The impact of knowledge bubbles exclusion & influence in history & human sciences

“Bubbles” are naturally occurring in contemporary human societies created by temporal, cultural and geographical barriers. Hence it seems rational to question the impact of bubbles on the propagation of knowledge both contemporary and historical. With reference to human sciences and history, this essay will aim to ascertain the impact of bubbles within our society and the effect on both historical and social information disseminated within these societies. Further, the effect of these knowledge bubbles on the acquisition and dissemination of knowledge where some voices and perspectives are excluded and the impact it has on the cognitive thought and by extension actions of the affected human populations. Through an epistemological lens of analysis, the specific areas of knowledge have been chosen to enable a broad scope of both contemporary and historic perspectives to ascertain the positive and negative effects of knowledge bubbles in communities.

To begin, in historical knowledge there are existing bubbles created due to geographical circumstances. An example of this includes the China Tiananmen square protests of 1989 which were student-led protests calling for a change in the autocratic regime of China. The protests mainly called for a democratic government which allowed for a free press and speech in China, following the death of Hu Yaobang a former communist party leader who initially presented the idea of democratic reform. Following his death, tens of thousands of students and citizens camped in Tiananmen Square, a protest which was ceased in a brutal crackdown now known as the Tiananmen Square massacre carried out by the autocratic Chinese government (Tiananmen Square Protests. (2022). ) Despite being regarded as one of the goriest political crackdowns in modern history, at large the new generations of Chinese citizens are unaware of this massacre as it has been wiped in completion from historical and civil memory within Chinese borders. This geographical bubble has resulted in the complete dissolution of an important historic moment in Chinese history.

The Chinese government executed this by restricting internet access on search engines blocking anyone within the country from searching terms such as “candle”, “massacre” and “six four”, as well as images of the Tiananmen Square massacre the images only reflecting the square as it stands today. Moreover, the detaining of journalists and artists who have attempted to reflect or spread images or art pieces in relation to the massacre. This has resulted in only 15 out of 100 students who were not alive at the time of the massacre being able to identify the most prolific surviving image of the massacre, the “Tank Man” photo. Further, the 1989 protests and consequent massacre are not mentioned in Chinese textbooks (How China is erasing the Tiananmen massacre from history. (2014).) This has created a knowledge bubble for new generations of Chinese citizens as this historical knowledge which is still relevant today is being erased because of the political implications of the protest which affects the political affiliations that Chinese citizens may have as they are not exposed to other knowledge perspectives and voices that go against the government’s perspective. This shows that knowledge exclusion is particularly important for the autocratic Chinese government as it represents civil unrest in the political system and, if contemporary Chinese society is exposed to this perspective, it could spark protests calling for a regime change. In contrast, in the area of human sciences in relation to ethical considerations, the presence of knowledge bubbles can be seen in the Nazi concentration camps Auschwitz- Birkenau, a nature vs nurture medical experimentation performed on twins. The research conducted in the sphere of natural sciences led by Josef Mengele was used as a justification for the discrimination of people with condemned genetic characteristics such as the Roma people, people with disabilities, the Jews, and LGBTQ members. By subjecting identical twins who have identical genomes to these experiments it was believed in this bubble that any physical or behavioural differences would be as a result of differences in environmental exposure. The Nazi scientists followed the hypothesis that selective breeding between these individuals could be used to perpetuate what was deemed to be socially acceptable and exterminate the undesirable characteristics on the basis that subservient humans would pollute the Aryan race (Why the Nazis Were Obsessed With Twins. (2022).)

