Why is there a widespread impression that Western leftists are against science?

[GracchusBabeuf]

.

[the last donut of the night]

Not completely sure, but the bourgeoisie nowadays loves to sully radicals as lacking information or research on various degrees of political science. They say we are too rash, too one-sided, or that we history in a biased manner.

[RED DAVE]

This is an interesting question. I know that when I first became active, in the late 1950s, most leftists had an interest in science, but there was a certain amount of bohemian luddism floating around: use of bicycles, VWs, etc.

However, during the mid- and late 60s, a definite irrationalism developed, although definitely not in the Marxist left. A lot this came from the paricipation of large numbers of scientists and physics departments in Cold War research and the presence of people such as Alan Ginsberg, who definitely preached an irrational approach to life in general. By the time the hippies got ahold of all this, all bets were off and the current trend aiming towards astrology, various forms of end-of-worldism etc., the so-called Age of Aquarius, was in full swing.

RED DAVE

[Tower of Bebel]

I wouldn't be surprised if this idea was really widespread. Some revlefters are all to keen on using the "bourgeois lies" fallacy. On top of that, the current amateurism that you can find among many marxists keeps us from effectively challenging bourgeois ideology.

[JazzRemington]

That and environmentalists (especially green anarchists and primitivists) are usually equated with leftism or at least are portrayed as representing the dominate leftist beliefs.

[Red Commissar]

I haven't really noticed this. It may come from some of the more eccentric people from the counterculture or lifestylists who embraced New Age tendencies as of late.

I myself have an interest in Biology and Physics, so I think it's more of a mixed bag here.

[jake williams]

The vastly oversimplified answer, as far as I can tell, is this: the late 1960s and early 70s saw in the West the rise of an actual radical academia that was seriously politically active, and not just posturing. They were actually uniting with the working class, and acting, rather than hanging out in their towers and making grand statements.

It took a long time for the ruling class to figure out what the hell to do about this, but they did. What they found is that academia could easily be tricked into a sort of "hyperradicalism", whereby one's thinking is so radical that it criticizes the very foundations of a meaningfully active movement. "I'm so radical I criticize the entire foundations of capitalism". "Oh yeah? Well I'm so radical I criticize your even having a right to criticize capitalism! I criticize the very meaning of the language you use to criticize it! I criticize the basic methods absolutely anyone uses to understand the universe!"

The academics mostly returned to their towers to make grand statements, content that they had maintained their radicalism, and the mass movements were totally deprived of an academia doing anything useful to humanity whatsoever.


edit: I should just add that it's very dangerous to understate the scale of this problem. Most of the more radical parts of the youth movement, especially the anarchists, are anti-science, in my experience. We gotta remember that RevLeft is only that segment of the community that actually uses computers. I have friends who don't use cellphones because technology is the Devil.

[Kléber]

The ruling class didn't cook up postmodernism as an antidote to radical academia. Like fascism, postmodernism has grown in step with the failures of the left, picking up with the stabilization of imperialism in the late 1970's, and being hegemonically reinforced by the capitulation of the USSR in 1991. Academics who considered China and/or the USSR to be socialist, and staked their lives' hopes and dreams on what they saw as the dialectical historical process, where the USSR had to win the Cold War because it was the more progressive system, were politically and emotionally shipwrecked by the restoration of market capitalism in China and the former Soviet Union. Their response has been, not to reconsider that those may have been Bonapartist regimes, but to exclaim that history has gone very very wrong and objective reality never existed and therefore Marx was wrong and politics are a waste of time. This can be compared to the anti-rational Romantic movement of 200 years ago, which took hold after the failure of the French Revolution and restoration of monarchy there.. There has also been a rekindling of in interest in Hegel since his idealization of the Prussian bourgeois military state as the end of history is an easy way to look at the world. The recent economic crisis and destabilization had some postmoderns taking their old left masks out of the closet but overall yes it's a ridiculously stupid ideology.

[The Vegan Marxist]

I believe the corporate leftists, as in those that can be found in Washington or inside the White House, are the ones not particularly for science because Scientists are not establishing their ideas & finds for the sake of profit, in which these corporate leftists, & of course the rightists as well, are trying to find profit out of such. And so, when something gets in their way of achieving said profit, i.e. science, then they're going to do all they can in their power to un-establish these finds & keep them in the dark for as long as possible. Now, when it comes to leftists such as ourselves, science is our way of proving the corporate world wrong & for showing solutions to problems instead of just adding in more to the problem.

[danyboy27]

Why is there a widespread impression that Western leftists are against science? Why do some leftists go against science and reason?

At far as I know, all non-Western leftists view science as a liberatory force against feudalism and superstition.

beccause some insignificant new age lobby decided to adopt a certain number of our tenets so they wouldnt be so lonely to fight their insignificant, piss ant liberal causes.

From the 9/11 truther to the green primitivist who affirm that we should stop working on geneticly modified crops and stop eating meat, You really have a lot of coo coo who affirm being a leftist these day.

[More Fire for the People]

Because in the 1970s-1980s there was a paradigm shift in science whereby the majority of research was conducted either by corporations or for for-profit purposes. Hence then, scientists have been using 'science' as a way to protect and promote racism, sexism, and capitalism.

[GPDP]

Lots of good answers in this thread. I think most of them are correct, at least in part.

Between the corporatization and politicization of science, the rise of post-modernism in academia, the adoption of mysticism and New Age beliefs among self-described leftists, and such "movements" as the primitivists and other green movements who wish to scale back technology or technological development... we have a perfect storm of developments ranging back at least 50 years which have served to paint the left as irrational, anti-science, and anti-progress.

Perhaps all we can do is affirm our commitment to science and reason, and do our best to disassociate ourselves with such non-leftist drivel.

[Kléber]

Why do you like to compare everything to the French revolution?
Socialism failed miserably and if we don't have a solid explanation for that, nobody outside the online commie kid echo chamber is going to listen to what socialists have to say. The French revolution is an example of a movement (bourgeois republicanism), which was ultimately successful the world over, encountering initial defeat and failure, and some of the problems encountered by an immature revolutionary class in the process of that - Thermidorean conservatism, the Bonapartist ambitions of the military caste, and Enlightenment rationalism being supplanted by Romanticist idealism - resemble similar developments in the history of the USSR and global socialist movement and show us that these kinds of failures are not some new irrational developments which discredit socialism like the postmodernists would like to think, but were encountered by the bourgeoisie as well in its ultimately successful revolutionary history, and can in fact be overcome by the proletariat.

[More Fire for the People]

Is there any evidence for this?

(pretty ironic question, I know).
That they are sexist, racist, and pro-capitalistic? The fact that the majority of biological research is to ascribe the value of greed to evolution, intelligence to race and sex, and all sorts of other values and practices that clearly have historical-social origins to genes. Those who reject all postmodern theories are foolish. Post-modernists have clearly put science in its place when it tries to describe such phenomena as history, culture, race, and gender. Postmodernists are only incorrect in so far as their method rejects objectivity and empiricism. However, many of their conclusions are correct.

[Dayglow]

Why is there a widespread impression that Western leftists are against science? Why do some leftists go against science and reason?

I don't think they do, generally. Mainstream Western science & academia is awash with stuffy, prejudiced, pseudo-intellectuals whose bigotry and conceit extends not very far beyond the traditional equation of Leftist principles as "feminine, intuitive", ie. their idea of the opposite of reason & science, whilst Right principles supposedly equal "masculine, rational" thought. It's nonsense, of course, as most socialists combine the two modes in one concise intelligent approach, but that's the way most of them think.


At far as I know, all non-Western leftists view science as a liberatory force against feudalism and superstition.

Of course, yes, most would and do.

[chegitz guevara]

There has always been an romanticist, anti-enlightenment aspect to the left. The original anarchists grew out of this movement. Marxism, however, dealt a strong blow to this way of thinking in many countries. Marxism is the ultimate expression of the enlightenment.

With the rise of fascism, and the resulting world war, some Marxists of the Frankfort school saw in fascism the ultimate expression of the enlightenment, industrial mass murder, and recoiled in horror. This was in the late 40s.

Environmentalism also strongly draws from the romantic movement, particularly it's anti-industrialism, and science is tied with industrialism. We had an argument with an anarchist about a month ago about science, and he categorically rejected it, because of what it has done to the world, though we would have no understanding of anthropomorphic climate change without science. :rolleyes:

[jake williams]

That they are sexist, racist, and pro-capitalistic? The fact that the majority of biological research is to ascribe the value of greed to evolution, intelligence to race and sex, and all sorts of other values and practices that clearly have historical-social origins to genes.
That's patently false. Do you know very many people who are actually scientists?

Also, this:

http://www.chomsky.info/articles/1995----02.htm

Chomsky is maybe one of the best philosophers in science we've had in human history.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Perhaps all we can do is affirm our commitment to science and reason, and do our best to disassociate ourselves with such non-leftist drivel.

