Initial notes
The course of history of human civilization has always been marked by various technological developments with
specific characteristics that changed the course of human development. Benedict (1982) believes that humans
have a history marked by steady progress intrinsically related to scientific advances. In these revolutionary
inset science also played a key role and development of new technologies set up milestone for some periods,
such as the industrial revolution with the advent of steam engines and railways, the discovery of penicillin
in medicine, the automotive vehicle and computers, to name just a few.
The production and mastery of these technologies might even be able to represent a particular social or
professional class, as some of them were new forms of industrial production, logistics and distribution
technologies that replaced livelihoods, making them qualitatively better, for example, curing diseases, or
more attractive and profitable to trade. The monopoly of these findings can represent the authority of the
group that rules over those who require their effects, as described Bourdieu (1983). Science, in these
circumstances, is a medium that enables these advances, as the research, discovery or invention of
technological artifacts can be casual, but it is by far derived from other knowledge before them and that made
??them possible.
Reflecting on the science and its methods is also evolve in its development fleshing out as what thinkers and
objects of study represent to society can bring out aspects not yet revealed or even identified by those who
have undertaken previous studies. Making it a scientific research is not synonymous with commitment to the
distortion of the work of other scientists, but a way to fully investigate what may have been obscured by a
lack of technological resources, time or interest, and also think the way how science is developed in
different social contexts or even how society perceives the influences of its advances.
In this sense, understanding the power relations that permeate the scientific field and the society in
general, the objective of this article is to analyze the relationships between power, science and the
development of new technologies in the context of a fictional society that lives moments of evolutionary
transition after several people are affected by a disease similar to rabies that turns most of the population
into beings who quickly attack and infect other people, decimating much of the world's population.
The methodology used is a qualitative approach and as a method we use the observational study in film
language, where the observer does not participate in the event. It is an observation of "second
hand", because it is done through the images of the film. Therefore, the observation followed judicious
steps: defining the research objective; the search and selection of sources of narrative data; the choice of
the film; the overview of the filmic narrative, performed repeatedly; data decoupage; the reasoning and
interpretation of theoretical data; and the building up of the final report.
The structure of the paper begins with a brief introduction, where there is the explanation of the purpose of
the article and its relevance to theoretical study. Then, the following are the sections where there is a
discussion of the science category and power relations in the scientific field, with their different
approaches. Soon after, there is the methodological aspects section with clarification on the methodology used
here, then the observational study, in which the film is analyzed in accordance with the thoughts presented in
this paper. Finally, conclusions and references used are presented.
Science at Stake
According to Denzin and Lincoln (2006) the scientific field, despite its essentially normative character, is
constantly permeated by tensions, contradictions and hesitations. An example that illustrates the thinking of
authors can be expressed by permanent collision on the scientificity of soft sciences as opposed to the hard
sciences. For the same reasons that make this permanent collision, determine a unique concept for what would
be science or its period of emergence is complex, but the Greek civilization contributes strongly to its
advent (RUSSEL, 2001), a strongly built objective basis for the human knowledge (SOLIS, 1990).
The dominant thinking that prevailed before the experiments of Galileo was grounded in Aristotelian logic,
being shaken only when experimentation, mathematical logic and the use of more precise instruments for
planetary observation were presented by Galileo Galilei (HUHNE, 1990). A paradigm shift as such causes changes
in thinking and the viewing of the objects that engage scientists in their modus operandi; in
addition to that, it caused suffering from severe criticism of those who are accustomed to normal science
(KUHN, 2005). For Kuhn (2005), science is constructed from disruptions contrary to established positions, from
testing what is understood by knowledge, from questioning.
The scientific activity, prior to using method or its definition, is developed across a problem. Questioning
it also becomes a problem. So Gewandsznajder (2001) postulates that human attention, curiosity and reasoning
are stimulated when some phenomenon does not occur in accordance with expectations, when we do not understand
the phenomenon, or when traditional explanations do not respond to questions. Then, there is the need to seek
scientific laws to explain the facts and test what was observed.
