-are-everyones-fight-082224
Hope dies last, but after my experiences here in Europe i am not at all optimistic that this will happen here.
Where i live, here in Switzerland, several Kantons have had a so-called Vermummungsverbot (a law forbidding concealing your identity) in place, some as far back as 1990. Starting this year in 2025 the burka ban will get enacted, and because of the vague and broad way it has been formulated for implication many disabled and chronically ill folks fear that it will also be used to harass us for wearing respirator masks for health reasons.
What most able-bodied people forget is how for a brief moment, at the start of the pandemic, when the various laws against concealment were lifted, as a mitigation measure of sorts, and people were actually wearing masks at protests, for us disabled/chronically ill this meant that more participation was possible. The mask bans confine us back into isolation.
I disagree with your first point. It doesn't really matter how the State justifies a mask ban if you're confusing the cause with the justification. States repress because that's their nature. They'll invent any excuse to justify it, and if they have no excuses they'll try to do it without justification, if they can get away with it. So in a way, but conflating a cause and a justification to describe state repression, you're naturalizing it.
On the other hand, I really agree with your last paragraph and how important that point is. I really wish we didn't have a shortage of solidarity, care, and empathy in our own movements!!!
Sure, keep hammering the same point. I get it, you are saying it does not matter how repression is justified, the state will always find reasons to repress us. And i agree with that, and already said so above. But to brush of the justifications that are given wholesale is also lazy. Because there is some nuance here. The justification that was given has implications in and of itself. If only to create infighting.
Let me try one more time. What you ignore, or leave out, is the before/after in this current situation. There was a time when masks were allowed again at political protests, which, among other things, helped disabled/chronically ill folks to feel more included. Then that changed. People stopped masking (in Europe) out of-i honestly dunno why, laziness?- and then came the mask bans.
And for the latter it was the medical masks worn *purely* as a way to conceal identity that were used in its justification, that's just a fact. All mask bans contain medical exemptions, which is a pro forma exemption, granted, that will lead to black and brown and lgbtq folks getting harassed, granted. But the medical exemption is in there. Why?
For me, as someone who is among the group will suffer the most under mask bans, the word *purely* is the most important word in my sentence you object to. As i wrote above: " if they had worn these masks in solidarity, at the bar or their gatherings, i would not have minded as much. But they explicitly used them for anonymity purposes."
That is the reason why i, and other anarchists, have felt abandoned by our former comrades. Literally. At this point i don't even know if can consider myself an anarchist anymore (and i have done so for well over 40 years) after what i have experienced here. And to be honest, your principled response here does not exactly help.
I began my very first response and ended my most recent response, sympathizing and agreeing with you about how much ableism in our movement sucks. It is awful and I'm sorry you've been met with hostility for bringing it up.
I wish you would also hear what I am saying, especially since you literally asked for me to help you think through it, and since your position is also potentially harmful.
Dude, i did hear what you were saying and agreed with it from the very start. Your response to me from the start has been a bad faith reading, with you focusing in on one turn of phrase that might in isolation sound bad. Since then i have been trying to explain the nuance, that this is not a black and white issue. Yes, states will repress and on a principled level it does not matter how the repression gets justified. But the fact is that they do offer justifications and there are certain cases where these justifications have implications in and off themselves. This is one such case.
I think this in some ways fetishizes indigenous mysticism and oversimplifies science. Indigenous cultures have their problems as well. While there is tremendous knowledge in indigenous cultures, there's also some that have killed people they believe to be "witches" like the Bakweri or Kwe in Cameroon just as the Europeans did during the witch trials. What they had in common was an unscientific belief in witches and tens of thousands were killed because of it.
Science isn't some cold, unfeeling approach to life. Look at scientists like Carl Sagan who approached life with more wonder, curiosity, and enthusiasm than most people, scientific or not. When unscientific beliefs and insane conspiracy theories (like flat Earthism) are returning, there is danger in rejecting science. Colonialism is driven by greed but also frequently by unscientific religious dogma.
In the same way that many indigenous cultures rightly see all life and ecosystems as connected, science shows us that too: that we are made up of all the same building blocks, that we all have the same origins, that we are intimately linked to our environments through nitrogen and carbon cycles, etc. There are evil scientists too who only care about profit and see technology as a solution to everything but it's not black and white.
