Asian Transformations in Action - Api-fellowships.org

BLURRED BORDERS AND SOCIAL INTEGRATIONS 107demarcation of truth and myth in science. Often, withthe blessing of scientific consciousness, we are likelyto believe that as a modern people we ought to leavebehind things of the past that include beliefs that areunfounded in any competent evidence—myths. Thisalmost-always-ready antipathy is what is actually beingconflicted in the Indonesian novel Transpondex—a taleabout a teenage girl’s adventure into the future to lookfor and save her father who was actually the inventor ofthe time travel device dubbed the ‘transpondex.’The elaboration of the divide between science and mythas truth and fantasy (respectively) lies in the depictionof the future in the story as a historical possibility. Thisfuture, as made clearer by the events, is undoubtedlyrooted in the past. There is no argument in that exceptfor an interesting detail in the plot of novel—the futureIndonesia is inhabited by characters from the epicMahabharata (e.g., Pendawa), which is considered (just)a mythological tradition. The unequivocal dismantlingof the barrier that separates truth and myth is furthercompounded by the introduction of actual historicalpersonalities into this future scenario. The mainantagonist in the story, who is revealed only toward theend, is easily recognizable as Hitler, who even has athis disposal a ‘swastika inspired’ superhuman fightingtechnique.A central understanding that we may achieve fromreading the text in this light is that myth is not aliento science. The arena of knowledge and truth-creationis not immune to containing age-old beliefs that needdiscarding in favor of new ones. As once held scientificprinciples become refuted and new ones based onmore present scientific advances arrive, the scientificcommunity is driven to change its worldview. ZiauddinSardar (2000, 28-29), in discussing how scientificprinciples can be outmoded as advanced by Kuhn inThe Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962), assertsthat even the scientific method as an idealized processupon which much of science’s claim to objectivity anduniversalism is based is just a mirage-myth.Science as politicsLaura Nader (1996), an anthropologist, claims thatmuch about science is taken for granted, such as itsbounded and autonomous nature, its homogeneity, itsWesternism and its messianic spirit, and often we do notsee it as connoting an institutional setting. This is alsothe tenor of Kuhn’s (1962, 5-6) evaluation of sciencefrom the perspective of a professional historian whereinhe looks at science not as the objective and disinteresteddiscipline it purports to be but as a dogmatic set ofpractices that is also self-promoting and self-fulfilling. 6Kobo Abe’s Inter Ice Age 4 depicts exactly how sciencedoes not exist in a vacuum but in a wider context ofconcrete human and institutional relationships. It isabout a scientist, Dr. Katsumi, whose view of scienceseems to be ‘science for science’s sake.’ He is one whoperfectly embodies the distancing of the self from theobject of study, a conviction that will lead to his tragicfate as the story unfolds. Dr. Katsumi heads a researchlab that monitors and perfects a forecasting machinenamed ‘Moscow I,’ which was consequently upgradedto ‘Moscow II’. During this time, when the polar icecaps have begun to melt, a secret and illegal group ofscientists with the backing of private corporationsand certain government institutions have begun work(without Dr. Katsumi’s knowledge) on a scheme topreserve terrestrial life through the biological mutationof animals and even human beings (acquired throughaborted human fetuses). The ultimate goal of the projectis to create an underwater nation that will survive thedestruction of Japan.Two things in the story immediately lead us to theunderstanding that science can never be value-free.First, science as an institution is defined and delimitedby hierarchy and bureaucracy as effectively representedby the conspiracy against Dr. Katsumi. This involvesthe complicity of the lab, research institutions, privatecorporations and the government. Second, the useof science and technology as a tool for various forcesto reinforce their goals is portrayed by the squabbleinitiated by the USA when Dr. Katsumi’s forecastingmachine, having been fed with basic information,predicts the triumph of communism. The Americangovernment’s gush of vitriol stems from its position asa political rival—at least prior to 1991—of the SovietUnion, as the other superpower. In the story, we witnessclaims by the USA redolent of Cold War rhetoric: “the[present] course of the Soviet Union is to attempt tothreaten the liberty of men and jeopardize internationalfriendship by betraying their own claims for peacefulcoexistence.” 7Johan Galtung and Robert Jungk (1970), in acritique of the then emerging field of study known as‘futurism,’ warned against the impending hegemonyover the visualization of the future that serves only theinterests of power groups by employing the expertiseof governmental departments, military establishmentsand large corporations. This political dimension ofscience and technology often overlooked by the averageindividual (as the consumer of science and technology)is cleverly insinuated in Inside: My Best Friends (Vol.Asian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows