THE SCIENTIFIC HUMANITIES AN URGENT PROGRAM

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The Scientific Humanities:
an Urgent Program
IN kNcmNT GEEEcE, when the great growing-tip of civilization was the
concept of Democracy, there were two classes of people, those who were
actively involved in the movement and those who were not. The partici-
pants were those who held or could hold public office; the others, disin-
clined to such office by nature or nurture, were idiotes. The word proved
useful and its meaning was extended from those ignorant of politics to those
ignorant of the other aspects of civilized life as well. They were idiots.
Now, without implying that Democracy is one iota less important today
and without over-glorifying Science, I should like to suggest that Science
has largely replaced Democracy as the growing-tip of civilization. Cer-
tainly science and technology have become the most active. sector in our
national deployment of manpower and intellectual capital. But at the same
time that we have become thus extensively engaged to the benefits and woes
engendered by science, we have bred amongst us a new class of idiots, a class
without participation in or appreciation of this force which is driving human-
ity. I shall indicate why this has come about and why it is not only un-
fortunate but highly dangerous. I shall further show that there may be a
solution which is pleasantly attractive to humanistic scholars and profitable
for industry and government..
There are, I think, two main reasons why the new idiocy has arisen, one
involving the content of science and the other its form. In content the
barriers of technique-especially those of higher mathematics and intricate
experiment-have tended to make science a closed shop. Last year I sat at
High Table at a Cambridge college and heard an eminent classicist claim
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nM SCIENTIFIC HUMANITIES 7
in a voice tending to pride that he knew nothing of physics and mathematics.
With the shade of Newton so near I could not help imagining a scholar of,
say 1750, claiming a similar idiocy of Greek, Latin, and the Bible. His
arrogance would have been ill-received, marking him as unlearned and un-
gentlemanly to the point of expulsion.
I shall anticipate by remarking that this barrier is an unnecessary relic
of an age when the research front of science was only one jump distant from
the schoolroom. Until a generation ago a youth could learn quadratic equa-
tions and the elements of calculus and consider that this was what mathema-
ticians did on a higher level. He could do Boyle's Law, dissect a frog, perform
an inorganic analysis, and get the feeling that this, on a grander scale, was
the life of the experimental scientist. There is today virtually no truth in
such a claim and it is time we dropped the pretence. America once led the
world by inventing and instituting the system of training in science by
means of laboratory instruction rather than by demonstration. That leader-
ship could be re-affirmed by excising laboratories and all non-utilitarian
mathematics from the syllabus of schools, replacing thtrn by a wider view
of science, past and present. The intending specialist would not be hurt; he
can either fend for himself or be helped by special coll.?ges. In any event,
the tendency in England, if not here, seems to be for the first year at Uni-
versity to be spent in un-teaching and re-teaching the basic groundwork.
MORE DANGEROUS than the technical content of science is its cumulative
form. Original work in the humanities may be likened to photographing
small sections from the pattern of a giant kaleidoscope; the pattern changes
but each man sees different reflections and combinations formed from the
basic elements. In the sciences, however, each worker adds a brick or
pebble to a growing pile. From time to time the structure settles down or
pieces landslide away to leave it more regular, but in the main, one has to
place one's brick on top of those that have gone before.
This is a very essential difference. All kaleidoscope pictures have on the
average the same content of humanism. But the reach of science is meas-
ured by the height of the pyramid, and to double this reach you must
multiply the number of bricks eightfold-the cube of two. The metaphor
is both exact and frightening. An accurate numerical analysis shows that
over the last three centuries at least, the reach of science and of the humani-
ties-indeed of all human achievement has, roughly speaking, been growing
so as to double (with compound interest, geometrical progression, exponential
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8 BASIC COLLEGE QUARTERLY - WINTER 1959
growth) in the course of each successive generation. Since the crude size of
science behaves as the cube of its reach, the crude doubling of size occurs
three times in a generation-so increasing eightfold. I need not remark
on the runaway characteristic of such unchecked compound interest. In
three centuries science has grown from the first few of everything to the
order of millions. In the same interval of time the humanities have increased
by less than hundreds, though perhaps achieving the same relative result.
I must emphasize this: every measure of the size of science shows that it
doubles in a period of about ten to fifteen years, and it has been doing so
for so long that we have come to think of it as natural and indeed essential
for our intellectual, economic, industrial, and military well-being. This rate
of growth applies to the size of scientific libraries, to man-power, to expendi-
ture, to bulk of literature, and probably to intensity of specialization. It can-
not continue lest there be more scientists than heads of population. I wish
I could present a full statistical analysis, but take my word for it that within
the next ten or fifteen years either something cataclysmic must happen or
the situation will become quite untenable.
However distasteful be this hypothesis, in all its vagueness, I should like
the reader to consider it as an explanation of the present social and internal
diseases of science, and also as sounding a warning of dangers that must be
faced. The greatest danger, as I see it, is that it has been no man's pro-
fessional. business to talk about science in this way. Who should suggest
that a similar tapering off in growth occurred in medieval institutions of
learning and saw them break and decay significantly before the new learning
of the Renaissance got under way? Who should analyze the troubled argu-
ments that led successively to the literary forms of the learned journal, the
specialist journal, and the abstract? Who will take a historical perspective
of the popular picture of the scientist as a man-in-the-laboratory and show
that the public laboratory is but a recent and obviously evanescent feature
in the evolution of science?
Each of these enquiries is fundamental to a current problem about science,
concerning it in the large rather than in detail. Just as financiers do not
write about economics and politicians usually make history rather than write
it, so scientists are not ordinarily especially competent or. concerned to ex-
amine science-in-the-large. A few such people, however-scientists and
historians mainly, but also some philosophers and sociologists-turned to this
field. My grievous complaint against them is that they take it as something
too small, too esoteric and specialized. Their scholarly standing is of the
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highest, but for them and for their universities such a subject as History of
Science-has a status and part similar to Egyptology or the study of Dante-a
legitimate but narrow speciality.
Mention of my colleagues by name would be invidious. Suffice it to note
the excellent professional 'historians of science now wort ing at Harvard and
M.I.T., at Cornell and at the University of Wisconsin; as well as my col-
leagues at the Smithsonian Institution. They all have the finest and highest
of scholarly attitudes toward their research. I agree with them to the hilt
and hope to show that their work is intensely interesting and intellectually
rewarding; I also hope to show that it is a wide open and almost neglected
field for humanists.
Before going further, let me explain my disagreement with the attitude
toward these studies which is found in persons at all these places. They
have the "egyptology attitude," which assumes that the intellectual integrity
of pursuing an esoteric subject is sufficient justification for their choice of
career and their acceptance of the bread-and-butter chores of giving more or
less popular "orientation courses" to students in science and history, raising
a few (very few) Ph.D. graduates, and running a museum.
I FEEL sTxoNCLY that while they do a good and esse n.tial job, they have
missed a golden opportunity to serve not only their own subject but the
wider field of learning as well; they have failed to shoulder a national re-
sponsibility that must eventually be thrust upon them. It is not entirely
their fault: the universities have been hospitable but not visionary; industry
and government have been too busy with the frantic alleviation of symptoms
to pay much attention to the disease. Above all, moi,t of the humanists
have failed to recognize the child newly arrived among them and fast reach-
ing maturity. Some of them indeed, fearing the techniques of science,
would cast the baby out with the bathwater and become the modern idiots.
The child I refer to may be called the Scientific Humanities. Included in
that term is the history of science, its philosophy, and all the rest that goes
into talking about science rather than doing it. It includes many things
which are not within the professional purlieu of the scientist at the research
front or of his teacher-such as wide surveys of scientific theory and studies
in the organization of technology.
Before the work of such men as George Sarton, Lynn Thorndike and
Otto Neugebauer, it might have been claimed (and it often was) that these
Scientific Humanities were only talk about scholarship, not scholarship itself.
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10 BASIC COLLEGE QUARTERLY ? wINTER 1959
Few would make this charge today; instead, many now maintain that the
field entails recondite and special techniques for which one must have had
scientific and other training. This is a fallacy which I want to expose by
some personal examples.
