Africans Must Give Up African Cultures And Embrace The Scientific Culture

Ozodi Osuji Ph.D


Preamble:

Dr. Ojo and his type are, as John Maynard Keynes, observed, nationalist scoundrels who take refuge in their so-called culture and in so doing inflict enormous damage on mankind. Nationalist demagogues talk about their culture and use that emotional talk to get their people to follow them and in the process attack and kill other people or revert to a more primitive state of being (as the Mullahs of Iran did to Iran and Adolf Hitler and Nazis did to Germany). These people are dangerous men; they are capable of retarding human civilization. Civilization, in its wake, brings pain and we do not like pain hence want to revert to our past cultural wombs where we feel safe. Alas, we must allow ourselves to be given birth to pain and from it learn and grow and move forward. Dr. Ojo experiences pain from exposure to Western civilization and want to reduce that pain by crawling back into his mother’s womb, his so-called African culture. That African culture made it possible for the white man to conquer Africans. The rational thing to do is discard that culture and embrace a universalistic culture with which Africans can at last be able to compete with the rest of the world instead of being the laughing stock of the world. I, therefore, feel motivated to clubber Dr. Ojo and intellectually destroy him for his atavistic philosophy is dangerous to all Africans (although he fancies himself the savior of Africans). He needs to be relegated to the dustbin for that is where he belongs. Thank God, certain Africans, Igbos, for example, know that they have to move forward, not backward as the primitive Ojo wants to take Africans to. This essay makes the point that Africans need to move forward and not look back on their African cultures. This forward march entails accepting the psychological pain of losing one’s culture and for a while feeling rudderless and confused but later finding new anchor in scientific culture, the savior of mankind. Dr. Ojo and his type, African irredentist are my sworn eternal enemy and I must destroy them, lay them to rest in their well-deserved grave of past cultures so that from that grave a new Africa rises to be able to compete with the rest of the world. These ethnocentric jingoists imbibe the shallowest of Western education and use that poor education to wage psychological warfare on other Africans. If you try to tell them the truth they say that you admire all things western and, as such, hate all things African, hate yourself and feel inferior to the white man. In their primitive minds these superficial Western psychoanalytic categories seem to make sense. But like the psychoanalysis their psychobabble is based on they are not convincing.  These people live in the past and must be attacked and killed so that the new African man, the universal human being may resurrect from their death and live in the new world as the new man the world deserves.



Africans Must Give Up African Cultures And Embrace The Scientific Culture

(A Discourse on the merits of Universalistic versus Particularistic Culture)

Ozodi Thomas Osuji

In the nineteenth century Europe and Africa came into persistent and permanent contact. In the past there were, of course, contacts between the two groups but they were, more or less, not constant. We know that there were some black persons in Rome during the Roman Empire (especially those fighting as gladiators).

In the mid-1400s the Portuguese began sailing along the coast of West Africa and eventually rounded the Cape of Good Hope and reached India, their goal.  Between 1500 and 1860 slave trading took place between Europeans and coastal African peoples but Europeans did not really enter into the interior of Africa to make much of an impact on African peoples and their cultures.

It was in the late nineteenth century, during the scramble for Africa, that Europeans finally penetrated interior Africa and laid claims to African territories as their colonies.

Since the beginning of the twentieth century Europe and Africa have been in constant contact.

The sustained contact between Europeans and Africans led Europeans to compare their people’s material development and Africans material development and came to the conclusion that Africans were, at least, two thousand years behind them. There is no other way of putting it than to state the truth: Europeans saw Africans as primitive. They saw African cultures as so backward that they embarked on a mission to civilize Africans via their missionaries and the establishment of schools in Africa.

No one likes to be seen as primitive. Thus, by the 1950s when Africans had what we might call a literate class (mostly secondary school graduates; university education did not become common place in Africa until the late twentieth century) Africans took umbrage at being considered primitive. They attempted to remedy the situation. The way they wanted to go about doing it is to take pride in their traditional cultures.

The 1960s United States was the era of “I am black and proud” and “black is beautiful” among African Americans. This pride in their black selves filtered down to Africans who then started saying that they are proud of their African cultures.  We are still in that phase of “I am black and proud and African culture is good”.

Obviously, those put down must do something to put themselves up (exalt themselves…it should be remembered that both inferiority and superiority feeling is neurotic; healthy persons do not feel better than other persons, they feel other persons equals). Those desecrated must try to rehabilitate their social and self-esteems. It was therefore understandably necessary for African Americans and Africans in Africa to try to tell themselves and the world that they are not as primitive as white folks said that there are.