To do that would mean revisiting Marx's excessive criticism of Utilitarianism. Kautsky became a Marxism through exposure to Darwin. I came to it through exposure to a crude form of Utilitarianism ("the ends justify the means"). After further education, I realized that Utility was more than just "the ends justify the means," and that it was tied head to toe with Rationality.

[RadioRaheem84]

There is a new article by Richard Levins in latest issue of the Monthly Review that is really good at pinpointing the reason why leftists are seen as anti-science. Levins hints at the notion that science has been co-opted by the major industries to turn things for profit, so scientists aren't really finding solutions as much as they're looking for profitable solutions for corporations. There is a whole paradigm of thinking among scientists, engineers, doctors and academics that suggest that the sustainability of capitalism must be put before the need of the masses, so technical and medicinal advances are geared toward profit first, needs second.

Any challenge to this is seen as anti-scientific.

The latest issue of the Monthly Review hints at the notion that we should really begin to separate ourselves from the "green movement" as it's really been co-opted by the major corporations as a way to sustain profits while preaching sustainability. Schemes like Cap and Trade are an example, the Copenhagen Summit was a joke, etc.
Democracy Now exposed a lot of these environmental groups as being pawns of the major corporations now. Corporations have really sunk their teeth into environmentalism and sustainability in an effort to keep the status quo. They may call us anti-science for calling them out on their bullshit, but who cares.

[JacobVardy]

Corporations have really sunk their teeth into environmentalism and sustainability in an effort to keep the status quo. They may call us anti-science for calling them out on their bullshit, but who cares.

This is something that we have been talking about a lot recently. Making comparisons to national and sex liberation movements and the tendency for the bourgeois to divert movements in the bourgeoisie's interests. Hoping to find useful tactics.

That said, i know a lot of communists who came to it through the green movement. The understanding that living in a sustainable environment is fundamentally incompatible with capitalism.

[black magick hustla]

Because in the 1970s-1980s there was a paradigm shift in science whereby the majority of research was conducted either by corporations or for for-profit purposes. Hence then, scientists have been using 'science' as a way to protect and promote racism, sexism, and capitalism.
This is a lie man.

In the 19th century, all research was funded privately. So if you wanted to research something, you were either mad rich or you had to beg to rich people.

It wasn't until WWII that the government took a very active role in funding. The mayority of science is for profit, but this has always been the case. However, as with every other aspect of life with the rise of state-capitalism, science has become integrated to the state. The paradigm shift you talk about is inexistent.

Rather, since the late 70s, capitalism has entered its decomposing, terminal phase. This correlates with the rise of a lot of negative epistemology, like a good chunk of what people call postmodernism.

Personally, I dont reject completely the criticism of "science". I think the 19th century naive positivism has no use and science, as a form of life, is much more complex than being a standard for "good" politics. For example, I would have compeltely opposed research in nuclear weaponry. My criticism of "scientism" is more in line with analytic anti-realists, Wittgenstein and Kuhn than some of the shit that gets published by the so called strong school of sociology of science.
However, I see no use in some of the ridiculous, almost cult-like, "rationalism" (which is a product of enlghtment dead-weight) which is based on a bunch of aprioristic assumptions.

[Sendo]

I don't think More Fire for the People worded himself well, I understand his sentiment.

To be a scientist you have to mortgage your future (because colleges are so damn expensive in the States for example). Who will pay off that mortgage? The sex/diet drug companies.

Likewise, to be a lawyer you have to mortgage your future. Hence, more activist would-be lawyers become community organizers or whatever, since it can be very hard to pay off loans. There are rich, left-liberals, but that's not enough. The justice system in the States has moved FAR to the right since the days of Reagan. People have to sell out or expect to sell out.

[Robocloud]

"Why is there a widespread impression that Western leftists are against science? Why do some leftists go against science and reason?"

I don't know, but, in actuality, nearly every professional scientist (biologist, chemist, psychologist, sociologist, political scientist, economist, anthropologist, physicist) that I have ever personally known has favored the left.

They may not be super extreme, but many people in the scientific community definitely favor the left over the right.

[Tablo]

Why all the hate against Anarchists? Yes, some people identify as Anarchist while still being apart of the animal liberation movements and lifestylist phenomena. The real Anarchists base their ideals upon concrete and scientific observation of the conditions of the world. We are not a bunch of petty-bourgeois kiddies who think eating out of dumpsters is revolutionary. We have always been rooted in the workers movement and recognize the workers as the revolutionary class. To be honest I do not see Marxism as having such a great track record either.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Rather, since the late 70s, capitalism has entered its decomposing, terminal phase. This correlates with the rise of a lot of negative epistemology, like a good chunk of what people call postmodernism.