I have already spoken of the- statistical investigations of the exponential
growth of science. It is the sort of thing that scientists often talk about and
that ex-scientist-administrators of science have to use in their jobs. It is vital
to government planning. Yet, because it might involve technical expertise,
it has been left alone by the humanists. Having done some of this work
myself I feel confident that there is much in it for which the training of
the statistician, the sociologist, or the economist is more apposite than any-
thing -but a general "talking-about" knowledge of science.
If this seems rather a fabricated case, let me cite another from a more
traditional form of scholarship. Five years ago I had the good fortune. to
discover a fourteenth century Middle English manuscript in a college library
in Cambridge. I have since edited it and tentatively identified it as a hither-
to unknown scientific work by Geoffrey Chaucer-a companion to his Trea-
tise on the Astrolabe and the only manuscript in our first poet's own
handwriting. Now I admit that to make a critical edition I had to have a
knowledge of elementary mathematics and an understanding of medieval
astronomical theory. I had also to learn palaeography ab initio, revive a
small trainingin'Middle English acquired through the caprice of a teacher
in high school, and, most fortunately, find a good linguistic collaborator in
Professor R. M. Wilson of Sheffield. I think we have done a good job, but
it could have been done at least as well, and probably more painlessly, by a
Middle English specialist unafraid to explore the little mathematics and
astronomy involved. I wish I could convince a few Anglicists of this, because
there is an enormous body of Middle English scientific literature for which
the manuscripts have never even been examined, let alone read or edited.
Mine had lain in a library for five hundred years, falsely catalogued and
untouched. Such texts, of the greatest literary and linguistic interest but
seldom involving complicated science, have never been mentioned in the
didactic literature of medieval England.
George Sarton and many other scientist historians of science did not cavil
at the need to learn Arabic; Neugebauer undertook his superb work with
Babylonian mathematics written in cuneiform, Needham with the immense
bulk of classical Chinese literature. Yet when I sought through England for
a Hellenist to help in editing Ptolemy's Almagest, I could not find one
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willing to make an effort to pierce the mathematical idiocy.
Let me cite one more example, this time of a piece of work crying out to
be done and neglected for more than fifty years. I speak of the Antikythera
machine. Most of my readers will never before have heard of these little
fragments of corroded bronze, dredged from a treasure ship dating from the
first century B.C. and lying on the sea bed between Greece and Crete, off
the island of Antikythera. They show the remains of a highly complicated,
geared machine-as sophisticated as a modern chronometer-which was
probably a planetarium of the sort that Archimedes is said to have built. If
we could find out more about it we might be brought to a complete re-
estimate of the power of Hellenistic science and technology. Either the
Alexandrians did not write about such things or the evidence has been lost.
For me, the Antikythera find is like opening the tomb of Tutankamen and
finding a jet plane. Perhaps we know as much of Greek civilization as the
Martians would know of ours if the only evidence to survive an atomic war
were the contents of our art galleries, carefully preserved in subterranean
stores. Could one reconstruct our civilization from the evidence of Picasso
and Rembrandt? Yet there has been no clamor to study the Antikythera
machine, and no Hellenist or Classicist has come forward to replace Heiberg
or Heath in fundamental studies of Greek and Roman Science.
so FAR i HAVE BEEN speaking of the humanistic research that is possible
for those who turn their faces towards science rather than away from it. It
remains for me to fulfill my promise and show how another aspect of these
Scientific Humanities can be of great importance. I will not say much of
the lip-service that is given to these subjects as bridges between the arts and
the sciences. There is no real gap scholastically, but there will always be one
in subject=matter. Teaching such subjects to scientists and to historians is
already an established and very rapidly growing activity in many universities
here and in Europe; indeed I predict that within the next decade it will be
found in every considerable university.
What I seek is something larger, namely the establishment of the Scien-
tific Humanities as a school within these universities. Like any other school
it would have two functions, scholarship and education. Roughly speaking,
these reflect the post-graduate and the under-graduate sides respectively. I
have already spoken of the post-graduate research aspect and shall here add
only that our greatest lack has been in attracting students---not through dis-
inclination but because there were no attractive careers for them. A program
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BASIC COLLEGE QUARTERLY - WINTER 1959
in the Scientific Humanities would provide such careers and would, I believe,
draw a goodly share of the intellectual cream of our youth. When we insti-
tuted such courses at Cambridge some five years ago we found that the
brightest would-be scientists were coming to us in dissatisfaction with being
able to acquire only a limited view through specialization in a narrow field.
We also got some of the most penetrating embryonic historians, theologians,
and philosophers-students who felt that they needed to talk about science
in the deepest fashion but who did not want to work at the scientific
research front.
It is the undergraduate side for which I propose the new mass character,
not as part of the study of history, or of science, but as a training complete
as either of these, or as economics or education. What would the graduates
of such a training do? They would fill the para-scientific professions and
thereby relieve and probably cure the manpower shortage in science. By
"para-scientific professions" I mean the schoolteachers of science, the editors
and abstractors, the writers of books about science, journalists, and others
who explain science to the rest of us. Most important of all are the admin-
istrators of science-the men in government, in industry and business, in
the great organizations of scientific societies and trusts-men who have to
understand the scientists and the significance of their work. Such men are
the go-betweens for the active research front on one side and the rest of
our world on the other. Willy-nilly, their actions have tremendous effect
on the work of active scientists and equally far-reaching consequences on
the relations between their work and the use to which the world puts the
result. The greater part of our technology depends on them. Is it not fitting
that these para-scientists should become what I spoke of at the beginning,
namely those whose professional business it is to study and analyze the
state of science-in-the-large? I doubt if such learning could be grafted onto
the specialist courses for scientists or for anyone else; it is a huge field in
its own right.
Consider the present state of these para-scientists. One might estimate,
as a talking point, that for every ten people taken up to the research front
of'science, only one stays there. The majority of the remaining nine become
Para-scientists by a process of wastage. Once we could criticize the schools
for sacrificing their educational program to the supposed needs of those
intending to become scientists. Now we must criticize them for gearing
their training to those who will continue to do research. If there is any less
wasteful way of training such people, we certainly should give it every
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encouragement.
The Scientific Humanities offer the possibility of training scientists who
would work behind the research front. The world needs them perhaps
more badly than it needs the others. They could supply the manpower
craved by industry and government and, together with their teachers, give
us a body of learning which would not only deepen our understanding of
science but would help scientists cure the internal diseases of their pro-
fession. Perhaps it is the only way that first class brains can be attracted
while still fresh to scientific-managerial posts of industry.
Having come so-far, perhaps I should say something of the syllabus that
a School of the Scientific Humanities might have. I do this only with the
greatest diffidence and very tentatively; America is the country of educa-
tional experiment, and some of my readers would certainly Ise able to draw
upon a body of experience and knowledge much larger than my own.
SorrE zFrINGS ARE certain. The history, sociology, and philosophy of science
must play a large part in the program, acting, so to speak, as connective
tissues. Also, there should be a series of survey courses covering the whole
field of science at the highest possible level-even to explairing the content
of the active research front. Such surveys present the danger of watered-
down treatment, but this is by no means my intention. Relieving a teacher
of the responsibility for training students to be original workers in his field
should enable him to cover a much wider field in shorter time. No student
could cover the whole range of such courses, but a suitable combination of
them with special courses in education, business administraion, etc., could
lead to a variety of special careers.
Would this program work? I am a little doubtful about the high level
survey courses but not at all about the Scientific Humanities. Are there
enough people to institute such courses? We have some and, given the
possibility of jobs, we can readily get enough to strike a good balance
between teaching and research. What of students? I am sure we could
get them of the finest quality and in sufficient numbers to make a brave start.
The scientists seem to inherit the world and all its forces of good and evil.
But, like a rabble raising a republic, they know not their o* constitution-
only how to wield individual arms. Their leaders are fine -fighters but piti-
ably unschooled in strategy and tactics. The time has come to examine this
republic of science and seek more than empirical experiences for its leaders.
