On June 1 President Donald Trump announced to the world that he would pull the U.S. out of the Paris climate accord. During an hour-long, 2,000 word, speech in which the president never made mention of "climate change," he made the unsubstantiated assertion that the agreement would cost the U.S. as many as 2.7 million jobs by the year 2025. This move placed our country in opposition to 194 treaty participants and alongside Syria and Nicaragua, the only two countries that did not sign on.
International and national condemnation was fierce and predictable, dividing Mr. Trump's inner circle as well. While the expressed rationale for terminating our participation in the accord appeared designed to appease his political base, the thought process behind the decision seems grounded in Mr. Trump's distrust of the science behind climate change - something he referred to as a "hoax" during the campaign.
Many of Mr. Trump's core supporters reject the expertise of the vast majority of scientists who believe that global warming is linked to human activity. Politicians like Texas Senator Ted Cruz even deny that any warming has been recorded during the past 15 years. Former Speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich, does not believe that human activity causes climate change. Michele Bachmann believes that nature itself is to blame. And Oklahoma Senator James Inhofe is famous for stating categorically: "My point is, God is still up there. The arrogance of people to think that we, human beings, would be able to change what he is doing in the climate is to me outrageous."
While this may seem like an isolated issue, the attitude of many people, politicians most prominently, is emblematic of what appears to be an expression of a pervasive anti-intellectual attitude lodged in our culture. The literature supporting this line of argument is quite substantial. In 1963 Columbia University historian Richard Hofstadter published a study entitled "Anti-Intellectualism in American Life," for which he received the Pulitzer Prize for non-fiction the following year. For a case study Hofstadter analyzed the 1952 presidential election battle between Dwight Eisenhower and Adlai Stevenson. He argued that the contest ultimately came down to a campaign contrasting relative ignorance and superior intellect. Intellect lost. Hofstadter ultimately concluded that, perhaps as a consequence of the "democratization of knowledge," the acquisition and spread of knowledge among the "common people," anti-intellectualism had become embedded in our national fabric.
Our intellectual history has long been grounded in what political scientists refer to as the "protestant ethic," which dictates that a person's duty is to achieve success through hard work and thrift. Success reflects a sign that we are "saved." Combined with "utilitarianism," an ethical theory that states that the best action is the one that maximizes utility, these ideas became the underpinning of capitalism, a dominant building block for U.S. success. (See Max Weber, "The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism"). Over time intellectual pursuit for its own sake began to be looked at as an impediment to economic development. Enter politicians of various stripes, and analysts observing what they see, and worrying about what we are in for.
For decades politicians have realized that scientific expertise did not sell well. Simplistic bombast, usually confused with ego-infused "common sense" did. Elected officials frequently attacked intellectuals by identifying them in terms such as an "effete core of impudent snobs who characterize themselves as individuals," (Spiro Agnew), or publishing statements like: "I would sooner live in a society governed by the first 2,000 names in the Boston telephone directory, than in a society governed by the 2,000 faculty members of Harvard University." (William F. Buckley). When Donald Trump mentions that he wants to "drain the swamp," he really means getting rid of arrogant technocrats, bookish intellectuals and politically correct elites.
The transition from intellectual pursuit to a dominantly utilitarian focus also infiltrated our educational institutions. U.C. Irvine professor Catherine Liu recently remarked that "We don't educate people anymore. We train them to get jobs." Our students used to rank at the top of the world in math and science. In a recent PEW Research Center test for 15-year-olds from 35 participating OECD countries, we now only placed 30th in math and 19th in science. Hardly surprising, since our educational emphasis has shifted, and since many of our supposed role-models pride themselves on their ignorance.
Decades ago Isaac Asimov warned us of "a culture of ignorance in the United States, nurtured by the fake notion that democracy means that my ignorance is just as good a your knowledge." In April of this year EPA administrator Scott Pruitt eliminated all climate change references from its website, and instructed his staff to eliminate them from their lexicon. The administration apparently does not want to talk about this.
The question is: "Do we still accept that 'E=MC squared,' or do we want to vote on this?" Ignorance may be comforting to some of our leaders, it is a curse for the future of our country.
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