Medicine, Science, and the Military-Industrial Complex (Briefly)

March 5, 2026

What is the role of the intellectual deconstruction project?

My book project initially started as a deconstruction project: science, medicine, and the liberal democracy project state their purpose is x, but they behave as y. In this case, I was identifying all the disparities between x and y, then trying to come up with explanations for the disparity, drawing from traditions of intellectual critique in science, history, feminism and cultural criticism.

I describe how this deconstruction acts as the “diagnosis,” but it often feels like academic culture and perhaps media as well, keeps us stuck endlessly debating diagnosis and ideas, while doing very little to directly address the urgent social changes we need. We never get to the “Assessment and Plan” part of problem solving. If we look at the way money and material flows, we can see very clearly the entanglement between science, academia, industry, and other fields with the military industrial complex, as outlined by no less than President Eisenhower. And we can see pretty clearly the contradictions of profit based health and social systems - why do some men get to be launched in a space ship on a whim while so many cannot access essential medicines? It does not require much expertise to see how unjust and absurd things are, and how to redistribute resources to meet the needs of our communities. And yet we do not do this.

Critique still has a role in change and future-buidling as long as we are not distracted into stopping there.

Essay on substack.

Photo source: reddit. Photographer unknown, Sculpture by Imma Butlava in the Castle of Vezio, Lake Como, Italy.