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Observations From Post-Structural Philosophy

I don't have a background in archaeology or anthropology; but I don't like what I've seen of those fields so far.

With a background in philosophy, I expect to find the sciences defined by a certain dedication toward truth. What I have instead found, in Canada and in relation to the fields of archaeology and anthropology, is a dedication toward the vested self-interests of those employed in these fields...and a systemic ignorance toward and denial of a body of Aboriginal knowledge that shows most of North American archaeology and anthropology to be either trivial or, simply wrong.

This ignorance and denial, this systemic exclusion, is being justified by an arbitrary and poorly defined division in knowledge between 'science' and 'mythology'. The 'scientific' is granted validity for all of its assertions "in each and every case"; while the 'mythological' is employed as a colorful supplement which is added in "once upon a time".

But what is actually happening here? In fact, a preference for the 'scientific' tends to be a choice that designates the numerically measurable as having the greatest degree of validity when claims as to the nature of truth are being established. Metrical determinations - things that can be assigned a value on an objective, linear scale of measure - are considered to be the paradigm of truth because of their constancy, stability, and verifiability.

Science operates under the idea that only the verifiable is to be included in 'the known'; and toward the ideal that, by including only the verifiable within the known, all major sources of error can be excluded from scientific knowledge. Unfortunately for science, error is not external to thought and so can not be excluded from knowledge by such simplistic means.

Error is implicit in thought's inherent nature, and arises from freedom of choice. Thought and error are forever linked to a common point of origin; they are different things, but they come from the same place and processes.

Limiting knowledge to the objectively measurable does not exclude error from thought; it just excludes the non-metrical from knowledge. That also ends up excluding the conceptual; and so the functional nature of any traditionally oral culture is ignored and excluded as well. This severely limits what knowledge can compose itself from, and ends up producing an impoverished and meager body of information...which can still be as incorrect as any other thought-construct.

Limiting what constitutes valid knowledge also defines validity in knowledge in a very specific way, in that it localizes the power associated with authority with a very specific group of people. In the case before us, that group is (unfortunately) not the First Nations; nor, in archaeology and anthropology, has it ever been the First Nations.

Instead, the power associated with the authority to verify the legitimacy of any knowledge pertaining to the history of the First Nations has been granted to people employed, for the most part and either directly or indirectly, by the governments that have exploited the resources of and oppressed the people of the First Nations for centuries.

And my experience in Canada has been that, rather than verifying the history of the First Nations by learning to read the writing systems of the First Nations, such people who have attained positions of power in the fields of archaeology and anthropology prefer and choose to remain little more than illiterate grave robbers...with rulers.

As if that weren't bad enough, I have also noticed that there is a certain cultishness about archaeology and anthropology here in Canada; and this derives from a tendency in these fields toward a transcendental approach to interpretation.

Such a transcendental approach seeks to separate the realities of Aboriginal culture from the world in which they occur. This approach can be roughly traced: from the racism of early colonists, and their assumptions of superiority over members of the First Nations; to the early missionaries, who corrupted the Aboriginal legends they collected (and translated) by adding biblical elements into those stories; to government sponsored residential schools, which sought to assimilate members of the First Nations through destroying their culture...an end achieved by terrorizing captive First Nations children; to the structural anthropology of Levi-Strauss (and others), who sought to establish an artificial commonality of world mythologies; to modern anthropologists, who 'study' Aboriginal culture in order to write 'objective' papers on such topics.

Throughout, one can find an insistence on the existence of 'objective meaning' which can supposedly be 'extracted' (in other words, interpreted) by anthropologists and archaeologists; and this 'meaning' is supposed to exist transcendentally, over and above the reality of the lives of those it is drawn from. In having been drawn from these lives, this 'meaning' somehow magically acquires a value beyond the lives of those people being so 'studied'. This quest for transcendental meaning is used to justify the entire apparatus of archaeology and anthropology, and to somehow legitimize this process of studying and observing...which usually proceeds without bothering to do anything to help the people being so 'studied'.

