The
neo-atheist movement has enjoyed increased attention since 2001 (Dawkins, 2006;
Dennett, 2006; Harris, 2006; Hitchens, 2008). This attention has been fuelled
by an increased awareness of ‘Islamic-bred terrorism’ after the 9/11 attacks. The
neo-atheist movement has sought epistemological certitude in its
Enlightenment-inspired objective to adhere to the scientific method—one based in a materialist empiricism—and
articulate their epistemological hegemony by discrediting alternative world
views, particularly focused on the monotheistic religions. However, this
epistemological critique is actually a result of a deterministic structuralist
view on human affairs. I argue that rather than ask epistemological questions,
they should refocus their critiques on questions of praxis and extend them to
their logical ends. In doing so, I argue they will find that in place of
traditionalist approaches to understanding social organization on intersubjective
terms, the neo-atheist hegemony favours an institutionalist approach to
rational social organization under the state structure. This essay draws on
Feyerabend (1978, 1993) to argue that such epistemological bigotry produces a
justification for authoritarian practices ostensibly premised on state
security, but also furthering a neo-liberal secular capitalist order protected
by state violence (Chomsky 1969, 1973, 1978, 1979, 1986).
Since 9/11, the neo-atheist movement has
enjoyed renewed intellectual attraction. The works of Richard Dawkins,
Christopher Hitchens, Daniel Dennett and Sam Harris have skyrocketed to the
tops of bestseller lists around the world. Referred to, sardonically, by their own
encampment as the ‘Four Horsemen’ (of the Christian bible’s eschatological
narrative of the Apocalypse), all four authors have been able to use (selectively)
the political violence of the 21st century to sensationalize their
work as they plea for a new era of secularism. To this end, ‘science’ is
painted as the light guiding us down this path.
The neo-atheist movement readily
denigrates the belief systems of many peoples, with central focus on the two of
the three monotheistic religions. Their polemical writings must surely chime a
chord of familiarity to anyone who has found the various restrictions
associated with each of those belief systems unpalatable. But to truly appreciate
the sensationalized claims of the neo-atheist movement is exactly that—to feel
outrage at the undemocratic, oppressive practices
taken by those that claim authoritative positioning over such belief systems. Thus, in posing
questions premised on the outrage we feel at such injustice, it is more honest
to make a distinction between questions of practice
and questions of knowledge. In
philosophical jargon, this is the distinction made between praxis and
epistemology, respectively.
The neo-atheist movement seems to have
missed this distinction. The proponents of this epistemological offensive have,
no doubt, been fuelled by the injustice of practice, but have failed to
understand that the transition from epistemology to praxis must be mediated
through agency—or individual choice. Choice, itself, is a complicated phenomenon
resting on myriad of incalculable factors, including social, material and
political context. The neo-atheist movement engages directly with the
foundational problem of the study of humans: the agent-structure debate, even
if this engagement is unacknowledged. However, their position is maddeningly
inadequate along philosophical grounds, and even more dubious when the ethics
of their arguments are taken to their logical ends.
The out-and-out assault on belief—ideas merely held in the human mind—by
the neo-atheists have been premised on the advancement of science in our modern
era. However, no attention is paid to the current version of ‘science’; one
that is struggling to liberate itself from its mechanistic and deterministic basis,
which has constrained its imagination, on and off, since Newton (Prigogine and
Stengers, 1984). ‘Shut-up and do the maths,’ is the common injunction of
instrumentalist physicists who disregard the profound philosophical questions
raised by the Copenhagen Interpretation of quantum theory. The proud embrace of
empirical satisfaction stops science short of pushing towards a more accurate
approximation of reality; and, this is what characterizes the underlying logic
of modern science and its rhetorical prophets found in the neo-atheist
movement. The rhetoric centres around the ‘superiority’ of ideas and this
assault has led to a new kind of bigotry—a condescending, elitist intellectualism
bathed in ‘scientific’ certainty and fed by empiricist, materialist dogma.
