2025-10-02.2_objectivity and death

the “objectivity”-drive of certain elements of scientific (and general) discourse is really a death-drive. and it is so at any point that the “objectivity” of knowledge is significantly equated with disembodiment (of/from that knowledge). because: “the opposite of embodied is dead, not omniscient” (Latour: How to Talk About The Body?, 2004).

but this death-drive is not as simple as a “pure” desire for the end of life/movement. evidenced by the fact that while it is ultimately a drive towards death of those pursuing and advancing it, it is rarely portrayed or even consciously perceived as such, even by it’s proponents. a central factor as to why this is the case is that it’s final achievement is and has never been the end goal. the goal is not to achieve the objective (of “objectivity”), the goal/effect, conscious or not, is to wield this drive and the rules and standards attached to it for profit, comfort, personal gain and societal power. in this sense, while calling it a death-drive is ultimately accurate, calling it a power/murder-drive is more actually accurate. since in the actual moment of it’s employment by (usually) a privileged, normative actor, the goal of said actor is not to die, but to put to death the knowledge or person that they are employing the claim/accusation of insufficient “objectivity” against.

the societal position of the actor employing the power/murder-drive in an actual moment is of central importance. since the ultimate reality of it being a death-drive does have irrevocable consequences for the actual moment of it’s use. every time you use it, you advance the reality of disembodiment, you actively disembody. and not just the people you are accusing of not being “objective”, but yourself. because: they are you, we are all bodies. and as we have seen, becoming “purely objective” does not mean becoming omniscient, it means becoming completely disembodied, which means dead. and this is where the societal/power position of a specific actor becomes so important. because although we are all bodies, a relevant contingent of us have made it so that not all of said bodies are allotted an equal amount of life and significance. and it is only from a position that has been made to have a certain level of relevance (e.g. whiteness, heteronormativity, masculinity, able-bodiedness, humanity, etc.) that you can relatively comfortably wield the death-drive of “objectivity”, since you know that your body will not be one of the first it demolishes.