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%COLLUSIONS-2 800019
A collusion is defined by the dictionary as, "a
secret agreement or cooperation for an illegal or
deceitful purposes." We usually think of collusions as
involving people who know what they are doing, who know it
is illegal or deceitful, and who therefore do it secretly.
R.D. Laing, the British psychiatrist who is concerned with
perverted group dynamics, suggests that we use the word
"collusion" to point to perverted group behavior in which
the participants conceal what they are doing from
themselves, as well as from others outside their group. A
collusion is thus a game of mutual self-deception---in
which people enter unknowingly into agreements and
cooperative behaviors which have deceitful---and
alienation results. Collusions conceal themselves.
The nature of collusions may be suggested by some
examples. Some historic collusions include: "Race 'X' is
inferior (or superior);" "Religion 'Y' is Evil (or God-
given);" "Unrestrained power will not corrupt our good
men." Some current collusions include: "Technology can
satisfy unrestrained human desires;" "Technology can
provide security;" "The more we prepare for nuclear war
the less likely atom bombs will be used;" "There is just
one really real reality, and just one correct way to know
it;" "Injustices of unfair distribution of scarce
resources can be corrected by giving everybody more;"
"There will always be enough if we develop the right
technologies;" and finally, "All limits to human growth
can be overcome through more scientific discoveries and
technologies." Wonderful!
Colluders are not aware of their collusions. They
sincerely and with conviction believe their deceitful
misrepresentations, and discount anybody who dares to
threaten them by not believing them, or by refusing to
join their collusions. Their secret agreements require
them not to listen to or be in honest dialogue with any
person who threatens to expose any of their collusions;
the agreement requires the excommunication of any profound
person who transcends the collusion. Wisdom is
excommunicated. Awareness of the collusions would destroy
their conception of what is most real, their "world-view";
and so would destroy their whole "world". Such awareness
is feared more than death.
Young people may become scientists by adopting
scientists' biases, and by choosing to have faith in what
scientists value; e.g., objectivity, measurements,
analysis, computations, predictions, repeatable
experiments, and abstract theories. Scientists stake
their lives on such faith, and by collusions obscure the
existence of and the grounds for their values and their
own faith in their values. Scientists' collusions divert
people's attention away from their personal choices.
Their personal choices powerfully affirm scientists' own
values by how the choices influence the setting of
communal priorities, the making of communal decisions, and
the allocation of communal resources. Their professional
collusions focus attention instead upon the abstraction
"science" own which by its abstract nature is non-
personal, incommunicado, and un-punishable. Due to that
focus scientists tend to regard themselves as the
embodiment of abstract "science" own and see themselves as
value-neutral in spite of their choices. Thus scientists'
collusions conceal the chosen biases which are the
foundation values upon which they base their professional
activities.
The scientists' collusions obscure the political
activities of scientists; i.e., those of their activities
which influence how we as a society set our priorities---
and so how we allocate scarce communal resources such as
human talents, fossil fuels, minerals, land, soil, plant
nutrients, water, rivers, lakes, oceans, and air. Politics
is the process of allocating our scarce resources, and
scientists are politically influential through their
professional activities which initiate and promote the
development of new technologies. Scientists are some of
the most influential "politicians" by virtue of how they
guide us away from non-technocratic responses and towards
technocratic responses to our situations; responses which
are very resource consumptive. Scientists influence our
conceptions of what responses are thinkable---by helping
us repress awareness of non-technocratic response
possibilities. As a result---non-technocratic response-
possibilities are not refined, debated, prioritized, or
voted upon by the people whom we usually call politicians.
By their collusions our scientists make it appear to
themselves (and so also to the general public) that they
are not politically influential. Their collusions also
lead us all to believe that their unbalanced
specialization makes them into "experts"---who can be
trusted to offer wise advice regarding the ethical and
social implications of their activities. Their collusions
blind us to the fact that since ethics is a kind of
technology, ethics can not serve as an unbiased guide for
technology. Because of scientists' unbalanced
specialization they do not listen well, are not in open
and honest dialogue with the public, and do not know their
audiences. For these reasons scientists are unable to help
the public respond wisely to their technical activities.
Scientists are not alone in participating in
collusions. Most highly trained professionals participate
in collusions. It is important that we seek both personal
and institutional ways to help each other escape these
collusions, so that we may become free to see clearly and
to make informed wise decisions. To transcend our
collusions we must seek help from those who are unlike
ourselves. We must lean to listen sympathetically to
people who are strangely "different". Unless we do---we
will become imprisoned in an inhumane technocracy in which
democracy is undermined by the inability of powerful
technocrats to listen to people who in their eyes are
"different". Listening is essential to democracy.
(c) 2005 by Paul A. Smith in
www.essayz.com Search for Integrity and Honesty
(On Being Yourself, Whole and Healthy)
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