Finally, a left-communist who rejects the decadence-from-WWI stance.

[Dimentio]

That and environmentalists (especially green anarchists and primitivists) are usually equated with leftism or at least are portrayed as representing the dominate leftist beliefs.

The bourgeoisie really wants all leftists to be harmless but misinformed green anarchists. If they could be pacifists and vegans at the same time, the more perfect.

[jake williams]

This is a lie man.

In the 19th century, all research was funded privately. So if you wanted to research something, you were either mad rich or you had to beg to rich people.

It wasn't until WWII that the government took a very active role in funding. The mayority of science is for profit, but this has always been the case. However, as with every other aspect of life with the rise of state-capitalism, science has become integrated to the state. The paradigm shift you talk about is inexistent.

Rather, since the late 70s, capitalism has entered its decomposing, terminal phase. This correlates with the rise of a lot of negative epistemology, like a good chunk of what people call postmodernism.
This I basically agree with...


Personally, I dont reject completely the criticism of "science". I think the 19th century naive positivism has no use and science, as a form of life, is much more complex than being a standard for "good" politics. For example, I would have compeltely opposed research in nuclear weaponry. My criticism of "scientism" is more in line with analytic anti-realists, Wittgenstein and Kuhn than some of the shit that gets published by the so called strong school of sociology of science.
However, I see no use in some of the ridiculous, almost cult-like, "rationalism" (which is a product of enlghtment dead-weight) which is based on a bunch of aprioristic assumptions.
...and this not so much. At the most abstract I don't totally reject any and all criticism of "science" in the broadest possible sense, but generally speaking "criticism of science" quickly degenerates.


Why all the hate against Anarchists? Yes, some people identify as Anarchist while still being apart of the animal liberation movements and lifestylist phenomena. The real Anarchists base their ideals upon concrete and scientific observation of the conditions of the world.
These might be the "real" ones or the "good" ones, but they're not the majority at all, at least anywhere I've seen in Canada, and I know approximately what the scene is most places in Canada, and I don't presume it's very different down south.


We are not a bunch of petty-bourgeois kiddies who think eating out of dumpsters is revolutionary.
Again, you might not be, but a lot of people are.


We have always been rooted in the workers movement and recognize the workers as the revolutionary class.
That's not the case at all, because you're making a broad claim about "always". The vast majority of anarchists I meet are a weird coalition of the lumpenproletariat, the petty bourgeoisie and of university students. The movement as such, in general, is not based in the working class. Even where its membership is, its politics isn't. There are lots of anarchists who are workers, and even lots whose politics is a working class politics. But not even close to "always".

[Tablo]

That's not the case at all, because you're making a broad claim about "always". The vast majority of anarchists I meet are a weird coalition of the lumpenproletariat, the petty bourgeoisie and of university students. The movement as such, in general, is not based in the working class. Even where its membership is, its politics isn't. There are lots of anarchists who are workers, and even lots whose politics is a working class politics. But not even close to "always".
They always have been in the United States. Every labor movement in this country has had Anarchists in their ranks.

[More Fire for the People]

In the 19th century, all research was funded privately. So if you wanted to research something, you were either mad rich or you had to beg to rich people.

It wasn't until WWII that the government took a very active role in funding. The mayority of science is for profit, but this has always been the case. However, as with every other aspect of life with the rise of state-capitalism, science has become integrated to the state.
I don't necessarily disagree but I think there is a marked shift in the 1970s as it pertains to why and how universities research what they do. Since the 1970s, all pretenses of 'progressive of human knowledge', 'national security', 'public investment', etc. have been abandoned and corporations are increasingly intertwined with the maintenance, expansion, and development of universities. At my university this is evident in the mere naming of buildings. 'Old Main' and 'Kiimpel Hall' are both liberal arts buildings. Old Main is, more or less, a symbol of civil society. Kimpel Hall is named after a professor. On the other hand, the 'JB Hunt School of Excellence' and 'Sam Walton School of Business' are not just centers of bourgeois ideology but the aspirant bourgeoisie itself. These buildings were constructed by corporations to educate young people to perform the tasks needed with their corporations and others.

[CartCollector]

Since the 1970s, all pretenses of 'progressive of human knowledge', 'national security', 'public investment', etc. have been abandoned and corporations are increasingly intertwined with the maintenance, expansion, and development of universities.
This could be because the cost of attending college has climbed over the past few decades, so colleges, in an attempt to offset costs, turn to corporate sponsorship to stay in the black.

