Should Atlas Shrug?

Yesterday, I started reading Susan Jacoby's new book, "The Age of American Unreason". Many of the statistics she cites have been cited elsewhere, but it was her aggregation of these, and the discussion of the implications, that I have found sobering. This has led me to ponder whether America has any chance of remaining the greatest country in the world, or whether any forward motion is strictly a function of momentum from previous generations' effort, or perhaps through the sheer strength of a very small subset of society. I would wager that to these "Atlases", the US is getting very heavy indeed.

The examples Jacoby uses provide quantitative measures that reinforce what I (we?) see manifested on a daily basis but all too often choose to ignore:

"Nearly two-thirds of Americans want creationism...to be taught alongside evolution in public schools. Fewer than half of Americans-48 percent, accept any form of evolution, even guided by God, and just 26 percent accept Darwin's theory of evolution by means of natural selection. Fully 42 percent say that all living beings, including humans, have existed in their present form since the beginning of time." (1)

In another section, she points out that, in a 1998 survey by researchers from the University of Texas, "one out of four public school biology teachers believes that humans and dinosaurs inhabited the earth simultaneously." (2)

This can't be a shock to anyone who watched the early Republican debates, where fully 7 out of 11 candidates came out as Christian fundamentalists, falling over each other in their attempts to prove their religiosity exceeded that of their opponents. Not intelligence, not competence or experience, but how strongly they believed that the Bible was the inerrant word of god was their primary qualification for running for President of the United States.

How have we allowed this to happen? How have we become so intellectually neutered so as to allow "political correctness" to supersede intellectual debate and discourse?

In his song, "None of Us Are Free", Solomon Burke sings "If you don't say it's wrong, then that says it's right". The intellectuals of this country have been the silent minority, and as a result, are equally complicit in the sorry state of US society today.

In Atlas Shrugged, the intellectuals of the world went on strike, removing themselves, their capital and their productive capabilities from society and physically relocating to a world of their own. Today, it is not just the exodus of intellectual horsepower, but capital flows and competitive advantage as well that threaten this country. In an information/knowledge based world, how is it possible for the US to be competitive with such a pervasive, systemic abdication of reason? And perhaps more importantly, what are the prospects to pull out of this dive?

As in Atlas Shrugged, the US is being held aloft by a disproportionate few - intellectuals, engineers, entrepreneurs. In a flat world, where ideas, capital and people can move with relatively little friction, it will not be surprising if these few "shrug". Wouldn't you?

That's my .02!

Martin Suter
(martin.suter@iplicensing.net)

(1) "Public Divided on Origins of Life, August 30, 2005, Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life

(2) George E. Webb, The Evolution Controversy in America (Lexington, KT, 1994), p.254

Comments

[Martin Suter]

Rog - Thanks for reading my blog and for your comments. While I think that Ayn Rand's works lack much in the way of nuance, her blunt approach does not diminish the validity of her views on individual rights. Clearly she's a provocative, polarising figure, which is why citing her in a blog is a great way to catalyse discussion!

I am always looking for a good libertarian read, and will have to check out your suggested readings.

Martin

[rog]

The US is like Rome, and given Americans pitiful understanding of their own history (much less any other country's), we are doomed to let our hubris get the best of us.

I read Atlas Shrugged in high school, and for a couple of years, was a raving randroid who could parrot her various arguments. A few years later, I read "Telemachus Sneezed" in the Illuminatus Trilogy and realized just how ridiculous her novels can be.

If you read Greenspan's biography, you'll no doubt enjoy the section he has on Ayn Rand. She's very engaging and soothing for young, alienated people, and it's not difficult to see why many gravitate towards her in their formidable years.

A more substantial "libertarian" thinker is, in my opinion, Robert Nozick. One of his works that really moved me intellectually was _Anarchy, State, and Utopia_.

Another great libertarian thinker (in the other direction) is Michelle Foucault. If you're as skeptical of government intervention as I am, you won't help but like _Discipline and Punish_. Read his section on Bentham's pantopticon in prison environments, and you will never look at a "public safety" surveillance system the same way again.