In the debate about what is or is not science, inquiries to common sense emerge. Scientific research is
primarily engaged in the research and construction of reality and the territory of common sense knowledge can
provide the most diverse quests. Questioning it and putting it to the test corresponds to do it science
(POPPER, 1999). While religion based its arguments on revelation, science has bases by the methodology and
ideology is founded on moral passion; arguments of common sense are not based on anything, but on life as a
whole (GEERTZ, 1997).
The concern with the knowledge of reality has always been a constant for humans (MINAYO, 2007). However, what
is known about this reality, in terms of common sense is an alleged phenomenon, as it is not analyzed because
those who believe in its fundamentals are sure of its value and its validity, not needing to ask themselves
about these aspects (GEERTZ, 1997).
But even science does not hold the only true reality and it should be questioned. The scientific field is a
construction in order to solve the problems that arouse the interest of the researcher and science and its
methods are forms of expression of this search, which may not be unique, not conclusive and not definitive
(MINAYO, 2007). Crediting all truth to science is to make it common sense, it interferes values ??and validity
foolproof, making it by its hegemony, a myth or a dogma, by claiming to be the single promoter and criterion
of truth (MINAYO, 2007).
According to Gewandsznajder (2001), scientific truths are not permanent truths, but are statements that make
sense because of studies that make it near to absolute truth, but never find it, something he calls the degree
of likelihood. If it were not for the revolutions, in the sense introduced by Kuhn (2005), or leakage to the
rules, in the proposition of Feyerabend (2007), perhaps the sciences were still, only, positivists, natural
and with few choices of methods and techniques to validate their experiments. To Flick (2009), in early
empirical research there were more issues to be studied than methods to use.
Science and Power
Questioning science is not a simple task. Questioning scientists or oppose their positions on normal science
is even less simple. Matos et al. (2011) discuss the monopoly of scientific authority building on the story of
Lorenzo, portrayed in the film Lorenzo's Oil, from 1992 and consider that scientists and their community are
reluctant to accept those who do not belong to their group. As stated by Thompson (1995), there is domination
when individuals or groups are empowered so that excludes others, regardless of the basis on which power is
founded.
For Weber (1991), the concept of power has two dimensions and without them power relations do not occur: the
domination and discipline. According to the author, the word power does not have a definite shape and the
meanings of domination and discipline are more accurate. Domination is based on custom, materials and rational
interests, emotional or rational reasons, and also the belief in legitimacy. This is not a rule in all the
relations of power, it is also only a probability.
In society this power often is symbolic, in the concept of Bourdieu (1998). Symbols are used as a means of
social integration (language, myth, art, among others). These are knowledge and communication machines and
help to maintain the existing social order. Ideology is used in favor of the ruling class and makes it seem
that your interests are, in fact, the common interest. It favors both the ruling class and the goals of those
who produce it.
For Bobbio (1998), the power must be understood in a general and a specific way. More generally, power means
the competence to act. And specifically, in social relationships, it means a man to influence the attitudes of
another man. So, there are several power bases, elements identified as resources that in different
contingencies would create power, such as capital, technical expertise, access to key contacts, uncertainty
etc (HARDY; CLEGG, 2001). As Lukes (1980) argues that there is no need of disorder, conflict or revolutions in
order to manifestation of power exist, its own absence would be the determination of a dominant to a dominated
class.
Weber (2011) advocates the pursuit of scientific investigators as an act of passion, intelligence and
intuition. In this case, the passion does not mean, as common sense views it, bias, carelessness or blind
faith. But an enthusiasm, deeper and more legitimate than a passing joy pulsar could generate. From the moment
that science and scientists admit to being the sole holders of the maximum and absolute truth, science
surrenders to dogmatism and ceases to be science, because of the impossibility of refutation (POPPER, 1999).
Methodological procedures
When entering the field of social relations, representations and their meanings an approach is required from
the researcher, one that enables a thorough investigation and, therefore, the qualitative research techniques
would be more appropriate. As well as Minayo (2007)clarifies, this methodology is the one that is applied to
the study of history, relationships, representations, beliefs, perceptions and opinions, product of
interpretations that humans make about how they live, build their artifacts and themselves, feel and think.
