Trying to Untangle Anarchist Attacks On Scientists

bricko writes with an analysis at New Scientist of recent violence by self-described anarchists against scientists or scientific establishments, including the non-fatal shooting in Genoa in May of the head of a nuclear energy company. That attack "was the latest in a series of alleged anarchist attacks on scientists and engineers, including the attempted bombing of nanotechnology labs in Switzerland and Mexico. This wave of politically motivated violence has raised the question: why do anarchists hate science? Beyond the unsubtle threat of brute force, there are deeper issues that merit attention." The "hate science" line is just a line; the author is under no illusion that there is a single conspiracy, or that all who claim the "anarchist" mantle have identical (or even similar) views of science. "Despite the recent attacks and propaganda, anarchists actually have a complex relationship with science and technology. Some leading figures from anarchist history were scientists, notably Russian biologist Peter Kropotkin. Many hacktivists are anarchists who embrace technology; fiction authors sometimes look toward a future 'technotopia' based on anarchist ideals."

Comments

Re:Anonymous is against scientists now?

[Trepidity]

The ancom line against property is hardly even really radical, historically. They have basically the same view that Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin had: that personal possessions are natural property in a sense, but beyond that, e.g. when we're talking about owning hundreds of acres of land as an absentee landlord, "property" is a social construct that can only exist through the power of the state, and should be judged by its effects.

Here's Benjamin Franklin, one of the more prominent early American scientists, with the view that you allege "grates on common sense to such an extent that no sane person can realistically believe in and subscribe to it":

All the property that is necessay to a man for the conservation of the individual and the propagation of the species is his natural right, which none can justly deprive him of; but all property superfluous to such purposes is the property of the public, who by their laws have created it, and who may therefore by other laws dispose of it whenever the welfare of the public shall demand such a disposition.

It's interesting that this was already evident to people who thought carefully about the matter in the late 18th century, before Proudhon and the more in-depth anarchist critique of property even came on the scene.

The main differences between Franklin and anarchists are on policy grounds, not philosophical grounds. Franklin was basically a moderate liberal, who thought that, although property is a state-created fiction, it's a useful fiction to a certain extent, so long as we ensure that it's instituted for the benefit of the general public. Whereas, anarchists think it's a harmful fiction.