The Joy of Science?
Nothing human that is not prey to corruption.
All our ideologies – political , religious – are run though with verifiable distortion: from wishful thinking to outright deception.
We are, stated simply, mythmaking animals.
Religion, e.g., is replete with pure banana oil, sufficient to stagger the thinking mind.
Yet, millions succumb to its drivel, either wilfully, or perforce.
Political ideology is just as full of arid fantasy giving the hoi polloi the delectable Kool-Aid of the chimera of hope.
You know the hoary litany : equality, democracy, etc.
Both serve the same social function, admirably: of maintaining social order. and reconciling the downtrodden and the impuissant to their lot in social life.
Both are solid testaments to human gullibility.
As Einstein put it: I know of only 2 Infinities: that of space., and that of human stupidity. About the first, I am unsure. About the second, I am absolutely certain.
I could not improve on that.
*
But what of Science?
How corrupt is that?
Well, what passes for ‘social science’ in the EuroModernist genre is bunk.
To understand this , one has to know the rich social history of Europe, inclusive of the struggles against the Church of Rome ( Luther, et. al) and the fear of the revolt of the masses (the Fr. Revolution), 1789 onward.
In sociology, canonical figures like Comte and Weber , were wholly cognisant of what had to elided/suppressed, and created entire systems of ideas to blunt critical discourse about what I have termed EuroModernist –EM – society (translate, if loosely, as EuroCapitalism).
*
So-called ‘Economics’, per exemple, is a textbook example of apologetics: from the Ricardians , and Malthus, in their struggles over the Poor Laws and the Corn Laws, to latter-day figures like Friedman, et. al.
Stated simply: its ‘Science’, since its inception, has been/ is wholly subservient to Policy diktats (See my Political Economy and Laissez-Faire tome)
Knowledge of social history is a vital desideratum to evaluate such matters: and it is a knowledge that is rarely permitted to intrude into pedagogy.
Indeed , I have called Economics the crown jewel of the hegemonic ideology of EM</em> (See my Against Economics Work).
It is the latter’s very patois, its lingua franca : whence the patent absurdity of garnering a Nobel (Memorial) Prize , in return for its utterly specious services.
And Anthropology was no more than a servile adjunct to empire: to ‘crack the codes’ of The Other, for conquest and appropriation.
That is EM ‘social science’ , in a nutshell.
Dull, and dispiriting?
Oui.
And yet, a serviceable Tool for System Maintenance?.
*
How about the Natural Sciences?
Only here, there is some latitude for serious inquiry, though held in check, as needed, by the usual funding constraints and tenure politics.
The urgency here to solve real , practical problems: to develop military armaments (Dr Strangelove), and new consumer technologies, permits the latitude mentioned above.
So, one should set aside the ‘Big Bang genre of pure speculation – that’s all it is – and look, instead, to the quantum-physics style of applied research, to assess real utility.
So, natural science delivers utilities that can and do serve humankind, whereas social science , principally, delivers astute propaganda for the power elites.
*
The real miracle is that science, in any sense , survives at all, given the existential realities of power and wealth.
As a rather astute philosopher once observed, if the fact that the angles of a triangles add up to 180 degrees were to be inimical to the ruling elites, it would be denied/or/suppressed.
The hyperbole, in the above , is essential to grasp the vital point.
Still , I venture, it is the only human achievement that is worthy of note.
With a nouvelle ‘neo-fascism’ – market fascism – around the corner, it remains to be seen whether it will continue.
A new charlatanism, in the image of Lysenko and Eysenck may well drown it?
We can but wait, and see?
Oui.
© R.Kanth 2023
Professor Rajani Kanth, is Author of Coda (A Novel), A Day in the Life (Novel), and Expiations (Verse), and Farewell to Modernism (Political Economy Tract).
Follow Us!