Science, Hegemony and violence: a requiem for modernity

The seven essays in this volume argue
that a new kind of organized violence has
been unleashed on the global scene,
particularly in the third world, by the
establishment of science in collaboration
with the existing political and economic
establishments. Starting from the premise
that the worldview of modern science and
technology in the late twentieth century has
provided a 'legitimate' model of violence
and domination, the essays examine the
content of the 'rational patterns of
behaviour and lifestyles being imposed on
citizens in areas such as social organization,
agriculture, medicine, environment and
gender. The violence, the argument goes, is
not an accidental byproduct of the practice
of post-Enlightenment science but lies at
the heart of the modern scientific vision.
The distinguished contributors to the
volume come from areas as diverse as
physics, medicine, philosophy, ecology,
environmental and civil rights movements,
sociology and psychology. They were
brought together for this purpose by the
Committee for Cultural Choices and Global
Futures, Delhi. The Committee is an
association of scholars in search of a more
holistic, politically sensitive, social
knowledge and its concerns are the ecology
of plural knowledge, cultural survival, and
humane futures for the 'victims of history'.
The work on which the volume is based
was supported by the United Nations
University as a part of the University's
Programme on Peace and Global
Transformation.