"By denying scientific principles, one may maintain any paradox" Galileo. One must also recognize that Science is fallible. This certainly does not detract from its value, however, we often forget that Science is a method of inquiry not an entity or dogmatic view. Scientists themselves will testify to the fact that it is a dynamic process of establishing new findings and refuting old “findings” with net forward movement.
Often it is the non-scientists who tend to cling to the notion of Science as the “be all end all”. One can be tempted to believe they are cut of the same cloth as people who trust wholly in articles because they start with the phrases “research shows” or “scientists say”. There is also a certain irony in people denouncing blind faith in religion by having blind faith in Science. Blind faith is never a legitimate argument. Perhaps as humans it is our subconscious desire to believe in a higher authority. Somewhat controversially, one interpretation of religion is that it is a human way of ascribing meaning and explanation to the world and bettering humanity. I would say that this is also the character of science. Indeed Science and Religion have a shared history with a lot of early scientists being priests performing science as a way to learn about God’s creations and to glorify God. I use the word apotheosis in the title because of it’s religious connotations. My intention was to highlight the danger of giving divine status to Science. The Danger lies in deifying Science to the point where we run the risk of not questioning discovery and research like we should. Critical thinking and fostering a healthy skepticism should never be abandoned for the security of belief. All this being said, after all our discoveries and human advancement , we still know very little. We’re all just on Carl Sagan’s pale blue dot suspended in a sun beam … trying to assign meaning to it all. "What is a scientist after all? It is a curious man looking through a keyhole, the keyhole of nature, trying to know what's going on." Jacques Yves Cousteau Working on a women's empowerment project has got me thinking about what empowerment and equality mean. I've also been reading the "female eunuch", which (aside from getting me all riled up) has given me insight into the earlier thoughts of Germaine Greer.
"Greer has defined her goal as "women's liberation" as distinct from "equality with men". She asserts that women's liberation meant embracing gender differences in a positive fashion – a struggle for the freedom of women to define their own values, order their own priorities and determine their own fates. In contrast, Greer sees equality as mere assimilation and "settling" to live the lives of 'unfree men'" "In 1970 the movement was called 'Women's Liberation' or, contemptuously, 'Women's Lib'. When the name 'Libbers' was dropped for 'Feminists' we were all relieved. What none of us noticed was that the ideal of liberation was fading out with the word. We were settling for equality. Liberation struggles are not about assimilation but about asserting difference, endowing that difference with dignity and prestige, and insisting on it as a condition of self-definition and self-determination. The aim of women's liberation is to do as much for female people as has been done for colonized nations. Women's liberation did not see the female's potential in terms of the male's actual; the visionary feminists of the late sixties and early seventies knew that women could never find freedom by agreeing to live the lives of unfree men. Seekers after equality clamoured to be admitted to smoke-filled male haunts. Liberationsits sought the world over for clues as to what women's lives could be like if they were free to define their own values, order their own priorities and decide their own fate. The Female Eunuch was one feminist text that did not argue for equality." in Greer, Germaine, (1999), The Whole Woman, Transworld Publishers Ltd http://everydayfeminism.com/2015/09/social-justice-less-elitist/I find sometimes that when I am witnessing discourse between academic activists, semantics are at the forefront of the conversation. Rather than concentrating on the topic at hand, there is often an obsession with calling each other out on their language and this is important no doubt, but there is a point at which it becomes the focus of the conversation. Also, the conversations become academic to the point where the message becomes shrouded in jargon and sector specific lingo making these circles inaccessible to most.
The discourse is great! As is identifying and labelling things such as the “industrial cis-white feminist”, “hegemony”, ‘white supremacist capitalist heteropatriarchy” . If you are an international development professional you are bound to know what these are: Watsan, LFA, sitrep, IMF, FAO, ILO, WTO, IAEA, UPU but what about everyone else? How obsessed are we with semantics and jargon and how accessible is this dialogue to the people in question who are not from this background? “In many cases the academic maintains institutional power above the knowledge and skill base of the community/ies in struggle.” (Great article defining the problems with being an “ally” http://www.indigenousaction.org/accomplices-not-allies-abolishing-the-ally-industrial-complex/) Indian writer and activist Arundhati Roy discusses the importance of “ordinary language” in social justice work in her speech given at Hampshire College in 2001: “I think it’s vital to de-professionalize the public debate on matters that vitally affect the lives of ordinary people. It’s time to snatch our futures back from the ‘experts.’ Time to ask, in ordinary language, the public question and to demand, in ordinary language, the public answer.” Why Liberal academics and ivory tower radicals make poor revolutionaries http://youngist.org/post/76249124213/why-liberal-academics-and-ivory-tower-radicals-make 9 Ways We Can Make Social Justice Movements Less Elitist and More Accessible http://everydayfeminism.com/2015/09/social-justice-less-elitist/ The eternal internal debate. To speak up or let it slide. The balance between self-righteous preaching and speaking out. Whether you are being told to be quiet because you are a women and your voice should not be loud enough to be heard or maybe it is because you are voicing an inconvenient truth or is it because you are being aggravating ... just too much. Why can't you just lighten up? Are the people telling you to be quiet the people that are too scared to voice their opinions or even have them? People who care about being liked rather than speaking out and saying what needs to be said? If so .... Keep speaking up little girl!
