Two things, in my opinion, define the post-socialist, post-communal turn (1980 onwards) more than others: 1) Competition and 2) Reductionism. They are the result of an unholy combination of scientism and capitalism (hyper-individualism). The former (hyper-competition) pits us against each other relentlessly, both by pushing to the extremes the effects of success and failure, and emphasising competition over co-operation in theoretical frameworks (social darwinism and so on). Reductionism and scientism disfavour holistic approaches and understanding, limiting knowledge (and the action arising from it) to the immediately quantifiable. The following bit of news is a small demonstration of the pitfalls of such an approach:
Childhood ends earlier as parents pressure children, says survey | Guardian
[...]
[A] report released from the Institute for Public Policy Research supported the notion that pushing children too hard at a young age can backfire.
Academic results themselves do not ensure a higher income, and too much focus on them can inhibit social development and confidence, it said.
With apologies for the editorialising ;-).
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3 Responses
Morning Ravi,
How do you know the difference between Scientism and Securlarism? By that I mean Scientism must be instilled by how science is embedded in the state. So is secularism the foundation of Scientism?
Doyle
Paul Feyerabend wrote a book (which he partially disavowed later) called “Science in a Free Society” where he addresses the idea of the separation of Science and State. However, I think state instilled scientism is only part of the equation. There is propaganda and misrepresentation (when a tribal cure is absorbed into science, the future benefits of the cure are exclusively claimed for science), but also the hope of credibility by association… there is a reason, IMHO, why scientism is least prevalent in mathematicians (I claim) and most in non-scientific academics. To answer your question, I think secularism and scientism spring from the same roots (for the Western world perhaps that means The Enlightenment). Scientism, to me, is reason calcified as technique.
An earlier blog post of mine quoted Stanley Fish’s thoughts on liberalism and secularism (http://platosbeard.org/archives/36), which I feel is also a bit applicable here.
The question popped into my head and I thought that is an interesting sort of perspective. The idea I think is related to Foucaults concept of power institutions creating say homosexuality.
Anyhow, thanks for the reply. Got me thinking.
Doyle