Karl [Giberson] has invoked my name three times [in Facebook conversation I had stepped away from], so I have to appear. I don't want to, because I have no hope that he will hear me, but here goes anyway, as the first in what may or many not be a series of comments:
I do not believe there are any human endeavors that are not human all the way down. I do not believe humans have any special access to anything that is "eternal," "transcendental," or "independently true" (and I have not forgotten the idea "God," as I say that).
I believe that human beings operate variously, but significantly in outbursts of power (and, no, I don't think of this as an "independently true" statement).
Among the more prominent manifestations of the outbursts of power in recent centuries has been labeled by its advocates "white." Another similarly prominent power display is "male."
Neither of these power displays is without history. What they have been and are have roots deep within the history of the world, especially the history of the Western world. I am especially interested in the role monetization has played in that history and I point to Richard Seaford's impressive work for anyone interested in this stuff.
As transgender persons and others have illustrated, "male" is not about anatomy, though it probably is about physiology, among other things. As Michael Jackson and George Hamilton together illustrate, "white" is not about skin pigment. These are outbursts of power. History declares that you are "white" and it declares that you are "male" and when it does so, it invests you with open avenues and gear for the trip not available to others.
"White male" is a configuration of power that, among other things, is about controlling its environment from an imagined height, one above and outside the events controlled. Thus when Europeans (first Spaniards, even Spaniards with a few Moorish genes) announced that they were "white," they did so in order to control and often *own* persons they announced to be "not-white."
"White" (especially "white male") became not only an ingredient in somebody's psychological profile, it became an extremely important character trait of a whole "civilization," eventually an empire (or collection of empires, if one prefers, though I don't).
Once formal empires became no longer a thang, the aloofness of "white" (especially of "white male") remained. One finds it in the institutions that have been most honored in the era historians call "modern." Theologians became less and less honored in that era, but they were no less participants in the "aloofness" game. Fundamentalism is certainly an example of that, but so also is liberalism. In fact there may be nothing more modern than 19th century Euro-liberal theology.
The most honored institution in the modern age, historians tell us, is "science" (a discipline that has reserved "scientia," i.e., "knowledge," to itself). I do not have expertise in "science." (Unlike "Doctor Science" I don't even have a masters degree . . . "in *science*!") I only have 19 hours of college biology, something like 10 hours of college chemistry, and, I think, 11 hours of college mathematics (if I may count those as hours in "science").
What I found in my studies of science as a short-term undergraduate major and as an interested layperson since then is not necessarily what an expert in the field would claim. However, I've not found a lot to dissuade me in what I have noticed as I have listened closely to what scientists have said and written.
What I have found is that the predominant approach to phenomena in science is quite comparable to the one found unfortunately in much modern theology. I've called that approach "aloofness" above. It was called "objectivity" once upon a time (and is still among some people). It is an approach that maintains that (Schrödinger notwithstanding) one may (best?) name and describe phenomena without getting entangled in and thus contaminating them. Sometimes exasperated advocates of objectivity will complain that to deny that this is both desirable and possible is to be lost hopelessly in subjectivism. Sometimes these exasperated advocates have not read anything of the works of those who call the neat distinction of "objectivity" and "subjectivity" into question, sometimes they have tried, but have thrown up their hands in bemused or furious disdain. Perhaps these people have seen something that is wrong with these critiques or perhaps they have not understood them and have found the attitude of aloofness to be too precious (I'll not mention Gollum here; that would be tacky) to abandon.
What I am calling "aloofness" is what I most associate with "white" (especially "white male"). Insofar as a discipline stands apart from the world and sets out to control it, it hints that it may well be "white." Of course, aloofness is not peculiar to modern science. It has been around for a very, very long time. However, there may never have been an approach to life, the universe, and everything as aloof as canonical modern science.
I am not saying that every scientist is thus aloof, is thus "white." Science seems to my lay eyes to be more and more aware of the complicity of the scientist in scientific work. However, there still is no small number of self-consciously "scientific" scholars who are proudly *modern* and proudly *objective*.
All of this is to say that when I studied math and science in school, I studied an approach to the world that participated in white supremacy, that contributed to its founding and provided the engine for its colonial expansion. Science has blood on its hands every bit as much as does theology or Vasco da Gama.
(Originally posted on FB.)