One of the sillier aspects of DEI/critical theory is the erosion of reason and rationality in the cause of righting “oppression.”
We’ve seen this with the gender movement, in particular; less known is how it’s creeping into hard sciences like astronomy.
For instance, remember last summer when an “indigenous scholars” group warned that listening — yes, just listening — for alien civilizations could be viewed as “eavesdropping” or “surveillance” (do we have the aliens’ permission)?
What about the Canadian government’s efforts at “decolonizing light“? Or the Stanford University academic who claimed efforts to colonize Mars are “patriarchal” and “another example of male entitlement”? Etc. …
Now, Wesleyan University Dean of Social Sciences Mary-Jane Rubenstein, a “philosopher of science and religion” (who’s also affiliated with the school’s Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Program), says she’s noticed how “many of the factors that drove European Christian imperialism” have been put to use in “high-speed, high-tech forms.”
Rubenstein wonders if “colonial practices” like “exploitation of environmental resources and the destruction of landscapes,” all “in the name of ideals such as destiny, civilization and the salvation of humanity,” will be part of man’s expansion into space.
Of course, we’re reasonably sure that, especially in our own solar system, there is no life — not even microbes — about which to worry. Hence, what’s the big deal if we help save Earth by exploiting Mars, Mercury, the asteroid belt, etc. for mineral and other resources?
To her credit, Rubenstein notes that Mars Society President Robert Zubrin has made this exact case. In a 2020 op-ed, Zubrin ripped a “manifesto” from a NASA DEI — diversity, equity, and inclusion — group which had argued “we must actively work to prevent capitalist extraction on other worlds.”
Such “brilliantly demonstrates how the ideologies responsible for the destruction of university liberal-arts education can be put to work to abort space exploration as well,” Zubrin wrote.
Zubrin noted that since the DEI group makes no sense on a scientific basis, it has to resort to “a combination of ancient pantheistic mysticism and postmodern socialist thought” — such as stating that even though there is no evidence of even microbes on planets such as Mars, “harming [them] would be as immoral as anything that was done to Native Americans or Africans.”
But Rubenstein (pictured) says various Indigenous beliefs “stand in stark contrast with many in the industry’s insistence that space is empty and inanimate.”
These include a group of Australian natives who say their ancestors “guide human life from their home in the galaxy” (and that artificial satellites are a danger to this “relationship”), Inuit who claim their ancestors actually live on “celestial bodies,” and Navajo who hold Earth’s moon as sacred.
“Secular space enthusiasts do not need to agree that outer space is populated, animate or sacred in order to treat it with the care and respect Indigenous communities are requesting from the industry,” Rubenstein says.
Indeed, in his review of Rubenstein’s book “Astrotopia: The Dangerous Religion of the Corporate Space Race,” Vox.com’s Sigal Samuel noted “in fact, some believe these celestial bodies should have fundamental rights of their own.”
So … critical post-modernists would have humans prioritize Natives’ beliefs in the exploration of (lifeless) space … over those of European Christians?
We should forego extracting precious minerals from asteroids, comets, and neighboring planets … because they all have some sort of “pantheistic mystical” Bill of Rights?
Just something else to ponder the next time the Left tells you they’re the “party of science.”
