Thinking about reality from different angles: the difficult path of interdisciplinarity

 

 

 

I think that the humanistic dimension of science can never cease to be the constitutive basis of science in general. By science I mean both all the specializations that emerged, after the Renaissance, towards the study of nature, and those that emerged towards the study of the humanities in general. Therefore, from the beginning, there was a cleavage between the natural and the social in the development of science. However, the scientific spirit, as we understand it today, emerges first in the subdivisions that devoted themselves to the study of nature, while the specializations of humanistic knowledge tended to be restricted to philosophy in general before the Industrial Revolution in the eighteenth century. This means that scientific physics has been detaching itself from philosophy since the end of the Renaissance and, from it, the other sciences of nature, such as chemistry and biology. It was only with the development of the Industrial Revolution, in its different phases, that the "sciences of man" began to be structured beyond philosophy itself.

 

As the philosophical totality of thinking about the world and oneself is disaggregated by the specialization of partial knowledge about concrete reality, the fragmentation of scientific knowledge is also losing the notion of everything that existed before with the Renaissance (and in Greece classical). Not that resistance to the fragmentation of knowledge has not occurred to the detriment of the dialectical unity of reason, as we can see in Marx's work, but the dominant tendency in capitalist society, with the development of productive forces in general (including the productive forces of the intellect) it was in the sense of fragmentation and dispersion, in such a way that the ancient humanist and holistic tradition of knowledge, present in the Renaissance, is losing ground in favor of partialities that no longer communicate. 

 

This process was also implanted in the social sciences, in such a way that, at the end of the 20th century, there were already great difficulties in dialogue and connection of partial social sciences (with the presence of concepts, empirical knowledge and vast critical fortunes accumulated in works of theoretical quality of various social scientists, in various internal currents and in various partial social sciences, such as sociology, economics, anthropology and history). In my opinion, this is especially damaging to the unity of human knowledge and to the very objective of science, which should not be alienated from improving the quality of life of human beings in general. Of course I know that capitalism tends to emphasize the alienation of scientific knowledge itself to the detriment of society as a whole (because, sometimes, it tends to treat, at least in its most truculent face and accustomed to the first two Industrial Revolutions, science itself as a basic input for the reproduction of capital as a "thing" that impersonally governs the destinies of society). However, I also know that the social and political movements that oppose capitalism in its most truculent and exploitative face, permanently fight for the resumption of the humanistic basis of science itself as a common good of society (sometimes with advances, sometimes with retreats ).

 

It is for these reasons that I want to focus now, a little, specifically on the humanistic basis of the social sciences in general. That is, for example, the horizons of empirical, historiographical and theoretical knowledge of those who only have the "strictly economic" as a parameter are shortsighted to see other dimensions of socioeconomic dynamics that are not accustomed to quantification and statistics._cc781905-5cde-3194 -bb3b-136bad5cf58d_ That is, they tend to think of the economic as a strictly objective dimension of reality, a tendency that has the impulse to dissolve the cultural and political as realities that are also objective (but with their subjective components) and dialectics that are closely associated with " economic fact" in itself. For this very reason, the social and political spheres tend to be overlooked in the analysis of the structure and economic situation, as if they were not intimately associated with the dynamics of the economy itself. This causes certain difficulties with the analysis itself, as it generates certain blurred and unreal images in its representations of reality (which always seems to be much more dynamic and contradictory than it appears to be in such theoretical representations).

 

On the other hand, the horizons of theoretical and empirical knowledge of those who only have a vision based on the social or political dimension, as a parameter, are also myopic to see the economic dimension without which the sociopolitical would not exist by itself (without producing the material elements of life, with all the implications that this entails, there is no way to exist and do politics). This can lead to a hypertrophy of the social or political dimension, in the analysis of these scientists, as if they could exist by themselves, independently of economic considerations (which is not possible). Therefore, it is not a question of a simplistic vulgar materialism (supposedly Marxist and Leninist) that we affirm, as if politics and social phenomena were just mechanical reflections of economic facts in the strict sense. This is not what Marx wrote, let alone other social scientists who were not Marxists. What he demonstrated is that there was indeed an immanent and dialectical relationship between economic phenomena themselves and social and political life, in such a way that, even though each of these spheres may have its autonomy vis-à-vis the others, it is the economic element that guarantees (and limits) the real basis of existence of any society, throughout history. Not that it is the economic, in itself, that consciously interferes in the social and political spheres of a society, because, after all, machines do not think, nor tools, much less the earth; who thinks and acts is the human being, who works, lives, relates with others and with himself, in a certain social, economic and political structure.

