Saturday, October 09, 2004

Science, Surveillance and the Culture of Control

By Derrick Jensen
George Draffan

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  1. This is terrifying. I thought I had put this out of my mind but the demons lept back in. Put these author’s masterly work together with Juliet Schor’s book (Born to Buy) about how corporations are using social science and technology to scour every cell of a child’s brain and you have your brave new world.

    Derrick, I read Robert Proctor’s excellent book Value Free Science? (1991) and he put the number of scientists in the world who work for military research at 25 or 30 percent. Has that number increased? Maybe a moot point since the two domains of corporate and military power now overlap so much.

    I want to read this book, will be spreading the word…

    ps, folks are aware of Michel Chossudovsky’s article about HAARP at Global Research.ca recently?

    Posted by Rhino Rick from  on  10/09  at  06:27 PM

  2. In addition, there is an activist group called CASPIAN that deals with the spy chips issue, visit http://www.nocards.org

    maybe we can do something about this?

    also, The Religion of Technology by David F. Noble comes to mind as worth reading…

    Posted by Rhino Rick from  on  10/09  at  06:36 PM

  3. Bravo, Rhino. Although admirable, one of the probs w getting deep into the CASPIAN sea of things is that there’s no time to form enough effective chapters.  There’s no historical precedent for believing that a boycott of Gilette, say, will do the trick.  They are both to be praised, but people on the street who you try to recruit are going to inevitably fall back --the vast majority-- on the point WTTM beats into the ground.  To wit, people think that if they’re not doing anything wrong...there’s not THAT much to worry about. And variations on that theme, giving the gov’t and others way too much benefit of the doubt.  That’s why I say...if time is at a premium...each shocked, disgusted reader here turn people onto WTTM which condenses addressing all of the major issues related to this stuff beautifully, definitively.  Time left over? Also dig in at CASPIAN.  Or send them to CASPIAN...and personally keep on top of them.  But...here’s the rub...no one’s doing much are they?  Look at the paucity of response on this at Press Action.  People are spread too thin...plus.  Again, we need to form, in part, around something other than the routine type of boycott...in solidarity...nationwide.  And not to beat a “dead” horse...but I have laid something out for consideration in my PAUL SIMON’S BALLPARK FIGURE article this week here...which, thus far, has managed to snag ZERO responses.  Whether or not people realize it, Mark Hand has given us all an op to change the history of this country with this public forum bit...and all of us are dropping the ball. The ball’s in our court.  Are we content with just talking, or what?  People do not have to embrace MY idea in the article, but they damn well have an obligation as activists to respond (aside from with silence) to what anyone puts out there in these quarters and/or put something out there of their own.  Hugs, Rich

    Posted by Richard Oxman from  on  10/09  at  07:19 PM

  4. I don’t disagree with anything you say Rox sox. I am spread thin too, way too thin. Yes, will reread your Paul Simon article to see what I missed as a bridge to get me over this troubled water…

    Posted by Rhino Rick from  on  10/10  at  01:35 AM

  5. mobile killing vans used by Nazis>>>

    Not really.  Although this is a small technical point, one has to note that the willingness of the Left to passively incorporate WWII propaganda into the general background of its theses has given such propaganda an inflated aura of credibility.  Such credibility needs to be shot down.

    http://www.vho.org/GB/Books/dth/8.pdf

    Patrick

    Posted by Patrick McNally from FL  on  10/10  at  05:52 AM

  6. In fact, you’ve got it quite wrong, Patrick, about what needs to be shot down.  But we’re really trying to avoid resorting to violence...for the moment.  Best, R.M.O. P.S. Are you actually saying that my friends have NOT disappeared (w or w/o the use of vans)?

    Posted by Richard Oxman from  on  10/10  at  10:14 AM

  7. I am looking forward to reading this book.  Kudos to Derrick and George.  This is not dissimilar to a French architect and thinker Paul Virillio, who is highly reccomended.

