Scientific neutrality is itself metaphysical and masks domination

Evidence

In the impartiality of scientific language, that which is powerless has wholly lost any means of expression, and only the given finds its neutral sign. This kind of neutrality is more metaphysical than metaphysics. Ultimately, the Enlightenment consumed not just the symbols but their successors, universal concepts, and spared no remnant of metaphysics apart from the abstract fear of the collective from which it arose. — Theodor W. Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Dialectic of Enlightenment, 43

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the reader’s trust/silence work on neutrality and control; ‘neutral’ formalism as domination mirrors procedural control mechanisms in the impersonal-trust sources. — connects to: Perfect neutrality in politically charged science is elusive and possibly undesirable — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 93; Denying metaphysics in favor of science is itself a metaphysical position — Wael Hallaq, Restating Orientalism: A Critique of…, 294; Scientific rationalism becomes an instrument of social domination — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the…, 141 (+10 more)
• DEFINE: Caps the definition of what Enlightenment does to concepts — consuming metaphysics into abstract fear.

Broader Connections

• Scientific rationalism becomes an instrument of social domination #expands (1.00) — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man, 141
• Denying metaphysics in favor of science is itself a metaphysical position #expands (0.95) — Wael Hallaq, Restating Orientalism, 294
• A rationality geared to domination shapes how we construe the Other #expands (0.80) — Wael Hallaq, Restating Orientalism, 464
• Scientific-technological ordering is inherently political #corroborates (0.78) — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man, 618
• Perfect neutrality in politically charged science is elusive and possibly undesirable #qualifies (0.75) — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 93
• Science’s value-freedom dismantled normative barriers to genocidal co-operation #exemplifies (0.75) — Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust, 315
• Science must produce a legitimating philosophical discourse about its own rules #complicates (0.72) — Jean-François Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition, 87
• Interpreting a group’s self-descriptions requires avoiding both scientific neutrality and uncritical acceptance #qualifies (0.72) — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 783
• Critical theory that identifies reason with domination cannot justify its own critique #responds-to (0.72) — Alex Callinicos, Against Postmodernism, 380
• The neutrality defense rests on intentions, not consequences of science #responds-to (0.70)