Science, Hegemony and violence: a requiem for modernity
- Delhi Oxford University Press 1988
- 301p.
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.