Our science and our technology are based on the belief that an understanding of nature implies domination of nature by man. I use the word man here because I am talking about a very important connection between the mechanistic worldview in science and the patriarchal value system, the male tendency of wanting to control everything. In the history of Western science and philosophy this connection is personified by Francis Bacon who, in the seventeenth century, advocated the new empirical method of science in passionate and often outright vicious terms. Nature has to be ‘hounded in her wanderings,’ wrote Bacon, ‘bound into service’ and made a ‘slave’. She is to be ‘put in constraint,’ and the aim of the scientists is to ‘torture nature’s secrets from her’.
"(...) My daughter, she has no use for night runners. You know, her first language is not Luo. Not even Swahili. It is english. When I listen to her talk with her friends, it sounds like gibberish to me. They take bits and pieces of everything - English, Swahili, German, Luo. Sometimes, I get fed up with this. Learn to speak one language properly, I tell them." Rukia laughed to herself. "But I am beggining to resign myself - there's nothing really to do. They live in a mixed-up world. It's just as well, I suppose. In the end, I'm less interested in a daughter who's authentically African than one who is authentically herself." It was getting late; we thanked Rukia for her hospitality and went on our way. But her words would stay with me, bringing into focus my own lingering questions.
Comentários
Gostava de perceber até que ponto o Capra tem razão, ou se o Francis Bacon não estaria só a ser poético, ou qualquer coisa assim.