In the end, an artificially unified and interpretively transcendental body of knowledge is produced that has no relation to the immediacies holding between the lives it was based upon and the world those lives embrace. A very metrical kind of information is produced (which tends to present statistics rather than lived experiences), which is as 'meaningful' and 'true' as any numbers ever are; but, which is devoid of all the non-metrical immanences holding between people and their world. In short, the differential texture of the conceptual, which variably interweaves people with their world, is left behind in the production of those unified, interpretive structures of meaning that anthropology (in particular) creates over and above (transcending) the lived reality of those that it 'studies'.

Then, to top it all off, these anthropologists often copyright the content of their studies...and inform those that supplied the legends and stories so collected that they no longer have any claim of ownership over stories they have told for their entire lives...and so can no longer use those stories as they might wish!

Thus, one can see that the true nature of this quest for transcendental meaning is indeed metrical, in that it is too often nothing more than the reduction of collected legends and stories into the dollar value of 'information' on a commodity market. Thus, the transcendental approach of anthropology (and archaeology) is simply one of abandoning the conceptually functional immanences of a culture's immediacy with the world, in favor of producing structures of meaning that are marketable in so far as they transcend their origins...or rather, in so far as they can be shifted into the marketplace of anthropology and converted into the conceptual currency of the anthropological (from the conceptual immanence of the culturally functional).

Finally, one can notice anthropologists and archaeologists attempting to convince members of the First Nations that the interests of the First Nations are the same as those of anthropology and archaeology...an idea that has never been true. At best, one could hope to find an archaeologist who's interests were directed by the First Nations. Such a person would probably have be a member of the First Nations.

With the above in mind, I would like to clarify a few points for the anthropological and archaeological communities in Canada:

1) History belongs to everyone. It does not belong to historians; and it certainly does not belong to anthropologists and archaeologists. Being an anthropologist or an archaeologist does not confer the right to determine which aspects of history are and are not disseminated to the general public. Any attempts to make such determinations are inherently political in nature, and can only be realized by the collective intention of people in general...and in this case, the First Nations in particular.

2) The heritage of the First Nations is a living one. The extent to which this heritage is shared determines the degree to which the culture of the First Nations is expressed within world culture. There is a direct correlation between the expression of this heritage and the extent to which the culture of the First Nations is realized in a world-wide context. Any attempts to limit what is "officially" recognized as the heritage of the First Nations also limits the future of First Nations culture, within the context of world culture. Only the First Nations themselves have the right to determine what such limits should or will be.

3) Non-metrical image writing was produced in order to be read. The sheer volume of this type of writing makes it IMPOSSIBLE for every example of it to be collected and examined...except, perhaps, in the minds of anthropologists and archaeologists, who imagine some mythical point in a non-existent future, where every example of non-metrical image writing is simultaneously found and documented (by an anthropologist or an archaeologist, no doubt). Keeping knowledge of this form of writing suppressed is in no one's best interest, EXCEPT for the vested interest of anthropologists and archaeologists in their "academic authority".

4) A general knowledge of non-metrical image writing can not detract from the importance of the First Nations' oral traditions, or living First Nations artists. Quite the opposite is true. Writing is always only a supplement to lived experience, as embodied in this case by the traditional knowledge of First Nations Elders. A general knowledge of non-metrical image writing will simply confirm the importance of the First Nations' oral traditions. Similarly, such knowledge will only enhance the marketability of the work of First Nations artists. The amount of money currently being invested in the work of First Nations artists is but a small fraction of the total amount of money being spent upon artwork in general. A wider knowledge of non-metrical image writing will shift money toward First Nations artists from this overall total, not take money away from them by competing with their work. The historical existence of works by Picasso, Van Gogh, Rembrandt, Michaelangelo, and other great artists does not decrease the amount of money invested in the works of current, non-Aboriginal artists...quite the opposite! It is the existence of such an artistic heritage which to a large extent gives current artwork its value.

About The Conceptual Plane of Immanence

Questions concerning the relationship between scientific functions and philosophic concepts are not new; they can be traced back to the very start of Western philosophy.

As early as with the works of Aristotle, one can see the conceptual movement which shapes Western science taking place.

