Saturday, November 29, 2014
No shield
James Watson is auctioning off his Satan Prize to make a point. Unfortunately the point won't work. There's no forgiveness for truth, no chance of returning to public life after you commit heresy.
The basic problem is that Watson is a strictly scientific personality, a pure nerd who doesn't pick up on broad social cues. When he finds truth he speaks truth. This was permitted in the '50s when he was actively working. Since 1989 it's no longer permitted, but nobody wrote a specific law or warning sign. It's just in the social air.
Compare smoking with truth-telling. Western societies turned against smoking at the same time, but there's no danger of an ivory-tower type accidentally smoking in public. Why? Because there are clear and explicit signs saying "NO SMOKING WITHIN 25 FEET OF ENTRANCE".
We don't provide signs saying "NO TRUTH-TELLING WITHIN 25 FEET OF PUBLIC". You just have to pick it up implicitly by observing the media and government activities.
When Sovietism resided in Russia, Sovietism valued the contributions of science, so it provided a shield between the scientists and the public. Scientists lived in guarded towns. Now that Sovietism resides in the West, it doesn't value science, so it doesn't bother to shield scientists from mobs.
Labels: switchover
¶ 4:06 AM
