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More Controversy!

Entry 2226, on 2022-07-17 at 15:01:42 (Rating 4, Philosophy)

My previous blog post "Some Controversial Views" has been deemed not controversial enough by several readers, so apparently I have to try harder to offend people. I don't go out of my way to write controversial stuff; I just write what I think, which is sometimes seen as controversial (as well as true, of course). So what could be more controversial than the subjects I covered in the last post: gay pride, abortion, trans rights, and indigenous culture?

Well, the suggestion has been made that I should cover the infiltration of indigenous cultural values and beliefs into academia. For various reasons - not the least of them being potential persecution by the bureaucracy for having contrary views - I would prefer to talk about this phenomenon in relation to the country in general, which includes what is happening in universities, but is not limited to that.

So, with the understanding that the following is not necessarily my view, but a perspective I think is worth considering, let's get started...

I'm writing from the perspective of a New Zealander, so I will be concentrating on how the imposition of elements of Maori (the original inhabitants of this country) culture is affecting our society. But this is a global trend, so similar issues affect other countries.

There are several areas where Maori culture affects modern society in general, including universities: language, political correctness, and indigenous perspectives being applied to traditionally Western areas of knowledge. I'll have a look at each of these and make a few comments from perspectives I have heard from both supporters and detractors of the new regime.

So first, language. There has been a recent trend to use Maori names for various organisations, to rename many places to their Maori names, and to use the Maori language more in general. This is inconvenient, and possibly significantly problematic, for many people, because very few New Zealanders have a thorough knowledge of that language. A lot of people have problems remembering the Maori names for government ministries and other organisations, for example.

One case of this is the New Zealand Transport Agency which is now usually called "Waka Kotahi" which seems to translate to "one car", although the word "waka" originally meant canoe, according to what I can establish. But I always thought this was the Ministry of Transport, which is actually "Te Manatu Waka" apparently. You can see how this becomes confusing. The Maori language has no words for many modern concepts and technologies, so it is unsuitable for many of the tasks it is asked to cover.

So what have we gained by applying confusing, largely irrelevant, names to organisations based on Western structures? It's pure political correctness, and it's annoying, a source of inefficiency, and potentially confusing.

A similar issue exists for common place names in this country. We often hear in weather reports, news, and other sources, the Maori names of places which have always been referred to with their English names in the past. Non-Maori speakers have to subconsciously try to remember which place is being referenced and, even if they can do the translation, they might lose track of the larger topic under discussion.

And then there is the habit of many in the media today of using Maori for quite significant sections of their reporting. A word here or there most people can cope with, but in general once large sections of a language unknown to them starts, they just stop listening. Many people refuse to even listen to programs or TV or radio channels which indulge in this habit.

But is there another side to this story? Is it reasonable to use a language which was the first one used in this country, pre-colonisation, and is an official language of New Zealand, and is still seen by many, especially Maori, as an important part of the national identity? Well, sure, I can appreciate that perspective, especially from an emotional angle, but we need to be more cognisant of the practicality of this, and decide on how far the use of the Maori language, which has very little practical applicability, should be taken.

And if people aren't familiar with the language, should they not learn more of it? This is one reason it is used more today: as a form of persuasion for learning. Well sure, if a person wants to do that, that's fine, but many people have neither the time nor interest in learning a language which has minimal use beyond understanding material being inflicted on them through a process which is little more than social engineering.

The second issue I listed above is "political correctness". This phrase is often used in a derogatory sense, but for the more woke elements of society it is just another way of saying to do the right thing. In other words, it really is doing what is correct in a political context. Of course, I am using it in the more negative way here!

There is little doubt that the PC elements in society, including most politicians, give Maori culture favourable treatment. A positive spin is applied to any events involving that culture, and a negative one to the dominant Western culture. For example, many people claim that the way Maori treat the environment is being portrayed in such a positive light is flawed at best. Many would claim that Maori did far more damage to the environment than the settlers did, in fact, and there is good evidence supporting this idea.

And any events from the past where Europeans acted unfairly or violently are emphasised, but far worse events involving Maori are ignored or excused. If we are going to hold cultures to account for their past misdeeds, should we not do it in an equitable way?

The final issue is indigenous perspectives being applied to traditionally Western areas of knowledge. There has been a certain amount of controversy over this recently, and it has become a fairly significant source of disagreement, as well as involving the usual attempted cancelling of people who refuse to accept the politically correct perspective.

Primarily, this involves the concept of "Maori science". Whether this is a problem or not partly depends on how precise your definition of the word "science" is, but I think it is fair to use the non-archaic use which is a systematic process to discover and validate new knowledge. Note that in this sense, it does not refer to a simple body of knowledge, but more to a formal and objective method to establish that information.