 

This means that it is the human being, within clear material constraints that restrict his freedom of choice, who will shape, consciously or unconsciously, the social relations and economic facts in which he is inserted. Of course, in a capitalist and modern society, he does not do it individually, or in small groups, but through the social and political relationships he establishes between himself and his peers (of social class, specific job category, or within his social or geographical group, within their family structures). Contrary to what Mrs Thatcher, a fundamentalist neoliberal fanatic, said, there are no individuals but societies (starting with the simple fact that no one can be born from nothing, but from a father and a mother who, in turn, also they have parents, brothers and a thousand similar ones who make up with them the society that pre-exists each and every individual).

 

The challenge originally launched by Marx, but not only by him but by other social scientists as well, since the 19th century, is to think of societies as an intimately articulated whole. Their contribution was to establish solid methodological principles, both for the analysis of the concrete reality, and for exposing the knowledge acquired with this previous analysis, through what is theoretically exposed, in order to feed back the previous movement of curiosity/challenge problematizing and transforming of the socioeconomic and political dynamics in which the social scientist himself is immersed (Marx called this praxis).

 

As the historical reality in which we live, both in the Western and Eastern worlds, in the middle of the 21st century, is increasingly complex, one cannot have the illusion that any social scientist can really carry out, alone, a total analysis of socioeconomic and political phenomena, in their complex historical process. Therefore, it is impossible that there is not an equally complex division of intellectual labor among social scientists. That is, there is no harm in certain social scientists specializing in the study of economic, social and political (or anthropological) aspects, or in the study of the historical process itself (even if maintaining the focus on the economic, social, political or cultural). It is impossible, given the level of depth of the social sciences themselves at the current stage of development in which they are found, to think that a single social scientist can not only master all possible knowledge about his own specific area, but, even worse, encompass all the other dimensions of socioeconomic, political and historical phenomena. But it is possible to think that there may be a collective effort of permanent rapprochement with the other related areas of knowledge, at least within the same area of scientific and social investigation.

 

After all, with the Third Industrial Revolution, the natural sciences and the social sciences had to come together in a more systematic way, to prevent alienated and alienating ways of thinking and producing the real from trampling us all. It is not computerized machines that will assume, more and more, the role of men in the direction of economic and productive forces; but the human beings for whom (and from whom) science was born (the advancement of science is worthless if it is not for the improvement of the quality of life of the human community).

 

Alberto Nasiasene

Jaguariúna, August 31, 2013

 

1. Levi-Strauss did numerous field research in central Brazil and the Amazon when he was a professor at USP and founded methodological structuralism . As he himself said, it was Brazil that taught him to be an anthropologist and, in a way, his academic and scientific prestige was created here in our São Paulo and Brazilian soil (thanks to the Brazilian indigenous societies and their cultures, from which he absorbed the elements essential structural structures, Claude, Levi-Strauss became one of the greatest anthropologists, whether the postmodern interpretivists of the 20th century like it or not, and this, thanks to Brazil).

 

2.  I am not saying that social science should only be done from a single path, but that it also has to be a generous dialogue with its own "object of study" (which , evidently, is not a mere object, but a subject full of human dignity that needs to be shared with the researcher himself). That is why I am happy to see indigenous peoples themselves appropriating everything the anthropological knowledge generated about them by researchers of European origin, even if indirectly (as is the case of Brazilian anthropologists). Even more, I see with great joy the movement carried out by many indigenous people who become anthropologists themselves (and can dialogue, critically, with the works of European anthropologists who made their academic careers thanks to the study of their own indigenous cultures). On the other hand, I see that anthropology is making its own self-criticism and creating ethical and methodological means of dialoguing, on an equal basis, with indigenous peoples, without subjecting them to the cold domain of a dehumanized science. After all, the most ethical thing is for the scientific knowledge generated about indigenous peoples to be returned to these peoples.

 

 

Orchids of the Atlantic Forest as richness still poorly dimensioned

 

It comes from the colonial period, not because of the Indians, but because of the ignorant colonized mentality of the Portuguese colonists (and I want to clarify that not because they were Portuguese, because the other Europeans also had the same mentality), the ignorance regarding the economic potential of their own species found in our biomes. Not by chance, the first product of colonial agribusiness was a vegetable of Indian origin, sugar cane. Of course, I don't want to ignore the mercantile context of the time and project present values onto it. It is not about that, but to point to a concrete fact that does not come from now, our systematic ignorance of the economic potential of our own biodiversity.