Humanists must not reject it and thus make of themselves the idiots of
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science. Rather, they must help the republic toward a full coherence and do
their utmost to prevent its dissolution. What the old humanists did for class-
ical learning the humanists of today must do for science.
This article is from a paper read at the
annual American Humanities Seminar held by
The-University of Massachusetts. Seminar
sponsors, in addition to the University,
were The Humanities Center for Liberal
Education and The College English Associa-
tion.
The author, Derek J. Price, is a member of
the School of Historical Studies, Institute
for Advanced Study, Princeton, New Jersey.
Recipient of Ph.D's from London and Cambridge,
he has published extensively in the fields of
physics and the history of science.
Reprinted, with permission, from Basic
College Quarterly, Vol. IV (No. 2),
Winter, 1959, published by Michigan
State University.
For additional copies, write to
Dr. Maxwell H. Goldberg, Executive
Director, Humanities Center for Liberal
Education, University of Massachusetts,
Amherst, Massachusetts.
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The Scholar's Scratch Pad
Some Music From the Spheres
I am looking at my crystal ball-a sphere
-so crystal, so transparently composed, that
many of you cannot see it. Can you, sir? Or
you, sir? No imagination) I shall use it for
a small adventure in horoscopy. I shall try
to make an approach to a horoscope for the
human race. At first glance I see trouble
ahead. I see a confused, lonely man off
the fairway in a sand trap, gazing wistfully
at a distant putting green. I see dark forms,
menacing figures, dancing in the shadows of
the bordering woods.
Is there not someone to help select what
iron to use; someone, not imprudent, to
plan the approach? If there is, this lonely
man needs him. From now on, will it be just
one damned sand trap after another?
Turning the crystal ball a little I seem to
see a broad land full of laughing but wor-
ried people. They also are in the rough,
and confused; they seem to have wandered
unwittingly off the fairways. They search
for a cause thereof; did they slice, did they
hook? They search for a scapegoat to blame
for their loss of general directitude, and
? Author of many works on astronomy, re-
cipient of numerous awards and medals, and a
member of the Editorial Board of Tim AMERI-
CAN SCHOLAR, HARLOW SHAPLEY was di-
rector of the Harvard Observatory from 1921 to
1952.
This article was presented as an address at
the concluding luncheon of the 1958 American
Iumanities Seminar, jointly sponsored by the
Humanities Center for Liberal Education and
the University of Massachusetts, with the Presi-
dent's Committee on Scientists and Engineers
co-operating.
only slowly do they begin to recognize that
they are their own scapegoats. They. begin
to fear that never again can they, in the
light of recent disclosures, pretend to a.
nationally practiced political virtue. Ahl
Imprudence) Meanwhile the dark figures
dance gleefully in the shadows.
I do not like what I see in this crystal
ball, this 1958 model. Let's put it aside and
try this larger one, the 1970 model. Strange
and weird things now appear; I am unable
to understand them fully or even partially.
Much is obscured by social smog. Appar-
ently by 1970 another small but useless
war has been fought. Already atomic energy
courses through many of our power lines.
The Near East states are sinking back into
their natural feudal corruption. Brave new
attempts to reorganize the world have tem-
porarily prospered-and collapsed again be-
cause interracial humanity is only skin-
color deep. The cult of being led around
submissively has grown in prevalence. The
dignity of the individual is less talked
about. It is a sad, sad picture, and it leads
me to want to break that cloudy crystal
ball to bits. Let's build one nearer the
heart's desire. Let's consider further the
here and now, and tomorrow.
With deliberate follow-ups of action, we
may defeat that 1970 horoscope. By 1970
we may even stop dichotomizing the intel-
lectual enterprise, stop opposing those
words "science" and "humanities." We may
unqualifiedly revere knowledge, and the
pursuit of it; we may habitually make an
integrated approach to learning.
But I cannot keep my thoughts off the
218
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distant future. I dreamily wonder what this
universe will be a thousand years from now.
To appease me and my desires, therefore, I
shall sketch two themes.
One could well be labeled "Damnation,"
the other "Redemption." The first sketch
will refer to attempts at the pandemic
damnation of the human race. How might
man's career on this planet be terminated,
and the biology of the earth returned to the
durable clams, kelp and cockroaches, which
dominated the lands and seas for hundreds
of millions of years before the human ex-
periment got under way?
I have looked rather carefully into this
matter of terminating man, with a sur-
prising result; namely, it appears to be a
hard job to shake him off. He is an ingen-
ious critter, and in his relatively large fore-
brain he may figure out escapes from ex-
tinction-escapes from what appears to be
coming to him soon and inevitably-soon,
on the cosmic time scale.
No one of us who has thought about it
expects man as we know him to be on this
planet a million years from now. Let's base
our speculations on the much better chance
that he could still be here, in spite of hell
and high water, ten thousand years from
now-that is, one hundred centuries from
this epoch. Our dealing with the future will
take both logical analysis and imaginative
poetry-it will take science and the hu-
manities intermingled.
Life on this planet now depends com-
pletely on the sun for its continuity, as it
depended on the sun some three or four
thousand million years ago for its origin.
To meet our need, the sun must stand by
for one hundred centuries and remain
steady. Explode the sun and you expire the
biology of this planet. Dim the sun and you
damn the man.
The sun's fuel supply of hydrogen is very
great. At the present rate it will shine be-
nevolently for billions of years, rather
closely thermostated throughout that time.
The stars are so remotely scattered from
one another that a lethal star-sun collision
is out of reason for much longer than our
ten thousand years. If the nearest star, Al-
Jr
pha Centauri, were aimed directly at us,
which it isn't, and were approaching as
fast as one hundred miles a second, which
it isn't, it still could not get to us in one
hundred centuries-stars, you see, are so
isolated in the ocean of space. Also, the
sun is of a calm variety, with no likelihood
of explosion.
The earth moves in a stable orbit. There
is no chance, our celestial mechanics tell
us, that it will break loose, escape from the
sun, and freeze to death out in empty in-
terstellar space. And there is no chance
that it will spiral into the sun and perish
of temperature. Equable climates for the
next hundred centuries-this is my fore-
cast.
We see no way, therefore, of clearing the
earth of Homo sapiens through the misbe-
havior of stars, of sun or of earth.
Could the seas rise (high water) or the
land sink (hell) and drown us out? This is
not at all likely. We have had continents
and oceans for more than half a billion
years, and there is no likelihood of serious
change in the land-water relation in the
next ten thousand years.
How about the atmosphere? It is safe.
The inert gas argon is slowly increasing,
and possibly the life-building oxygen mole-
cules also increase in number, but both at
a very slow rate. Carbon dioxide from the
volcanoes and from industry? There is too
little to bother us when it is diluted in our
quintillion tons of salutary air.
I could spell out in some detail the dan-
gers to man from wild beasts, from insects,
from fungal growths, and even touch. on
microbes and disease germs. But all these
have been thwarted in the past in their at-
tempts to eliminate Homo, and they can
be thwarted in the future if we retain
something resembling our current culture.
I am glad to report that it looks pretty
safe on this planet for ingenious man-safe,
that is, but for one horrible threat. Man
has a deadly enemy at his throat-one that
may succeed in returning the planet to the
clams, kelp and cockroaches.
The enemy is, of course, himself. Man's
worst foe is moan. We all know how, with
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man-made bomb concussions, with radia-
tiqns and poisons, that cruel enemy can
carry out his lethal enterprise. Poor Homol
It would be so wasteful to do him in, He
is such a nice animal, so kind of heart at
times, so cute, so remarkably put together,
with opposable thumbs that have created
art, and roving eyes that have provided
posterity; with his sweet vocal cords, his
powerful forebrain. It would be too bad,
for he is so well-equipped to appreciate the
universe-its beauty and its cosmic music.
On happier planets, which circle stars in
grander galaxies, the most highly sentient
beings may have solved this problem of
suicide or survival. I wonder if we could
do something about it by giving heavy
thought to the matter. I wonder if we
shouldn't do something. At least we might
start programs that aim specifically at our
retaining possession of the planet for the
remainder of this century-programs that
aim to let us hold on long enough to pro-
vide that our near, dear posterity may en-
joy something of what we have enjoyed.