Here, we begin to see 'the scientific' forming as a methodological approach to inquiry which separates whatever is being studied from all surrounding considerations. Any matter of scientific inquiry is defined through terms contingent upon itself: 'the scientific' becomes that which is isolated for study. In this way, science can define itself through systems of discrete reference; and at this point, science begins to loose its relation to any plane of immanence.

This Aristotlean methodology can be further traced back to Plato, who postulated that every thing and every attribute of every thing has a perfect, transcendental form that exists in and of itself as a universal ideal. Although science is Aristotlean in its methodology, its tendency in seeking to establish universal, ideal laws and forms can be traced back to Platonic philosophy. This is where the transcendental aspects of science originated.

Today, we can see the great strides that science has undertaken through the use of such a basic methodological principle; but, we can also see what has been lost through science's abandonment of the plane of immanence.

Scientific discoveries are treated as if they occur in a vacuum: almost no thought is given to the environmental effects that new discoveries will have. New chemicals are regularly produced without due consideration being given to the effects they will have upon the living organisms that they will inevitably come into contact with. Greenhouse gasses flood the atmosphere, with little thought given to their effect upon global climatic change...until after such changes were documented. Chlorofluoro-carbons and hydochlorofluorocarbons were already well on their way toward shredding the ozone bubble (yes, I know it is commonly referred to as an "ozone layer"; but, I also know that it is very thin and, that the earth is round) before their production was banned. Ecosystems are exploited for economic gain, with no thought given to the loss of the irreplaceable genetic heritage contained within the plants and animals therein. Fish species disappear because of hydro-electric plants, or because of new techniques and technologies introduced in order to make fishing more efficient, and thus profitable. The basic connectivity which characterizes any plane of immanence has been forgotten as the reference systems of science present everything as separate and separable from any environmental context.

In the past few decades, this has begun to change; but it has changed through a renewed understanding of environmental connectivity, not through a reassessment of scientific methodology.

If there is one thing we can and should learn from non-metrical image writing, it is a new understanding of what environmental connectivity truly means. There is nothing inherently unscientific about such an understanding, which simply entails a better grasp of how concepts are formed and, the influence such formation has upon the way we think about things. Science does not need concepts in order to think the functions if defines; but it does need concepts in order to understand how these functions relate to the earth as the place that they occur.

Gaining an understanding of the nature of the conceptual plane of immanence (which Western science abandoned so long ago) doesn't alter scientific functions; but it does produce a greater respect for how these functions alter the inherent nature of those territories that we define for ourselves, through where and how we live upon this earth.

The fundamental problem with the functional approach generally favored by science lies in its reliance upon relativities. In order for anything to be defined as a relative component within a systemization of knowledge, it must be made relative TO something; it must be relativized through an arbitrary and co-relational system of measure (or categorization). Thus, throughout science we find 'virtual (or zero) points' which anchor various types of gauge theories; in doing this, science is able to define and display its various subject matters in accordance with easily definable metrical variances. The subject matters which science so defines are then also easily assessed in economic terms.

Here, the nature of the territories we define for ourselves, through our lived experiences upon this earth, change: these territories become a multitude of isolated referential planes upon which scientific functions can be defined, rather than existential expressions of what living in the world entails.

Simply, in relativizing information in accordance with the virtual points used to structure theory, knowledge is made transcendent: it must conform to theory before it conforms to the world, and conforming to theory becomes a more important criteria for assessing scientific knowledge than conforming to the reality of life within this earth's ecosystems. Thus, what our knowledge about the world gains in specificity, it looses in immanence with the world.

Although our present state of scientific knowledge presents the greatest degree of specificity ever achieved, it has also created the highest level of abstraction from the world; and consequently, it has little or no respect for the interconnective immanence of the earth. The result? Never has our species been so perilously close to loosing its place in the world, and its ability to remain within the world as an authenticly, interconnect aspect of the world. We are actually in growing danger of loosing an inhabitable world altogether...through our own actions, and inactions.

Conceptually, this has already begun: now, instead of having a world to live in, we are slowly being re-positioned within a "global economy".

