Why do we Americans applaud Alexander Graham Bell yet villainize Charles Darwin? Why are we grateful, gluttonous consumers of all things pharmaceutical while at the same time we excoriate some biology researchers? Why do we love MacGyver and hate the stereotypical mad white-coated scientist toiling away in his mother's basement?
Author & Towson University professor of English Dr. Glen Scott Allen explores these issues in his work, "Master Mechanics and Wicked Wizards: Images of the American Scientist as Hero and Villain from Colonial Times to the Present." He argues that our cultural scorn for scientists dates back to colonial times, as a form of rebellion against European ways.
According to Dr. Allen, our ambivalence toward the men and women who unlock nature's secrets dates back to our country's very inception. He argues that the American preference for pragmatism in all things has always favored "Master Mechanics" who bring new conveniences to life over "Wicked Wizards" intent on revolutionizing our concept of nature and America's place in it. In American culture, it seems, while we glorify wise Thomas Edisons for inventing useful gadgets, we condemn evil Robert Oppenheimers for attempting to invent new theories of international relations.
Allen reiterates a stunning truth: that "While American culture doesn't mind being fixed, it has no interest in being changed."
You can read the rest of the publisher's press release here, but I'm putting it on my Christmas wish list now.
posted by Cheryl Shepherd-Adams