    Posted by j cummings from  on  10/10  at  10:22 AM

  8. Predictably site Patrick has linked to presents all the ‘stock’ revisionist arguments regaurding the Nazi holocoast, which is certainly a bit of a distraction at this point in time. In these circles we may celebrate and propagate critical viewpoints that challenge ‘official’ history as we have been taught (Mickey Z etc) and while holocaust revisionism is certainly ‘alternative’ to the mainstrean , that certainly does not qualify it as being correct - it is in at its core fact psuedo-scholarship. If anyone feels the need to look at this further, Ward Churchill has written some terrific stuff on this topic, here, and elsewhere http://www.zmag.org/Zmag/articles/cot96church.htm.

    To the matter at hand...a very eye opening article by Derrick and George - thanyou

    Posted by CK from  on  10/10  at  02:15 PM

  9. How very surreal, using the means that science has created to condemn science.

    I know that I should not, but I am compelled by my respect for truth, to say:

    The scientific method is not mystical in nature.  It is not some dark secret only accessible to mysterious folk who have sold their souls, or something, in midnight torchlit rituals.  As the man says, you do not need a license to think.

    I’ll even explain it to you.  Here is the scientific method:

    #1, observe.  Observe some aspect of the world, or the result of an experiment.

    #2, hypothesize.  Create a descriptive model of what’s happening--one that does not contradict any existing observation, one that can be tested by experiment.

    Note:  #2 then #1 is also okay.

    #3, empiricism.  Design an experiment to test the hypothesis.  If the hypothesis is disproven, throw it away and start again.  If the hypothesis is not disproven, keep it and start again, and build upon it.

    Lather, rinse, repeat.  Simple, isn’t it?  A child can do this.  This is the origin of all knowledge and all progress.  It has given us penicillin and the Internet and put men on the moon.  It’s a genie that can give you most anything, with enough time and effort--the real thing.

    Now, if you are concerned about neutron bombs and “mobile Nazi killing vans” (Godwin’s Law applies here, incidentally--if you have no better way to make your case than lobbing out gratuitious references to the Holocaust to make cheap rhetorical points, then the debate is over and you’ve lost), then I submit that what troubles you is not the genie, but what people ask it for.  It is not science, but human nature, that is at the root of the problem.

    Science is a tool like any other, morally neutral.  To condemn science because it lacks a built-in moral compass is to miss the point.  I am reminded of religious fundamentalists who decry Darwin and say that science must all be a lie because it can’t tell you whether it is proper to have sex before marriage.  This is not unlike saying that politics must be a lie because it contains no recipes for tomato chutney.  Ethics and science are not merely unrelated but orthogonal.  You cannot combine them or use one to examine the other.  If you wish to speak of the rights and wrongs of human behavior, you want the philosophy of ethics, two doors down and on the right.

    Posted by Random Man from Earth  on  10/11  at  01:17 PM

  10. The unidentifiable Science Groupie, Random Man, could benefit from three sources I’ll name here; his “It’s a genie that can give you most anything, with enough time and effort--the real thing” (in speaking of Science) begs for an opportunity to consider the Native American perspective, for one.  Vine De Loria Jr. has a section on Science in GOD IS RED. Also, Russell Means, in Ward Churchill’s MARXISM AND NATIVE AMERICANS has an excellent piece...early in the book...on why the “gains” attributed to Science are a problem that force one to “reconsider” the praise and dependence we lavish/place on it. Finally, if the reader takes the time to read WELCOME TO THE MACHINE in full...I think he’ll have a shot at seeing things differently.  If not...well...we’re not far from people’s throats being cut...as the historical record will show...over this conflict re Science.  If you want to dwell on facts...that’s something to consider.  Best of luck, Ox

    Posted by Richard Oxman from  on  10/11  at  07:02 PM

  11. Random man is wrong in his cartesian compartmentalism, and separation of subject and object.  From a certain point of view, starting htere, he may have a point, but starting from a dialectical standpoint, he falls apart in thinking any knowledge is morally neutral.  I wrote that “science” as such as morally neutral, but nothing is morally neutral, to be sure, as applied in certain ways.  What I meant, and still believe is that, in a future non-capitalist society, science will be used properly.

