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Who pays the piper?: or, the perils of incomplete knowledge
17 December 2009
By Mike Chopra-Gant
I was very fortunate to be invited to give a keynote speech last month at a symposium in Madrid last month. The subject of the symposium was representations of the armed forces on film. Being a moderately lefty, peace-loving sort, and having an awareness of my host’s sympathetic political stance from our meeting at a similar event on terrorism a year earlier, I took it for granted that no-one would bat an eye if my speech engaged in a fair but robust critique of army recruitment films. What I hadn’t factored into my calculation was the fact that the event was (generously) sponsored by the Ministerio de Defensa and that I would be sharing the stage with the Naval Commander who directs the Spanish Military’s “strategic studies” programme. “Don’t worry” my host assured me, sensing my unease, “he’s military; he won’t speak much English”.
On the day the Capitán de Navio looked imposing in his dress uniform, all gleaming brass and colourful medals. His handshake was firm, his English perfect. Young people in Spain have a poor perception of the military, the Capitán explained. As a result, the defence ministry is funding events such as this one in order to improve the image of the military, he added. What to me was a scholarly symposium was, to the Capitán, part of a public relations campaign. The Capitán declared himself very happy with the event, made his speech and left without even hearing my critique of the current US army recruitment campaign, his mission accomplished.
The event brought to mind Michel De Certeau’s distinction between what he termed the tactics of the powerless and the strategies of the powerful. I could have been as critical as I’d liked about the military in my speech. It didn’t matter. The Capitán would have been happy, his strategic objectives achieved just by my being there talking about the military and, in the process, blurring the line between the executors of the State’s virtual monopoly on the means of violence and the more benign milieu of the academy: and, perhaps, improving the image of the armed forces in the young minds of the students by providing the military with an opportunity to demonstrate its ability to take criticism on the chin. Situations like this arise only rarely in humanities, but do my colleagues in sciences find themselves more frequently in the position of having their work appropriated in service of ideological ends which they would never actively support?
Sarah Davies21 December 2009 at 11:42 AM
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This is a fascinating point, Mike. I'm not sure that I agree that this kind of situation is necessarily more common in the (natural) sciences, though - those in the arts, humanities or social sciences who have contact with policy relating to their research must bump against this fairly regularly. My experience is that those working in policy or practice often have slightly different aims or interests to those in academia - and that research can be co-opted or taken on board in unexpected and not always welcome ways. I wonder if there's some way of asserting 'moral copyright' of our research?
Simon Smith04 January 2010 at 06:22 PM
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Perhaps at some point in the future, you'll get the chance to call the piper's bluff! Decision-makers will always attempt to gain credibility by association with scientists and social scientists because the latter have a (hopefully merited) reputation for independence. The difficulty is that, as your experience shows, the decision-maker will gain even if they ignore what the independent scientist has to say. But they should be made aware that unless they start listening, they will soon lose the confidence of the scientific community, who will boycott such charades in the future. That, of course, implies that we can communicate and organise as a community, which is not always the case.