The author refers to something I'm familiar with: "WEIRD" people — "Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich and Democratic." To me, the very formulation of this term suggests an implied bias against the people it purports to describe.
But I'm sympathetic to the idea that there are different ways of perceiving the world. The differences between myself and my wife in our perceptions often make that clear. So the idea that there are cultural or group differences in the perception of the world is reasonable. I'm just not convinced that any potential integration of "WEIRD" and indigenous "ways of knowing" is a *good* idea.
Scientific inquiry has expanded human knowledge about the greater universe in ways that "indigenous ways of knowing" could never match.
Scientific inquiry could do this only by "separating the chaff from the wheat" in order to reach the reductive "essences" of phenomena, which could then be reorganized into an "empirical whole" that is more explanatory of the greater reality.
We may not like what it shows — that we are not the center of a reality in a fundamentally indifferent universe — but that may be the most important thing to learn from "WEIRD" ways of inquiry.
I know it's a well-known concept. I maintain that the word "weird" is considered a disparaging term by almost everyone, and using it to label Western culture or Western "ways of knowing" has clearly negative implications.
The difficulty with your first case cited is that the Micmac elder was looking at an upstream variable, turbidity, which the scientists had overlooked (allegedly), but he was treating it as an *outcome* relevant in its own right. The scientists were looking at objective evidence of fish health as the relevant outcome, not at the turbidity of the water they swim in. To the Indians, turbidity is a politically useful outcome even if it has no relation to fish health -- the fish are healthy even if the river water is more turbid -- because it gives them ammunition to oppose hydroelectric development on the rivers. (That's why the elders went there in the first place.) By opposing it, they extract more rent from the hydro industry in exchange for their "consent" for the river being made more turbid. The fact that the fish are fine is irrelevant politically. River turbidity becomes an outcome that they, as "stewards" of the river, must be compensated monetarily for. If the river wasn't more turbid, they would find some other "harm" under the ways of knowing rubric to agitate with.
This political anti-settler rent-seeking activism that permeates our relations with indigenous people in Canada is what poisons any well-intentioned efforts by scientists to be open-minded about this sort of thing, unless they are allies of the "1492LandBack" movement. Many are, or profess to be in order to get federal grants, enthusiastically incanting their land acknowledgements and fealty to indigenous mumbo-jumbo when they present their work.
I also question whether any indigenous polity in Canada actually believes in indigenous ways of knowing beyond the straight-forward trial and error about when to set weirs to catch eels. All have been educated to the primary level in Canadian schools. Few could survive in the true wilderness any longer than I could. Most who live on Reserves drop out of high school and get trapped in the welfare culture but the ones who have made much of themselves have gone to university or trade school where they were surrounded by WEIRDness and work in the normal capitalist wage economy. Nearly all converted to Christianity 350 years ago and very few still believe in traditional animistic gods and creation legends. What I think we are seeing with these ways of knowing claims is the resuscitation of old fairy tales and their repurposing for political activist purposes. We settlers have been guilted into sacralizing these purported beliefs so as not to appear racist and to further the cause of "reconciliation" with its ever-moving goalposts. It seems easier and safer to go along than to debunk any of this, the way a heretical idea in "western" science would be.
Haha great article. One of the few writings on HBD I would feel comfortable sharing with my left wing, “WEIRD” acquaintances.
Wasn’t it Michael Polanyi who wrote on Tacit Knowledge?
Typo, now fixed. Thanks.
—NC
The author refers to something I'm familiar with: "WEIRD" people — "Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich and Democratic." To me, the very formulation of this term suggests an implied bias against the people it purports to describe.
But I'm sympathetic to the idea that there are different ways of perceiving the world. The differences between myself and my wife in our perceptions often make that clear. So the idea that there are cultural or group differences in the perception of the world is reasonable. I'm just not convinced that any potential integration of "WEIRD" and indigenous "ways of knowing" is a *good* idea.
Scientific inquiry has expanded human knowledge about the greater universe in ways that "indigenous ways of knowing" could never match.
Scientific inquiry could do this only by "separating the chaff from the wheat" in order to reach the reductive "essences" of phenomena, which could then be reorganized into an "empirical whole" that is more explanatory of the greater reality.
We may not like what it shows — that we are not the center of a reality in a fundamentally indifferent universe — but that may be the most important thing to learn from "WEIRD" ways of inquiry.
Anyway, it's an interesting essay.
"WEIRD" is a well-known scientific concept — it is not anti-Western.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_WEIRDest_People_in_the_World
—NC
I know it's a well-known concept. I maintain that the word "weird" is considered a disparaging term by almost everyone, and using it to label Western culture or Western "ways of knowing" has clearly negative implications.
But that wasn't even my main point.
Interesting article and perspective.
Two eyes are better than one.
But only if they are focused on the same thing. Two-eyed seeing is a metaphor, a figure of speech, not an actual way of examining the world.
The article might have been alright but my left-brain colluded with my right-wing self to click off the article before the fourth paragraph had ended.
It's worth reading the whole thing.
—NC
Okay, you've persuaded me.
The difficulty with your first case cited is that the Micmac elder was looking at an upstream variable, turbidity, which the scientists had overlooked (allegedly), but he was treating it as an *outcome* relevant in its own right. The scientists were looking at objective evidence of fish health as the relevant outcome, not at the turbidity of the water they swim in. To the Indians, turbidity is a politically useful outcome even if it has no relation to fish health -- the fish are healthy even if the river water is more turbid -- because it gives them ammunition to oppose hydroelectric development on the rivers. (That's why the elders went there in the first place.) By opposing it, they extract more rent from the hydro industry in exchange for their "consent" for the river being made more turbid. The fact that the fish are fine is irrelevant politically. River turbidity becomes an outcome that they, as "stewards" of the river, must be compensated monetarily for. If the river wasn't more turbid, they would find some other "harm" under the ways of knowing rubric to agitate with.
This political anti-settler rent-seeking activism that permeates our relations with indigenous people in Canada is what poisons any well-intentioned efforts by scientists to be open-minded about this sort of thing, unless they are allies of the "1492LandBack" movement. Many are, or profess to be in order to get federal grants, enthusiastically incanting their land acknowledgements and fealty to indigenous mumbo-jumbo when they present their work.
I also question whether any indigenous polity in Canada actually believes in indigenous ways of knowing beyond the straight-forward trial and error about when to set weirs to catch eels. All have been educated to the primary level in Canadian schools. Few could survive in the true wilderness any longer than I could. Most who live on Reserves drop out of high school and get trapped in the welfare culture but the ones who have made much of themselves have gone to university or trade school where they were surrounded by WEIRDness and work in the normal capitalist wage economy. Nearly all converted to Christianity 350 years ago and very few still believe in traditional animistic gods and creation legends. What I think we are seeing with these ways of knowing claims is the resuscitation of old fairy tales and their repurposing for political activist purposes. We settlers have been guilted into sacralizing these purported beliefs so as not to appear racist and to further the cause of "reconciliation" with its ever-moving goalposts. It seems easier and safer to go along than to debunk any of this, the way a heretical idea in "western" science would be.
Only in Canada, you say? Pity.