It is unfortunate that since Thomas Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions science as a cultural phenomenon—what I’ve been referring to as “scientism” and “TheScience™”—has doubled down on the notion that science can be a settled thing, that ultimately, scientific models are the phenomena instead of useful and productive heuristics doing their best to account for the appearances, to make predictions, and to engineer useful technologies. One would have expected that following Koestler, Kuhn, Judson, McGilchrist and those science historians who have added to the project of debunking science myths, the public (and especially those in government) would enjoy a more sober view of science as a deeply troubled sociological and anthropological activity. What I’m calling a “sober view” is, after all, the one we arrive at when turning an objective and scientific eye on the practices of science.
Since the launch of analogy magazine, I’ve been puzzling over how this state of affairs came about in the first place; how a bad religious perspective (afflicted with dogmatism and appeals to scholastic authority) has found expression in popular attitudes toward The Science™.
No doubt the corporatist-consumerist context is paramount. The commercial incentive to market-brand has caused tremendous distortion to our relationship with science. Films, television shows, documentaries, Youtube channels, kids’ books, ads with actors wearing lab coats claiming the imprimatur of The Science™, a plethora of high-production-value astonishments. We’re talking exotic locations and hidden cameras; moving dramas about wildlife narrated by avuncular actors with sonorous and convincing voices; musical scores; scripts full of settled facts and emotional appeal; animations rendered so convincingly, how could you doubt a wavicle?
There’s been a brainwashing effect to this commercial activity. But the commercial side of the equation doesn’t account for all the appearances. It accounts only for the receptive public. How could science itself become bad religion? This question asks that we drop the false myth that science and religion are oppositional forces: the history of their relationship demonstrates an intimate link between the two. With this misconception out of the way, the analogical mind is free to perceive the common ground and the shared problems—the tyranny our ancestors fought to be rid of: an orthodox world of dogma, heresy, book banning, idea banning, and excommunication.
I’ve discussed the will to incorporation as playing a major role in bringing about the demise of science. Briefly, the will to incorporation is the instinct to eat played out analogically on the social scale; it’s the instinct to internalise a grouping of functions, to then close them off, lock them in, and defend the grouping against corruption from outside influences. We can observe this behaviour at the level of chemical bonding, at the level of cellular organisation (the walled cell), at the level of the organism, the family, the tribe, the religion (consider the eucharist), the walled city, the nation, the solar system, and so forth.
Kuhn contends that we are faced with a necessary evil: closing off and rigidification are essential for system productivity. When it comes to science, this state of affairs engenders a problem: that of mistaking the heuristic for the thing in itself, which I correlated via Barfield to idolatry. And along with idolatry comes the subjugation of both the individual and the collective to the doctrines of the model. In other words one comes to serve the model instead of the other way round. That is the defining feature of idolatry after all. The result is an occlusion of the inner world (a kind of emptying out) as followers are forced to conform to (i.e. obey) the figurations.
Many embrace a cult (or severely dogmatic religion) because it relieves them of the trouble of having to manage and navigate life according to their own lights. The appeal of a cult is that it promises to manage your inner life for you. Those who are analogically oriented however find the prospect horrifying.
Were science somehow immune from the process of locking in and closing off, it would be free of the encumbrance of idolatry. As things stand, however, if we are to do justice to ourselves and to science, we must carefully limit the authority of science and promote, via all means, a sober view of science as an evolving, ill-defined enterprise. We must also work to shift our popular attitudes toward and representations of facts and truth. We must turn away from final revelations that demand a sacrifice of our intellectual independence, what Max Weber designated, if you’ll recall from a previous essay on the this subject, “das intellektuelle Opfer”—“the surrender of judgement to the prophet or to the church.” We may now add “. . . or to any pretension of final revelation.”
Another set of appearances I’ve addressed via Iain McGilchrist and Ted Hughes has to do with our left and right brain, our inner and outer worlds, how they are out of balance owing to the pressures of the cult of scientism. The consequences of left brain dominance include irritability, an inability to self-assess, egotism (along with a belief that one is superior), a need to be right, a proclivity to go to great analytical lengths to be right, employing styles of argumentation that rely on irrational strategies mostly meant to demean or insult, and the social complications arising from such behaviour.
Meanwhile emotional lives are hollowed out, one suffers an inability, as J. S. Mill expressed, to inwardly connect with and participate in the world in a fulfilling manner. One comes to reside entirely in the head and the world recedes. How sad to forgo a whole dimension of experience. I wonder how many—being raised in this sterile environment—have never been moved by a sunset. But more urgently, how dangerous! For as we’ve seen (and as Carl Jung pointed out), the archetypes do not go away; the inner world does not shrivel up and vanish; instead it takes on new flesh and finds a means of expression. Unaware of what they are (owing to neglect), we project them into the new paradigm. And they attempt to command us like the gods of old but with renewed vigour, wearing the costumes of their modern appearance as facts and true realities.