That been said, the question is this: what culture are Africans proud of? What exactly is in their cultures that are good that they need to be proud of?  Is it the culture that over a thousand years sold Africans to Arabs and Europeans as slaves that they are proud of?  Is it the culture that did not evolve to inventing the wheel or developing writing that they are proud of?  Are they proud of a culture in which people were mostly naked (before either Arabs and or Europeans introduced clothing to them)?

Are they proud of a culture that did not say anything that can be considered remotely relevant to science and technology?

Are they proud of the Africans that had primitive military technology so that a handful of white men with maxim guns walked from one end of the continent to the other subjugating Africans to their rule; a people that were so easily defeated by other people ought to try to acquire the technology of those who defeated them rather than talk about being proud of their past.

Are Nigerian Africans proud of their culture that has produced massive thievery and corruption in Nigeria? Generally speaking, in every society most people are pro-social; that is to say that most people do the right thing; we normally expect a few persons to deviate from the norm, that is, expect a few anti-social personalities, criminals. In the USA it is safe to say that perhaps five percent of the adult population have a  proclivity to criminal behavior and some of them are in and out of jails and prisons whereas the other ninety-five percent are pro-social and do not steal. Now, what can we say about Nigerians? How about ninety-five percent of them given to corruption and criminality? The level of criminal behavior in Nigeria is so high that I know folks who now believe that Nigerians are born with criminal genes in their bodies; and these people would not trust any Nigerian not to steal or take bribes.  A culture that produces such high level of criminality is not exactly a culture one is to be proud of, or is it? (Or, should we accept the infantile analysis that blames everything wrong with Africa on Europe and blame Europeans for the massive corruption that characterizes Nigeria? That attempt at denial and shifting of blame to others so as to feel good about their selves is no longer convincing; fifty years of self-rule has only exacerbated the problem of Nigerians inability to do the right thing and not corrected it one bit.)

Are Africans proud of African religions that were in the main superstitious and had nothing remotely resembling reason in them; some of these religions actually used to sacrifice people to nonexistent gods, buried life slaves with dead so-called rich and powerful men, threw twin babies into the bush and did other incredible things that one is even ashamed to mention them.

Christianity teaches respect for human life and has given humanity dignity.  Christianity taught Africans how to read and write and like the ungrateful persons Africans have turned around and use that same writing Christianity taught them to desecrate it.

Christianity gave mankind passport to a more decent life; however, science will ultimately displace Christianity. In the meantime those societies that are not yet at the scientific level are best served if they embraced Christianity and use its teachings of love for all people to love themselves.

In this paper I argue that instead of the defensive and reactive claim that their cultures are good that Africans ought to embrace the scientific culture, a culture that is based on pure reason and the scientific method.

The scientific culture is not European or Asian in its categories; it is universalistic and not particularistic to any group although its root is mostly in Europe.

All cultures of the past, including European cultures, were, at some point, primitive. It is only since the advent of science (beginning with Nicolas Copernicus in 1543) that human cultures have embarked on true civilization. True, there were sparks of civilization in ancient Egypt, Sumer, India, China, Greece; Rome and so on but real civilization began with the adoption of the scientific method as a methodological approach to phenomena.

It is science that civilizes people, not their past cultures. What is good in past cultures are so to the extent that they approximate the parameters of science.

Instead of being proud of their primitive past cultures Africans must jettison those cultures and embrace approaches to phenomena embedded in science.

What is scientific culture? Scientific culture is a culture based on the methodology of science. The methodology of science is a (materialistic) philosophy that says that an idea is to be accepted as true only if we all can observe it, verify it, perhaps replicate it and generally attest to its truth.

A scientific idea is true not because of the authority of the person who articulated it or the credibility of its source but because all of us, following the scientific method, can verify it, and if it cannot be verified throw it away, discard it as rubbish.  As Karl Popper added, an idea must also be falsifiable for it to be scientific.

In science people do not just argue about the truth or lack of it of an idea, they either verify it or they do not. If an idea is verified it is accepted as temporarily true until it is no longer verified.

Consider the following scientific ideas.

An atom is made of three parts: an electron circling a nucleus; a nucleus that is made of protons and neutrons (we now know that neutrons and protons are made of quarks, which, in turn, are made of other things especially photons).

The various elements (there are 92 naturally occurring elements and about 14 that have been created in the laboratory and disappear within a few seconds of existence) are atoms differentiated from each other by the number of protons and neutrons in their nucleus and the number of electrons circling the nucleus.

