Observations and inanities by a second-shift assistant supervisor in the Puppy-Grinding division of the Evil Atheist Conspiracy® (our motto: "Sure it's cruel, but think of the jobs!"), your host, Brent Rasmussen.
Godless Communism
The science panel had some good things. It really did. In particular PZ Myers and Wesley Clark said thoughtful things about problems with science education and with social attitudes to science. But what I can't get my head around is Clark's comment that in the 1950s, it was important that US improve in science in order to defeat "godless communism." He was not saying it just to show the common attitude at the time; on the contrary, he meant everything he said about how communism was a dire threat to the American way of life and how science was the key.
Even discounting the anti-communist propaganda, Clark's speech brimmed with American nationalism over and above what might be expected of a retired General with Presidential aspirations. Ostensibly, liberals are fairly anti-nationalistic people; there's no need to pander to them by implying that American anti-intellectualism is a conservative conspiracy. The United States has been anti-intellectual for nearly 200 years, because of the frontier society.
Yearly Kos should be the last place where people justify science by appealing to the national dick size, to the point of lionizing the military-industrial complex. It certainly shouldn't be a place where people mythologize a past golden age; let's leave that to delusional conservatives.
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Whether Clark was being
Whether Clark was being nostalgic for a bygone age seems a little beside the point. He is correct, however, about the Cold War factor in advancing the sciences. Beating the "Russkies" was a national obsession and science and technology was our big dick. For good or ill we don't have that national obsession anymore. Besides, the motivating factors for science were never intrinsic but entirely utilitarian and always have been.
Godless communism was a godsend for science and I just don’t see a comparable substitute for today. International terrorism won't cut it. Our so-called American pragmatism needs an object beyond itself and that's why arguments for doing science for science sake are simply not enough in this culture.
That's what China is for
Thomas Friedman's main criticism of American anti-intellectualism is that China and India are heavily investing in science and technology and that the US is going to fall behind unless it becomes more serious about S&T education. PZ Myers echoes these sentiments, though he probably won't like the comparison.
But that's really beside the point. I'm not criticizing PZ for invoking international competition. I'm not criticizing Clark for saying science was needed to win the Cold War. What irks me is that Clark felt the need to engage in militant rhetoric, even in an environment where he didn't have to.
And what worries me even more is that after I told Darksyde about my misgiving, he said "Clark's a moderate." If fighting the Cold War again makes one a moderate, I shudder to think what an extremist looks like (nothing against you, Darksyde - I'm not criticizing you, but the fact that nationalism is considered moderate in the US).
not sure I agree
I don't know... I kind of thought Wesley Clark had invisible quotes around "godless Communism." I thought he did mean it more as the way the times were back then, and how, even though the motivating factor behind the science and engineering oriented 50s and 60s (his example was being interested in model rockets) was defeating Communism, the good side effect was that science was front and center and was not pushed to the sidelines in education.
I didn't get the impression that he was endorsing that as the way to get science back into the mainstream. I think he was just saying that's how it used to be, and now we need to find some other motivating factor for getting kids interested again. Science should be something all kids are interested in, they are endlessly curious, and like to see "cool" things with real effects, we just need to make it so they have access and *know* that this is science that they are doing.
If he had invisible quotes around that...
...then it must be the worst use of sarcasm I've seen. Clark explained why science was important, citing political reasons. He made it clear that he was endorsing that view instead of saying that this was how it was justified at the time. If he wasn't endorsing it, he'd have said something like, "The United States had to emphasize and support science in order to defeat the Soviet Union." Instead, he dwelled on how communism was "a threat to our way of life" (direct quote as far as I remember) and how science was necessary to contain and retaliate against it.
I don't know how old you are
But I'm only a few years younger than Wes Clark. I have one kid in high school and one who graduated a year ago and will start college in the fall. I live in a very red state, but in a school district considered relatively progressive.
Let me tell you, the public schools and teachers are in trouble in a way that was not the case when I was a kid.
Was it perfect back then? Of course not. I can remember the controversy of being assigned the Autobiography of Malcolm X (altho we were... can't do that today), or seeing a substitute fired because he cited data from Masters & Johnson. I don't remember any limits in the science departments.
But it's not mythologizing a past golden age to recognize that we have got to get back to the time when real science (and literature and social studies) could be taught without the teacher or principle scared to death of being taken to court, or having their classrooms on TV because some parent complained, or picketers outside the auditorium because they don't approve of the senior class play. All of those have happened in these parts.
And while I agree with you that a large portion of the population was probably always every bit as anti-intellectual as citizens today, I would remind you that our country was founded on the principles of the Enlightenment. For the most part, the founders didn't pander to the lowest common denominator in the public at large.
As for the rest of it, I have heard Clark speak several times on the importance of maintaining US competitiveness in science, technology, and engineering, as well in educating future scientists, technologists, and engineers. It has nothing to do with "national dick size," but it has everything to do with jobs, and quality of life, and keeping a democratic government in existance for another 100 years. Nor can I believe Clark lionized the military-industrial complex. He of all people has spoken out time and time again against it. It very much sounds to me like you heard only what you expected to.
Is it really that hard to look at my bio on the left sidebar?
First, what you're talking about is more education in the mid- or late 1960s, after one of the greatest pathologies of the 1950s had been attacked and pushed back. In 1959, you wouldn't have seen any teacher assign a potentially subversive book. On the contrary, the teaching of history was a series of nationalist propaganda campaigns, and the teaching of social science was incorrect and stereotypical.
Second, even science education was more about the national dick size than about knowledge and intellect. After the panel ended, I asked PZ Myers how come older Americans tend to be more creationist than younger ones. He said that it was because in the 1960s the teaching of science emphasized physics and deemphasized biology, since the hot topics of the time were nuclear weapons and the space race. The present-day equivalent of that would be letting students come out of high school believing that a moving particle will come to a halt when not subjected to any force, because the pressing issues of the day are biotechnology and information theory rather than mechanics.
Third, you are completely right about the Founders. American anti-intellectualism extends much further back than the panelists implied, but it doesn't extend that far back. At the time the United States' system of government was entirely aristocratic at any rate, so even if the people were anti-intellectual, the leaders didn't have to be. When I talk about the American roots of anti-intellectualism, I refer mostly to the frontier society and rise of industrialism. I don't know that before the late 19th century the US was more anti-intellectual than Europe.
Fourth, Clark did in fact engage in nationalism. A crucial theme of his speech was international competition; in the 1950s it was about defeating the Russkies, and now it's about defeating the Yellow Hordes. He did not mention the importance of science to democracy - on the contrary, he presented science in the same light its leftist critics do, only he looked at it positively. Nor did he talk about jobs, as far as I remember.