dwarves and others

From and an interview by Mike Godwin, by way of Kottke.org:
Noted science fiction writer Neal Stephenson is quoted as saying:

It is quite obvious to me that the U.S. is turning away from [science and technology]. It has been the case for quite a while that the cultural left distrusted geeks and their works; the depiction of technical sorts in popular culture has been overwhelmingly negative for at least a generation now. More recently, the cultural right has apparently decided that it doesn't care for some of what scientists have to say. So the technical class is caught in a pincer between these two wings of the so-called culture war. Of course the broad mass of people don't belong to one wing or the other. But science is all about diligence, hard sustained work over long stretches of time, sweating the details, and abstract thinking, none of which is really being fostered by mainstream culture.

Stephenson's comments contain an odd irony.

Here goes, the American Left wasn't always suspicious of a scientific, technical or even nerdy approach to governance. During the period of time from the Roosevelt to Johnson administrations, the American left-moderate coalition run the show from a very nerdy perspective. Not only were technocrats favored in appoints and nerdy ideas were favored in policy formation, but the most hackerish of projects were indulged. These were the people who built the a-bomb, developed the digital computer, and sent man to the moon and, in the end, two of these three projects were pursued for the most nerdy of reasons, to see if they could really work after. Even the more radical left, think the Henry Wallace wing of the Democratic and leftward did things, sometime unadvisable things, for nerdy reasons. The American left's notoriously ambivalent approach to the Soviet Union was, I believe, at least partially motivated by the hope that the soviets were developing technical scientific solutions to human suffering.

What went wrong that caused the end of the nerd golden age in America?

Simple, Vietnam happened.

It became clear to many people that the approach to running the country embodied by the likes of Robert McNamara had something wrong with it, a strictly technical and disciplined approach to governance was no defense against terrible things. So they abandoned it, they threw out the technocratic in favor of the romantic. Science and, one might suggest, hard core science fiction was deemphasized in favor of a reliance on the romantic and the fantastic to find ways to navigate the world. Isaac Asimov and the other hard sf guys are eclipsed by Tolkein's pastoral tales of good vs. evil.

Here's were the irony comes in. Stephenson's own work is not simply a return to the hard science approach of an Asimov. The most memorable passage in Cryptonomicon, in my opinion is the main character's extended theory of personalities based on Dungeon and Dragons character races. In the case, the character describes himself as being fundamentally Dwarven for demonstrating some of the same characterstics that Stephenson praises in the quotation above. Personally, I tend to be more a half-elven type, but that's not relevant here. The point is that Stephenson's own work is supported by the romantic in American thinking, as much as he's uncomfortable with what's wrought.

Finally, yes, I realize I dropped Stephenson's comments about the left-right division almost as soon as I picked up speed. I'll just say that I share a parallel concern about his take on the acceptance, or lack there of, of scientific methods on the right. As an aside, I'm currently working on a paper about the appropriate use of scientific methods and conclusions for revising non-scientific (read, philosophical) positions. If even one person comments, I'll put a draft in my webspace and link to it here.