Message that I have sent to the WAC list about the question which has been discussed there if "Indiana Jones is a bad thing for science", as someone has put it.
Indiana Jones is just a fiction, but as a fiction he has a function, namely to unfold something repressed in each one of us, the desire for adventure and for discovery of some hidden origins, which we know are mythical too.
Why repressed? Because archaeologists desire to certify themselves as scientists, which indeed they are, but as a model of cold, distant scientists that is a demiurgic archetype.
That kind of “scientist” is a myth too, an illusion, very spread in popular culture.
The problem is obviously more complex, but in general terms that is what I think. Political connotations of Indiana Jones should be discussed. But to try to repress the adventurous aspect of all human quest, in order to present a very “objective” and distant look is to be mistaken by ideology, by the current canonization of science as a source of power, and sometimes very damaging power.
Why repressed? Because archaeologists desire to certify themselves as scientists, which indeed they are, but as a model of cold, distant scientists that is a demiurgic archetype.
That kind of “scientist” is a myth too, an illusion, very spread in popular culture.
The problem is obviously more complex, but in general terms that is what I think. Political connotations of Indiana Jones should be discussed. But to try to repress the adventurous aspect of all human quest, in order to present a very “objective” and distant look is to be mistaken by ideology, by the current canonization of science as a source of power, and sometimes very damaging power.
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