So much for the Damnation theme. Now
some words on Redemption-on a practi-
cal redemptive plan. Many years ago, in
the thick of our second blind world war, I
wrote an essay entitled "A Design for Fight-
ing." It was, strangely enough, printed in
this magazine, the American Scientist, the
Atlantic Monthly and two anthologies. But
nobody enlisted for the fight. Scarcely any-
body, that is, and those few who did were
rarely in the front lines. There was some
talk about it, however, and perhaps some
good did come of my simple suggestions. I
am now inclined to revise that design some-
what, or at least dust it off and try again
for a sale.
The argument in "A Design for Fight-
ing" was simply that we should note that
man is recently from the jungles. We should
observe that we are still animals rather than
angels. Fighting comes naturally. In fact, it
has in the past been highly advisable to
? fight, whether our enemies, real or im-
agined, were beasts or demons. We grew up
because we did fight. Now, with a nostalgic
look back to those brave, naked and brutal
days, and another look at today's jungle
man all dressed up in a dazzling culture,
we still find the need of enemies to be com-
fortable and progressive.
There is no sense, however, in losing our
lives and our civilization by fighting each
other, by fighting within the species. We
need outside foes that we all fear and hate,
some terrible common enemy that we in-
stinctively dread. It might bring the human
race together. We will unite when the dan-
ger is fearsome enough.
My first thought, naturally, is to encour.
age the Martians to try to clean us Terres-
trials out of the solar system. That would
unite Yank and Slav and Hindu and Jap-
everybody. But apparently the Martians
are jellyfish when it comes to fighting, or,
more likely, they are fungoidal sedentaries.
There is no fight in them. And actually, of
course, they do not exist. There is, to be
sure, a hypothesis that they do, but it would
be no fun fighting a Martian hypothesis. It
would not get us together and eliminate
intraspecies strife. The Venusians, on
Venus, are equally impotent.
Where can we find an enemy that would
rally us all to the colors? There are many,
all of varying potentiality: human disease,
the most obvious; human hunger; economic
slavery; illiteracy; blind suspicion. The
Great Enemy is the Tyranny of the Un-
known. That Tyranny, which feeds on su-
perstition and ignorance, could be over-
thrown if we had a workable will and a
will to work.
If we were reasonable, rational and well-
minded, we could oppose some of these
enemies with gusto, and we might bring
peace and understanding to the species as a
by-product.
The scientists have shown the way in
that magnificent operation, the Interna-
tional Geophysical Year-sixty-six nations
ambitiously working together to solve com-
mon problems. The sciences involved are:
oceanography, meteorology, volcanism, gla-
ciology, seismology, antarctic exploration
and exploitation, ionospheric physics, solar
radiation, magnetism, cosmic ray intensi-
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 Approved For Release 2003/04/18 : CIA-RDP80R01731 R000200110036-3
ties, and satellites. Work proceeds effect-
ively with the scientists. In the I.G.Y. we
co-operate; in the U.N. we expostulate.
But back to the Design. Let's continue
indefinitely some of the International Geo-
physical Year's co-operations. It will cost us
something, but, for next year, it would cost
considerably less than a futile battleship.
And let's undertake, either along with many
nations, or with the U.S.S.R. alone, other
"international years" where full co-opera-
tion and complete communication can be
practiced. What about an international
medical research year or an international
cultural exchange year? We should all
willingly ponder and work for such Hoino
savers. Certai,ly we must continue to pro-
mote defenses against the devilish devices
of man's worst enemy.
So saying, your agent from the galaxies
deflates the 1[170 crystal ball as well as this
1958 model. And he reminds you again,
dear Brutus, that it is not in our stars but
in ourselves that we shall find salvation.
Reprinted with permission from
The American Scholar, Vol. XXVIII
(No. 2), Spring, 1959.
Additional copies available from Dr. Maxwell H.
Goldberg, Executive Director, Humanities Center
for Liberal Fducation, University of Massachusetts,
Amherst, Massachusetts.
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 Approved For Release 2003/04/18 : CIA-RDP80R01731R000200,110036-3
FILL OUT FORM ON
OTHER SIDE OF THIS FLAP
AND RETURN TO:
MAXWELL H. GOLDBERG, Director
Humanities Center for Liberal Education
South College, University of Mass.
Amherst, Mass.
JOSEPH W. ANGELL, JR., Assistant Chief, USAF Historical Division
EMERY F. BACON, Director of Education, United Steelworkers of America
RALPH BALDWIN, Institute of Advanced Management, General Electric Company
FRANK L. BOYDEN, Headmaster, Deerfield Academy
PERCY W. BRIDGMAN, professor emeritus, Department of Physics, Harvard University
RALPH W. BURHOE, Executive Officer, American Academy of Arts and Sciences
AMBROSE CALIVER, Assistant to the Commissioner and Chief, Adult Education Section, U. S. Office
of Education
ROBERT F. CAMPBELL, Educational Director, National Coal Association
THOMAS R. CARSKADON, Associate Director, The Twentieth Century Fund
A. BURNS CHALMERS, Director, Davis House; Secretary of Education, American Friends Service
Committee
HENNIG COHEN, Executive Secretary, American Studies Association
WILLIAM H. CoRNOG, Superintendent, New Trier Township High School
HENRY DAVID, Executive Director, National Manpower Council
RICHARD EELLS, Consultant, Public Policy Research, General Electric Company
BENJAMIN FINE, Dean, Graduate School of Education, Yeshiva University
AUSTIN W. FISHER, JR., Manager, Business Development, Research and Development Division,
Arthur D. Little, Inc.
HAROLD M. GORE, JR., Eastern Regional Coordinator, Foreign Relations Project, North Central
Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools
FRANK P. GRAHAM, United Nations Representative in India and Pakistan
RALPH HELSTEIN, President, United Packinghouse Workers of America
FRANCIS A. HENSON, Director of Education, Great Lakes Territory, International Association of
Machinists
ERNEST V. HOLLis, Director, College and University Administration Branch, Division of Higher
Education, U. S. Office of Education
GERALD HOLTON, Editor-in-chief, Daedalus
SIDNEY HOOK, Chairman, Department of Philosophy, New York University
FRANCIS H. HORN, President, University of Rhode Island
THEODORE F. Koop, Director of Washington News and Public Affairs, Columbia Broadcasting
System, Inc.
ANTHONY LUCHEK, Professor of Labor Education, University of Wisconsin
MARSHALL McLUHAN, Department of English, St. Michael's College, University of Toronto
JOSEPH MIRE, Executive Director, National Institute of Labor Education
JOHN S. NICHOLAS, Trumbull College, Yale University. Past President, Scientific Manpower Com-
mission
HOWARD LEE NOSTRAND, Executive Officer, Department of Romance Languages and Literature,
University of Washington
DWAYNE ORTON, Editor, Think, and Educational Consultant, International Business Machines
Corporation
FREDERIC E. PAMP, JR., Division Manager, International Management Association
CHARLES W. POWELL, President, The American Agricultural Chemical Company
FRANCIS C. PRAY, Vice President-College Relations, Council for Financial Aid to Education, Inc.
DEREK J. DE SOLLA PRICE, Institute for Advanced Study
EUGENE RABINOWITCH, Editor, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists {
NEIL B. REYNOLDS, Educational Relations and Support Service, General Electric Company
WILLIAM J. SANDERS, Commissioner of Education, State of Connecticut
HERBERT L. SEAMANS, Consultant on Human Relations, University of Miami
HARLow SHAPLEY, Paine Professor of Astronomy, Harvard University
SEYMOUR N. SIEGEL, Director, The City of New York Municipal Broadcasting System
EDMUND W. SINNOTT, Osborn Botanical Laboratory, Yale University
ELVIS J. STAHR, JR., President, West Virginia University
PHILLIPS STEVENS, Headmaster, Williston Academy
GEORGE WINCHESTER STONE, JR., Executive Secretary, The Modern Language Association of
America
A. M. SULLIVAN, Editor, Dun's Review and Modern Industry
F L. WORMALD, Associate Director, Association of American Colleges
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AMERICAN HUMANITIES SEMINAR
July 13-15, 1959 University of Massachusetts
Sponsors
The Humanities Center for Liberal Education
The University of Massachusetts
The Question
How may humanists work more effectively with
Science and Technology
Labor and Management
Government
Medicine and Law
Education and Religion
Press, Radio, and TV
to strengthen international exchange
and
to achieve cross-cultural goals?
