Even when I start thinking about how counter-terrorism is used to justify a nation, a voice in the back of my head is asking a bunch of relevant, though overly judgemental questions. A lot of these questions that pop up in my head are along the lines of whether or not I think something is right and/or am I justifying certain things by researching the questions that concern me. What these questions really bring up are the questions that have long been posed when it comes to science as an unbiased means of exploration.
I used to believe that, in every aspect, science could never achieve the remove or omnipotence it aspired to. I still believe this, but in a far different manner. Previously, I though that issues regarding politics and personal values were somehow incipient and unavoidable. There was no getting around the fact, or so I thought, that always informing the motivations behind our research, analysis and conclusions were political values, or how one thought the world ought to be. A lot of this was taught to me through texts by Marilyn Strathern, Kathleen Stewart, Lila Abu-Lughod and several others I can't recall at this particular moment. As I said earlier, I no longer believe in the idea that our scientific work in the humanities are bound to our individual biases, but that's not to say that the mentioned researchers were wrong, but that, somewhere along the way, I began to think of biases as based in politics and not in the person's ability to observe.
I have no doubt that a topic can be approached with a sociological honesty that puts its politics to the side in order to come to a productive analysis and conclusion. The reasons why I've come to this realization have a lot to do with the recent research I've been doing, as well as systems theory.
I find the ideas utilized by religious zealots to justify the killing of mass groups of people almost non-verbal. I've spent many hours researching the ideas informing these actions, watching video, testimony, and I can't possibly come to an explanation as to how I feel when I try to understand these fucks. I can't and I already feel a sense of guilt in allowing them to take up so much of my time when their interpretations and justifications are nothing but founded upon a shallow notion of how the world works and how it should work. Even though I'm speaking to what I've done to understand Islamic extremism and not the equally evil conduct of the American South's lynch-mobs, the final lines to Xiu Xiu's song "Mary Turner Mary Turner" come to mind: "Fuck your guns. Fuck your war. Fuck your truck. Fuck your flag."
Jamie Stewart's words continue on into my opinion of the nationalist reactions to the perceived threat of Islam. But I'm sick of talking about abhorrent ideas that try to force others into a rigid architecture that believes it has found the magic recipe for a perfect world in harmony. Take out Islamic extremism from the former paragraph and replace it with 'Soldiers of Odin', 'Proud Boys' or whatever fucking clubhouse these shits name themselves.
But here's my point, even though it took sometimes to get there haha. I don't have to allow my opinions of these folk come into play when I'm analyzing the social worlds they simultaneously draw from and produce. My point of view can't hover above them, but it can differentiate from them. I can take the perspective of a scientist; not a citizen, or Canadian, or lefty or what have you. I can because when I analyze these social formations, I'm not doing so as me, which is complex and practically non-translatable. When we analyze social phenomena, we're not doing so as ourselves per se, but as observers adhering to rules and ideas that came before us and that are shared by several others. We don't observe and understand from a vacuum, but from a history, a foundation, and a social support that will be there regardless of whether or not we take part in it.
I believe it was my advisor who explained to me that what Luhmann wished to achieve was a scientific means to jump from different points of observation. Luhmann wanted to understand how someone could understand this as an economist and then change their position to understand the same thing as a manager. We, everyday, jump from one orientation to another in order to understand our surroundings. These orientations are also there waiting for us to use them, but not dependent on any individual to continue its existence. I can go from a politically charged moralist to a discerning scientist in the blink of a second, so long as I can convince others taking on similar orientations. To do science, one must convince scientists. To go on moral crusades, one must convince other moralists. To make art, one must convince artists. An important part of these attempts to convince is to display a working knowledge of how these social systems function, what they assume, what histories they draw on, what values they hold and what distinctions they create. One doesn't become a scientist; one takes on the orientation of what science has distinguished itself as.
I was supposed to talk about in this what I think is Foucault's most useful method. I guess that'll come tomorrow.
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