WARS WARS WARS.

“Wars. So many wars. Wars outside and wars inside. Cultural wars, science wars, and wars against terrorism. Wars against poverty and wars against the poor. Wars against ignorance and wars out of ignorance.”

The opening paragraph to Latour’s article sets the tone and a common understanding with the reader as to what is about to be addressed. The wars referred to in the passage are “outside” and “inside,” meaning within certain groups and among different groups (possibly nations). The cultural wars focuses primarily on differences and conflict between those values considered to be liberal (progressive) and those considered conservative (traditional). These wars can be about many different subjects ranging from abortion and censorship issues, to the separation of church and state and other issues. The name “culture wars” was refashioned by James Davison Hunter in his 1991 publication of Culture Wars: The struggle to Define America. This specifically looked at the dramatic realignment and polarization that transformed American Culture and its politics. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture_war) As described in this publication, culture wars can reside inside of one nation (like America) or between clashing cultures (America and Iraq).

Science wars refers to intellectual exchanges between ‘scientific realists and postmodernist critics’ over the nature of scientific theory. This “war” took place primarily in the US in the 1990s, but has spread to other parts of the world, especially Europe. Topics of these science wars included: scientific objectivity, cultural anthropology, scientific method, feminist studies, media studies, and many more. Science wars in my mind focus mainly on the validity of humanities sciences and the social sciences alike, as compared to the hard sciences (biology, chemistry, physics, etc). It’s not like scientists duking it out over which theory is more correct, it’s more like scientists and well-informed public people questioning the validity of what is being announced as a science or fact.

         We all know about the war against terrorism and the war against the poor (99%) but the part of this segment that really caught my eye was the “war against ignorance and wars out of ignorance” part. I would agree that the largest threat that mankind has, is to itself. If the public and general masses are uneducated and uninformed, they are ignorant and do not know exactly what they are fighting for… or against.

      The relevance of this on our learnings in class is with the debate over outlawing Female Genital Mutilation in African and other countries. I feel that people who live in the United States and other first world countries are so gun-hoe against the acts and pro-abolishing the tradition are a bit ignorant. They realize the dangers and risks that come with FGM, but not the cultural backing of it. Many polls have shown that even if the procedure was made illegal, over 80% of women would still seek to receive it illegally, which brings new dangers and horrid black market possibilities. Many people are fighting for the rights of women who do not want those rights, they are ignorant to the facts of the culture and the possible banishment and punishment that comes with those who do not follow cultural norms. Education is key and I think that if progress is to be made on this health concern, it should simply be a possibility for safer and cleaner places and procedures to be carried out, not for it to be abolished all together. 

I thought this image was an excellent resource, showing clearly how tradition carries on and cultures vary, among even the closest of Aftican countries.