1. INTEGRITY: How advance cross-cultural cooperation without violating
cultural integrity?
2. IMAGE: How shape an effective image of man, fused from, but
transcending, national cultures?
3. VEHICLE: How best utilize the vehicles of personal and public com-
munication?
4. PROJECTION: How apply the experience of the Geophysical Year to an
international cultural year?
 Background Information
The American Humanities Seminar is an annual function of the Humani-
ties Center for Liberal Education and the University of Massachusetts.
Sponsors of previous seminars have included the College English Associ-
ation with the University of Massachusetts. The Planning Consultation for the
1958 Seminar was made possible by a grant from the American Council of
Learned Societies; cooperating in that Seminar was The President's Committee
on Scientists and Engineers.
Keynoting speaker at the first of these seminars, held in 1956, was Perry
Miller of Harvard University. In 1957 George Boas, then Head of the Depart-
ment of Philosophy at Johns Hopkins University, made the opening address.
Last year, proceedings began with an address by Frank Porter Graham, United
Naticus cplwser_..trve,in India 414, P 111: among of r_spc; s wen
Percy W. Bridgman, Harvard University; Theodore F. Koop, Director of
Washington News and Public Affairs, CBS; Harold Taylor, President, Sarah
Lawrence College; William Homer Turner, Executive Director, United States
Steel Foundation; Harlow Shapley, Past President, American Association for
the Advancement of Science.
The Seminars usually bring together 75-100 men and women known for
serious thought and action in science and the liberal arts, and in such fields as
business, labor, and government.
Registration Fee
Lodgings, Meals, Transportation
Seminar registration fee of $50.00 will cover cost of all meals, including
reception and dinner meeting at Lord Jeffery Inn and Deerfield Academy. It
also defrays cost of lodgings at Crabtree Dormitory on campus, Monday noon
through Wednesday noon. Rooms in dormitory will be available at no extra
charge for use on both Sunday and Wednesday nights by those who may wish
to arrive early and stay late.
Transportation between the campus and Springfield will be provided upon
request and at no extra cost for those arriving and departing by train or plane.
Please make checks payable to: American Humanities Seminar.
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Program *
MONDAY, JULY 13
12:00 Opening Luncheon
1:30 General Session
6:00 Tour of Old Deerfield (transportation provided)
7:00 Dinner Meeting, Deerfield Academy
TUESDAY, JULY 14
9:00 Group Discussions
12:15 Luncheon Meeting
2.00 Ajroup.l igtussiuny.
5:45 Reception: Lounge & Garden, Lord Jeffery Inn
6:30 Dinner Meeting, Lord Jeffery Inn
WEDNESDAY, JULY 15
9:00 Panel Discussion
12:15 Luncheon Meeting
3:00 Closing
*All events will take place in the Student Union Building, University of Massachusetts,
Amherst, Massachusetts, except as otherwise indicated.
THE UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS
J. PAUL MATHER, President
SHANNON MCCUNE, Provost
FRED V. CAHILL, JR., Dean, College of Arts and Sciences
HILLS SKILLINGS, Acting Assistant to the Provost
THE HUMANITIES CENTER FOR LIBERAL EDUCATION
Academic Chairman:, J. PAUL MATHER, President, University of Massachusetts
industry Chairman: GILBERT W. CHAPMAN, President, The Yale & Towne Manufacturing Company
Executive Director: MAXWELL H. GOLDBERG, University of Massachusetts
Associate Directors: JOHN W. BALL, Miami University
DONALD J. LLOYD, Wayne State University
Consultants: PAUL C. DUNCAN, Paul Duncan Associates
CHESTER L. NEUDLING, Specialist for the Humanities, Division of Higher Education,
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0
U
N
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The Intellectual in Action
HAROLD TAYLOR
I BEGIN with a comment by the Greek citizen
Pericles, who had so much to do with the public
life of Athens.
Unlike other cities, Athens expects every citizen to take an
interest in public affairs; and, as a matter of fact, most
Athenians have some understanding of public affairs. We
do believe in knowledge as a guide to action; we have a
power of thinking before we act, and of acting too, whereas
many peoples can be full of energy if they do not think, but
when they reflect they begin to hesitate. We like to make
friends abroad by doing good and giving help to our neigh-
bors; and we do this not from some calculation of self-inter-
est but in the confidence of freedom in a frank and fearless
girit. I would have you fix your eyes upon Athens day by
y, contemplate her potentiality-not merely what she is
but what she has the power to be, until you become her
lovers. Reflect that her gloryy has been built up by men who
knew their duty, and had the courage to do it. Make them
your examples and learn from them that the secret of happi-
ness is freedom, and the secret of freedom, courage.
This is also the secret of Athens' greatness in the
greatest days of Greek civilization. I believe that what
Pericles has said is profoundly true. We all know what
he means when he says that people can be full of energy
when they do not think, but when they reflect they
begin to hesitate. The man of action, or the man who
is doing well and who feels happy with things as they
are, is annoyed to be asked to reflect on himself, or he
senses danger to his own situation in the possibility that
he may be wrong.
This in a real sense is the reason for the suspicion
held in some quarters of America for the intellectual.
The intellectual, the social critic, the thoughtful citi-
zen, put things in doubt. They question what exists,
and make anxious those who have adapted themselves
fully to what exists. The kind of self-confidence needed
by a person of a country is the kind which has a frank
and fearless spirit, which has no fear of being questioned
or criticized. There is a difference, of course, between
Harold Taylor is President of Sarah Lawrence
College. This paper is the text of an address given
at the Third Annual American Humanities Semi-
nar at the University of Massachusetts, July 15,
1958.
self-confidence and complacency. Complacency wishes
to ignore criticism, to prevent it, or to explain it away.
It is thoughtless and mindless, and it is based on self-
interest.
What Is an Intellectual?
Self-confidence is built upon an honest appraisal of
the reality of things. It is based on the belief in knowl-
edge as a guide to action. The union of thought and
action, the creation of the ideal from the materials of
the real, the desire to imagine what can be in place of
what is-these are the elements of a philosophy which
defines the true intellectual in action.
We have no separate intellectual class in this coun-
try, and it is my hope that we never will. The ideal soci-
ety is one in which the citizens think for themselves
and do not want others to do their thinking for them.
There are, of course, intellectuals in every society, and
there are intellectuals in America. But in America they
do not form a class of political or social leaders whose
function it is to think for the rest. Many of our political
leaders take pride in not being intellectuals and take
pains to make it clear that they are regular Americans
without any intellectual connections. The intellectual in
America is tested by his society in the same way as any-
one else-by his ability to perform the tasks lie under-
368
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takes. If he is a novelist, can he write books which are
interesting, which have in them the ring of truth, which
compel the attention of the reader to the image of hu-
man life which they proclaim? If he is a newspaper
writer, can he get down the facts, can he perform his
task of informing the reader? If he is a composer, can
his music command the attention of musicians, can he
write for opera, for full orchestra, for dancers? If he is
an educator, has he anything to say which can persuade
his listener or evoke a response toward the ideas he
advocates?
In that case, who is the American intellectual? He is
to be found in many areas of American society. The
writer, certainly, the novelist, the editor, the poet, the
playwright, movie and television writer, the teacher, the
government official, the scientist. But every scientist and
every teacher, for example, is not an intellectual. A per-
son who teaches or who carries out research may per-
form his task without a serious interest in the ideas with
which he operates. An intellectual, in other words, is, a
person who is interested in ideas and carries on a serious
intellectual life of his own. If he has no private world of
ideas, he is merely a practitioner or a technician in the
field of ideas.