You may find some of these exact counterarguments addressed in the linked article "Science Revisited". In general I feel this sort of reaction is just refusing to see the scientific paradigm as a tightly bound network of institutional practices, culture, and power dynamics with a specific history, arising in a certain moment, and with a specific history, regardless of the individual intentions of specific wonderful dudes like Carl Sagan. It feels a little naïve and disingenuous to treat it as just a collection of individuals, and yet also insist that the good parts it reflect "science" while the bad parts are "not science". Almost religious, if you will.
And ignoring the historical people who were most important in establishing scientific practices and institutions, and the philosophies behind it all, that's also a bit too sloppy for my taste. Chalking it up to some "evil scientists too" is pretty ahistorical.
I am curious. You seem fine with analyzing colonialism as a system and not just an arbitrary word given to a smattering of individuals. Why not so with rationalism or science?
I would love it if you would provide a quote that demonstrates the fetishization you're talking about, or claims that all Indigenous practices are good, or that no non-Western society has ever engaged in repression of some kind. That would make it much easier for me to engage constructively, because without that it sounds identical to me to the knee jerk reaction I've come across dozens of times, and I don't want to give you a knee jerk reaction if you're critiquing actual problems that actually appear in the text.
I don’t see science as a collection of individuals or institutions. Science to me is just the pursuit of truth and how the universe works through the scientific method, a tool that can be used for both good and bad. Every culture uses it just by learning through experience and experimentation. But most (self-described or not) scientists in history were not a part of the ruling class with some exceptions like Tycho Brahe. Many were prosecuted by the ruling class for proposing ideas like heliocentrism and a spherical Earth that were disturbing to religious institutions. But since capitalism, patriarchy, and racism have infected every part of life, including science, we see scientific gatekeeping, discrimination in rich universities, museums, and laboratories, as well as copywritten information that should be free, and science being used for destructive technologies like biological and nuclear weapons, pesticides, herbicides, GMOs, fracking, and other extractive technologies. But none of these things have to do with the pursuit of knowledge, only the pursuit of profit.
I think the scientific method is incredibly important because it helps us to understand the world and without it, we are beholden to superstition and dogma, which can cause a lot of harm. Nothing in the universe is certain or predictable without an understanding of gravity, weak force, electromagnetism, thermodynamics, etc. Rationalism is more philosophy than science. The scientific method is based on empiricism, and I think the diverse history of science doesn’t take away from the reality of gravitation as an example or give credence to any myth or superstition. When you talk about Vanuatu "magic," this is what sounds like fetishization to me and when you equate calling it superstition with racism. It's not a racist assumption to refute magic or the idea that people (indigenous or not) can control the weather or the sun with magic stones.
The post doesn't argue indigenous cultures are devoid of problems & doesn't make any claims which are contradicted by indigenous cultures having problems. It also doesn't criticize science for being "cold" or anything like that. It attacks the imposition—by force—of science as a way of knowing & learning things onto peoples who have other ways of knowing & learning things, & points out that this is explicitly part of colonial genocide. It's unclear why mysticism is being brought into this, unless you believe that anything that isn't scientific is mysticism.
Criticism of science as cold: "whereas the scientific knowledge system is amassed by treating everything—including other humans—as dead material to be experimented on, to take apart and put back together like Frankenstein." Science is rarely ever forced on anyone as a part of colonial genocide. Colonists aren't forcing courses on quantum mechanics or relativity on indigenous peoples. They're forcing Christianity and other religions. For about 2000 years the Church suppressed science and forced religious dogma on the world. Where's the discussion of this?
This is historically just incorrect. Would it be alright with you if I anonymously quoted some of what you're writing here in a piece about different understandings of what is entailed by "science"?
Are you saying it's not historically accurate to say colonists forced religion onto indigenous peoples or that it's not accurate to say science was not? I can't imagine you're implying the former. As you know, the Spanish colonists forced Christianity onto Native Peoples of Central and South America with the exception of Brazil where the Portuguese did. The English forced Christianity on Native Peoples in North America, India, and Australia. Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Portugal, Spain, and the UK all forced their religions on Africa. If you're arguing science has been forced on Native Peoples, can you provide some examples? I'd rather have a conversation about it than for you to pick apart what I'm saying in an article that I can only respond to in the comments section. But it doesn't seem like you're really interested in that, which is unfortunate as I think most of your writing is very good and I agree with you on most topics
I'm arguing the latter: Western science was an instrumental participant in colonialism, it would never have evolved as such without the experience of colonialism, and the forced imposition of Christianity and brutal destruction of Indigenous ontologies, knowledge systems, and spiritualities did not disappear or decrease as European powers shifted to scientific methodology, they just adopted the new methodology and imposed different beliefs and practices.
