Clifford D. Conner, The Tragedy of American Science: From Truman to Trump, Haymarket Books, 2020, 300 pages
Review by Hamid R. Ekbia
Volume 23, Number 3, Bio-Politics
Read this story in English
American science has long aspired to present itself as exceptional. In 1966, historian Hunter Dupre invited his colleagues to celebrate this long-neglected exceptionalism, according to him. More than half a century later, Clifford Conner tackles Dupre’s great thesis which he turns upside down. With this sad yet wonderful study, Conner challenges mainstream discourses on the status, objectivity and integrity of American science, revealing the role that money, military and politics play in producing its apparent superiority in the aftermath of World War II.
A historian of science himself, Conner is fully aware of the achievements of US science and technology. In an earlier book, Histoire Populaire des Sciences (2005), he described the contributions of ordinary citizens to science, but he also warned of the potential for corrupting corporate money and military power. The Tragedy of American Science is an important sequel to this story, which follows the deterioration of science, with potential triumphs giving way to mere byproducts of military technology. To illustrate this, Conner endeavors to trace the course of developments in the physical, biological and social sciences, naming the institutions, think tanks, networks and scientists who, for more than seven decades, have advanced the imperialist goals and corporate programs all in the name of scientific investigation. The diversity of what Conner reveals about these actors in terms of their education, disciplines, reputations and affiliations is impressive.
Conner approaches this immense task in four sections, first examining the march to the privatization of science, then its militarization, then asking “how we got into this mess”, and finally explaining “the only way to get by ”. It begins the first section with the ‘huge lie’ of nutritionists raking the data to formulate government dietary recommendations under the aegis of government agencies, but with funding from large corporations like Coca-Cola; the resulting nutritional “science” actually threatens the health of the American population. Likewise, in agriculture, the aggressive development of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) has placed the world’s food supplies under the monopoly control of US multinationals such as DuPont and Dow, which has exacerbated global inequalities in food production. ‘access to food. These developments have been facilitated by respectable organizations such as the National Academy of Sciences, whose members have integrity marred by corrupting funding (in the form of research grants and consulting fees) from large pharmaceutical and petroleum companies, as well as “charitable” foundations of the Koch brothers and company.
The second part of the book provides an equally informative account of the military’s dominance in science funding, which reached new levels under the Trump administration with the willing cooperation of scientists. Conner explains this in the context of “armed Keynesianism” (which seeks to ease recurring cycles of capitalist crisis through military spending) and the related principle of “deliberate waste” (economic output which, in Conner’s words, “will not accommodate , will not feed, clothe or benefit anyone in any way ”). What might be considered willful waste in the US national economy, however, serves a very different purpose abroad, namely the projection of US imperial power around the world. By emphasizing the inner function of armed Keynesianism, Conner could therefore have overlooked its imperial function. Nonetheless, it superbly chronicles the role of the social sciences in advancing the cause of the militarists, showing how professionals in the physical and biological sciences serve as designers and architects of weapon systems, while an entire army of economists, psychologists, behavioral scientists and social scientists is mobilized to maintain the myth of the superiority, legitimacy and correctness of US militarized science.
So how did we get here? The third part of the book takes up this question and gives an “original” history of these pernicious developments, starting with the Manhattan Project and the myth of “atoms for peace” which continues to support dirty, insecure and insecure industry. nuclear economics. The cast that has staged this twisted drama is wide, but its stars include DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Project Agency), the United States’ ownership of Japanese wartime medical experiments, and the RAND Corporation (dubbed “The Think Tank That Controls America” by author Alex Abella). The most damning act of this drama, however, is the widespread recruitment of Nazi scientists in all major branches of US science. From aerospace and ballistic science (let’s call it “infernal science”) to medicine (let’s call it “concentration camp science”) and psychology (let’s call it “inquisitorial science”), former Nazi criminals have been recovered. one after another and assigned to important scientific posts in the United States. And with what justification? To quote Tom Lehrer parodying Wernher von Braun (the Nazi criminal baptized Father of American space science): “Once the rockets are launched, who cares where they fall? You could express that sentiment here: “As long as a scientist is willing to do the dirty work, who cares where he comes from? “
Considering everything the book documents, can we ultimately call this story a tragedy? As Conner points out at the outset, in framing the history of American science in this way, he draws inspiration from The Tragedy of American Diplomacy by William Appleman Williams. Williams was inspired by Karl Jaspers who found “a real tragedy … only in this destruction which does not prematurely end all development and success, but rather emanates from this very success”. How else to understand the story that Conner presents to us so vividly? And in what term other than “tragic” can we make sense of the fatal failures of American science against the backdrop of seductive successes? If some scientists in “wartime” were the source of very real material damage, the greatest tragedy lies in the political, economic and social system which has made science an instrument of exploitation, violence, destruction and murder. As Conner points out, “the tragedy of contemporary science comes less from science than from economics, politics and public relations.” The COVID-19 crisis has lifted this veil, highlighting the “need to replace the global economic system serving private interests with one that serves the public interest.” “.
With this in mind, Conner goes beyond revealing exhibits, using the final section of the book to provide “an exit.” As a self-proclaimed “science and technology junkie”, and someone “who takes life on the bright side,” he provides insight into some of the ingredients of science serving human needs. Taking as an example the Cuban healthcare system – with its far-reaching medical internationalism and the world’s highest doctor-to-patient ratio – the ingredients include a list of measures that would put science “under truly democratic control in the context of a planned global economy ”. The story Conner has laid bare prompts all of us, as citizens or working scientists, to shy away from the Faustian pact of the US exception.
About the Author
Hamid Ekbia is Professor of Informatics, International Studies, and Cognitive Science at Indiana University, Bloomington, where he also directs the Center for Research on Mediated Interaction. He is interested in the political economy of computing, in the future of work, and in how technologies mediate socio-economic, cultural, and geo-political relations of modern societies. His most recent co-authored book Heteromation and Other Stories of Computing and Capitalism (MIT Press, 2017) examines computer-mediated modes of value extraction in capitalist economies, and his earlier book Artificial Dreams: The Quest for Non-Biological Intelligence (Cambridge University Press, 2008) is a critical-technical analysis of Artificial Intelligence.
Notes
–