The very confusion between questions of
epistemology and praxis prevents the neo-atheists from reflecting on the
practices carried out by their own beloved ‘science’. The persistent, gradual
bond that has developed between the institutions of modern ‘science’ and the
institutions of the State should be equally problematised along the same lines
of argument that the neo-atheists use to criticize systems of belief. The fact
that they fail to do so is a breach of an ethical standard—a moral truism—inherent
in all religions, in one way or another, and of singular importance in human
affairs: do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Upon scrutiny, the
authoritative institutions of ‘science’ have departed significantly from their
marginalized and critical status in earlier centuries (Judd, 2009). Where
science previously stood in a position to speak truth to power as it was vested
in the Church, science has now become the means to wage even more efficient and
destructive forms of terrorism—State terrorism. To push the praxis-based arguments of neo-atheism to
their logical ends is to discover the ‘root of all evil’[i] as it
resides in the way belief (knowledge) translates into practice—through a faith
in control.
Militant
Atheism
I refer to this resurgent atheist
movement as militant because it departs so vastly from previous sceptical traditions.
Since Ancient Greece, scepticism has been aimed against the idea of a
supernatural god before which humans feel compelled to prostrate themselves.
For the Greek atomists as well as Lucretius, scepticism was a moral stance
based in reductionism (a metaphysical approached that tended towards
determinism) (Midgley 1994: 30). But the modern neo-atheist movement, while
embracing the same metaphysical (ontological) convictions, does not seem to be
given to the same humanitarian impulse that drove the early sceptics. Rather,
militant atheism has taken a stance of unapologetic belligerence towards
religion while simultaneously displaying a chauvinistic pride in its own system
of belief.
Militant atheism begins its critique of
religion by running roughshod over the world claims of the religious. Dismissing
the spiritually-oriented actions, including prayer, of observant followers by
glibly saying they are suffering from delusions (Dawkins 2006), and talking to
themselves (Dennett, 2006). They categorize religion as an abnormal mental
condition. They are under a spell that needs to be broken—similar to people
suffering addictions (Dennett, 2006: 13)
Religion is compared to a mental virus
by Daniel Dennett. He begins his book, Breaking
the Spell, by recounting the
infamous lancet fluke worm parable[ii] to
illustrate the ‘irrational’ and ‘parasitic’ nature of religion as memetic
phenomenon. Religion, as Dennett analogizes, is an idea that infects the mind
of its host, forcing that host to engage in behaviour which may oppose his or
her own self-interests. Indeed, Dennett has referred to religion as a type of
con artistry, where trust is placed as a virtue
only to be used against the one who trusts further down the road[iii].
Based on his normative proclamations of
the detrimental effects of belief, Dennett sees it his task to ‘investigate’
religion. This investigation is presupposed on two justifications: to elucidate
if 1) “religion provides net benefits to humankind, and (2) that these benefits
would be unlikely to survive such an investigation” (2006: 45). This
investigation is to be undertaken ‘scientifically’ treating religion as a
natural phenomenon capable of ‘objective’ study. Dennett states that any
scientific study should assume religion to be natural, and with “no miracles”
(26), because religion is a “human phenomenon composed of events, organisms,
objects, structures, patterns, and the like” (25).
These justifications are important since
a majority of the people in the world hold religion dear, but that “if we don’t subject religion to such scrutiny
now, and work out together whatever revisions and reforms are called for, we
will pass on a legacy of ever more toxic forms of religion to our descendants”
(39). Thus, he proposes that ‘science’ be utilized to investigate religion
based on advances made in the 20th century on the study of human
phenomena through the sophistication of statistical and analytical techniques,
and the adoption of physiological and psychological ‘realistic’ models over
more inferior models based on perception and emotion (34).
However, assuming no miracles does not
hold the epistemological system of religion to its own
standards—it holds it to
the standards set by the investigating force. The hypocritical nature of this
investigation becomes more revealing when Dennett says “[w]e can assume it
[religion] innocent until proven guilty” (45). Even if only meant in metaphor,
linking the investigation of religious belief to the logic that pervades a
criminal investigation allows a latent standard of contempt to shine through
his argument. Such contempt for epistemological (belief) systems has been seen
in many other times before and many other societies outside of Dennett’s—an
oft-repeated mistake throughout human history: to err on the side of oppression
when another’s way of thinking can’t quite be worked out fully.
