Giorgi Vachnadze, Mathematics as a Social Practice, Non, 16 July 2023.
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Mathematics is performed.
But the performance is oftentimes an effect, or an unintended consequence of how much power has been delegated to its authority as an institution. The dictatorship of numbers has become a regime of truth and a type of governmentality by way of standardized testing and the contemporary undisputed faith in science that has indeed reached religious dimensions today. Let alone a corrective for common sense, mathematics seems to be a colonizer of common sense. Let us see then, whether Franz Fanon can offer us a way to decolonize mathematics. The first thing that needs to be recognized is that mathematics in its pure form (as opposed to the way it is applied for commercial or even scientific purposes) does not aim to secure wealth. We could at least say this much, that the privileged object of mathematical research is not profit, but Truth with a capital “T”. At the end of the day, most scientists, when hard-pressed with epistemic questions, will eventually rely on mathematics and common sense to account for a grounding or a firm starting point for any scientific method. Mathematicians therefore seem to be the de facto supporters of a very particular type of colonialism. One that is much more difficult to identify, expose, criticize and reform. A monopoly on truth.
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