There are corporation executives who are seriously in-
terested in the theory and practice of corporate enter-
prise, in economics, in political philosophy, in public
affairs, and are among the American intellectuals. I sub-
mit that the man who wishes to make a contribution to
his society, whether as an office-worker, a carpenter, or
a college professor, must have some degree of interest in
ideas and some degree of ability to deal with them.
Otherwise, he has eliminated the dimension of his life
which has to do with himself as a person, his citizenship,
his sense of public responsibility, his relation to his own
time. It is for this reason that I believe that every boy
and girl must have a full opportunity for education, not
merely for vocational training, but for sharing in the
intellectual life of his society, in whatever degree, his
capacities and interests may allow.
The ideal for American society is therefore one in
which the intellectual and aesthetic interests of the citi-
zens are an element in the daily life of the country. For
this reason I welcome the mass culture which is so often
despised by our social critics, and I believe that the
spread of mass culture through television, radio, maga-
zines, and newspapers and every part of the mass media
is a significant part of the development of America as a
civilization. For a similar reason I welcome the impend-
ing expansion of our college population, without fear
that in such an expansion our intellectual standards will
be lowered and our educational system debased.
This is not to say that I look to a time when the in-
terests of our most advanced intellectuals-research sci-
entists, historians, poets, philosophers, or writers-will
be shared by the entire population. This is not a natural
or attainable foal, since those who are at work in par-
ticular areas of intellectual advancement must by defi-
nition be involved with ideas which will not be imme-
diately available to everyone. It is to say that the dis-
semination of~ideas and the enjoyment of art on a mass
scale has a positive effect on raising the level of intel-
lectual interest and information by the total population.
By putting more of our young people and the adult
population into the stream of mass culture we do not
debase standards, we create new possibilities for the
development of higher standards. It is the responsibility
of the rest of us who already make some claim to intel-
lectual interests and values to seize every opportunity to
encourage the spread of thinking, whether this be car-
ried out in the home, in the community, at PTA meet-
ings, in the school, adult education courses, in television,
radio, magazines, or college.
Responsibilities of the Intellectual
Education, today, is being talked about, debated, dis-
cussed, argued, and even advertised in such volume that
sheer weight f;`f attention is bound to bring reforms in
a positive direction. If we, as interested citizens, intel-
lectuals, and educators, do not add our voices to those
now being herd, it is our own fault. We have been
given the opportunity. It is up to us to take part, to
speak up, to express conviction. If we do not speak up,
it must be either that we are afraid to, or that we have
nothing to say.. I have little patience with the argument
that this country is anti-intellectual. What country is
not, merely by the fact that no country as yet has a
system of public education which can involve all of its
citizens in an interest in ideas and cultural values? Of
course, there is anti-intellectualism. But it is not to be
overcome by a retreat from the issues, nor by condemn-
ing mass culture and the sins of the advertisers.
Let me turn for a moment to one sector of the edu-
cational front---the sector occupied by college profes-
sors. We hear more about their salaries than about their
ideas, although, of course, we must speak fiercely and
urgently about salaries. But, at the present time, money
is what college presidents and college professors talk
about, while business men, admirals, and bankers talk
about education.
"The function of a teacher," says Alexander Meikle-
john, "is to stand before his pupils and before the com-
munity at largo as the intellectual leader of his time. If
he is not able to take this leadership, he is not worthy
of his calling,"
If the teacher allows that leadership to be taken away
from him 13Y others-by politicians investigating col-
leges, by pressure groups who try to silence him, by
those who speak more loudly outside the schools and
colleges-this means simply that he is not fulfilling his
mission as a teacher and an educator. It is the task of
the intellectual to express his view of the world in his
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own way and to celebrate the possibilities in human
existence. I believe that it is because teachers in the
colleges have not considered their task to be that of
exercising intellectual, social, or cultural leadership be-
fore their pupils and before the community at large that
their pupils and the community at large have become
content with what they find around them, have accepted
the values of their own society, and have sought success
in material terms.
Our Culture-As the Young See It
"Success for me," says one student who speaks for
many of his contemporaries, "would mean a job I could
leave after eight hours and that would provide for self-
fulfillment within a framework of inconspicuous luxury."
Now surely this is an over-modest demand, and much
less a demand than the young should be making. The
demands are not less because this generation is less ideal.
istic than its predecessors. It is more talented, better
educated, better able to handle its problems, and is
genuinely concerned with human values. But it has
been taught by its society to recognize the advantages
,of material success and personal security, but not the
means of translating idealism into productive action.
This seems to me to be the responsibility of the con-
temporary teacher.
I turn to another student, with a different view of life
and a different view of his society. He is speaking of the
culture he finds around him, in his university and in his
country.
Everywhere is blah, and when our own blab stops like a
toy that has run down, we turn on television and the phono-
graph to stuff the void. Everywhere, in the subway, in the
airport waiting-room, in rest rooms even, the music plays and
races through our veins like a file of ants-but only while
the Wurlitzcr whirls. When we run out of dimes, when the
joint closes up for the night, not one beat remains in our
hones. Only a pre-dawn inquietude. But, happy to report,
m X 41 . ::
~" .~..yAro?rdo o.b? sr6~?~o.~i~.l;g!~/'titi/
"a framework of inconspicuous luxury..."
we arc slowly erasing this unpleasantness from our daily
schedule: with the pocket-sized radio, we soon will never
walk alone.
We have no other-rooms, no private dens, we do not have
the back-shops Montaigne advised all men to keep: our
hearts are public houses....
Wine needs time and the darkness of a cellar. But the
minute we receive any juice at all, we spill it out before it
can assume an intoxicating dimension: hence the flatness
of our speech and of our lives....
If this is the character of our culture, as seen by the
young, if, in fact, all the generalizations about conform.
ity, security-mindedness, complacency, and banality are
true-what is the solution? How do we get nonconform-
ity, boldness, daring, excitement, flavor, freshness, orig-
inality?
Again, it would be easy to condemn. But we have had
much of that. It is a negative time. But the question is,
What do we do?
Let the Poem Speak for Itself!
One thing we who are in the colleges can do is to
concern ourselves with the life of the intellect and the
imagination again, and remind ourselves and the public,
that the purpose of education is to develop people who
can think and act for themselves. We have become so
engrossed in the practical problems of education and
the culture that we find our teachers talking only of
"problems"; we have become lobbyists for the intellect,
full of promotional devices for advertising the virtues of
the humanities, the sciences, or foreign languages. Even
in our teaching we have been pressing for attention to
cultural and aesthetic values rather than allowing the
values to be seen, enjoyed, and savored by ourselves and
our students. We must let the poem speak for itself, in
its own purity and enchantment, without our eternal
explanations and analysis. Let the music be played and
listened to, without explanation, with no set of instruc-
tions on how to listen, what to look for. Let the idea
generate its own response in the minds of our listeners,
let them see for themselves that the idea itself is pas-
sionately held by the man who proposes it. There is too
much concern for classifying, and thus defeating, the
new. When a few young Englishmen say bitter things
about their own society and the place of the intellectual
in it, they are immediately classified as Angry Young
Men, who, in fact, are less angry than unhappy and
complaining. When a group of American writers and
poets give us a model for a life of drugs, travel, jazz, and
mystic experience, we confuse and elevate their mean-
ing by classifying them as a Beat Generation. This is
intellectual promotional work, not creative thought or
contemporary literature.
W. H. Auden spoke in his poetry lecture last year at
Oxford of a teacher of Anglo-Saxon who had lectured
to him.
"I do not remember a single word he said, but at a
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certain point he recited, and magnificently, a long pas-
sage of Beowulf. I was spellbound."
I think we need to have more people spellbound,.en-
tranced, joyful, enchanted. They need not stay that way
permanently, but they need to know from direct experi-
ence what it means to be captured by a feeling or an
idea. If we arc ovcrimprcsscd by money and material
values, if our culture is lacking in spiritual content, then
is it not the task of the artist, the architect, the dancer,
the playwright, the philosopher, the composer, the so-
cial thinker, the scientist to show us what he can do
and to have enough confidence in what he is doing to
work in his own way without regard to the number of
people he influences or ever reaches? With the present
resources of the mass media, the present demand for
more ideas and more talent will leave few who have
such talent alone in obscurity.