However, as a lucid point, Dennett makes
the suggestion that investigation into specific practices of religion may have
beneficial effects[iv]
for all by helping believers to understand their situations better. This may be
true; however, to leave epistemological and praxiological questions separate,
in this sense, is to perpetuate a silent double standard that has not gone
unnoticed—if religion is to undergo investigation into how its adherents have
put it into practice, then so should science. Viewed on equal epistemological
bases, religion and science should not be permitted to pass by this question
unscrutinized. But such double standards are rarely acknowledged by
institutionally-reliant intellectuals, because they go against the structuring logic
of their institutions.
Similar to Dennett, Dawkins also views
religion as a natural phenomenon that propagates like a virus but on the memetic
level. Being an evolutionary biologist, he relies on natural selection to
explain religious phenomena; however, such evolutionary investigations require
a distinction to be made between ultimate and proximate explanations—proximate explanations
being those explanations given for the immediate effects (i.e. “hyperactivity
in a particular node of the brain”), while ultimate explanations attempt to
answer questions of purpose (i.e. what benefit accrued to humans in the past
for adopting religion?) (2006: 168). From this perspective, Dawkins makes the
argument that the ultimate evolutionary explanation for religion is the selective
benefit of having an impressionable and malleable mind during childhood. If,
during our evolutionary past, a child did not instinctively accept admonitions “from
a respected source…delivered with a solemn earnestness that commands respect
and demands obedience” then that child may very well have been killed by way of
their own precociousness (176). This approach moves closer to encompassing
questions of the practice of religion (in so far as it problematizes the role
of hierarchy in hardening religious belief in the mind of a child), but it
unabashedly dismisses the subjectivity of the human mind in all stages of development.
Yet, what seems to be driving the
neo-atheist critique is the outrage stemming from praxiological and not
epistemological questions. This leads to immense confusion as to what exactly
the problems are—are they merely ideas, or are the problems one of how ideas
are put into practice? The contempt held for religion by neo-atheists is
ostensibly one that assaults the epistemological insufficiency of religion—this
being that the religious world view fails to take account all available
evidence in understanding the world (i.e. you don’t believe in evolution,
therefore your opinion on ethical matters is not worth listening to); however,
the focal point of the arguments largely coalesce around the praxiological
errors—or the lack of consistency in acting in the world based on the evidence
available (i.e. you value human sperm more than human lives because you espouse
an anti-condom doctrine that adversely affects populations being decimated by
AIDS, to take but one example). Therefore, from this general appraisal, it
follows that what is really at the heart of the debate between atheists and
religious peoples are not epistemological questions, but praxiological ones. It
is on this basis that not only religion, but science, must also be evaluated.
Assuming beliefs, themselves, to have
agency is a form of deterministic structuralism that is quite familiar to those
already familiar with the agent-structure debate. This very basic ontological
error does two things: 1) it reifies structure (assumes structure to have a
life of its own—in this case ideas), and 2) diminishes agency to nothing (by
disregarding that beliefs must be intersubjectively negotiated). In other
words, the transition from ideas (epistemology) to practice must be mediated
through human consciousness.
Critiques of religion by Sam Harris seem
to centre on a flagrant dismissal of human agency: “While there are undoubtedly
some ‘moderate’ Muslims who have decided to overlook the irrescindable
militancy of their religion, Islam is undeniably a religion of conquest” (2005:
110). His use of quotation marks around the word ‘moderate’ when it precedes ‘Muslim’
reveals the depth of his ontological error, for he cannot entertain the idea
that there are true moderate Muslims who refuse to carry out Islam in a hurtful
way as called for by others; instead, Harris sees that the moderates are merely
‘biding their time’ (115).