So, in the more general sense everyone has science, because every culture undoubtedly has a collection of knowledge which is acquired and maintained through social processes, like written or verbal histories, teaching, etc. But science in the true sense is more than that, and involves careful and systematic accumulation of knowledge which has been verified through processes such as double-blind experiments, peer review, and statistical analysis.

That makes science a far more exact term, and one which can really only be applied to the methods which primarily arose first from Greek philosophy, then became more formalised during the Enlightenment. Note that this means that very little, if any, real science comes from traditional knowledge. So from this perspective, there is no Maori science.

This was reinforced to me recently when a person I was debating recommended I look at the work of an esteemed Maori astronomer (which I assumed meant a person pursuing the science of astronomy). But when I looked at his work, it was really mythology, and contained nothing that I would call science. Note that I think there is nothing wrong with mythology, but please don't call it science!

But there is a more important aspect to this too, and an even better reason why "Maori science" just isn't a thing. Science is science. It is the same whatever its origin might be. So by adding "Maori" as an adjective modifying the noun, you either get something which should really just be called "science" or could be called "Maori knowledge" or "mythology".

Do we call the discoveries of Darwin "English science" or of Hubble "American science". Well, we might if we wanted to emphasise the country of origin of the scientist involved, but the actual process is the same and when we evaluate the value of a scientific discovery, the knowledge under discussion should be judged on its merits, not the cultural background of the person who made the discovery.

So I don't take "Maori science" seriously, because it is actually mythology (according to what I have seen anyway) in the same way as I don't take "Christian science" seriously, because it is actually theology. Of course, I take just plain old science done by Maori people or Christians seriously, but that usually isn't described as anything beyond just plain old vanilla science.

To summarise all of this, and to state my underlying philosophy on this topic: I want to ignore people's ethnicity when it isn't relevant. I want everyone to be treated the same, and that means no special privileges for either the dominant majority of people, or the allegedly oppressed minorities. I will celebrate excellent science done by a Maori person as much as anyone else, but diluting the prestige and effectiveness of a primarily Western construct, like science, by allowing scientifically illiterate material in, is going too far.

And using the Maori language is fine, and I really don't mind too much if a bit of it is used in news and other sources, but when it makes understanding the material impossible to anyone except fluent speakers, that is going too far.

Criticising the bad and celebrating the good aspects of a culture is fine, but do it evenly. If you want to criticise Western culture for using slaves in the past, then aslo criticise Maori culture for doing the same thing.

And if real science is done by a Maori person then I will acknowledge that as much as if it was done by anyone of any other culture, but don't ask me to pretend that myths are science, because that is unacceptable to me.

That's about as controversial as I can get on this subject, so I hope that makes those asking for a more extreme diatribe happy. If not, please add your own controversial opinions on the subject to the comments!

Comment 12 (7268) by OJB on 2022-08-20 at 12:09:49: (view earlier comments)

According to Wikipedia under "indigenous people", the definition includes "...whose members are directly descended from the earliest known inhabitants of a particular geographic region..." So "earliest" doesn't mean "forever". After all, the only place humans would be truly indigenous would be central Africa; every other location was populated by humans from Africa.

So I don't think you can create a case based on that, although there are plenty of other ways to criticise the pro-Maori policies we see today.

Comment 13 (7282) by Ken Spall on 2022-08-27 at 17:26:05:

Fair comment, but after looking at the wide definitions of indigenous in various dictionaries I’m still not entirely convinced that this term applies to Māori. A bit of a grey area of course debatable.
Nevertheless, I do enjoy reading your various commentaries.

Comment 14 (7283) by OJB on 2022-08-27 at 23:05:24:

I don't think the argument that Maori have no special status here depends on them being or not being indigenous. We all came from somewhere else (except for Africans), just at different times. With no formal system of establishing ownership Maori can't make a legal claim so I say we all have the same status and rights. It seems the most rational view, and the one which should result in the least conflict.

Comment 15 (7284) by Ken Spall on 2022-08-29 at 14:40:55:

Yes, I would certainly agree with that way of looking at it. After all our racial origin is just a simple random accident of birth.

Comment 16 (7285) by OJB on 2022-08-29 at 17:54:26:

I think having separate rules for different groups of people, especially when it is based on race, is a recipe for disaster. It just breeds resentment and misunderstanding. We need to move on to where we are all just New Zealanders. Most "Maoris" are more European than Maori anyway. It's just a matter of current fashion that claiming to be Maori is seen as a positive thing.

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