Document that May Have Been Leaked from Alan Sokal’s Desk
Posted by Anonymous
The following document is a few months old. It is dated April 1, 2013. It is believed to have been leaked from the desk of Physicist Alan Sokal, whose critique of scientific hegemony has rocked the world of Philosophy. Here at Scholardarity we cannot vouch for the accuracy of this document, or whether it actually came from the desk of Dr. Sokal, but we found it challenging enough to the dominant paradigm that we decided to publish. Please be advised that the following views do not necessarily reflect those of Scholardarity, and may not actually reflect the views of Dr. Sokal himself:
A Zetetic Critique of the Imperialist Globularism of Christopher Columbus
The science of every age represents the dominant hegemony of the ruling class not only as it extends to material conditions but also as it represents the ownership of the ruling class over the mental landscape and its subsequent exploitation. Not only does the ruling class deliberately mold science to legitimize its control of natural resources, but also its control of Earth. The attack against human ecology mirrors an attack against the natural ecology, as evidenced by the rape of indigenous culture by Christopher Columbus. Christopher Columbus represents the intersecting origin point for both modern science and the beginnings of European imperialism. Neither can be understood outside of an institutional analysis that is willing to challenge the social constructs of early stage capitalism.
Today we live in a globalized world in which capital can destroy cultures at the push of a computer button. The foundation of a globalized world can literally be found in “globularism,” a seemingly objective standard by which Astronomy, Physics, Geology and Evolutionary Biology have been predicated upon. Globularism formed the basis of European imperialism, and it served as a justification for European rule not only of the New World, but also of Africa, Asia and the Middle East. The very construct of the Globe, with Europe at its very apex, is strongly indicative of racism and hegemony.
We cannot undermine the foundations of modern capitalism without also undermining its founding myths, its primary rationale for exploiting the New World. It is inconsistent for Marxist radicals, whose scientism has its roots in Ricardo and Darwin, whose scientism in turn has its roots in Uniformitarianism, with roots in Newton, who in turn has roots in Galileo, whose Astronomical model is founded in the Globular narrative promoted by Columbus, to claim to be free of the constructs of imperialism, racism, sexism or homophobia. Our Marxist allies (and most other socialists, including Left Opposition Anarchists) cling to the outmoded Globularist scientism promoted by Columbus as though it were objective truth and not a means of legitimizing oppression.
Even Deep Ecologists are not immune from the intellectual hegemonic culture promoted by Columbus. The idea that we live on a “beautiful ball of white and blue” may liberate animals from human domination, but it does nothing to address the power imbalances created by the conquest of the New World. In particular it does nothing to critique the ideological hegemonic superstructure that defines modern science since the time that “Columbus sailed the ocean blue.” Even the very language constructed by the progressive and liberal bourgeoisie to define the American and French Revolutions derives its semiotics from Spanish and Portuguese imperialism. The American Revolution is begun by the “shot heard ‘round the world.” The French Revolution attempted to measure “the globe.” Even Marx and Engels accepted the truth claims of English imperialism and its inconsistent claim that the “sun never sets on the British Empire” while it apparently does set on smaller countries.
Some radicals who cling to scientism might point to the Foucalt Pendulum and the Coriolis Force as objective truths that are not semiotic constructions. This is a valid objection to a point, but these comrades may wonder whether or not it is sound. We have not properly explored culturally varied schema for explaining the Foucalt Pendulum. We have accepted the Coriolis narrative, a narrative based on mathematical semiotics which are constructed by a set of functionaries of bourgeois capitalism with all of the prejudices of the Enlightenment. The Enlightenment is only one way of viewing Nature and her ways. But, more to the point, even Renaissance Humanism has its implied cultural and ideological biases. Christopher Columbus never broke free from those biases. His “science” should not be beyond critique.
To my knowledge, no radical has ever challenged the dominant Globularist assumption. This may well be what has prevented genuine radical change from spreading across the Earth. Indeed, the oppressed may be limited in getting together if they take it as grounded in the “State of Nature” that some must be asleep at night while others are awake during the daytime. Instead of seeing this as the attempt of the ruling class at thwarting genuine popular democracy for the sake of preserving the limited representative republicanism of the Lockean tradition, working people assume that their oppressed comrades “on the other side of the Earth” (a divisive construct if there ever was one) would be asleep. Globularism has its roots in patriarchy, racism, chauvinism, anthropocentrism, and homophobia. “Anthropocentrism” may be somewhat beyond the scope of this essay, but remember that the Earth as Mother may have a gynocentered gendered recalcitrance to any attempt to give her a third spatial dimension that is equivalent to her other two dimensions. More to the point, Globular imperialism has its roots in the very system that has colonized not only “the globe” but even our symbolic representations of Earth.
Let me end with a critique of those who would demand that we accept the “truth” promoted not only by Columbus but also by later explorers such as Magellan or Captain Cook, whose claims to have affirmed the Globular imperial narrative are presumably much firmer. Indeed, for indigenous cultures around the world, we can only assume that they would have wished have fallen off the world. That very wish may also contain a truth that we should explore. The United Nations was founded as the collective will of global imperialism, both western and Stalinist. We can assume that the western capitalists and (counter-revolutionary) Stalinists alive during the various Bretton Woods conferences may have been privy to modes of knowledge kept among themselves that public education, representing ruling hegemony, would have suppressed. Let us look at the United Nations flag that formed from many of their efforts:
Studying this image may give a sense of purposeful exploration on the parts of the elites of Earth of the boundary between language and Nature not readily explored with the globes that are manufactured for popular conception. We do not endorse conspiratorial narratives, but one should notice that Terra Firma does not “look fat” in this picture.
This is not a call to suppress Globularism. Rather, it is a call to explore other educational narratives to do not claim the western “objectivity” model but which are honest in being culturally grounded. In particular, we would hope to expand the educational opportunities of minorities and indigenous youth by allowing them to explore a Zetetic model of Astronomy to enhance their learning. Objections that “employers do not want employees” that challenge the theory and praxis of Globularity, in particular employers in the sciences, are valid to a point. However, any proper critique of capitalist hierarchicalism requires that employer demands no longer run education, any more than State Bureaucrats. Education needs to be run outside of Structure, outside of Method, and yes, outside of Hierarchy itself. Indeed, “Workers of the World Unite” would be a lot easier to obtain without the “curved Earth” construct getting in the way of everyone joining hands for a better tomorrow, the sunrise of social justice that all can view together.
Scholardarity: It is here that the document seems to end. While we are not certain that its author is Alan Sokal, and while we are ourselves “Globularists” and not Zetetic in our beliefs, we still present this viewpoint for the sake of intellectual freedom. We publish this in the hopes that we break through the Ice Wall of intellectual debate. In the event that this is in fact a hoax, and that Alan Sokal did not write it, we hope that Dr. Sokal and the Flat Earth Society would at least have a sense of humor.
