'Epistemic violence'

Note: This was written about six years ago. When I looked back at it, it was more than obvious that we have greatly accelerated towards commodification of our education system. Thought it was time share it.

How often have you felt an ecstasy, have had a feeling of enlightenment, have had a realization that someone has given your deepest intuitive understanding a concrete form in a human language that you can now hold in your hand, or on your tongue and present to the whole world. Not that the world will immediately understand or appreciate the meaning of that word or phrase, because not everyone has shared the concerns you have shared for so long. Because language by itself does not carry meaning unless it is contextualized. But still, you have a word, a phrase, which can be the starting point for communicating what you have been trying to communicate, at least to your conscious self if not anybody else. 

I encountered such a phrase right now. A phrase that in just in two words of the English language expresses the idea of violence that has been unleashed on human knowledge by the global corporate capitalism. Let me quote the original:

An “episteme” is an item of knowledge. When one attacks or destroys the knowledge of something, this may be called “epistemic violence.” An example (and there are numerous others): Corporate brand names, such as “ashtanga yoga” – which obviously refer to Patanjali’s “ashtanga yoga,” ignore and pervert Patanjali’s meaning, in this case his first of the 8 (ashta) limbs (anga), establishing truth and non-violence as the foundation of the yoga practice, and as such, commit epistemic violence to the very knowledge we seem to seek. Worse, this projects a modern capitalist view of self-interested, even selfish, behaviour on both humanity and the rest of the natural world, supporting the very paradigm to which Yoga, as some of us know it, is the antidote. The result is not only furthering our ignorance, rather than removing it (as is the path of higher consciousness), but it is the most effective attack to date on the wisdom and sustainability of Indian culture, so that it may be a docile colony of the modern warfare state. — Baba Rampuri

`Epistemic violence’, how powerful two words can be! What deep understanding of the self and the world you need to have to come up with a powerful phrase like that! It is like capturing the most complex of social phenomena, and your feelings about those with as little expenditure of words as possible. When I first read the phrase, I paused, no, I stopped, I stood up from my chair, I sat down again, I held my head with both hands trying to balance it from the pleasantly violent shaking it got from assimilating this profound phrase for the first time. 

Once I regained my balance, I started thinking what can be other examples of epistemic violence in the contemporary world dominated by global corporate capitalism? Of course there are many. But it seemed to me that corporatization of education should qualify as the worst epistemic violence perpetrated ever. It attacks not only an ‘episteme’, it attacks the whole basis of knowledge, the process of acquiring knowledge, the meaning of knowledge itself; it turns epistemology on its head. And how does a society survive without meaningful knowledge getting transmitted from generation to generation, where `knowledge is free’? 

This epistemic violence starts early, right in the pre-school days. Let me make it clear that I am not suggesting that no private entity can impart education. But, making the process of educating children a for-profit enterprise, overtly or covertly, militates against the idea of knowledge as a means to sustain a society. Slowly, but surely, it eats away the basis of a healthy, sane society. In fact, a quick look at history will show that there are no countries that ever made progress in terms of an overall better quality of life for their citizens without the society (through the government, or any other way) putting in resources for a universal education. On the other hand, if one (or his/her parents) has to keeping paying for education through the nose, how does the idea and the ideal of giving back to the society survive? And this ideal is not a utopia, which it has been turned into in our corporate age. Unless adult people give back to the society, give back for nurturing of the future generations, how does a society survive and carry forward? A privatized education running for corporate profit reduces learners to consumers. In addition to leaving those out who cannot afford to pay, getting a degree somehow or the other, or at best the skills to successfully become a clog in the corporate wheel, becomes the ultimate goal. Learning takes a back-seat. Learning that, at a sublime level, involves quiet contemplation, that involves worrying about the deeper questions, thinking about the meaning of things without any assurance that we will ever understand that. Learning that teaches us to struggle with the deepest human emotions, to understand, appreciate, express, or at least to try to express them in our language. Learning that may also teach us to question the most deep-seated assumptions and belief-systems; a learning process that puts the teacher and the student at the center, and everything else as peripheral. Learning that at a more earthy level makes us part of this society, teaches us to share the resources, share the responsibilities, to care for the elderly (not just our biological parents as in a patriarchal hierarchy, but elderly of the society as a whole) and the infirm, learning that teaches us to become good citizens. Yes, corporatization of education is the biggest assault on episteme as a whole because it robs us of our radical consciousness and human agency, and aims to make us passive consumers of the corporate trash.