Introduction

In a previous article, entitled ‘Big Pharma is no different from any other capitalist corporation’, I discussed the realities of Big Pharma in relation to the Official Covid Narrative. Pharmaceutical corporations have a vested interest in pushing the idea that we all need a Sars-Cov-2 vaccination, as that makes them more profits. The left, however, has fallen for the Official Covid Narrative – believing that what Big Pharma says is true. Some people who I considered critics of mainstream narratives – such as Graham Elwood – are now promoting vaccine passports. This article hopes to explore the reasons why the left now promotes ‘the science’ that is advocated by the establishment that they claim to oppose.

Kto Kogo?

The fundamental problem is that the left has failed to ask the question: ‘Science for what class?’

The category of ‘science’ can only exist within a particular society. Therefore, the way that the term science is perceived, interpreted, and promoted varies based upon the values of that society.

This is not to claim that science is entirely subjective or none of it is based in reality. It is not to take the position that gravity is not real, the extreme position mocked by Alan Sokal in his famous 1996 parody article in Social Text.

My argument is that what is considered ‘science’ is to varying degrees subject to the effects of the class structure. On a topic that is non political and not subject to profit motives and ideology, such as the topic of gravity, science is much more objective. On issues where profit motives and the ideologies bolstering the profit motives are in play, science is affected by these and often becomes a justification for the social order rather than objective.

This is seen in the racist and sexist ‘science’ of 19^th century Britain. Studies of humanity were used to bolster capitalism and imperialism. Racist ‘science’ sought to argue for the inferiority of the African and Native American man as compared to the white man. The skulls of African and Native American men were said to ‘prove’ their inferiority to white men. Sexist arguments posited that women were incapable of studying due to menstruation.

People today – or most of them at least – can recognise this racist and sexist nonsense as pseudoscientific, merely designed to prop up a racist imperial state and to justify sexist laws such as coverture. To see our modern concepts of science as magically immune to similar biases is naïve, especially given the development of the medical industrial complex.

Medical science is an area that is especially vulnerable to societal biases, due to the profit motive and the aftereffects of its origins. Modern medical science evolved out of patriarchal institutions and ideologies. To secure the dominance of the male doctor, traditional female healers were denigrated as ‘witches’ and violently oppressed. Women’s bodies were – and still are – belittled by medical science, who see men as the default kind of human being and women as an ‘extra’. Modern capitalism was able to pick up on the developments within science and turn it into a billions-dollar industry known as Big Pharma.

The Left’s Failure to See This Reality

The left has utterly failed to consider this aspect of the Covid 19 Narrative. Instead they parrot the phrase ‘follow the science’. Why has the left failed to see the reality of ‘the science’ as a weapon wielded in a class war against the working class?

I argued in a previous article that the UK Modern Left has been duped by the Covid Narrative for a few reasons: Boris Johnson’s effective reverse psychology, the conceit of compassion, and the lack of connection to material reality (being from privileged backgrounds, they act as if lockdowns are consequence-free).

This analysis is still relevant, although there are further points to consider when assessing why the left sees the ‘science’ as an inherently objective phenomenon. One reason for this is that the left likes to see itself as the rational ones, who support science as against the right wing who are science deniers. This has manifested on the atheist left (though also among some on the anti-woke right such as Sargon of Akkad). This aspect is more notable in American politics due to the religious nature of much of the American right, where a sharp contrast is drawn between the ‘rational’ left/liberals and the ‘irrational, God-fearing’ right. This distinction has continued into the Trump era despite the undermining of religion (to a degree) as the basis of the culture wars.

There are other issues in which the ‘science-based’ rational left contrasts itself with the ‘science denier’ right wing, in particular the issue of climate change. The left talks about the scientific consensus that climate change is real, whereas the right that are more sceptical of climate change are dismissed as irrational science deniers.

While relevant, however, I do not believe that this is the main factor in driving the leftist obsession with ‘the science’ as some sort of inherently objective bulwark that needs to be followed without question.

In order to assess this question, we need to return to the issue of the denial of material reality.

The weaknesses in analysis on material issues affect the UK Modern left, as discussed in my articles on their support for lockdowns and transgender ideology, and the US left, as outlined in my article about their ignoring of the censorship of women for stating biological reality.

The fact that the modern left is weak on class analysis means that they are more likely to see science as an objective endeavour. A grounding in class analysis would give a multitude of examples of science being used as a weapon, that many of these people would acknowledge when they are historical. This weakness on the issue of class analysis is also linked to the fact that people from these media outlets are in a relatively privelged position economically, which can also skew perspectives in a more pro-establishment direction.

The cult of the science also puts a psedo-materialist gloss on the failings of these left wing groups to successfully analyse material reality. Because ‘science’ as an endeavour is meant to be based upon material reality, uncritical belief in the science shields the lack of effective material analysis from scrutiny.

Conclusion

The modern left’s detachment from material reality helps to drive forward their uncritical belief in ‘the science’ as an objective tool of analysis. This means that they fail to condier the relevance of the question ‘science for what class’?