Hydrogen, the lightest element, is made of one proton in its nucleus and one electron circling the nucleus.

Helium is made of two protons and two neutrons (in its nucleus) and two electrons circling the nucleus. We can go down the periodic table ascertaining the composition of each element on it.

Consider the idea that molecules are a combination (compound) of elements held together by chemical bonds.

Water is a molecule. It is composed of two atoms of hydrogen and one atom of oxygen held together by chemical bonds (the manner in which electrons are covalently intertwined in it).

These two ideas, the nature of the atom and the nature of a specific molecule, can be verified. All we need to do is go to a Chemistry laboratory and test the ideas. Heat water and it becomes two gasses, hydrogen and oxygen (which we can ascertain).  Heat hydrogen and its inner composition can be ascertained.  That is to say that the ideas can be verified and we do not need to argue about them.

These ideas are provable anywhere on planet earth if not everywhere in the universe.  The ideas are objective and not culture based; they are self-evident natural facts. One does not have to say that one’s culture posited the ideas for the ideas to be true; they are true by nature.

Any idea that is true regardless of the cultural environment in which it is found is universal hence scientific.

Scientific culture is universalistic and not particularistic to any place on planet earth.  Therefore, only scientific culture is the form of organization that is in accord with natural processes; the rest are deviations from nature largely due to ignorance of the operation of nature.

Of course, no extant society is completely organized around science. Even the West is mostly nonscientific in its social organization. Perhaps, the West is five percent scientific in its culture whereas Africa is perhaps ninety- five percent nonscientific in its culture.

Scientific culture is that human culture that organizes its society around the workings of nature, a society that tries to mimic the workings of nature in an objective manner. That culture is not a closed culture; it is always changing, changing to reflect what we currently know about the nature of nature. It is an open society that allows new and different ideas to diffuse into it and change it.

The only thing that is permanent on earth is change; any attempt to prevent change is self-defeating; those who refuse to change and adapt to changed environments die out like the dodo bird of Madagascar.

Our understanding of the workings of nature is still in its infancy; we are only beginning to understand nature. Science is a young enterprise; it is less than five hundred years old; its ideas are evolving to new and more accurate ideas on how nature works.

In 5143 Nicolas Copernicus, a Polish clergy man, posited that the sun is the center of the universe (he was wrong; the sun is the center of our local solar system, not even the center of our Milky Way galaxy, talk more the entire universe).

In 1609 Galileo used his telescope to show that in fact the sun is the center of the local solar system and showed that five planets (those known during his time…Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter…Uranus, Neptune and Pluto were discovered after Galileo) orbited around the sun.

In 1687 Isaac Newton posited his three laws of motion and the laws of gravitation.  Newtonian physics dominated Western science for two hundred years.

In the late 1700s Lavoisier discovered oxygen and Boyle talked about the law of conservation of gases. In 1803 Robert Dalton resurrected the Greek idea that the atom is the smallest indivisible part of nature; thereafter, Thomas Young performed his double slit experiments showing that light is wave.

In the mid-1800s Michael Friday discovered electricity. Later on in that century James Clark Maxwell showed that electricity and magnetism are correlated. In 1897 J. J. Thompson discovered the electron.

In 1900 Max Planck established that light is made of quanta (particles) and began quantum mechanics. In 1903 Marie and Pierre Curie showed how the nuclei of elements decay. In 1905 Albert Einstein showed that light is composed of photons (in his paper on the photoelectric effect on light…in a different paper
he speculated on special relativity and in 1915 speculated on general relativity).

In 1911 Ernest Rutherford showed that the atom has a nucleus (made of protons). In 1913 Neil’s Bohr talked about electrons circling nucleus. In 1932 James Chadwick showed that the nucleus also contained neutrons.

In the 1920s Schrodinger, Pauli, Dirac, Heisenberg and others provided the mathematics of quantum mechanics (in the same 1920s Louis Broglie showed experimentally that light and electrons have both wave and particle function).

In the late 1930s Lise Meitner and Otto Hahn wrote that the nucleus of atoms could be split if it is bombarded with neutrons (to produce chain reaction and release of radiation).