 

It is not by chance that the Atlantic Forest has been so unceremoniously devastated in these five centuries of occupation of this territory of Pindorama. Worse yet, it was devastated by setting fire and demolishing values that, if traded, would have yielded as much or more than the gold taken from the mines. The settlers, slaves and mestizos under his command saw no use either in the trees and bushes, or in the immense fauna existing in the Atlantic Forest that they found on the Brazilian coast (but the Caiçara population must be excluded from this predatory relationship with the forest). They preferred to cut down to plant sugarcane, for example, and then coffee. Only, by doing this (giving a new degrading interpretation of the indigenous practices of coivara, which was never on such a scale, much less to plant large areas with a single exotic species, with the aim of exporting it), they were throwing away an incalculable wealth.

 

Not by chance, for example, Germany [1] (a country that would have a powerful chemical industry in the 19th century) would be so interested in researching our biomes, following the path of a Von Martius, for example. This Bavarian naturalist, who joined D. Leopoldina's entourage when she came to Brazil to marry D. Pedro I, spent three years researching our biomes, but what he did was not scientific research_cc781905-5cde-3194-bb3b- 136bad5cf58d_supposedly "disinterested" as one might suppose today, for "love of science" in itself (not that he was not a great lover of the progress of botanical knowledge in his time and not that he did not become the great classic precursor of modern botany that is practiced today in the 21st century); much less with a preservationist interest that is typical of contemporary environmentalists, but not of contemporary naturalists. That is, at the same time that he was researching, in his expeditions into Brazil (the Germans had little knowledge of the economic potential of the interior of South America and wanted to catch up with their Iberian, British and French competitors), he was also selecting , packing them in cans and sending specimens and more specimens of both our flora and fauna to the German botanical gardens (in this case, mainly the one in Munich).

 

While here, on this side of the Atlantic, little was known about the value that certain species of orchids [2] could reach in the international market, the naturalists who started to invade Brazilian territory, with the opening of the ports in 1810, already knew and already did systematically what today is called biopiracy. Orchids, for example, achieved high values in the European market in the 19th century, both for their aesthetic value and biological qualities (it is an ornamental plant that continues to live, providing new blooms every year), as well as for its economic and pharmaceutical potential. and culinary (vanilla, for example, comes from an orchid). 

 

The interesting thing is that many of the expensive drugs from the multinational pharmaceutical industry that we buy today originate from plants in our forests, through the biochemical research that European scientists carried out on our species to isolate active principles and elements that would later be used in the chemical industry and in the pharmaceutical industry.  Therefore, we still pay the price today for ignorance and the colonized spirit of easily giving up our riches, not knowing that they are precious riches that cannot be they must give up, in their own national interest (not only for the sake of patriotism, but for the sake of economic interest). Fortunately, this equation is being changed today so that they, who had the botanical and chemical knowledge, but not the species that we had, and we, who had the species, but not the botanical and chemical knowledge, are becoming equal because of the advancement of science in Brazil (and we will advance even further).

 

We are   writing this post to remind you that orchids (many of them haven't even been discovered yet, in the interior of our forests and little studied) should be dismissed as mere pretty plants, but despicable from an economic point of view (as something not worth preserving). For those who don't know, certain orchids can be worth U$ 200,000.00 or more in the international market. The Dutch know how much the production and sale of flowers can be worth, and it's not new (just remember the fever of speculation that there was in Holland with the tulip bulbs, which are now a national symbol in Holland)._cc781905-5cde-3194-bb3b -136bad5cf58d_

 

Not only will we live on oil, but also (thanks to the money obtained from oil) on applied scientific research that will discover countless species that are among us and can become nutritious and healthy cultivated foods (but we are unaware of them because of eating habits that we currently have) for our agriculture (Embrapa is there to show us that the era in which we despised our plant riches, while foreigners like Martius were driven crazy by it) is over; or medicines and materials that will be used not only in the chemical and pharmaceutical industry, but also in industry in general. In addition, tropical agriculture does not exist only to generate food, but also plant products that are raw materials for industry (see the case of cotton, an important source of raw material for the industrialization of England). It was Embrapa that developed a variety of cotton that is born colored (but without the use of genetic engineering technology, because there are other ways of carrying out genetic improvement without using transgenic technology).