This qualitative research approach provides research on a more thorough assessment of social phenomena by
analyzing the facts in their natural settings, in the pursuit of their understanding or interpretation of the
phenomena in terms of meanings people give to them (DENZIM; LINCOLN, 2006). The scenario is fictitious, in
this study, but it tells stories involving human relationships, enabling its analysis and understanding.
Here the observer is a kind of spectator, along the lines of Patton (2002), who watches carefully to
developed relationships and their meanings, which provides greater understanding as well as capturing the
context in which people interact; also, being a non-participant observer, in which the researcher does not
participate at all, as when he hides behind a screen that allows him to see the participants, but does not
allow them to see him (BECKER, 1997).
In the view of Machado and Matos (2012) films take themselves a burden which transcends boundaries of
didactic use, incorporating the role of narrative data sources, assuming the role of locus investigated with
the possibility of repeated accesses and without limits, and through these data, making it as a reflection of
reality which belongs to the phenomenon or object observed. For the implementation of research in film
narratives, Machado and Matos (2012) propose some steps to achieve them, as they are: the definition of the
problem or research objective; the search and selection of sources of narrative data; the choice of the film;
the overview of the filmic narrative, performed repeatedly; decoupage data; the theoretical reasoning and data
interpretation; and the building up of the final report.
This type of methodology has been used frequently for its great ability to influence in everyday reality; the
films are being increasingly analyzed because of their use as research tools (MACHADO; BEZERRA, 2010), and
they facilitate the construction of a link between theoretical constructs and practical reality (MATOS et al.,
2011) and their relevance to the use of instruments of visual anthropology, through observational study in
order to contribute to the processes of teaching and learning in the field of Management (LEITE; LEITE, 2010).
Afterwards, the results of the proposed study are presented here.
Observational study
In this section a brief description of the scenes of the film, with clipping of major events and an analysis
of the scenes in parallel with exposed theoretical basis is presented. The film World War Z (2013) was based
on a literary novel that exposed social issues such as human uncertainty, the inadequacies of the State to
manage the problem of disease spreading too fast and the human instincts for survival.
The narrative begins and several voices spread random news commonly presented in television news: bird flu
outbreak, group of dolphins beaching on the edge of the beach, and the CO2 emission that had increased
dramatically. The news is corroborated by the images that illustrate them, as they are being mixed together,
showing only fragments of their stories that converge in pictures of apparently rabid animals.
After this introduction, the film changes its scenario and shows a family composed by an adult man, Gerry
Lane, an adult woman, Karin Lane and two daughters playing on a bed family. All in one room and then in a
living room watching a turned on TV while having breakfast. On the television, the images reference a war
scenario.
The scene following the breakfast shows the family in a car while traffic is stopped and there is intense
movement of people walking and helicopters flying. Gerry Lane tunes the radio and listens to the news that the
World Health Organization reported cases of rabid people in twelve countries, with infestation started in
Taiwan. Policemen on motorcycles move quickly between parked cars.
Everybody hear an explosion and several people start running in the streets. A truck runs over people and
cars start leading the way ahead of Gerry, who follows them. The route of the family in the car ends after
colliding with an ambulance and another car. The movement of people running in the streets is intensified and
several of them are attacking. Gerry is then watching a woman who chases and bites a man in the crowd. After a
counting of twelve seconds, the man has his face changed and starts to pursue other people.
Several people are attacking the streets. Gerry enters a vehicle, trailer type, with his family, suffering
successive attacks by people who shoot at the car. As they seem to leave the city, small planes fly over the
place, several explosions were heard and tanks shoot at people running amid the chaotic scene. On the road,
Gerry gets a call from Thierry, a man who asks for help after claiming to have lost control of the city of New
York and Boston, offering a helicopter to transport Gerry and his family.
The family goes into a supermarket in search of a remedy for asthma to one of the daughters of the couple.
They take many supplies, among them batteries, ropes, food and beverage, and when they are leaving the grocery
store they manage to escape the attacks upon entering the apartment of a family of Latin origin. By connecting
the radio inside the apartment, Gerry listens: "authorities advise the following measures to the
population: stay home as much as possible; stockpile food and water for up to two weeks." Bacon (1979)
states that when the human intellect bases on a conviction, it converges to the meaning that attaches to
his/her conviction. Here the authorities do not question the possibilities; they just ensure that others obey
their command.
