On the ethnocentricity of scientistic logic

Abstract

The specific strategies of imperialism change and "adapt ," but these are mere historical variations on a consistent theme: the socio-political control and economic exploitation of proletarian, peasant, and primitive peoples by industrial, metropolitan, and state societal interests [ 1 ]. The fact that acculturation has been described in palatable, even attractive, terms ("development," "progress," "modernization," etc.) disguises but in no way changes the concrete historical reality of continued domination. Here, I shall examine one important aspect o f "civilized" imperialism: its logic. Specifically, I will delineate and criticize the nature and implications of what I call scientistic rationality (and its social counter-part, technocentrism) [2]. I will show that this particular form of reasoning reveals cognitive interests which complement and abet the socio-economic interests of Western imperialism. I will also attempt to offer a radical alternative to scientistic logic and technocentrism, one more in keeping with what I understand to be the purpose of anthropological inquiry. In choosing a "theoretical" focus, I am not challenging the explanatory primacy of the socio-logical genesis of scientism and technocentrism [3]. I am but suggesting that Western imperialism has an intellectual arm (which in many ways defines it as a distinctive phenom-