Enrico Fermi experimentally showed that it is possible to actually split the nucleus and release radiation (energy). The Manhattan Project led by Robert Oppenheim actually bombarded the nucleus of an isotope of uranium (each element has isotopes; in an isotope situation the number of protons remains the same while the number of neutrons is different; for example, regular hydrogen has one proton, some hydrogen additionally has one neutron (deuterium) and others have two neutrons, (tritium) and split it and released energy, energy which was unleashed on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.  Later, we learned how to contain the energy released in nuclear fission and use it in nuclear power plants to provide electricity to people.

The salient point is that scientists learn how nature works at the smallest level (micro level, such as quantum mechanics) and macro level (large level, such as gravitation) we now use that knowledge to organize our society (nuclear energy, nuclear weapons, the world of electrons that we all live in…TV, transistor radios, computers, Internet, cell phone etc.). We use our knowledge of nature to improve our society. This is how scientific culture works.

A society based on the findings of science organizes its self around the parameters of science, not on some belief of what their past cultures was like. The past culture is irrelevant; it is only relevant if it approximates the findings of today’s science.

Moreover, as they say, the past is gone forever; one cannot enter the same river twice; only the present is real; the future is a hope not reality.

Africa’s past is only useful to the extent that its findings are congruent with what the sciences, especially physics, chemistry, biology and earth science tell us about how nature works. The fact that some African ancestors said that Olumgbete created the Universe is irrelevant.

What is relevant in any story of creation is what astrophysics tells us; it tells us that 13.7 billion years ago, out of nothing and nowhere something the size of a particle came out. (Georges Lemaitre was the first to posit the idea of a cosmic egg that shattered and produced the universe; Gamow agreed with him that the universe began at a point and expanded from that point. Friedmann building on Einstein’s General Relativity suggested that the universe is expanding rapidly. Edwin Hubble with his telescope provided observational evidence, red shifting and Doppler Effect, that the universe is actually expanding. Fred Hoyle disagreed that the universe had a point of origin and instead posited a steady state hypothesis, the idea that the universe has always existed.)

It is now generally agreed that the universe began at a point in time and that everything was contained in a particle (singularity) that shattered and began the universe. What was in that particle we do not know but whatever it was it grew incredibly hot and exploded and the explosion produced particles of light (photons) and those photons combined to form quarks, which combined to form protons and neutrons (photons formed electrons directly). The Big Bang produced energy (heat and light) which transformed itself to matter (particles, atoms).

The explosion that produced matter also produced anti-matter. For every proton there was anti proton, for every neutron there was anti neutrons and for every electron there was anti electron (positron). If the laws of physics are constant the number of matter and anti-matter should have been the same; both matter and anti-matter should have attacked each other, and annihilated each other and reduced each other back to pure energy (photons) hence ended the universe as we now know it.

Apparently, for every billion units of anti-matter produced a billion and one units of matter were produced thus when both attacked each other they did not annihilate each other; some matter survived to continue the evolution of the physical universe.

(The happenstances that led to the survival of the physical universe and eventual evolution of human beings give some persons the impression that the universe seems teleological; that is, the universe appears to have a goal, the goal of producing human beings; this is called the anthropoid principle.)

The incipient universe expanded at an incredible speed, greater than the speed of light, 186, 000 miles per second (Alan Gut called it Inflationary period). This rapid expansion, apparently, prevented the collapse of the emergent universe unto itself hence averting the existence of the nascent universe.

For 400, 000 years the universe was composed of plasma; that is, unattached protons, neutrons and electrons (and photons). Later, somehow, protons and neutrons combined to form nuclei of the lightest elements (hydrogen, helium, lithium etc.). A million years later elections were captured by nuclei to form the lightest elements (hydrogen and helium).

Thereafter, the universe was a cloud of hydrogen gas. Somehow, space occurred in the cloud of hydrogen and clumps of hydrogen were pulled by gravity inwards to themselves and inside their cores nuclear fusion took place and stars were born.

Stars are nuclear factories where hydrogen fuse to helium (called nucleosynthesis) and in the process produce heat and light; heat and light that work their way from the center of the stars until they reach the outside of it and thereafter escape into space as the star lights we see in the night sky (light and heat from the sun reaches planet earth in eight minus upon leaving the sun).

Stars burn hydrogen and when they exhaust their hydrogen fuel begin to fuse other element, such as carbon, then oxygen until they reach iron. Apparently, the heat inside stars is not enough to fuse elements heavier than iron. At that point stars begin to expand and eventually explode in supernovae.

During the supernovae explosion incredible heat is attained and heavier elements are fused. Uranium, gold, diamond etc. are said to be fused during supernovae.

From exploded massive stars gas and star dust float in space (as nebulae). These are eventually pulled by gravity to form new stars, planetismals, asteroids and comets (rocks with dust and frozen water on them).

Our star, the sun, and its nine planets are said to have formed four and half billion years ago from star dust and gas from exploded massive stars.

Our star and planets are said to have the potential to last five more billion years. Thereafter, the sun, a medium sized star, will burn out its hydrogen fuel, expand and throw off its outer layers and shrink into a white dwarf and eventually die.

(Upon death in supernovae, the cores of larger stars cores collapse into themselves to form either neutron stars or black-holes; in neutron stars the remaining electrons and protons are all compressed into neutrons that spin at incredible speed; in black holes the remaining cores are so dense that not even light can escape from their event horizons.)

Two billion years from now the earth will be too hot from the heat generated by the expanding sun and all biological life on earth would die.  In time the earth would die and become a cold rock in space (before it shatters into its constituent parts).

The two hundred billion stars in our galaxy and the two hundred billion galaxies in the universe are rapidly expanding away from each other (due to dark energy). In trillions of years they would lose heat and die (and their husks would eventually shatter into their constituent elements and eventually particles).

The universe would in time be composed of free floating neutrons, protons and electrons (and neutrinos). In time those particles would decay into photons.  In more time those photons would die and the universe would be composed of no matter.

Since one of the laws of thermodynamics says that matter does not die but changes form, and Einstein tells us that matter changes to energy, and energy to matter we can surmise that some form of energy would still exist in the anticipated cold universe.

Today, we know that there are such things as dark matter and dark energy. Dark matter composes 23% of the universe and dark energy composes 73% of the universe. What dark energy and dark matter are made of we do not know; that is to say that we understand only 4% of the visible universe! (So, much for our alleged great knowledge!)

For our present purposes, what is salient is that the universe came into being about fifteen billion years ago and will in time die a cold death (the alternative hypothesized manner of death of the universe, big crunch, where all matter re-collapse back to themselves is now ruled out).

It is now generally agreed that the universe is made of matter and energy (which, according to Einstein, is mutually convertible).

We now know that the universe has four forces operating in it: gravity, electro-magnetism, strong nuclear force and the weak nuclear force.  Einstein died trying to unify the four forces into one force but did not succeed; a Nigerian, Mr. Oyibo, claims to have unified the four forces into one force to his satisfaction but not to other persons’ conviction.

In terms of criticism, the Big Bang hypothesis of the origin of the universe is not entirely satisfactory. Thus, some observers now posit the possibility that the universe may have branched off from another existing universe (superstrings hypothesis and M/brane speculates thus) or that the universe expands, and collapses and rebounds to another universe (Rebound hypothesis). Indeed, there are those who claim that infinite universes, multiverses, exist in the same space.

Regardless of what turns out to be the actual origin of the universe, what we know is that on our planet, a planet orbiting a medium sized star, somewhere in the outer reaches of a spiritual galaxy, Milky Way, biological life forms evolved.

Charles Darwin made a cogent argument as to how life evolved from single celled organisms to multi celled organisms and how over billions of years evolved to the great ape called human beings. Human beings are said to be just another animal that evolved as other animals evolved. People live a meaningless and purposeless existence, an absurd existence in that they appear to be intelligent yet like other animals they live and die and disappear into oblivion.

Like the universe they live in people came from nothing and return to nothing. Religion tries to suit people’s existential angst by telling them that a caring God created them and made them special and that when they die they go to an imaginary place called heaven and live eternally.

There is no shred of empirical evidence that people survive their physical death; all talk of God and how human beings live in haven appears to be delusional, Richard Dawkins said in his new book The God Delusion (in the early twentieth century Sigmund Freud said that religion is an illusion, he said so in his book, The Future of an Illusion).

One accepts the scientific story of the origin of the universe, even if it is not yet entirely satisfactory.  Non-scientific stories of creation, especially religions variety, appear unsubstantiated by facts.

The Yoruba myth of origin of the world, for example, says that Olodumare (God) created Oduduwa (first human being) and Oduduwa spurned Yorubas. This story of creation has no empirical evidence backing it; it therefore is unacceptable in scientific discussion.

What is acceptable in scientific discourse is what is observable and verifiable (Wilson and Penzias’ discovery of the Cosmic Micro-Wave Background Radiation proves that the Big Bang probably did take place fifteen billion years ago); scientists do not take refuge in fairy tales spurned by their primitive ancestors.

In the here and now world, science shows us behaviors that are more functional than others. For example, if you want to work in a chemistry laboratory or work in a factory you will be more functional if you wore certain attire than others. Clearly, if you wear agbada and babariga attire you would probably drag test tubes down and set the damn lab on fire; similar clothes impede productivity in assembly lines in factories. What is functional in a factory and lab is trousers, shirts and jackets; in short, what is currently called Western type attire is more adaptive to the exigencies of the industrial age; wearing clothes evolved in feudal eras, as agbadas are, is plainly stupid.

You do not want to wear agbada just because it is your cultural uniform (which, by the way, is not true for those were imported from Arabia; they were invented by Arab; Arabs discarded them and mind dead Africans embraced them; Africans always take what other people threw away and take pride in them as if they invented them).

If Africans want to be as productive as Westerners they simply have to dress like Westerners. See, Asians who want to be as productive as Westerners have given up their traditional uniforms and embraced Western uniforms. The Chinese have given up their traditional clothes and are now attired in Western clothes and are now very productive.

Africans must discard the clownish clothes they call their traditional clothes, stuff that makes them the least productive of people in the world and wear western clothes.

Most African languages were not written until about a hundred years ago (when white men taught Africans to read and write). Their vocabularies consist of only a few thousand words (English has almost a million words in it). Therefore, African languages cannot articulate all that is known in science and technology. The realistic African must stop taking pride in his so-called language and accept English language as his medium of expression and communication. English has become the universal language, anyway, so why fight it?

If you must speak your African language make it a secondary language. To compete in this world of science and technology one must read books and journals written in English; to say that one wants to write and talk in an African language, a language that only a few people can read or write, and those not trained in science and technology, is to deceive one’s self; in fact, it is to be deluded, to be insane.

An insane person is a person who does the same thing, over and over again and gets the same bad results and thinks that he can get good results by doing the same thing!

Africans are kept backward by their archaic and anachronistic cultures. African cultures do not adapt to the exigencies of industrial civilization and therefore must be changed rather than reified and deified.

If Africans want progress in science and technology they have to discard their cultures and embrace the scientific culture. There is no other way to go about becoming industrialized and modern than to read in the language of contemporary science and technology, English (with an admixture of German and French).

CONCLUSION

A Nigerian chap that calls himself Dr. Ojo (he likes to be called Doctor, a Western thing, while he derides the West) talks claptrap about the need to return to African cultures and religions. I tried to reason with him that Africans past cultures and religions are part of their problem, part of the reason why they are the most backward race on planet earth. He would not listen to logic and common sense. He simply sings the same annoying jingoistic tune.

Semi-educated Africans listen to the rubbish this man dishes out because it appeals to their pride but not to their rational minds. It is like saying that African-Americans should not have to strive to attend the best universities in America just because those are white universities. Well, until black folks have world class universities black folks must strive to attend the best universities in the white world. To attend these universities one must have the same preparation as white students: education in the sciences.

This Ojo guy keeps harping on the need to return to African cultures. This paper is an attempt to see if logic can penetrate his thick skull.

The man’s ego defensiveness masquerades as knowledge. Knowledge accepts the challenge of being part of the world and does not seek refuge in one’s so-called ethnic culture.

I am a universal man; I do not even pay attention to my color. Color means nothing to me; race means nothing to me. What matters to me is ability to participate in the world of science and technology.

A culture that stresses science and technology best prepares people to participate in the world of science and technology. Thus, I submit that a scientific culture is what we need to replace our various ethnic based cultures.

Of course, this is a wish list, a goal; in the real world ethnic cultures would remain; people would always find succor and security in their ethnic world, in their mothers’ womb; but the thing to do is to allow one’s self to be reborn, to go through what Otto Rank called the trauma of birth, feel the pain of what Carl Jung called individuation and finally live as what Erich Fromm (Escape from Freedom) called a free man, man that does not squelch his individuality in the social (cultural) womb.

Finally, nothing said here implies admiration of white people or hatred of Africans, as the spurious and superficial Dr. Ojo says; the man flings his half-baked western psychological categories at anyone who tries to say that Africans need to accept scientific culture. I do not admire white color or hate black color; what I admire is impersonal knowledge; I could care less where that knowledge originated: Africa, America, Asia or Europe.

The Ojo fellow, apparently, is so dense that he seems incapable of abstract thinking, and understanding that one can differentiate between a people and their behaviors. In so far that white folks engage in scientific behaviors I admire them but this does not mean admiring their color or hating black color, as the brain dead Ojo calls folks like me.