Nanda was referenced on this list by Bryan Atinsky
CB
^^^ http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/2006/2006-October/019347.html
[lbo-talk] science, objectivity, truth, taste and tolerance Bryan Atinsky bryan at alt-info.org Wed Oct 4 07:20:02 PDT 2006
Did anyone read Meera Nanda's article, "Against Social De(con)struction of Science: Cautionary Tales from the Third World"? It was in the Monthly Review from 1997, I read it in the book I have from Monthly Review Press "In Defense of History: Marxism and the Postmodern Agenda".
I find now a copy of it here: http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1132/is_n10_v48/ai_19344899
Here is the first paragraph:
Against social destruction of science: cautionary tales from the third world Monthly Review, March, 1997 by Meera Nanda
People resisting despotism and its lies need ideals of one truth, one reason, one reality and on occasion, one science. To be able to be critical of the unities is a luxury and let us never forget it.
- Ian Hacking, 1996
I.
One of the most remarkable - and the least remarked upon - features of the "radical" movement engaged in deconstructing natural science is how it ends up denying the unity (i.e., universality) of truth, reason, reality, and science precisely in the name of those who need these unities most urgently - the "people resisting despotism and its lies." This includes those of us from non-Western societies fighting against the despotism of some of our own cultural traditions, and the untested and untestable cosmologies that are used to justify these traditions. A loose and varied assortment of theories that bear the label of social constructivism have declared the very content of modern natural science to be justified, in the final instance, by "Western" cultural values and social interests. Once modern science is seen not as a universally valid knowledge about the natural world, but as a particular or "ethno"-construct of Western society, it becomes easy to see science as a part of the imperialistic West's despotism, which the west's "Others" must resist in the name of cultural survival and anti-imperialism. Modern science thus becomes a despotism, an object of resistance rather than an ally of those resisting despotism.
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And speaking of Ian Hacking, I think tangentially connected to this discussion, and a quite interesting book (IMHO) is Hacking's book "The Social Construction of What?"
http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog/HACSOC.html?show=reviews
Worth a look I say...
Bryan