The anarchist Cospito’s hatred for science would not please the fathers of anarchism

When on October 30, 2013 the first hearing of the trial against the perpetrators of the gunshot wounding of the CEO of Nuclear Ansaldothe main defendant, creator and perpetrator of the action, Alfred Cospito, attempted to read a statement in the courtroom; the same, as Stefano Feltri reconstructed in one of his articles, is still available today on the net and, strange as it may seem, is of particular interest to me.

In that declaration, in addition to the usual delusional and super-mystic declarations that we can expect, there is more: there is a lucid and radical hatred towards scientific research, technology and scientists themselves, which are overall identified as one of the pillars of civilization; civilization against which one rails in a clear and evident way.

In fact, we read: “Like sheep that seek protection in the shepherd who will slaughter them, so we civilized people entrust ourselves to the lay priests of science, the same ones who are slowly digging the grave for us”.

And again, the document ends like this: “Death to civilization” and “Death to the technological society”.

Now, as a researcher and as a scientist, it would be all too easy to attack the backward and openly nihilistic positions of Cospito and his numerous followers, which resonate widely even outside the anarchist sphere – the image of the “priests of science” is in fact a of that borrowed from every anti-scientist movement and anti-rationalist trickle of the last two centuries at least. The torrential sources of captivating words, like the pupils of the last school who throw balls of paper against classmates and teachers, so the bad teachers of every color often turn their arrows against science, moreover identifying it with technology or with the crasis so much trend of the techno-sciences that underlie every attack on knowledge and culture deriving from the application of the best method of investigation of reality so far available.

Instead, I would like to abandon my point of view, and consider that of some master of anarchist thought, a thought whose study is not alien to me because, paradoxically, it was also expressed by authors who considered natural science as its foundation and the scientific method what example to follow.

Pyotr Alekseevich Kropotkinthe celebrated Russian militant and master of anarchist thought, is one of these authors. Anarchy, for Kropotkin, and the anarchist communist revolution that he advocated, cannot exist without science: in his work “the conquest of bread”, he wrote in fact that “the revolution is more than the demolition of a regime. It is the awakening of human intelligence, the inventive spirit tenfold, a hundredfold; it is the dawn of a new science – the science of Laplace, of Lamarck, of Lavoisier.”

And how much science and science education were at the center of his thoughts, it can be deduced from innumerable passages, none perhaps so clearly formulated as this one taken from his paper “Fields, Factories and Workshops”: “Clearly stated, the objectives of the school according to this system should be as follows: give such an education that, having left school at the age of eighteen or twenty, every boy and girl is equipped with a thorough understanding of science – such knowledge that it could enable them to be useful workers in science – and, at the same time, give them a general knowledge of what constitutes the basis of science. technical training”.

Still in “Modern science and anarchism”Kropotkin writes this way: “Anarchism is a worldview based on a mechanical explanation of all phenomena, embracing the whole of naturethat is, it includes in it the life of human societies and their economic, political and moral problems. His method of investigation is that of the exact natural sciencesby which every scientific conclusion must be verified”.

Not only for Kropotkin is anarchism based on a scientific analysis of man and society, but also from a practical point of view its goal, i.e. the creation of social institutions more suited to human happiness, cannot be achieved without the use of the scientific method and of the necessary technical knowledge. In the aforementioned “Modern science and anarchism” ours writes in fact: “By means of the same popular creative force and constructive activity, based on modern science and technique, anarchism seeks to develop institutions that ensure a free evolution of society.”

One of the fathers of modern anarchist thought, that is, not only considered the scientific and technical method and knowledge indispensable for the formulation of anarchist thought, but above all he was very clear that without them it would not have been possible to progress towards a happier and more free.

Nothing further from the narrow-minded hatred of science and technology and by the invectives against civilization obtained from the application of scientific knowledge; without thereby wanting to judge the thought and action of certain anarchists we find ourselves discussing today, and yet without implying that science and technology cannot be used for oppression and destruction instead of for good and progress , while acknowledging with Feltri that in the contingent situation “the state has the opportunity to prove itself better than Cospito”, I would like to recall here that certain obscurantist delusions can be well separated from the political thought they claim to refer toand that it is not at all necessary to attack science and technology in the name of the desired progress of society.

And perhaps it is worth remembering the words of another great anarchist to those who have chosen anarchy, Errico Malatesta, who wrote: “There is a tendency among us to find true, beautiful and good everything that presents itself under the pleasant cloak of revolt against ‘admitted truths’, especially if it is supported by those who are, or claim to be, anarchists. Which demonstrates a lack of that spirit of examination and criticism which should be highly developed in anarchists.”