Historical and Investigative Research – 7 Sep 2016, by Francisco Gil-White
Conference presented by Francisco Gil-White, Raúl Baillères Auditorium, ITAM.
30 August, 2016
How to explain that, after four decades of US policy in the Middle East, the theocratic and Islamist Iranian state—part of the ‘Axis of Evil’ according to George Bush Jr.’s diatribes—is stronger than ever?
Introduction
Impressed by the division of labor, integration, and functional articulation of their component human ‘cells,’ we have, for a long time, trotted out the body metaphor to analyze our institutions or corporations—the root ‘corpo’ comes from the Latin ‘corpus’ meaning ‘body.’ If the metaphor is productive, perhaps we should adopt also, from the medical doctor, the method of investigation whereby he pokes and prods to observe bodily reactions with which to evaluate the body’s health.
Professionals of ‘action research’ have taken this idea seriously. These are investigators who act upon—‘poking’ and ‘prodding’ our systems or social ‘bodies’—in order to produce an institutional response with which to evaluate and diagnose. They have been recruited to improve the performance of for-profit and non-profit organizations.
Whereas a traditional anthropologist will participate and observe seeking to understand but not to change, action researchers, like medical doctors, define the healthy direction of the institution under study—to which they, typically, belong—in order, with their research, to nudge it in that desired direction. Such is the influential program defended by Danny Burns inSystemic Action Research: A strategy for whole system change.
Without consciously seeking to, I became an action researcher when I proposed, in the context of the US academic system, new international relations hypotheses—in particular, about the goals of those responsible for state-level decisions in the United States. The reaction I produced forced me to reconsider my earlier hypothesis about the health of that academic system.
I used to think that in the United States—above and beyond the citizen liberties guaranteed in the Constitution—the ‘academic liberty’ of a professor and researcher was institutionally protected, for this is what academic handbooks expressly state. The explicit purpose, according to the same handbooks, is to protect the generation of new ideas, the challenge to the old, and an open debate, indispensable to advance scientific progress and therefore our understanding.
I discovered, however, as other academics also have, that in the field of political theory complete liberty does not exist in the United States. Certain theories are considered ‘taboo.’ If you propose them, the consequence is not a civilized and collegial effort to debate and refute; on the contrary, power is mobilized to censor and persecute. Those who do not buckle under the pressure of protected dogma may even pay with their employment.
After the same experiment in Mexico I reach a different conclusion. At least at ITAM, where I now teach, there is enough academic liberty to question the dominant theories in international relations. It is possible, here, to propose a minority hypothesis. This is what ITAM students have now demonstrated by inviting me—successfully—to present, in our institution’s most important auditorium, the hypothesis according to which the power elites in the United States and Iran are not enemies—as they publicly represent themselves to be—but allies (and for a long time).
I thank the student organization UNE for this invitation.
In order to propitiate a scientific debate—healthy for an academic institution—we reproduce below the text of my conference, presented in the Raúl Baillères Auditorium on Tuesday August 30, 2016.
CONTINUE READING THIS FASCINATING STUDY.
I urge everyone to read the full conference lecture to appreciate the logical reasoning applied here. And then to consider whether Israel still has the opportunity to act pre-emptively despite the stated American threat to defend Iran against attack. A dire situation indeed.