Evidence is medical testing on Indigenous populations, all the university and museum basements that are filled with Indigenous corpses and stolen artifacts, the suppression of far more intelligent Indigenous ecological technologies with total derision towards supposed "superstition," exhibiting some of the same racist arrogance I think comes off in your first message. And one place where we can see the results of this imposition is in the California wildfires.
I do appreciate you saying you'd rather talk about it than have to read some article you might feel misrepresents you or doesn't give you opportunities to respond.
If we were neighbors and could actually talk, I would gladly meet for a tea or coffee and discuss it with you. But long drawn out virtual conversations, especially with someone who as far as I can tell isn't reading any longer sources where all of these arguments are already made or dismantled, is not really something I'm interested in or have capacity for.
If you'd be open to it, I think the two Alex Gorrion articles I mentioned already take apart the exact arguments you're making, and I think whether you agree with that or not, "Decolonizing Methodologies" and "Inflamed" are two excellent books that anyone who is opposed to racism, colonialism, and capitalism, like you are, would get so much out of (and you would probably appreciate the tone and the research foundation much more than the AG pieces).
I hope you're well, and dealing with all the depressing aspects of this ongoing apocalypse as well as possible.
I never derided indigenous ecological technologies. I said there is tremendous knowledge in indigenous cultures in my first message but there is also superstition, as there is in all cultures, and superstition can be deadly as in the witch hunt example. I do not believe in magic as there is no evidence for it. As I said, there is nothing racist about refuting the existence of Vanuatu "magic" or the idea that people (indigenous or not) can control the weather or the sun with “magic stones.” I think it is racist to imply indigenous people are somehow inherently different or "magic."
If you read about the history of science, you will see the Church suppressed science and scientific facts like heliocentrism and spherical Earth for thousands of years, and the state never became scientific. It is still religious. Science is self-correcting and self-questioning. It doesn't accept arguments just because they are made by authority figures. It is evidence based. In this way it is the opposite of religion.
I read most of Alex Gorrion’s science article but I don't think it's worth reading. He literally argues for murdering scientists. “Any scientist that can be killed, should be. Why not?” He also argues science is a “direct ideological descendant of Christianity.” This exhibits not only ignorance of history but of the definition of science. He even finds a way to blame science for witch burning: “It is no coincidence that the countries where the witch burnings were most thorough and the bloodiest forms of Protestantism most active would also be the cradles of scientific rationalism.”
He argues “observation always changes that which is observed,” which is a fallacy. As stated there are physical laws of science that do not change. The laws of gravity do not change whether we observe its effects or not. The observer effect in physics doesn’t change physical laws either. He attacks the idea of objectivity and claims scientists are presenting all theories as absolute truths without recognizing that science constantly evolves, and there are plenty of disagreements among scientists. As humans we all have biases, but that is what makes testing hypotheses so important. It doesn’t matter what we want to believe if we can test our beliefs.
I don’t see how a conversation can be had if we can’t agree what words mean. Merriam Webster defines science as “knowledge or a system of knowledge covering general truths or the operation of general laws especially as obtained and tested through scientific method” This is what I mean by science. Gorrion claims others use the scientific method without believing in science, which is absolutely true, but therein lies their hypocrisy. They use the scientific method when it confirms their own biases and reject it when it doesn’t. Gorrion also seems to refute the theory of evolution, despite the myriad of evidence.
It is funny to me he thinks we live in a “society that holds science as sacred” when 85% of the world believes in religion and ideas like Flat Earthism are making a comeback. He also confuses rationalism (philosophy that knowledge comes from innate ideas, not experience) and empiricism (knowledge comes from experience and testing). They are literally opposites. He says “police today, like most other professions, conduct themselves scientifically” Yet pigs are perhaps the least scientific bunch of people you’ll ever meet who cling to ideas of “God and country”
It seems like you don't really want to engage with what I’m saying about people using the guise of science to justify capitalism or my argument that real science recognizes our inherent sameness and interconnectivity. Capitalists and state have tried to coopt everything and use it for their own benefit, science included. But we can distinguish science as the search for truth no matter where it leads and “science” twisted to serve capitalists in a similar fashion the Soviet Union claimed to be “socialist” or “communist” or the way anarchism was co-opted by capitalists and transformed into the oxymoron of “anarcho-capitalism” I'll look into "Decolonizing Methodologies" and "Inflamed". I would recommend reading Science as a Candle in the Dark by Carl Sagan if you're open to it.
I hope you’re doing well too.