The neo-atheists have been quick to leap
on the issue of apostasy in Islam. Ironically, Dawkins (2006: 287) cites George
Orwell’s 1984 to label apostasy as a ‘pure thoughtcrime’ since it
suffers the penalty of death in Islam. It should go without saying that killing
another person for what they think (or at least claim to think, which we can
never be certain of) is heinous. Certainly no highly-educated, liberal, ‘enlightened’
individual would entertain such ideas, even in the hypothetical. But, there are
exceptions; let’s consider what Sam Harris thinks:
The link between belief
and behavior raises the stakes considerably. Some propositions are so dangerous
that it may even be ethical to kill people for believing them. This may seem an
extraordinary claim, but it merely enunciates an ordinary fact about the world
in which we live. Certain beliefs place their adherents beyond the reach of
every peaceful means of persuasion, while inspiring them to commit acts of
extraordinary violence against others. (2005:
53)
Harris’ cavalier attitude towards people
based on their state of mind compounds exponentially when he considers one ‘prudent’
strategy to confront an “Islamist regime armed with long-range nuclear weapons”
(128):
Notions of martyrdom
and jihad run roughshod over the logic that allowed the United States and the
Soviet Union to pass half a century perched, more or less stably, on the brink
of Armageddon…In such a situation, the only thing likely to ensure our survival
may be a nuclear first strike of our own. Needless to say, this would be an
unthinkable crime—as it would kill tens of millions of innocent civilians in a
single day—but it may be the only course of action available to us, given what
Islamists believe. (129)
The neo-atheist support of military
action in both Afghanistan and Iraq has been marked. The drive for war is
vested in a fear of ‘Islamic-bred terrorism’; and, any attempt to analyze the
9/11 attacks with a view of the larger political context of colonization and
global capitalist expansion by intellectuals like Noam Chomsky and Sam Husseini
have been deemed unacceptable. Such is the depth of this fear of ‘Islamic
Fascism’, that Christopher Hitchens (2001) was convinced to write in The Nation, shortly after the 9/11
attacks, that “the [US government’s previous] sponsorship
of the Taliban could be redeemed by the demolition of its regime and the
liberation of its victims,” thus justifying the brutal attack on the
Afghani people that began on October 7, 2001 and continues still at the time of
writing (March 1, 2011).
Hitchens’ vociferous hatred of Islam has
led him to formulate many of his post-9/11 political stances. In 2002, he
openly lamented the Left’s ‘capitulation’ to and excuse-making for ‘Islamic
terrorism’. Disgusted with petitions still
circulating to him to protest “against the simultaneous cleanup and rescue of
Afghanistan,” and the lack of action to prepare to oust Saddam Hussein, on the
part of everyone from the Bush Administration to Richard Falk, he quit his
long-standing post at The Nation (Hitchens
2002). This fear of ideas has prompted
Hitchens (a man with strong libertarian influences from philosophers such as
Thomas Paine) to side with neo-conservative imperialists regarding US foreign
and military policy. Yet, this same fear of ideas, but not necessarily actions,
typifies the inconsistent and selective critical insight of the neo-atheist
cadre.
Faith is a vilified concept among the
neo-atheists—Dawkins views ‘faith’ as an evil because it requires “no
justification and brooks no argument” (2006: 308). However, is it not
reasonable to reinterpret ‘faith’ in the broader human context as merely group
loyalty? Almost all peoples incur socialization into a group that requires
faith to be invested in collective values. Who has never been told to honour their
country or tradition or custom?
Yet, faith can also be interpreted as a
recurring and punctuated state of mind required in lieu of adequate evidence. Indeed,
under this definition, faith should be given special status by scientists like
Dawkins, as it seems to be a prerequisite for all cognitive processes. In
philosophical terms, this is referred to as an ontological claim. A great ‘leap
of faith’ in science corresponds to the fantastic conceptual revolutions we see
from time to time, such as the Einsteinian revolution of physics which gave
gravity an ontological description.
Another term of ambiguous meaning to
neo-atheists is spirituality. Dennett decries the “unreflective” view of spirituality
manifest in “New Age cults or movements or hobbies…the intense pursuit of art
of music, pottery or environmental activism—or football” (2006: 302). In lieu
of these avenues of spiritual exploration, Dennett offers “better words” to
describe “one of the best secrets of life”—letting one’s self go (303). By embracing “an attitude of humble curiosity,
acknowledging that however deeply you have seen, you have only just scratched
the surface…and your own mundane preoccupations will shrink to proper size, not all that important in
the greater scheme of things” (303). If only Dennett could adopt his own
philosophical principles he may realize that his materialist approach to
understand the world is, also itself, a ‘mundane preoccupation’. The
limitations of this reductionist and materialist line of argument impose
unnecessary restrictions on the analytics we apply to understand the social
world (Goodwin, 2010).
