Science & indigenous knowledge

In the words that follow, I started to write about “Western culture,” by which I meant “those modern, industrialized cultures which have oppressed indigenous people around the globe, especially if the people in those cultures had dark skin.” When I lived in America, a lot of lefty political diatribes that I heard were full of references to “Western culture does [insert bad thing here]”, “people in Western culture are taught [insert bad belief here].” Now that I live in Australia, however, the term “Western culture” doesn’t sit as well with me. Which cultures and nations have traditionally colonized others? Though it mostly colonized the Americas in its early days, for the past century the U.S. has been a strong global force for colonialism. The nations of Europe have been colonized and have colonized others many times over. Australia and New Zealand are now separate nations, with mainstream cultures born of European backgrounds, but they are not geographically “Western.” The Chinese have a long history of imperialism, colonizing many indigenous peoples of Asia. Ask the indigenous Ainu of Japan if colonialism is a disease only of Western nations. In fact, the colonizers and the colonized are spread throughout Asia, the Middle East, the Americas, Africa, Australia and the Pacific, so “Western culture” just doesn’t capture it. I think a more accurate way to put it in today’s world would be “modern industrial technological” culture, but it’s a bit unwieldy. And indigenous cultures have plenty of technology, it’s just different technology. What to do, linguistically? For now, I’ll just say “modern industrial culture.”

The colonial attitude is one of entitlement and superiority. Colonizers feel that because their way of life is superior, they have a right to supplant other ways of life with their own, and to help themselves to the resources of the colonized people without compensation to those people. The colonialism of the modern industrial world has extended to a colonial attitude towards other systems of knowledge. First, the attitude of superiority insists that the scientific knowledge of modern industrial culture is superior to other ways of knowing. Second, modern industrial culture has often acted as if entitled to the benefits of indigenous knowledge (such as pharmaceutical knowledge) without compensating indigenous peoples appropriately or at all.

There is a different model for interactions between indigenous people and scientists, where scientists ask "What can we learn from each other?" and "What can we do for you?" instead of saying, “Here, you need me to teach you,” or “What can I take from you?” Any such relationship has to be based on mutual respect, which means that scientists would have to be open to a world-view in which there are many valid kinds of knowing. How many scientists are truly open to such a view? Well, there’s a few of us, some geneticists, evolutionary biologists, neuroscientists and psychologists.