 

Besides all this, anthropological research itself (to the extent that indigenous peoples themselves are freeing themselves from the tutelage of white anthropologists, with their colonized theories, as Darcy Ribeiro said) will deepen and disseminate to the wider public the immense richness contained in in the knowledge ethnobotanics of our peoples of the forest, cerrado, caatinga, swampland, etc. Wealth that has been and continues to be neglected for centuries (and, what is worse, destroyed, because of the constant ethnocide of our indigenous populations). Good or bad, at the beginning of the 21st century, with advances and setbacks, like any deeper historical process, we are already managing to revert all of this to the benefit of indigenous peoples (both because this recent historical moment was the period in which the greatest number of demarcations of indigenous lands, and because the indigenous population is managing to recover from the depopulation caused by five centuries of domination by the larger Brazilian Luso ethnic group).

 

Please, go slowly with the litter, because the forest is fragile and, fortunately, we can now more accurately assess the damage we have done to our own climate by cutting down the forests. I'm not just talking about the addition of CO2  to the atmosphere, but also the atmospheric water e atmospheric impacts that deforestation causes. A forest that is felled immediately causes a reduction of half the level  of rainfall that existed before it was felled. This means that the sertão of the Northeast and the coastline itself, along the east of this region, would not face periods of such prolonged droughts, if its forest cover had not been cut down to plant sugarcane. The caatinga itself is a type of forest and its felling only increases the problems arising from droughts, in a vicious cycle that can be easily broken by restoring the caatinga itself. On the other hand, thanks to the advances of science and of modern agronomy modern itself, it is possible to plant more, in less planting areas, returning part of the territory_cc781905-5cde-3194-bb3b -136bad5cf58d_for the restoration of the original vegetation cover, as I defend, within a broad movement that was not invented by me, fighting for the restoration of the Atlantic Forest (at least 30% of it is the goal).

 

It is therefore necessary to open our eyes to our plant riches, because we sleep on top of a richness that we do not even suspect exists and needs to be researched and transformed into products that enrich our economic and industrial heritage in general, not just as commodities, but as raw materials for high added value products, such as the manufacture of medicines that are used to treat cancer, for example.

 

Alberto Nasiasene

 

Jaguariuna, February 2, 2014

 

Grades:

 

1.Burle Marx tells how he only discovered the importance of Brazilian flora in Germany in the 1920s. Until then, like most middle-class Brazilians, he lived with his back to this immense and beautiful wealth that we have around us. He tells later, in his pioneering expeditions in search of discovering new species for his landscaping projects, how alienating it was to see that the small towns of the Brazilian Amazon itself, in their squares, instead of valuing the very rich species of the local flora, made them ugly. with exotic specimens (this is only possible today because we have this colonized mentality that leads us to think that everything that is ours and tropical is inferior to the European and North American, to the point that we cut down our trees to plant, in the same place, specimens from Europe, North America, Asia or Australia). We still don't know, in our cities, to differentiate a flamboyant (African) from a sibipiruna (native specimen of the Atlantic Forest). Therefore, as an architect, urban planner and plastic artist, it was Burle Marx who taught us, in the best anthropophagic spirit of the week of 1922, how much incomparable beauty we have in our biomes and that we should not only 5cde-3194-bb3b-136bad5cf58d_dela, mas know how to value them (adding economic value) in our public and private gardens. With him, for the first time, instead of importing English garden design (which was fashionable in the 19th century), we began to export our landscape and floristic design.

 

2. Vanilla, which is the fruit of an orchid, is priced very high per kilo, and this has been known for a long time (by the way, the Portuguese had a real fanaticism for these fruits originating from the East Indies, so much so that they went out to sea after them, returning with their caravels and ships laden with cloves, cinnamon, black pepper, nutmeg, etc.; the so-called spices that were worth more than their weight in gold). But since they weren't the ones who discovered the utilidades  method for planting these spices, even in Brazil (a country richer even in biodiversity than than in Indonesia), turned their backs on the possibilities  of immense riches that were available in the Atlantic Forest (only in the era of Pombal_cc781905-5cde-3194-bb3b-136_cf discover the plant riches of the Amazon and this was one of the reasons why Pombal did everything in his geopolitical strategy to keep that territory in the hands of the Portuguese in the 18th century). Not that I'm denying here all the partial assimilation that the Portuguese colonists made of plant specimens that the Indians taught them to value. However, the ethnobotanical wealth that the various indigenous peoples dominated was and is much more complex than the common base that remains as material and immaterial heritage of Brazilian popular culture (there is still much to research and discover in this area).