Authoritarianism and Scientific Elitism

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Plato in his Republic celebrates the state lucky enough to be ruled by philosopher-kings, lovers of wisdom who avoid both the lure of money and military glory, and the call of the mob, governing by expertise, intelligence, and not a little Skinnerian behavioral modification. Many scientists, perceiving fundamental shortcomings in democratic processes, find themselves ideally suited to this role.

History, however, indicates that, while most authoritarianism is unfortunate, scientific and technocratic authoritarianism is even more so. This is especially true in a world increasingly characterized by new and unanticipated emergent behaviors that arise from integrated human/natural/built complex adaptive systems reflecting a profound multiculturalism.

The inclination towards technocratic authoritarianism arises from the convergence of several factors. One is resurgence of a longstanding feeling among some environmentalists and environmental scientists that the scale and scope of environmental problems, especially climate change, illustrate an inherent failure mode of liberal democracy. Thus, it is argued, a government of experts with authoritarian powers able to rapidly implement the draconian policies necessary to achieve environmental goals is necessary (cf. the new book, >The Climate Change Challenge and the Failure of Democracy," by Shearman and Smith).

This is not a new strand of scientism: as Garrett Hardin put it in an interesting but forgotten 1968 book, The Voyage of the Spaceship Beagle, "mutual coercion, mutually agreed upon." That book, written at the height of hysteria about human population growth, concluded that voluntary childbirth is obsolete and immoral. The novel that was commingled with the tract ended with technological civilization destroying itself (because it didn't listen to ecologists, who are uniquely able to determine what ends the "mutual coercion" should reflect).

The villain, Sinjon, is in fact so identified because he prevents the humane killing of many human beings, rather than their inevitable slower and more painful death as a result of population pressure. Recall that in the event the Green Revolution, an integrated technological advance, negated the "inevitable” global mass famine.

The point is not that environmental perturbations, such as climate change and population pressures, aren't important issues requiring appropriate policy responses, nor is it that scientists shouldn't speak out on important issues. Nor, for that matter, is frustration with the political process not understandable. It is that a close and intimate relationship with things as they are (which scientists understand), combined with very little knowledge of economic or technological history, and thus the transformative dynamics of technology over time (which scientists don't understand very well at all), combined with a frustration at the ignorance of the masses, can lead to a strong authoritarian bent. No wonder some scientists readily see themselves as appropriate philosopher-kings.

More subtly, the scientific enterprise encourages a worldview that is heavily weighted towards physical systems, rather than human systems and, at least since the Enlightenment, has been increasingly alienated from social sciences, theology, and metaphysics. Moreover, the undeniable strength and effectiveness of observation-based and experimental knowledge epitomized by the scientific method generates an inflated belief in scientific authority across all domains, not just those amenable to such approaches.

In particular, most physical scientists are prone to the category mistake of assuming that their quantitative methodologies and insight, appropriate for physical and natural systems, adequately explain systems dominated by human behaviors. The latter, however, are far more complex because of their reflexivity, intentionality, and profoundly different ontological frameworks. A salt marsh, observed, remains a salt marsh; a city, observed, changes as a result of observation. Few alpine ecosystems throw up a Milosevic.

Scientists are accordingly prone to overestimate their insight and epistemological prowess, especially when it comes to complex social systems. Thus, one often finds scientists or engineers crafting models that purport to include and predict human behavior, either implicitly or explicitly. While cause for amusement among social scientists, these are often expensive failures, especially when policymakers, deferring to scientific authority, adopt them blindly (the 1960's effort to apply systems engineering to urban social problems being a good example).

Thus, scientific and technological hubris, combined with access to power and a weakening of liberal democracy has not in the past led to benign philosopher-kings but, as James Scott points out in his excellent book Seeing Like A State, tragedy and oppression on a massive scale: the Great Leap Forward, Soviet collectivization, compulsory villagization in Mozambique and Tanzania. Climate change is indeed a challenge, but for reasons both obvious and deeply ontological, environmentalists and environmental scientists as philosopher-kings is a questionable response.