The list of environmental degradations which threaten our species' survival is long and growing; and, since the 1950's, it has been expanding on a molecular level of interaction. Of the 75,000 industrial chemicals registered with the American Environmental Protection Agency, only about eight to ten percent have been tested for possible effects upon fetal and pediatric development. At the same time, rates for childhood brain tumors have risen 40%. Of the 3,500 chemicals in high volume commercial use, less than half have been tested for toxicity (and there are a lot of other things that should be tested for in addition to that). Studies into the effects of random chemical combinations are almost non-existent.

Do not think by this that I personally have an 'anti-scientific' bias. Far from it! My stance is, instead, pro-philosophy. I'm not advocating any sort of revisionistic return to myth and whim; in fact, I find that too much of science is too mythic as it is.

I would welcome the day when metaphor could be extinguished from science entirely, to be replaced by a descriptive phenomenology that is predicated upon event signatures (durations as intensive ordinates).

But, metaphor is firmly entrenched throughout science (and philosophy, for that matter). The millenia long reign of organized religion and its hierarchical power structures long ago made metaphor - talking about things by describing them as things that they are not (instead of describing them as they are or, at least, appear to be) - a descriptive norm; perhaps, due to its safety value under such conditions, metaphor has actually been naturally selected for (over much less than 10,000 years; so, maybe there is still hope).

It is ironic that science so often pits itself against 'metaphysics' and 'philosophy', as the image it holds of mythology and superstition, yet is unable of its own accord and volition to free itself from the essence of the very things it sets itself against...because it is unable to see its own structural affinity with transcendentalism and metaphor.

Which brings me back to the main point I would like to make: in their intimate connectivity to and with the world, the oral traditions of Aboriginal Peoples are often more 'scientific' than the disciplines that seek to displace their legitimacy with 'modern understanding'. This is particularly true when one factors in the range of temporal variances, as intensive ordinates, that Aboriginal languages have at their disposal. Most of the cases in which scientists have dismissed the observations made by Aboriginal Peoples as 'unscientific' have one thing in common: THESE SCIENTISTS DON'T KNOW WHAT THE ABORIGINAL PEOPLE ARE TALKING ABOUT, AND HAVEN'T BOTHERED TO FIND OUT BY ASKING.

What really bothers me, though, is the fact that archaeology and anthropology function in a way that is designed to allow non-Aboriginals access to First Nations culture...without ever meeting any members of the First Nations. That is what museums were designed to do. This has allowed non-Aboriginals to maintain a 'propriatry'-type relationship with regard to the First Nations, and has prevented people from becoming familiar with the kinds of problems this relationship has imposed on Aboriginal People.

Who's interests has that served?

Nothing illustrates this point better than the kind of media commentary that arises with Aboriginal issues in Canada.

It is not at all uncommon to hear news commentators remarking about "the problems facing our Indians..." as if Aboriginal People were "owned" by the rest of Canada. What really needs to be changed here is the mindset that lets people feel it is okay to think about the First Nations as "Canadian objects-to-be-owned", like trees or land or, the sacred objects of Aboriginal culture found in museums across Canada.

This will only change when the First Nations have achieved self-determination and again control THEIR OWN FUTURES.

Through non-metrical image writing, an opportunity exists to re-gain an understanding of the world's plane of immanence which was lost with the dawn of Western science. The first step in this direction is one whereby this form of image writing is accepted and appreciated for what it is in its own right, rather than as what archaeology and anthropology would make of it. The oral traditions of the First Nations developed as mechanisms through which people were kept alive and well in the world...balanced with keeping the world intact, as a place where people CAN live; Western science, on the other hand, has progressively become more and more dedicated toward directing flows of money into and through itself.

So, to members of Canada's anthropological and archaeological community, I would like to say this: let me know when I am being 'scientific' enough for you, and I will let you know when you are being philosophical enough for me.

Oh: and you might want to have another look at just where the concepts you do use come from; because what I have seen so far makes them very difficult to stomach.

And I will not work with people who have such a sickening approach to others.

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