The primary thesis I’ve been working to communicate has been that resolution to these sorts of problems demands the application of the analogical mind, a faculty that not only compliments the analytical, but that precedes it. The analogical mind perceives the terms of correlation and delivers it to the analytical mind, then the analogical mind studies the analytical hash and finds new correlatives for exploration. The action is circular so it may be impossible to determine actual precedence in any particular situation, but what we can conclude is that given our present circumstances, it is essential to promote the analogical faculty while at once turning down the volume on the analytical. Exercises in this domain will alleviate much of the suffering and anxiety experienced by those who have been inducted into the probability cult of safety and compliance marketed by TheScience™.
Let it not be one beast alone, but rather an abundant garden sustaining many varieties. Only in that way will humanity continue to thrive and to truly evolve.
The way of analogy is better than the way of analytics because it can synthesise, build bridges, perceive alternatives and because it refuses to become a slave to the plan. The way of analogy sees many plans where the analytical way wears blinders and studies one plan to the exclusion of others, compartmentalising and perceiving strict difference when in fact there are connections and correlations. Sure we could use the dedication of believers in the plan, but we should be evolving past this sort of philistinism. The commitment demanded by our beliefs ought to be treated with some humour.
The whole idea of secularism is to encourage many plans. Imagine each system we design is not only a tool, not only a model, but its own creature, it’s own sort of spider, projecting its analytical web over the world. Let it not be one beast alone, but rather an abundant garden sustaining many varieties. Only in that way will humanity continue to thrive and to truly evolve.
We can likely all agree (well, nearly all) that systems permitting of evolution are better than ones that seek stasis. Our agreement on this issue rests on the implied freedom and progress entailed by evolutionary processes. Most look forward to development, to growing up, setting goals and pursuing them. The perspective does not have to account for all the appearances for us to know that evolutionary systems represent positive progress. For those who nevertheless hesitate to agree that evolution is inherently positive or good, surely they appreciate that it is good in contrast to one paradigm stamping out all those that threaten its hegemony.
To give Darwinism its due, it has managed to popularise the concept of evolution. (And let’s keep in mind that Darwin did not invent the concept; in fact, he kinda messed it up by denying an internal driver or tendency; and let’s remember that he did not believe in self help and self improvement either.) It’s easy to lose sight of the fact that in Darwin’s time, the culture war had much to do with the evolutionary metaphysic competing with the religious metaphysic of a static creation. In the latter paradigm, an unchangeable humanity saddled with original sin was repenting, praying, and purifying itself for salvation, whereas in the evolutionary paradigm, we were adapting to changing circumstances and progressing toward a better humanity. In other words, evolution provided the potential key to a secular morality. A shame the neo-Darwinists had to muck it up with so many misconceptions, especially with their selfist denial of altruism.
If we roll back the unfortunate missteps of Darwinism and perceive human evolution as busying itself with the development of various tools and forms of instrumentation; if we see the human enterprise as one that busies itself populating the world with its own creatures (paradigms, figurations, and models), each with its own creaturely (spidery) perspective; if this is what our evolution is truly about, then our responsibility and ethics must turn upon the ecology of our creations. We must make a point of learning in which environments they flourish and happily reproduce; in which they fail; and in which they seem to succeed, but through toxicity; how they compete; and how we are to manage all these appendages we’ve grafted to ourselves. To ply the language of archetypes: What garden must we build to contain them in a harmonious and fruitful manner?
We live in a growing world and we’re going to need room for many more brainchildren. But I believe that if we recognise our situation—that the lab creatures have escaped (and covid has been let loose, so to speak); and if we recognise that instead of locking down and becoming slaves to the plan, we must open up. . . there’s a chance of cultivating something rich and truly diverse—an already nascent vision far richer than the one we’re entertaining presently in the popular forum. It is the way of analogy.
Asa Boxer’s poetry has garnered several prizes and is included in various anthologies around the world. His books are The Mechanical Bird (Signal, 2007), Skullduggery (Signal, 2011), Friar Biard’s Primer to the New World (Frog Hollow Press, 2013), Etymologies (Anstruther Press, 2016), Field Notes from the Undead (Interludes Press, 2018) and The Narrow Cabinet: A Zombie Chronicle (Guernica, 2022). Boxer is also the founder and editor of analogy magazine.
In keeping with your views here, I see that "Science" magazine reports that of the 1500 "climate policies" so far adopted world-wide, 63, or 4%, reduced emissions. Even when the science that produced these policies is proven ineffective, more such science is funded and put into effect. Science is right, even when it is wrong.
Hi Asa, I've just returned from a long trip abroad that felt revitalizing in many ways and I thought that when I returned I'd be eager to resume confronting many of the cultural and spiritual dilemmas you describe with renewed vigour. But on my return last night, I felt depressed to be back home in a place I've come to despise for its rigid orthodoxies. However, reading your essay this morning has helped return things to their proper perspective, reminding me why I took the trip in the first place, the work I have ahead of me, and that the inspiration I found by visiting different places with different ways of seeing and the work I have to resume now to engage with the world in a meaningful, constructive way is precisely what makes life worth living. I thank you wholeheartedly for that.