Terror tactics: Science in the anarchists' cross hairs

Self-proclaimed anarchists are waging a violent campaign against science and technology. What do they want?

ROBERTO ADINOLFI had just left for work when the gunman struck, shooting him in the leg before fleeing on a motorbike.

Four days later, in a rambling and often cryptic letter to an Italian newspaper, a group calling itself the Olga Cell of the Informal Anarchist Federation claimed responsibility for the attack. It described Adinolfi, head of the nuclear energy company Ansaldo Nucleare, as "one of so many sorcerers of the atom" and warned: "With this action of ours we return to you a tiny part of the suffering that you, man of science, are pouring into the world." The cell has threatened to carry out more attacks.

The non-fatal shooting in Genoa in May was the latest in a series of alleged anarchist attacks on scientists and engineers, including the attempted bombing of nanotechnology labs in Switzerland and Mexico. This wave of politically motivated violence has raised the question: why do anarchists hate science? Beyond the unsubtle threat of brute force, there are deeper issues that merit attention.

First, let me say that while there may be an explanation, there is no justification. Violence of this sort is neither ethical nor effective: it merely hardens positions, validates repression of activists by the state, and taints the purveyors.

Yet violence is untypical of anarchism. Despite the archetypal "violent anarchist" - a convenient bogeyman that taps into deep-seated fears - anarchism is, on the whole, more interested in interrupting violence than perpetuating it.

While anarchists sometimes adopt a confrontational posture as a means of political agitation, few would endorse physically harming people. Following letter-bomb attacks on the Swiss and Chilean embassies in Rome in 2010, for which anarchists were blamed, Swiss anarchist group Libert?re Aktion Winterthur condemned such attacks on the basis that anarchism's tenets "prohibit us to injure or even kill functionaries within capitalism... simply for the role they play. We think this should be obvious to anyone with an anarchist understanding."

The philosophy underlying this statement is anarchism's commitment to non-coercive and non-hierarchical forms of social organisation. In line with this ideal, anarchism generally embraces the notion that an egalitarian and anti-authoritarian society will not readily be achieved by force.

But let us suppose that anarchists are indeed responsible for the attacks on scientists and engineers. After all, real-world actions tend to be more convoluted than political ideals. Why would they choose to do so? The answer, I think, is that they have legitimate concerns about the role of science and technology in modern society.

Increasingly we have seen science becoming the purview of remote experts, and knowledge production moving from the public to the private sphere. Both run counter to anarchism's political goals.

The letter claiming responsibility articulated some of these concerns: "In past centuries science had promised a golden era, today it is being carried out toward self-destruction and more total slavery... Individuals today are free to realise their subjective selves only through the consumption and production of goods."

This critique begs closer investigation. From Fukushima and weapons of war to climate change and rampant consumption, humankind seems to be hurtling headlong toward a self-made catastrophe for which science and technology must shoulder part of the blame.

There is a notable strand in anarchism in which science is seen as highly politicised and thoroughly intertwined with corporate globalisation, militarism, securitisation and a growing web of "techno-fascism" that is yielding severe social and ecological consequences. Anarchism also has a primitivist undercurrent which plausibly suggests that, through science and technology, humans have lost more than we have gained.

After the shooting in Genoa, Michael Hagmann, head of communications at the Empa institute in D?bendorf, Switzerland, which investigates potential adverse environmental impacts of nanotechnology, asked: "Do [anarchists] want us to stop all scientific experiments, stop driving cars or go back to living in caves?"

Conversely, anarchists might argue that it is precisely the dominant order (to which science is central) that is pushing humankind to the brink of a new dark age. Science may possess an unquenchable desire to discover nature's secrets and contribute to humanity's betterment, but it cannot simply assert these values without being responsive to the impacts of its applications.

Despite the recent attacks and propaganda, anarchists actually have a complex relationship with science and technology. Some leading figures from anarchist history were scientists, notably Russian biologist Peter Kropotkin. Many hacktivists are anarchists who embrace technology; fiction authors sometimes look toward a future "technotopia" based on anarchist ideals.

There is material to work with here. Rather than pitting nuclear bombs against homemade ones (figuratively speaking), we might usefully seek to synthesise anarchism's ideals with scientific inquiry. Perhaps we can even conceive an "anarchist science" that seeks progress towards cooperative and empathetic impulses, decentralised production of life's essentials, and restoration of the commons to promote collective wealth and environmental sustainability.

Maybe one day we will see headlines proclaiming: "Anarchists embrace science".

Randall Amster is chair of the master's programme in humanities at Prescott College in Arizona. He has a physics background and is author of Anarchism Today (Praeger, 2012)

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