    Posted by j cummings from  on  10/11  at  07:30 PM

  12. A very thought provoking article.  It reminded me of the Manifesto by Ted Kaczynski. PEACE, rosemarie

    Posted by rosemarie jackowski from  on  10/12  at  08:30 PM

  13. Random man is wrong about science being neutral and value free, as Robert Proctor showed in his scholary study, Value Free Science? (1991). Obviously, Random man has not read Welcome to the Machine and would not be able to accept its conclusions if he had.

    Posted by Rhino Rick from  on  11/14  at  03:21 AM

  14. I’m making my way through Welcome to the Machine. One of the most important books I have ever read. Really. One quibble: Jensen makes the error of privileging the Jewish Holocaust over other human atrocities by mentioning over and over the systematic destruction of the Jews. We already know about this. His book would have benefited by including more examples of systematic destructions of other peoples (equally important as the Jews, and who have suffered just as much: remember the greatest oppressors of Jews throughout history have been other Jews, namely the Rabbinical class - Israel Shahak, Jewish History, Jewish Religion, 2000), tribes and ethnic groups. No mention of the Israeli systematic elimination of the Palestinians appears thus far in the book. Still, this is a fantastic, terrifying, very depressing, important book. The world loses 86,000 hectares of forest every day.

    Posted by Rhino Rick from  on  11/17  at  05:21 AM

  15. Dear Rhino: Derrick co-authored an entire book focused on the devastation of forests you...invoke. You can rest easy about the holocausts too w regard to DJ; he often touches upon the Jewish thing, I believe, ‘cause it’s something that rises in most readers minds immediately when the word “holocaust” is used (to help them relate to what he’s saying at a given moment), BUT in this book (which it seems you haven’t finished) and elsewhere...consistently...he does the very thing you would have him do.  He’s totally on track with the view you espouse. In fact, he does as much as anyone I’ve ever read to make sure that readers do NOT embrace the “Jewish thing” out of a proper perspective.

    Posted by Richard Oxman from  on  11/17  at  12:01 PM

  16. I can see how he was using it as a recurring theme to make a point, in the same way that any artist uses a theme to create a pattern and momentum to an artwork. It’s just that Hollywood has already used that riff to death (pardon the pun). I look forward to reading some of D’s other works, esp. on forests. Again, this is a must read-book. I’m going to deliver a talk on it to a small group of actvists here in Tokyo next year, hope you can make it ROx, anti-tox man.

    Regarding your tiff with some of the other cyber activists here at the site ROx, you expect alot, and as I always say, I enjoy and encourage your gentle chiding at all times. Sometimes its good to take a breather from time to time as well though (that does not mean capitulation/resignation). We all aint’ up to your standards/expectations, alas. Always, all the best…

    Posted by Rhino Rick from  on  11/17  at  05:53 PM

  17. The whole culture (not just Hollywood) has distorted the Jewish suffering way out of proportion...which is the whole point of Derrick using the Nazi thing as a point of departure in addressing holocausts.  I have no intention of losing you as an activist friend Rhino, but my criticism is not to be confused w chiding.  And there is no time to take a break from the criticism...especially when the response culminates in boycotting, a depriving of “the community” of other points of view. We’re not talking about my back and forth in the commentary here, we’re talking about a refusal to post articles virtually overnight...suspiciously following (immediately)...my criticism of OUTSIDE THE BALLOT BOX...which followed reassurance that those involved in that event were open to criticism.

    Posted by Richard Oxman from  on  11/17  at  08:35 PM
    18. Commenting is not available in this weblog entry. {/if}

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