However, the acquisition of knowledge provided through these experimentations violated medical ethics and research protocols which already existed which resulted in the research and findings being deemed as illegitimate. The knowledge bubble within the sphere of Nazi doctors that used medical practice to perpetuate the Aryan race hypothesis resulted in the exclusion of alternative hypotheses researched in the nature vs nurture experimentation which highly impacted the viability of the knowledge being acquired as it only illuminated one perspective instead of conducting a robust research that could support and falsify the research. The knowledge bubble created by the Nazi regime allowed Nazi doctors to justify the unethical practices as within the Nazi ideology anything that benefitted the regime was justifiable. The historical bubble created as a result of this one-sided research led to the psychological manipulation of German citizens to believe that the Aryan race would be threatened by the unfavourable characteristics named above without selective breeding or termination. The ideology imposed upon the german citizens forced compliance as within the historical sphere, the regime disallowed any knowledge which contradicted that of the nazi regime and therefore limited the extent to which any german citizens could make moral or ethical decisions. This exemplifies that the knowledge presented to people if only providing a singular perspective matters as it can be detrimental as people develop a cognitive bias affecting the way they function as global citizens. Lastly, from the lens of human sciences in the contemporary world a large aspect of social and cultural identity is comprised of religious beliefs, as each religion follows its own doctrines this in effect creates a knowledge bubble that shapes individuals' identities. In the Muslim community, the various sects of belief although all based on the same religious values, over time the communities have interpreted the knowledge in different ways and the dissemination of these interpretations in their teaching has shaped the factions of the Muslim community. To begin, those that are largely juxtaposed in their teachings are the Ahl as-Sunnah Muslims and the Ismaili Muslims which are the two opposite poles of the Muslim faction spectrum. The Ahl as-Sunnah Muslim's interpretation of religious values mainly stems from the holy Qur’an on which the communities teachings are based. The belief is that the Qur’an is the direct and unchanged word of God and should remain as such (The six beliefs of Sunni Islam - Muslim beliefs - Edexcel - GCSE Religious Studies Revision - Edexcel - BBC Bitesize. (2022).) The Ahl as-Sunnah teachings don’t allow for contextualization or any interpretation of the Qur’an instead the words are to be taken literally and applied in any temporal or cultural situation. This effectively creates a bubble in the knowledge that is accepted and perpetuated by a large faction of Muslims globally and limits the extent to which any contextualization from Prophet Muhammed's time 570- 632 CE to the contemporary world can occur (Muhammad | Biography, History, & Facts. (2022).) What at that time was practised and viewed as socially acceptable is no longer acceptable, which often leads to what is perceived as radicalized groups forming and attempting to impose on today's communities such as Al Qaeda which was founded on the basis of voluntary acceptance of the perpetuated ideology while in other extreme cases such as the Saudi Arabia government the following of the set ideology was largely involuntary.

On the other hand, the Ismaili Muslims stemmed from the Qur’an and the period following the Prophet Muhammed where the Imams were established as a substantial blood connection to the last Prophet. In the Ismaili community, the Imam serves to interpret the knowledge of the Qur’an and to apply it in the temporal communities using Farmans. The current Imam, His Highness the Aga Khan has advocated that each farman given by an Imam was an interpretation of the Qur’an as well as the insight given to them by God to guide the Jamat through whatever issues they may have been facing (Farmanbardari – Obedience to the Imam of the Time. (2010). ) Therefore, those interpretations were made to fit the cultural and temporal context they were written and produced as there is never one interpretation or perspective. This is one of the main points of contrast between Ahl as-Sunnah and Ismailis as the Ahl as-Sunnah are closed off in their interpretation of the Qur’an which they give the literal meaning, while the Ismailis have interpretations given by the Imam for to be interpreted in the context for which they were written which allows them to better fit the contemporary world as well as allows religious followers to make derive their own meanings from the Qur’an varying it from the literal meanings. As exemplified in the above cases, the way in which a piece of knowledge is interpreted and disseminated in a community affects how community members operate in the contemporary world as the knowledge shapes the perspectives and bias generated within humans influencing their actions positively or negatively which in effect creates a knowledge bubble.

In conclusion, my analysis of historical and human science bubbles has yielded that there have been both positive and negative effects of “bubbles” on contemporary and historical human societies. These bubbles have shaped the knowledge disseminated within these societies which have had innumerable implications on the cognitive thought and by extension actions of the affected human populations within these “bubbles” as well as the global perception of these human societies from those not implicated by the acquisition of knowledge. Other benign bubbles which I have not studied in my essay are present in everyday societies despite not being as largely spread are cases of knowledge discussion or bias towards one voice or perspective globally influencing the values and actions of individuals.

• Tiananmen Square Protests Tiananmen Square Protests. (2022). Retrieved 20 November 2022, from https://www.history.com/topics/china/tiananmen-square
• How China is erasing the Tiananmen massacre from history How China is erasing the Tiananmen massacre from history. (2014). Retrieved 20 November 2022, from https://www.dazeddigital.com/artsandculture/article/20093/1/how-china-is-erasing-the-tiananmen-massacre-from-history
• Why the Nazis Were Obsessed With Twins Why the Nazis Were Obsessed With Twins. (2022). Retrieved 20 November 2022, from https://www.history.com/news/nazi-twin-experiments-mengele-eugenics
• Anon (2022). Retrieved 20 November 2022, from https://web.wpi.edu/Pubs/E-project/Available/E-project-102609-144251/unrestricted/Psy chologyUndertheThir
• Farmanbardari – Obedience to the Imam of the Time Farmanbardari – Obedience to the Imam of the Time. (2010). Retrieved 25 November 2022, from https://simerg.com/literary-readings/literary-reading-farmanbardari-%E2%80%93-obedie nce-to-the-imam-of%C2%A0the%C2%A0time/