Gerry and his family, accompanied by a boy - the son of the family who welcomed them into their apartment -
are transported on a helicopter to a navy base in the Atlantic Ocean, near the city of New York. Inside the
base, the family stays in a bedroom and Gerry goes to a room where military research the causes and effects of
the disease, besides the geographical aspects of its infestation.
"The question is: what is it?" A group of scientists argue in another room, while one of them, the
physician Dr. Fassbach, claims it is a viral disease that can be controlled with the discovery of a vaccine.
For Bourdieu (1989), to research is to look for, inquire, question the world, especially the one which
surrounds the researcher. The first step of the social scientist activity is to put a critical view on
reality, in order to deconstruct the social facts, from the breaking with common sense, understood as the
places of vulgar existence.
There is mention of the word "zombie" and the group continues to discuss, mentioning the insanity
of working with the hypothesis of the existence of zombies. Thierry indicates the origin of the first mention
of the term, South Korea, and points out Dr. Fassbach as a hope to discover the origin of the disease. Gerry
distrusts the ability of Dr. Fassbach because he is too young.
While chatting with Thierry, Gerry discovers that if he does not help Dr. Fassbach to discover the origin of
the disease, escorting him to South Korea, his family will be compelled to leave the base and sent back to the
infested city. He agrees to participate in the mission and its staff leaves the base in a plane traveling to
the country named. During the trip, Gerry tells the doctor about the behavior he needs to have when they reach
their destination. The authority of the team is him; he leads the group to get free space for the doctor to
perform his search, since he has the authority of knowledge declared.
The plane lands after the pilot talks about the difficult access to the site and the staff goes out of the
aircraft carefully for visual recognition of the area. Dr. Fassbach stumbles and dies before leaving the
plane. The team enters a military base near the runway and Gerry talks with a soldier who is on site. Gerry
questions about the origin of the records of the disease, first patients and characteristics of contagion. He
takes the position of the deceased scientist while initiating research questions through these people who are
on site.
After talking to a former federal agent, Gerry discovers that in some locations in Israel, it was discovered
how to prevent attacks. Thus, he commands his team to travel to Jerusalem in search of new clues about the
origin and cure for the disease. The group has difficulties in supplying the tickets and only Gerry and the
pilot can leave the site.
In Jerusalem, there are walls and gates that prevent the passage of infected people and they allow entry to
those who are not infected. Gerry discovers that the barriers built upon distrust of a man, with whom he had a
conversation about what the word zombie represented in an official statement. It was his investigative impetus
that clarified the real sense of the word and warned that several people were contaminated.
Gerry observes the crowd of people and buildings clustered near the walls. A woman connects a microphone and
begins to sing. The noise she makes attracts the zombies that start to crowd in an attempt to scale the walls
and invade the place. The man warns Gerry to change the focus of his research, forget patient zero and try to
hide. Zombies invade the place and attack people.
Amid the invasion, Gerry realizes that the zombies do not attack an elderly. Several zombies pass through him
without attacking him, as they attack and bite other people. A group of soldiers accompanying Gerry tries to
evade the site and leave towards the plane and, once again, he realizes the zombies stop attacking a victim.
This time, a bald teenager is not attacked and several zombies pass him and behave the same way.
A female soldier is attacked by a zombie and suffers a bite on her hand. Gerry quickly cuts the arm of the
soldier who did not manifest symptoms of contamination. They two get into an airplane and leave. While he
cleans and prepares the bandage of the wound for his companion, whose name is Segen, Gerry remember the people
who were not attacked by zombies and contacts Thierry to indicate a place to produce vaccines and an airport
close to this location for the plane to land.
An infected person starts an attack inside the plane and contaminates many others who start attacking others.
After realizing that the situation was out of control, Gerry burst a grenade inside the aircraft, forcing the
pilot to make an emergency landing. Segen and Gerry are the only who survive the fall and continue on foot to
the Research Center of the World Health Organization, location indicated by Thierry for studies with vaccines.