How Do We Break Out of the Conformist Circle?
I would like to look further at the idea of noncon-
formity, a virtue widely celebrated but rarely visible.
How do we get it? Certainly not by trying to noncon-
form. Deliberately to cultivate nonconformity is to act
falsely and hypocritically. The conformist can very well
ask, If a situation is a good one why change it? If teen-
agers speak the same language, dress the same way, think
the same thoughts, or if their mothers and fathers in
the suburbs of Chicago, San Francisco, Cleveland, New
York, and Boston all have the same kind of houses, cars,
and ideas, how do they break out? Should they move to
the city? Read only James Joyce? All switch to MGs in
place of those fin-tailed, gas-burning monsters of the
automobile industry? Should they drop John Foster
Dulles in favor of Mendes-France? The classical ballet
for Martha Graham?
I can't imagine that this would give us anything but
new forms of conformity. Already there is a standard
liberal stance, and modem art itself has a grip on mod-
ern taste from which only a few can depart. Those. who
are influential it, creating standards of aesthetic taste are
themselves con! nually searching for new forms.
What has happened is that the concept of opinion-
makers has tra asferred itself from business with its ad-
vertising and Promotional instruments until now it is
assumed that ,,ere are influential leaders in all fields-
from art to politics-who mold public attitude by their
techniques of t;ersuasion and the engineering of mass
opinion. 'I1-ie counterpart to this is the public opinion
poll which tells the man who is trying to lead opinion
what the publi - thinks on every conceivable issue, so
that then he cK,,n trim his opinion to suit the people.
This is the dot:ble-edge of conformity-the conformity
of democratic --adership to citizens' opinions, and the
conformity of the citizens to the acceptance of brand
names attached to public figures and to ideas. People
seem to be reviling the magazines to see what they
should think, while the editors and political leaders
anxiously watch the readers and listeners to see what
they are thinkilig. This completes the conformist circle.
Again, how c:o we break out?
In the first pace, I question the concept of the opin-
ion-leader and,, the masses. I also question the wisdom
of wanting to know what other people think before you
say what you, think. College presidents are, among
others, considered to be opinion-leaders, although a
great deal of the time they are business managers and
administrative experts, busy with the public relations
mechanisms of making their institutions attractive to
the public and finding money to support them.. They
therefore do rir.t lead opinion, but follow it in search of
funds.
However, college presidents, among hundreds of
others, receive. through the mail masses of pamphlets,
books, circulars., and statements from the United States
and foreign g+vernments, businessmen, editors, indus-
trialists, cduc;al Tonal organizations, few of which they
can possibly re td and fewer of which they could use in
action, even if hey wanted to. As W. H. Whyte's book
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of scvcial years ago asked, "Is Anybody Listening?" child. 'I he simple fact is that America can be better
Certainly there are public figures whose views count understood both at home and abroad today by the tes?
and whose opinions arc respected. But they "form opin- timony of its writers and its artists than by the threats
i
ns
liti
f
ion" because they are thinking freshly and well, mdc-
penclcntly and soundly. We need to understand that
the public consists of individuals, not of masses of sub-
scribers or listeners, and that these individuals are con-
sidcrably more intelligent than they arc assumed to be.
That they are on the whole ill-informed, we know from
the polls showing, for example, that 79 per cent of
Americans in 1953 did not know what the initials
NATO stood for, 54 per cent knew nothing about what
the United Nations was doing.
But there arc reasons for this, deep in the culture and
in the educational system. The mistake is to generalize
from this, and to say that therefore the American people
should be talked down to, should be "sold" ideas like
soap, and should be manipulated into holding views
which the "opinion-leaders" want them to hold. I do
not believe that such efforts to manipulate opinion fall
within the ethics of democratic government, but more
than this, I do not believe that in the long run they are
very successful. Public relations efforts create their own
antidotes and create after a while a cynicism about the
efforts rather than an acceptance of the propaganda-
unless, of course, there is solid truth and sound opinion
at the heart of the enterprise, in which case the truth
may be believed.
The break with conformity which I propose, there-
fore, is an old-fashioned remedy and repeats what
Pericles, among others, has already suggested. It is the
remedy of the nonconformists, Robert Frost, Frank
Lloyd Wright, Albert Einstein, Carl Sandburg, Martha
Graham. It is to tackle the thing which matters most to
oneself, in a frank and fearless spirit, being true to one-
self, and refusing to be deflected from that central en-
terprise either by the attractions of material success or
by the disapproval of the public. This is a philosophy of
risk, a philosophy of experiment, and of true individ-
ualism. The independent man must not be alarmed at
where his independence will take him. If it takes him
to conservatism, he should accept himself as a conserva-
tive and not become an anxious liberal. If be should
then become a radical, then that is what he should be,
and not a cynical conservative.
The Intellectual dnd National Policy
Finally, I wish to turn from the intellectual as an
individual to questions of national policy. I see an
enormous need for the full acceptance of the intellec-
tual and the artist by the United States government. I
would like to revert to type for a moment and speak
of money. The United States is rich in resources, ma-
terial resources, human resources, cultural resources-
we have them in profusion. Yet we behave toward our
cultural resources like niggardly parents of an unwanted
.
c
a
po
of military power and the statements o
When we learn of the reception accorded to our crea-
tive artists-Marian Anderson, Leonard Bernstein, the
Philadelphia Symphony, the New York City Ballet-
and to our intellectuals, whose work abroad is in some
cases better known than it is at home, we can regret
that the United States government lacks a coherent
cultural or educational policy. We have not yet worked
out a way in which the creative arts in America can be
financially supported. This is true also of science and
education, and if we put together the arts, the sciences
and education, we can say that most of the sources of
American culture arc underfinanced.
This is partly because we do not yet realize how great
a part can be played by the arts and sciences in our daily
lives, and partly because we do not yet realize how im-
portant our political and cultural contribution can be to
the world at large. Ahmed Bokhari of Pakistan has put
it, "East and West can now, for the first time, meet on
terms other than conquest and exploitation." We know
from our recent experiences with visitors from the Soviet
Union, from the exchange of scientists, educators, in-
dustrialists, and others between countries, including the
United States, that to share in the exchange of ideas is
perhaps the most important single factor which can
ease the tensions among all countries. Respect for ideas
and for intellectual and cultural achievement rises above
politics and governments.
It is for this reason that we should be happy that our
part in the Brussels Fair is one which is not devoted so
much to propaganda as to the presentation of American
architecture and American culture in its reality. For this
reason we should regret that our government has not
seen fit to give more of its support to the artists who
could bring the excitement of the American performing
arts to Europe if only there were funds to do so.
It is also true that in the new countries in the East
where national independence has been late in begin-
ning, those who serve as national leaders are themselves
intellectuals and respected as such, among them Premier
Nu of Burma, Malik of Lebanon, Nehru of India,
Bokhari of Pakistan. We need also to consider the role
of intellectuals in European government where Malraux,
one of our most distinguished men of contemporary
arts and letters, has always been involved in the political
and social issues of his society and is now a government
official.
Yet our government sends too few books abroad,
either in English or in translation to reach the millions
of potential readers in Europe and the East, at a time
when the Soviet Union is translating and distributing,
at prices ranging from ten cents to eighty cents, millions
of textbooks and Russian works in languages ranging
372
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from Urdu to English. There is also too great an em-
phasis in the selection of the books we do send abroad
or those which emphasize the American political system.
Again, we are not content to allow our arts and culture
to speak for themselves at a time when the countries of
the world do not wish us to tell them what they should
think about its.
This is not an ordinary period in American history. It
is the first time in the history of civilization that one
country has ever had the chance of leading the whole
world in creative and democratic experiments in social
planning. It is the first time in history that any country
has had the means, both in material wealth and in social
structure, to give to every child born an opportunity for
education up to the height of his powers. It is the first
time that any country has had the economic strength to
wipe out entirely the slums, and with them the bad hu-
man relations, the juvenile delinquency, and the evils
of congestion. It is the first time that it has been pos-
sible for the entire resources of Western culture-its
music, poetry, drama, literature, ballet, art objects-to
be brought to a whole population through television,
motion pictures, radio, and the mass magazines.