The terms faith, belief and spirituality
are epistemological terms given superficial treatment by the neo-atheists.
Despite the outrage at religious practices that fuels their arguments, they obstinately
maintain that the single-most important line of questioning to be posed at
religion is the way that the religious come to know what they know. This
confusion between epistemology and praxis gives their arguments a false sense
of depth, and fails to acknowledge the agency required to mediate such beliefs.
Their unabashed proclamation of superiority of one epistemological system over
another provokes ire from the victims of their attacks. This militant stance is
grounded in a deep psychology of bigotry against other ways of knowing the
world, and it has unfortunate consequences for the growth of human knowledge.
Epistemological
Bigotry
The evolutionary biologist, Stephen Jay
Gould, famously (for anyone that has approached the topic of science vs.
religion) created the NOMA (nonoverlapping magisteria) principle to draw a firm
distinction between the realms of religion and science—neither of the teachings
can be reconciled with the other, so
they shouldn’t. As Gould succinctly
and dryly put it, “we study how the heavens go, and they determine how to go to
heaven” (1997: 18). In reality, this humane and laudable treatment of the
religious by Gould actually worked to reinforce an implicit bias that has
become embedded in the sciences since David Hume—the fact-value
distinction. Science, since Hume, has
held dear to its practice that there is a clear distinction between ‘is’ and ‘ought’.
What we discover about the world does not necessarily lead to what we should
enact in the world as sentient beings.
The
fact-value distinction, in philosophical jargon, represents the bridge from
epistemological to praxiological questions that I have indicated in the
previous section. However, the notions of objectivity in facts to which scientists
often cling, mask the tacit values injected into the interpretation of those
facts. As Mary Midgley has argued:
Science is not just a
formless mass of experimental data; it is a system of thought in which they are
ranged, a system which connects with the rest of our thinking. Equally at the
ethical end, as soon as the euphoria produced by the prospects of barring thought
from morals had passed off, it grew clear that the idea of completely abstract ‘values’
conferred by arbitrary choice was an unreal one. We can value things only in a
context which makes our valuing intelligible. (1985:
17)
Through a reflective understanding of the
practice of science and the methods entailed therein, we also come to the
conclusion that we should take specific care in identifying how epistemology is
translated into practice. Thomas Kuhn (1962) attempted this by identifying the
non-linear path of scientific progress based on a sociological account of how
new ideas are accepted in science. This sociological approach has irked many
scientists, since it debased (and perhaps devalued) their epistemological
claims, which had enjoyed a certain purity up to that time.
The arguments that both Midgley and Kuhn
put forward identify the socially-contingent nature of the epistemological
realm in all levels of human interaction—professional, lay; societal and
familial. When the values that shape our world view are taken to be
intersubjectively negotiated, this not only undergirds the larger issue of how
crucial sociality is to our epistemological systems, but also brings into view
the importance of epistemological relativism.
Postmodernism has offered a scathing
critique of modern ‘science’ along such epistemological relativist grounds, but
this approach seems to be oriented on a pessimistic view of the failures of ‘Western’
civilization. The tragic anti-hero of Cormac McCarthy’s 2006 play, The
Sunset Limited, puts into words the existential angst felt by the
modernists. White, a college professor who attempts suicide, explains to Black,
the evangelical Christian character who has saved him: “The things I believe in
no longer exist. It’s foolish to pretend that they do. Western civilization
finally went up in smoke in the chimneys of Dachau, and I was too infatuated to
see it. I see it now.” Thus, the certainty
of epistemological error has driven the tragically moral professor to attempt
suicide. But this conviction towards and later disappointment in
epistemological certainty is a destructive way to usher in epistemological
relativism. Rather, one must examine the historical role of epistemological
relativism in promoting the growth of knowledge.
Paul Feyerabend, a self-proclaimed
epistemological anarchist, was made into a character of infamy for his harsh
critiques of the ideology of science. His ‘anything goes’ historically-grounded
presupposition on the accumulation of human knowledge is not well understood by
modern scientists, and thus, rejected. Succinctly stated; his thesis attacks
the notion that any events, procedures or results of the sciences have any common
structure on which to make sound judgments for the superiority of one
epistemology or methodology over another (1993: 1). ‘Science’ should not be
judged as a homogenous, monolithic entity (even if its participants deem it
one) which follows uniform procedures and rules to achieve success.
