by Michael Hiltzik, Los Angeles Times, March 9, 2014
There are many rich and powerful people throughout the
world, especially in the fields of politics, business, and religion, who work
very hard to undermine Humankind's ability to think clearly and independently.
Being skeptical, using reason and logic, and placing high value on scientific
knowledge are portrayed as threats to the well-being of members of the working class, whose votes and support they need, to the nation, to the national culture, and sometimes to the whole of civilization. What they fear most, however, is the harm critical independent thinking may do to their maintaining and increasing their power and wealth. Conservative political, economic, and religious leaders in the US and elsewhere have developed and perfected a way of undermining such
freethinking - plant seeds of doubt about science and couple this with their
peculiar notions of patriotism and freedom, as explained in the above article.
This is not a new approach. That is, the use of governmental and
economic power (including the use and threat of military force) combined with religious indoctrination to subdue and exploit people and their resources has many historical precedents. In
the West, for example, a version of it was adopted as the 19th century strategy for the
European colonization of Africa. Those who governed, owned the deep coffers of commerce, and purveyed the Christian religion in Europe, pushed their way into Africa, justified and emboldened by their
conviction of the superiority of their values, beliefs, behaviors, and technology.
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