"What's more depressing than hearing about human trafficking? Living human trafficking" - I heard this during a human rights day talk at CSI “Silence becomes cowardice when occasion demands speaking out the whole truth and acting accordingly.” ― Mahatma Gandhi “I agree with Dante, that the hottest places in hell are reserved for those who, in a period of moral crisis, maintain their neutrality” ― Martin Luther King Jr. “If I were to remain silent, I'd be guilty of complicity.” ― Albert Einstein “Because it’s no longer enough to be a decent person. It’s no longer enough to shake our heads and make concerned grimaces at the news. True enlightened activism is the only thing that can save humanity from itself.” ― Joss Whedon “The question is not if we will be extremists, but what kind of extremists we will be. The nation and the world are in dire need of creative extremists.” ― Martin Luther King Jr. “Because I am a woman, I must make unusual efforts to succeed. If I fail, no one will say, 'She doesn't have what it takes." ~ ' They will say, 'Women don't have what it takes." -” ― Clare Boothe Luce It is an unspoken truth that the language of Science is English. On my research trip to Brazil I was less overwhelmed by the amount of research activity I had planned than by the requests for translations and editing of manuscripts, CVs and cover letters all written by Brazilians in English. Their labs functioned in Portuguese, but they were aware that if they wanted succeed in the sector or for their work to be read outside of Brazil, their manuscripts needed to be in English. Scientific currency is journal publications and the majority of scientific journals are in English including the career making elite journals such as Nature, Cell etc. I recognize this as a large barrier for the brilliant scientists I had the privilege of working with in Brazil. I marvelled at their ability to read and write highly technical manuscripts in English only armed with online translators, translating, checking and re-checking each line. To conceptualize the effort required, I imagined myself reading journal articles and writing all my papers in French, a language of which I only have a rudimentary grasp. As my Portuguese language abilities improved I recognized that much gets lost in translation and that subtle nuances and phrasing are lost or might sound awkward in English. I also despaired that the international success of individuals hinged on English language abilities over scientific ability. On top of English creating disparity, logistics is a set back for science in Brazil (or across the developing world for that matter). Chemicals ordered for labs in Canada arrive in 1-2 days any longer and the research activities are set back. In comparison it took months for chemicals to reach my lab in Brazil. Intra-Brazilian transport and infrastructural problems trumping absolute shipping time from the US. This was compounded by the challenge of placing orders with local distributors who struggled with keeping stock information up to date. The same problem holds true for equipment, with a whole department being put out of commission when the shared pieces of expensive equipment broke down. I joked that the Science Gods were against me at every step when machinery would break and could not be replaced. However the less humorous truth is that this is a reality of the every day life of a scientist in Brazil. I came to realize how much of the success of my Canadian science career was a product of privilege. I urge my fellow scientists in the West to pause before lauding themselves on innovation, productivity, superior science and allowing themselves to secretly think that it is somehow the product of being superior professionals. Instead cultivate an appreciation for the facilities and opportunities you have, while being cognizant of the barriers facing other scientists around the world. I assure you lack of capability is not the issue. Open access journals, international collaborations and field research involving the local government and the local scientific community are vital. After all, Science in its inception, was destined for the progression of all mankind. http://aaww.org/complicity-with-excess-vijay-iyer/
To succeed in America means that at some level you’ve made peace with its rather ugly past. Vijay Iyer’s speech to Yale’s Asian American alumni "What I humbly ask of you, and of myself, is that we constantly interrogate our own complicity with excess, that we always remain vigilant to notions of community that might, perhaps against our best intentions, sometimes, embrace a system of domination at the expense of others. Can we radically submit ourselves to the pursuit of equality and justice for all? If we choose to call ourselves Asian American, can we not also choose to be that kind of American that refuses to accept what America has been, and instead help build a better America even for others, who might not immediately seem to “belong” to us? In the end, who do we mean by “us”? For me, if I choose to belong to a coalition, a community, an “us,” it must mean, we who remember the past; we who care about the future; we who are compassionate, generous, patient, and committed deeply to the welfare of others; we who agree that naming ourselves as an “us” is not an end, but a beginning. Thank you, and keep fighting for justice for ourselves and for others." "I am not 'half Japanese' and 'half Lithuanian Jewish." When I'm singing a Japanese folk song, I don't sing with half my voice, but with my whole voice. When I'm taping together my grandparents' Jewish marriage contract, worn by time but still resilient, it's not half of my heart that is moved, but my whole heart. I am complete, and I embody layers of identities that belong together. I am made of layers, not fractions." - Yumi Thomas
|
Archives
September 2015
AuthorThe words you speak become the house you live in - Hafiz Categories |