Philosophy, Science

insights from a conference of graduate researchers funded by the american military

by Parker LaMascus

I.

The development of Siri, GPS, and duct tape was all funded by the American military.

The fact was supposed to reassure me that my scientific work can do good things in the world. But I found it stronger evidence that “there’s no damn thing you can do that can’t be turned into war.”1

“Out, damned spot! … All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand.”2

If “the future of national defense is basic research,” then there is no future for basic research.

II.

“Are not the rivers of Damascus better than all the waters of Israel? Could I not wash in them, and be clean?” asks Naaman the Syrian, the leprous warmonger.3

A hundred years ago, Nietzsche asked, “YHWH is dead… and we have killed him. How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What sacred games shall we have to invent?”4 Answering him were Einstein, Despretz, Oppenheimer, von Neumann, Nobel, Gatling, and many others — “God is dead. Long live Science!” The rivers of Reason are surely better than all the waters of Israel, and they will wash pure as snow.

One can imagine that Naaman, healed by those rivers, would say, “Now I know that there is no god but Science. But may Science pardon your servant on one count — when my master the king leans on my arm in the temple of War, and I bow down with him in worship to Waste and Greed.” The scientist replies, “Go in peace.”

III.

“Do not tell with such high zest // to children ardent for some desperate glory // the old Lie: Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori.”5

Even if (or especially if) God is dead, humans are not divine. Our violence is not eschatological; it is instrumental.6

Why does America need a “technological overmatch” against our “adversaries”? War is zero-sum — always there is a victorious group of humans enforcing its will on another group of ontologically equal humans. It rests on a tautological deceit: America deserves advantage, because we are American. And when the war is done, American will earn the exclusive privileges of Waste and Greed,7 and it will make war to keep those rights.

Because “overmatch” is always relative, America’s ambition is limited only by the capacity of the planet to suffer its exploitation. Of course, America has hired scientists to mitigate this minor inconvenience. “Hell hath no limits… Where we are is hell, and where hell is must we ever be.”8

Scientists and engineers tell ourselves that we pursue Knowledge itself, but we are nothing more than America’s getaway drivers as he robs the planet and our future.

“For in much wisdom is much vexation // and those who increase knowledge increase sorrow.”9

“…and Man rebounds whole aeons in nature. Hail to the low dull rumble, dull and dead, and ponderous drag which shakes the wall.”10

IV.

Hevel hevelim.9 A breath in, a breath out.11

I have misquoted Naaman, and will do so again. He washes in the Jordan, that filthy Israelite river, seven times, and is healed. He says, “Now I know that there is no god but YHWH. But may YHWH pardon your servant on one count — when my master the king leans on my arm in the temple of Science, and I bow down with him in worship.” The prophet of YHWH replies, “Go in peace.”

I cannot abide war. I cannot tolerate an unjust peace. But I cannot forgive the researcher who bows in the temple of War and believes they only worship Science.

V.

America is the Titan Kronos, waging war against the children sliced from his belly. If Kronos cannot conquer the godlike billionaires and omniscient technocracies he fathered, then his scythe will be pried from his fingers to reap the sharecroppers’ fields. Haughty Zeus will force bastards upon mortal women; prideful Athena will punish threats to her benevolent tyranny; cruel Ares will spend the lives of men like alms. (The Greek-inspired branding of Meta and Amazon is somewhat on-the-nose.)

This is the most compelling argument for military research I can find, but first we must name the emperor’s nakedness.

“What is crooked cannot be made straight.”9

“Word over all, beautiful as the sky! // Beautiful, that War, and all its deeds of carnage, must in time be utterly lost; // That the hands of the sisters Death and Night incessantly, softly wash again, and ever again, this soil’d world.”12

Footnotes:

  1. Jerome Lettvin, quoted in Hannah Arendt’s On Violence.
  2. Shakespeare, Macbeth
  3. Second Kings 5
  4. Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science
  5. Wilfred Owen, “Dulce et Decorum est“
  6. Miroslav Volf, Exclusion & Embrace
  7. Wendell Berry, “Faustian Economics”
  8. Marlowe, Faustus
  9. Qoheleth
  10. Herman Melville, “The House-Top: A Night Piece”
  11. Samuel Beckett, “Breath”
  12. Walt Whitman, “Reconciliation”