Indeed, Feyerabend argues that the
successes of science can only be judged after events, and from this
perspective, one can argue that there exists two conditions on which to judge the
‘success’ of science: 1) how conducive are its results to further investigation—i.e.
how open it keeps its institutions to dissenting view points and paths of
intellectual exploration, and 2) the effects of those results in bettering the
human condition.
As Feyerabend writes, when discussing
science two questions should be asked: 1) what is science? And 2) what’s so
great about science? (1978: 73). In contrast to the multiple answers given for
the first question, the second question is treated as a nonstarter, because the
“excellence of science is assumed, it
is not argued for. Here scientists
and philosophers of science act like the defenders of the One and Only Roman
Church acted before them: Church doctrine is true, everything else is Pagan nonsense”
(73).
Science is ‘anarchic’ in practice, but
codified in ideal. To admit to its anarchic nature is a fearful task for
professional intellectuals since such “relativism threatens their role in
society just as the enlightenment once threatened the existence of priests and
theologians. And the general public which is educated, exploited and tyrannized
by intellectuals has learned long ago to identify relativism with cultural
(social) decay” (80).
But in the same way that the fact-value
distinction collapses in the face of the practice of science, so, Feyerabend
writes, “the history of science will be as complex, chaotic, full of mistakes,
and entertaining as the ideas it contains, and these ideas in turn will be as
complex, chaotic, full of mistakes, and entertaining as are the minds of those
who invented them” (1993: 11). The sociology of science reveals that our
perceptions of science actually remain simplified because we tend to simplify
its practitioners (11). Such limitations
placed on science, and by corollary, society must be rejected for knowledge to
grow.
The relationship between ideas and
actions are dialectically-driven. Feyerabend eloquently expresses this:
It is often taken for
granted that a clear and distinct understanding of new ideas precedes, and
should precede, their formulation and their institutional express. First, we
have an idea, or a problem, then we act, i.e. either speak, or build, or
destroy. Yet this is certainly not the way in which small children develop.
They use words, they combine them, they play with them, until they grasp a
meaning that has so far been beyond their reach. And the initial playful
activity is an essential prerequisite of the final act of understanding. There
is no reason why this mechanism should cease to function in the adult…Creation
of a thing, and creation plus full understanding of a correct idea of the
thing, are very often parts of one and the same indivisible process and cannot
be separated without bringing the process to a stop. The process itself is not
guided by a well-defined programme, and cannot be guided by such a programme,
for it contains the conditions for the realization of all possible programmes.
(1993: 17)
The notion of the feedback of action to
ideas to action is crucial to reflexively evaluating current scientific
practices. The practical issue of how the body of knowledge produced through
science should be put to use is given little treatment in the rhetoric of the
neo-atheist movement. But the results of ‘scientific progress’ speak for
themselves—the institutions of modern science have collaborated with the
equally hierarchical institutions of the state to bring mass violence to people
across the world. Thus, the questions that should be aimed at religion in
conjunction with science are not ones of knowledge versus faith, but one of
people versus institutions. By grounding critical analysis in problems of
praxis, it becomes ever clearer as to how institutions as practical models of
human action more readily lead to violence than simply the ideas behind them.
State
Violence
The lack of a viable, agreed-upon
definition for ‘terrorism’ in the UN Security Council underscores an important
contribution that radical intellectuals, such as Noam Chomsky, have provided to
understanding why this lack of a definition still persists (Rupérez, 2006). This
contribution—made through painstaking empirical work—has illuminated the gruesome
results of the wholesale application of moral relativism that the modern state
embodies.
Noam Chomsky’s broad empirical work
centres on the systemic breach of “the most elementary [of] moral truisms...the
principle of universality” (2006: 3) by Western governments, in general, and
the US government, specifically. Adopting the same (or more stringent)
standards for oneself as one applies to others is the lynch pin of negotiating
harmonious human relations; however, with just a brief review of recent US
foreign policy history, one notices consistent violation of this most basic
principle that beggars belief [v] at
its brazen imposition of its very own neo-liberal capitalist logic on societies
around the globe.