[jake williams]

They always have been in the United States. Every labor movement in this country has had Anarchists in their ranks.
Whether or not that's the case, that's not the argument - every large labour movement in the US has probably had Protestants, it doesn't mean Protestantism is a working class religion. The question is whether or not anarchism comes from the working class, not whether or not working class movements enjoy the participation of some anarchists.

[Tablo]

Whether or not that's the case, that's not the argument - every large labour movement in the US has probably had Protestants, it doesn't mean Protestantism is a working class religion. The question is whether or not anarchism comes from the working class, not whether or not working class movements enjoy the participation of some anarchists.
Well from that position we can look at the brain children of Marxism. That would be Marx and Engels. What background did they come from again?:rolleyes:

The point is that the legitimacy of a movement should be its involvement in the class struggle and Anarchism has always been there. Many Marxists have been there as well so I do not see the point of your argument.

[Devrim]

Why is there a widespread impression that Western leftists are against science? Why do some leftists go against science and reason?

At far as I know, all non-Western leftists view science as a liberatory force against feudalism and superstition.

I don't think that there is a widespread impression that 'Western leftists' are against science at all. Actually, I am quite bemused as to why you would think that impression existed. I have never even come across it.

Devrim

[Devrim]

Rather, since the late 70s, capitalism has entered its decomposing, terminal phase. This correlates with the rise of a lot of negative epistemology, like a good chunk of what people call postmodernism. Finally, a left-communist who rejects the decadence-from-WWI stance.

Well no actually Jacob. I am sorry to disappoint you, but they are different concepts.

The whole idea of capitalism being decadent is not a left communist idea either. It is in continuation of the positions of the third international, and the idea that social systems have ascendant and decadent modes is a fundamental part of the whole Marxist schema. We may draw different implications from it, but the idea that capitalism is a decadent social system and has been since, at least, the First World War is a fundamental part of the communist tradition.

Devrim

[black magick hustla]

I don't think that there is a widespread impression that 'Western leftists' are against science at all. Actually, I am quite bemused as to why you would think that impression existed. I have never even come across it.

Devrim

I think it is mostly an american academic thing. A lot of western liberal academics like old dead frenchmen apparently. And contemporary french philosophy is full of condemnations about the "enlightment project" and "grand narratives".

[More Fire for the People]

Condemning the Enlightenment does not mean condemning science as a project (a distinction post-modernist fail to make).

[black magick hustla]

Condemning the Enlightenment does not mean condemning science as a project (a distinction post-modernist fail to make).

I am well aware. I talk shit about the enlightment project all the time and yet I work in a physics lab.

Science is different than scientism though. Scientism is the belief that science can answer everything, and tends to see science as some sort of abstract thing rather than a product of communal life. scientism is part of the enlightment and its pretty silly.

[jake williams]

Well from that position we can look at the brain children of Marxism. That would be Marx and Engels. What background did they come from again?:rolleyes:

The point is that the legitimacy of a movement should be its involvement in the class struggle and Anarchism has always been there. Many Marxists have been there as well so I do not see the point of your argument.
It's derailing the thread, but basically: most anarchism (what I would call anarchism, people who reasonably self-describe or have similar politics to those who do; maybe you don't think they're real anarchists) doesn't have a class-based politics, and in addition, its membership is skewed towards the petty bourgeoisie and (especially) sections of the lumpenproletariat and less organized working class.

[Tablo]

It's derailing the thread, but basically: most anarchism (what I would call anarchism, people who reasonably self-describe or have similar politics to those who do; maybe you don't think they're real anarchists) doesn't have a class-based politics, and in addition, its membership is skewed towards the petty bourgeoisie and (especially) sections of the lumpenproletariat and less organized working class.
In my experience Anarchists are primarily based in the working class. There are many petty-bourgeois lifestylists that call themselves Anarchists, but we can see that hey are not Anarchists since Anarchism isn't a term that can even apply to lifestylism. They are as much Anarchists as American Liberals with a Soviet fetish are Marxists. Anarchism is entirely based upon social classes and is focused on the total annihilation of those classes for a free and equal society.

[Kléber]

^ You have consistently shown yourself unwilling to discard even a drop of the putrid water which had come into contact with the sacred baby.

[Devrim]

I started a new thread as I wanted to comment on Jammoe comments on the class nature of anarchism without derailing this further than it has been:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/class-composition-anarchism-t131241/index.html?p=1695440#post1695440

Devrim