These possibilities coincide with shortened work
hours and higher pay for everyone-everyone, that is,
except artists, intellectuals, teachers, and educators.
We in America are at the beginning of what amounts
to a cultural revolution made possible by science and
education, moving in an incredibly short time from
education and culture for the few to universal educa-
tion and a high level of mass culture for the total popu-
lation. With the flood of new talent which will be forth-
coming from the millions more who will be in our.
schools and colleges, with the thousands of new writers,
artists, architcwts, planners, builders, composers, play-
wrights, and scientists, we are now approaching a time
when the achievements of the American past can be
seen to be just the beginning of a magnificentnew era
in American culture.
But we could lose the revolution easily by failing to
recognize the content of our own tradition. Our tradi-
tion is not conservatism, or middle-of-the-roadism, or
moderation. It is individualism, liberalism, humanitar-
ian democracy, and it is progressive, stemming from
John Locke, John Stuart Mill, Tom Paine, Walt Whit-
man, William Lloyd Garrison, Woodrow Wilson, Wil-
liam James, John Dewey. There are challenges within
our tradition which face us now. They center in the
challenge to the American mind to express itself in new
forms.
It will be clear, I imagine, that I am among those
who believe that we are entering a new era which is full
of promise for creative change and for the expansion of
new frontiers. It will also be clear that I hold the view
that the educated man, the intellectual in action, has a
central part to play in the development of original ideas
and the solution of social problems. It remains only for
me to say that as you reflect, with Pericles, on what
your country has the power to be, that you do as he asks,
Reflect that her glory has been built, not by the se-
curity-minded, not by men in gray flannel suits, but by
men and women who used knowledge as a guide to
action, and by men and women who knew their duty
and had the courage to do it.
"We need a prophet of a'Brave New World,' not like Huxley's, but one that is really
brave and really new. But before these geniuses can appear upon the scene, the experts
in the natural-and social sciences, together with the humanists, must lay the ground-.
work by the same cooperative endeavor that animated the various scientific experts
who split the atom. In short, we must achieve a humanism that is truly scientific and
a science that is truly humane."
-AcNES E. MEY ER
From Education for a- New Morality
For additional copies write to Dr. Maxwell H. Goldberg,
Executive Director, Humanities Center for Liberal Education,
University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Massachusetts
373
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Society and the Individual
PERCY W. BRIDGMAN
GREAT many people in this country have been
disturbed because of, the sputniks. Some of
these. have been disturbed primarily because
of the implication that this country is falling behind
in the technological race, and others have been dis-
turbed primarily by the disturbance of the others. I
am a member of the latter group.
From the very start we have adopted a fundamentally
false position in our response to the Russian challenge.
I suppose that none of us would maintain that the
government and the institutions of this country are
the best possible to meet conditions in a world chang-
ing as rapidly as ours. At a time when the major con-
cern in this country should have been to find how to
make our government and institutions better adapted
to changing conditions, at a time when we should
even have been daring enough to question the as-
sumptions and to recognize the inherent limitations of
democracy itself, we have allowed ourselves to be di-
verted into a passionate defense of our particular dem-
ocratic institutions as the best, not only under present
conditions but as the best absolutely, so that even to
question them is treason.
The present concern with the Russian threat has
been mostly centered about technology. It has been
properly appreciated that technology in the modern
world is of necessity rooted in "pure" or "basic" sci-
ence, and the popular reaction of late has been to
encourage pure science by all means in social control,
and President's committees have been formed to con-
sider the matter.
This reaction has betrayed a naive misunderstanding
of fundamentals, which takes no account of the process
by which pure science actually gets done.
Flow Is Pure Science Done?
Pure science, in the first place, gets done by indi-
viduals, and these individuals have rather specialized
characteristics which must be recognized if their turn-
ing out of pure science is to be properly encouraged.
One of the most important of these characteristics is
Percy Bridgman, professor emeritus at Harvard
University, received the Nobel Prize for physics
in 1946.
disinterestedness-the pure scientist is not primarily
interested in the practical consequences or in the ap-
plications that may be made of what he finds.
His attitude toward his work may have various as-
pects, and it is probably not possible to give a single
characterization. Because he is not primarily interested
in the consequences, it may be said in general that he
is interested in his work for its own sake. This again
may be because he has a passionate need for the under-
standing of how things go, or because he has an in-
satiable curiosity to discover new things, or because he
feels the challenge of difficulties not yet surmounted.
Whatever the motivation of any particular pure sci-
entist, I think that he is almost never motivated by the
simple pleasure which achieving these satisfactions may
give him, but that he is possessed by some sort of inner
drive which masters him. Feeling as he does, the man
who does pure science cannot help being a little be-
wildered by the clamor of the public that he should
get busy and turn out pure science in order that the
United States may stay ahead of Russia, nor can he
help feeling that if he should yield to the clamor he
would lose something in personal integrity.
It is stylish at present to think of science as essentially
a public activity and even to incorporate its publicness
into the definition of science. It seems to me that on
the contrary the most fundamental things about sci-
entific activity are private and individual.
The drives which make the scientist go are af-
fairs of the individual, as are also the esthetic pleasure
in finding new harmonies in natural phenomena or in
creating a beautiful theory, and the satisfaction af-
forded by the conviction of the logical soundness in
the deductions of a theory, without which any theo-
retical activity is sterile.
Now these things, which make the individual sci-
entist go, are all deeply human traits, possessed in
greater or less degree by all men, in particular by the
humanist. It seems to me that the drives which make
the humanist go are much like those of the scientist.
The methods of the humanist and scientist differ
in detail, but the primary reason they differ is because
of difference of subject matter. The subject matter of
the humanist is much less precise and much more com-
plicated than that of the scientist, and for both reasons
much more difficult, which is perhaps the most im-
A condensation of an address to the 1958 American Humanities Seminar
held at th~PM99rIe1Qg~tDPB$'I171MLtW2~Q1:'9OW scion
from Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Vol. XIV (No. 10), Dec. 1958.
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porlant reason why at present the humanities are so
iunch less developed than the sciences. But insofar as
the methods of intelligence are applicable to the prob-
lcrus of the humanist, and except for matters of pure
esthetics, the humanist has to rely on the general
methods of intelligence almost as much as does the
pure scientist. In particular the individual is the ul-
timate unit which gives meaning to the activity of both
scientist and humanist.
Society Is a Collection of Individuals
Although the individual is the ultimate unit for
Goth scientist and humanist, wherever he is found, the
potentialities of the individual are determined in a
critical way by the characteristics of the society in
which the individual is embedded.
It seems to me that the most important fact about
society is that it is composed of individuals, is com-
pietely determined by them, and is completely de-
scribable in terms of their activities. There is nothing
else-no state or other sort of super-thing, as is often
assumed, particularly by those with a metaphysical
bias in their thinking. For, given a detailed description
of the activities of all the individuals in a society,
then one has the material from which one may deduce
everything that can be said about the society. This
proposition is often not understood.
F'or one thing, it is sometimes felt that the converse
proposition ought to hold, and the converse proposition
obviously does not hold. Because if one is given every-
thing that can be said about a society as society, one
is not thereby in a position to say everything that can
be said about the component individuals. "Society" is
r word that applies only to certain aspects of an ag-
gregate of individuals. The proposition is also often
misunderstood because it is taken to imply that an
i?idividual in society displays no traits except those
that could have been inferred from his behavior in an
environment in which there were no other individuals.
l-'his, I believe, is a mistake. But the proposition
that a society is the total of its individual components
has nothing to do with the proposition that in a society
the individual displays properties that could not have
been inferred from his behavior in a nonsocial en-
vironment.
The individual is determined by his total environ-
ment, and social environment counts just as much and
possibly more than the impersonal environment of
"nature." In fact, acceptance of the proposition is by
no means inconsistent with the recognition, upon
which modern psychologists so delight to insist, that
the most important factors in shaping the personality
of the individual today are social in origin.
insistence on the value of the individual seems to
!.