A prime enabler of this imperialist
foreign policy has been the infamous military-industrial complex. Seymour Melman
devoted a large portion of his life to illuminating the purely destructive
effects of what he termed the “Permanent War Economy”. The effects of the
entrenchment of military spending in the US federal budget (which almost
consistently accounts for over half of discretionary spending domestically, and
currently accounts for half of all world spending on armaments), year after
year, have hollowed out the domestic infrastructure and relocated the necessary
production jobs overseas, thereby hobbling domestic economic impetus and allowing
unemployment rates to languish at extraordinary heights. Despite the free
market ideology that pervades US political discourse, Melman does not mince
words when he describes the US as being a “species of state capitalism” (2003).
The rise of the MIC would have not been
possible without the upsurge of armaments-oriented productive capacity during
WWII. Among this production was the single-most expensive and complex project
undertaken by humanity up to that time: the Manhattan Project. At a cost of
approximately $2 billion (or $20.5 billion in today’s dollars), the funding of
the Manhattan Project, which created four bombs in total with three used
(causing the deaths of over 100,000 people), almost paralleled the cost of all
small arms used in WWII ($24 billion in today’s dollars) (Schwartz, 1998). It
should be noted that the economic costs for war have not decreased over time—the
total cost of WWII for the US was $3.3 trillion (today’s dollars) but the cost
of the much more localized Iraq War of 2003 has been roughly the same according
to Joseph Stiglitz (2008).
Such vast sums are an extraordinary
testament to the allure of economic reward for those that wish to channel their
knowledge into such profitable ‘services’. Scientists are, after all, humans,
too, and are susceptible to the conditioned rewards implemented within the
institutions in which they reside. But, shouldn’t there be more to this
question than merely financial matters? Would the social arrangements of those
institutions also not play a major role in the shaping and directing of
science? Academic institutions are ossified hierarchical institutions that
wallow in the swamps of tradition, and there is little room to doubt that the
connection between the state and academia, via this enormous funding, sets the
agenda for what scientists not only research, but how they evaluate their
results.
Inevitability, the practice of science—firmly
established in its own political economy—folds back on how science is
understood by its practitioners. The facts of science become values, in and of
themselves, much like religion subsists on a similar, but more honestly
appreciated collapse of the fact-value distinction. In this sense, institutionalized
science, as has been criticized by Feyerabend, becomes a religion that follows
the doctrines of its church, albeit with some cosmetic revisions occasionally
when permitted.
This is the practical form of science
that evades the attention of the neo-atheists. The State’s hypnotic suggestions
beckon science to forget its foundational critical force, and the cult-like
worship of institutionalized science by the neo-atheists recreates an
ever-so-familiar faith—a faith in control. By working to control the faith of
others—a state of mind that begets new ideas—the neo-atheist movement readily
translates this into a faith in controlling people. This faith in control is
undergirded by a larger ‘logic’ of hypocrisy that (barely) maintains political
systems in formalized character and encourages increasingly larger forms of
state violence to pick up the slack of its own inconsistent social logic. Regrettably,
there seems to be a natural affiliation between the modern scientific enterprise
and political practice.
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[i] I take this phrase from the name of Richard Dawkins’ 2004
documentary of the same name.
[ii] This parable is often
invoked to demonstrate the phenomenon of parasitism in biology, and is selected
to best represent evidence for the ‘selfishness’ of genes. The lancet fluke
worm is a parasite which infects the brain of an ant
and forces it to relentlessly crawl to the top of a blade of grass so that the
ant (and the worm) may be ingested by a hungry cow or some other ruminant so
that the worm can complete its reproductive cycle in the necessary environment
of the ruminant’s stomach.
[iii]
One could scarcely imagine a
world where trust was not placed as a
virtue.
[iv] He refers to the Alfred Kinsey sexual behaviour experiments of the
40s and 50s, and the effect that this had in making sex better understood to
the public.
[v] For a comprehensive account of US imperialist foreign policy, see William
Blum’s (2004). Killing Hope: U.S.
Military and C.I.A. Interventions Since World War II. Monroe: Common
Courage Press.