The Political Dimensions of Science Consciousness in Africa (African Technological Nationalism)

In aspiring for technological independence, it may be required as a citizenship obligation in backward political states for citizens to know the technological histories of products imported into their countries and sold to them. Products such as the television, music systems, mobile phones, etc, should have embedded in their packaging systems concise or possibly elaborate histories of their technological invention and subsequent development. This practice has the potential to trigger a home-thinking attitude to science and technology development which inspires a do-it-yourself sense, which itself is a fertile soil for the Scientific Revolution to replicate in that political state. And of course a sine qua non for technological take-off in a political state is the occurrence or replication of the Scientific Revolution. Expanding or increasing technological self-confidence develops into the Scientific Revolution. Technological histories of technological artefacts tell who did which technology and under which circumstances the technology was done and in this sense is a stimulating learning experience. Mass communication of technological histories then becomes the tillage and fertilization process of the soil before planting. The Scientific Revolution thereon needs no deliberate planting as its germinal seeds have already infected the soul of the population through the selfsame technological histories running in the collective memory and imagination. The Scientific Revolution then sprouts and builds itself into the cultural practices of the population and becomes endemic, redefining and restructuring the political system. It is difficult for a state to achieve technological independence without a cultural experience of the phenomenon known as the Scientific Revolution. Intellectualization of scientism entails looking at scientism as ‘what it is outside ethics.’ Scientism, anticipation, and science consciousness are imbricated with each other (where scientism is defined as the highest point in the expression of anticipation and science consciousness). Scientism is contextual – its practice is influenced and defined by the prevailing sociopolitical determinants such as religion, the prevailing values of the social system, the type of political system (whether libertarian, authoritarian, or totalitarian), and the economic system (whether neoimperial capitalism, post-Marxist capitalism, liberal capitalism). What has scientism achieved? Demystification of science and technology by Japan (which paved the way for the Chinese intrusion) is a grand achievement of scientism. The Japanese applied scientism to become the first non-Western, non-Caucasoid scientific power in the world. The blackening of scientism by mostly Western scholars underscores the fact that those who have a thing mostly do not understand what they have (or in its reverse form being that you do not know the value of what you have until you lose it). The present super-sophistication of Western science systems is the very product of scientistic movements of the past, albeit radical they may have been. Yet these traditional science-countries of Europe (with Germany included) have been threatened and overtaken by Japan and lately China in terms of technological refinement and quantity of high-tech production. Scientistic movements will one day achieve freedom from disease as a fundamental human right championed by the UN. Scientism is an important political dimension of the science consciousness regime. Every citizen of the world in the 21st Century has the responsibility to become science-conscious compliant as a citizenship requirement. Every citizen of the world must know and speak some science to enable its complete domestication and democratization and to guide and direct it to build a world free from overpopulation, terrorism, hunger, and tyranny. Read more