Gerry Lane’s family is removed from the military base, as there is no contact with him since the
accident with the plane and they believe that he died. The military feel his family is not essential to the
work they are developing. Gerry faints in front of the lab and wakes up strapped to a stretcher. Two men
interrogate him and, after talking with Thierry on the phone, they discover that Gerry is a UN special envoy
and help him to develop his research.
The following snippet of dialogue between Gerry Lane and scientists working in the lab illustrates how is the
development of his hypothesis, besides his project to test it.
Chief Scientist - What do you want from us?
Gerry Lane - The worst disease that you have.
Scientist 1 - What does he want?
Scientist 2 - A deadly pathogen.
Gerry Lane - With a high mortality rate, but curable.
Scientist 1 - So you want a bacteria and not a virus, I believe. Typhus? Meningitis, scarlet fever,
spotted fever...
Scientist 2 - Sorry, but for what?
Chief Scientist - Mr. Lane believes we can fight the undead.
Scientist 1 – He would win points for originality if we had not tried it already. Viruses or
bacteria need a living host to survive. A circulatory system. The question is simple, it cannot infect
a dead person.
Gerry Lane – It is not for them. It is for us. These things have a weakness and that weakness
is weakness. Our weakness. I witnessed people being spared. They were passed by unnoticed. Why? I
think it's because they were sick. They were terminally ill and these things realized that. (WORLD WAR
Z, 2013).
The stretch of speech also shows how an outsider, a person who had no knowledge or scientific authority in
the area the lab scientists investigated can develop a hypothesis that had not been thought of by any of them.
The emergence of new theories is generally preceded by pronounced professional insecurity, since it requires
large-scale destruction of paradigms and major changes in the problems and techniques of normal science (KUHN,
2005). The course allows the scientific evolution. Without it there would be no development of knowledge and,
consequently, no human development (POPPER, 1999). There is no clear example of scientific anarchy, as
described by Feyerabend (2007), but an escape from methods and expectations proposed by normal science. The
author critiques the hegemony of science as this does not produce results when it is assumed that the method
is unique and uniform (FEYERABEND, 2007).
Gerry goes to the vaccines, viruses and bacteria storage ward, accompanied by the chief scientist and Segen.
With difficult access, the path is full of zombies, but only Gerry Lane manages to reach the room and to
return; he finds himself forced to use one of the pathogens in himself and test his hypothesis. While
preparing injection with the disease to infect himself, in another room scientists debate whether his method
is effective. For Bacon (1979) truth must be sought not only in what is considered true at the time, because
that sure is fickle, but in nature and experience, which are eternal.
The test begins when Gerry, inside the locked room, injects the pathogen in his body. There's a zombie on the
other side trying to get into the room to attack Jerry, waiting for the time of infection. After a few minutes
of observation, Gerry opens the door and the zombie goes through it without attacking him. Scientists
celebrate in another room and Gerry tries to go back, going through several zombies who ignore him on their
way.
Conclusions
This isn’t the end. Not even close. (GERRY LANE, WORLD WAR Z, 2013).
The film portrays a fictional story, but it is very close to the many different evolutionary transitional
phases of human history, because it illustrates the government's inability to deal with issues beyond the
political boundaries of the administration; human frailty compared to epidemics of new diseases that arise
each time. But also because it presents a characteristic survival instinct of the human race that is always
looking for ways to escape the domination of the forces of nature, even if it also exceeds the limits of
domination and authority of the scientific field.
The scientific authority is questioned in the filmic context because the scientist invited to participate in
the study that aimed to end the disease dies from lack of preparation in hostile environments. Also, the one
who did not hold scientific knowledge and knowledge derived from this authority observes and questions the
normal science, causing a rupture and inaugurates new models to combat the epidemic and prevent its
development.
It should be noted, finally, that the work is far from ending the discussion about science, its methods and
approaches, or even the possibilities of interpretation of social reality in these respects, as the fictional
reality presented also fits in this context. The theme, because of the complexity of its definition or
delimitation of its field, should continue to be studied. Thus, the final intention of this work is to
contribute to provocation of other studies on science, power relations in the scientific field and the
deepening of this debate.
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