At a national laboratory's science education center an idea was expressed that in order to attract more young people to studying the sciences one has to make the subject so attractive that the students will not be able to resist it. The proposition grew out of the perceived looming shortage of scientists and technical professionals and it in fact suggests that they only way somebody may want to become a scientist is if he becomes hooked or addicted. He is expected to lose his sound judgment and perspective, fall in love, become thoroughly unfree. The person will obviously choose either the seemingly high road of pursuit of scientific truth or the seemingly low and easy road of practical activity which produces immediate material values. Once the fork in the road is taken it seems to be very difficult to go from one direction to join the other or find any sort of middle solution. But the longing remains: for the practical man for a miracle procured by science, and for the scientific man for appreciation and recognition on the side of the practical. The aura of infatuation that motivates the scientific pursuit does not help in building the bridge - it creates mistrust. On the other hand the narrow utilitarian focus of the practical man evokes disdain in the scientific man. To be sure both sides secretly envy and lust for each other's qualities: they sometimes approach, but cannot decide to join in marriage.
In order to find one's way through the world it used to be helpful to have a religion providing an ultimate transcendental reality beyond the individual's control in an aura of all-unifying authority. Science furnished another view of the world complementing religion. It said that the empirical world can be explored using the methods of reason, some useful theories can be formulated, leading to rules of behavior of empirical objects so that this behavior can be predicted and controlled. The latter possibility engenders the development of technology. Religion provided a compelling view of reality, science brings in reasoned theories of phenomena, and technology produces tools and methods of achiving goals in the practically experienced world. Practical men use the latter. Americans and their political leaders do not understand these distinctions. There exists a bridge, alas weakening, between the practical man and the priest, but it bypasses the scientist and technologist (aka engineer) altogether. There is also the artist floating somewhere in the free space with the scientist and engineer and we may discover in due time who he really is. Let's look at the mainstream - the practical man and the priest.
Most problems and successes of the American society are related to its unrelenting utilitarianism. The theory is quite commonly adopted that any endeavor that does not directly and practically help us along our earthly path of life is not really worth pursuing and respect for it is rather optional. Therefore the society, a democratic one earlier than any other, is very eager to find activities such as poetry, theater, music, and also philosophy and science, expendable and superfluous. Pressures against those activities will be greater at times of economic crises. The constituents of the utilitarian majorities are for the most part people whose life is greatly impoverished. Their minds and efforts concentrate on the practical and their hands on perfomance of marketable tasks. To be sure all that is respectable and fascinating activity of which nobody should deprive himself. In fact it does not fill the whole person because most people remain religious. Their utilitarianism, however, pushes religion not so much onto the margin of respectability as into the status of the indispensable minimum that is not allowed to flourish. Therefore a great many people seek to replace and supplement this component with additional contents - ideology, prejudice. There is yearning for more in spiritual goods than the utilitarian model would admit, and therefore it is unacceptable to consider the practical and marketable as the entire horizon of a person's life.
A person brought up in this country will probably think of his/her life as of a career, that is, concentrate on the organization of the passage toward the end rather than on its meaning. He or she will think of the finiteness and precariousness of life and organize life insurance and draw up a will to ensure the well-being of the posteriority. This person will have had a few moments when the meaning of being in the world for 70 years will be close to breaking through, but there will be no chance of sharing this moment with others because of the lack of such habit, shame of bringing up a philosophical subject, and most of all, inability to find proper language even in case of an educated person. This is severe deprivation of culture. Culture is not the visit to a museum or reading poetry. Such activities may be natural behavior of a cultured person. But culture itself is the collection of ideas, signs and habits, that allow us all to feel at home and face the mystery outside of our time and space within reassuring fellowship of others. The ethnic groups meeting in the United States do not do it for the food and language only. They also want to experience that fellowship communicating to each other their human condition. The American mainsteam utilitarian culture attempts to erase all that and offers nothing adequate to substitute for it. America really has no culture, but it does not prevent America from having perhaps the best form of government. But then, why should it be impossible for America to have a culture? At present America routinely replaces culture with entertainment which is designed to keep the mind off serious subjects. A great deal of it starts with murder either as a mystery to be solved by detectives or a terrorizing event to be reveled in to utmost detail. Death, love, mystery, passion is trivialized in all those entertainment options. Another quasicultural current is the business of leisure where people immerse themselves in irrelevant pursuits, like sports games and fishing competitions, after long hours of frantic practical activity in the real world. Both the murder mystery and leisurely competition are designed to quiet down and muffle the activity of the mind after the noise of everyday work has ceased. Rarely do existential questions find their way into works of popular culture, but the fact that they do allows me to hope for a (re)birth of American culture. The film "All That Jazz" is a singular example of a work where death is dealt with meaningfully. I was surprised by the otherwise silly movie "Joe versus the Volcano" when the hero stated - "I have no interest in myself" - pointing to the contemplation of one's presence in the world as a liberating experience.
To be short and general, culture is a domestication of the influence of the religious, political, ideological, moral, and scientific authority, if such exist, merged with the practical experience of the members of the society. In the United States science is not recognized as a factor in the above equation and its culture generating role is shunned and degraded. It happens because science is treated as a business enterprise expected to turn out a product of market-measurable value. To some degree science inspires awe when it tackles the problem of the universe or of the strange subatomic world. These objects are physically remote and the interest in them perhaps fills the spiritual and cultural void. Strangely, the fundamental physical sciences - physics, chemistry, biology - do not enjoy the same level of recognition even though they deal with objects which can interact with us, e.g. chemical substances. Of course, some applied sciences enjoy almost unqualified support if they produce market value. The example in point is medicine which produces many valuable results along with statistical studies whose conclusions are overstated for publicity.
The purpose of this article is to make a case for the support of science by pointing out the benefits that science offers apart from the results it produces in terms of marketable technology. For a while now, there have been efforts in the U.S Legislative aimed at forcing the National Science Foundation to assure that every (or almost every) research project has a technological application as its ultimate goal, "helping the United States regain its competitive edge," and that "curiosity-driven" research is kept to a minimum. The U.-S. lawmakers, who represent the people, do not understand the nature of science, which is essentially cultural and not economic, and that it does not directly translate into economic value.
The scientist should present himself as more a friend of the priest and the artist than of the engineer. He should exploit the yearning for meaning pervading the society for the benefit of both sides. The scientist should not be afraid of his role as a guide in the world of scientific truth, which as we know does not prove the existence of anything, but since it is possible to produce and improve it, we are reassured that our findings are at least compatible with the underlying metaphysical being that is the proper subject of religion and art. Science has created a home for man, yet another one in addition to others which provide an island of order in the face of chaos. The proper parable is Virgil guiding Dante through the underworld, providing only some security and reassurance, but handing him over to the other guides - faith and imagination, crudely speaking, - at the gates of the halls of true illumination.
Virgil, the scientist, is just one of the lesser, humble, man-made guides, yet he is larger than an individual life's horizon. He is not overwhelming like God himself but he is awesome.
Last Modified April 18, 1996 and to be continued