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Essays, Opinion, & Commentary |
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by Christopher D. Marsh, M.A., M.A.T.
CHAPTER ONE Introduction
The others having dropped the ball, the American public school has been called the institution of last resort, but it also has failed, as an organ within a diseased body politic. Our political system has failed to defend against the relentless assault of science, or adequately safeguard against the dangers inherent in every democracy, and America now suffers from a multitude of social ills described by David G. Myers in The American Paradox: Spiritual Hunger in an Age of Plenty. These social ills, however serious, are but effects of systemic causes. The underlying causes must be removed before we can even hope to have good schools. Only then will it be possible to establish the conditions necessary for the cultivation and preservation of the teacher of the future, without whom good schools are impossible, and who will be an important instrument for restoring society, by his ability to help create citizens who are the best on the basis of virtue, as well as in relation to the regime. The problems which plague our schools are symptoms of an ailing civilization, and the best way to treat a symptom is to cure the disease. But the first stage is diagnosis.
The Problems The Root Causes of America's Social Recession: Science and Regime In his book, Myers presents a good case for his contention that America, although materially wealthy, is languishing in a "social recession," arising from the impoverishment of the human spirit. Adducing much statistical evidence, Myers shows that American society is characterized by "radical individualism" and materialism, accompanied by culturally high rates of divorce, depression, violence, incivility, and teen suicide. Myers is correct in his assessment that these things warrant serious concern, implying they may be harbingers and causes of the beginning of the end of the American political experiment. Causation has always been more difficult in the social sciences than in the physical sciences, and while Myers does a commendable job within the scope of his project, he does not dig deeply enough to uncover the fundamental causes of his "social recession," of which there are really only two: science and our regime. I begin with the former. Scienza Nuova In 1543 Copernicus published his De Revolutionibus, a treatise so specialized and mathematical that few besides a technically proficient astronomer can understand anything after Book 1 (Kuhn, p. 134). But within this work of technical and textual obscurity is the idea that the sun is a star and the earth one of a number of planets revolving around it. This simple concept, ostensibly a theoretical model to solve "the problem of the planets" inadequately addressed by Ptolemy and his successors, initiated what Thomas Kuhn calls "The Copernican Revolution." Simply stated, this "revolution" pulled the earth out from beneath our feet. From the Middle Ages through the time of Copernicus, Western man was secure in his knowledge of his place in the universe. From an assimilation of ideas from Aristotle, the Bible, and, later, Aquinas, the Roman Catholic Church which dominated Western civilization taught that the earth was stationary and at the center of a finite universe, a stage upon which the actions of man were judged by a concerned Creator. Man enjoyed a privileged position, not only on center stage of God's creation, but also on its hierarchy, as a unique and special creature, apart in kind from the animals. Science as we know it was not born until 1609, when Galileo first turned his telescope toward the moon. What he saw was a rough-hewn surface characterized by craters, mountains and shadows, and he concluded that the moon was similar in some ways to the earth. Although this may not appear very significant, what Galileo saw contradicted everything the authorities of the day said. According to Bryan Appleyard, Galileo saw "the impossible." For "the entire culture from which Galileo sprang was based upon the 2,000-year-old certainty that the moon, like all else in the heavens, could not be like the earth" (Appleyard, pp. 16-17). Scienza Nuova, or the "new science," began with Galileo believing what his eyes told him, by his trust in individual human reason over the traditional authority of the Church, and his invention of the scientific perspective -- the idea of a detached, impartial observer upon an objective external world (Appleyard). The science which existed before Galileo is more properly called "wisdom," and it differed in every respect from that which ruled after 1609. Its foundation "was neither observation nor experiment, but authority understood through reason. And it was inseparable from that vast edifice of explanation, the Roman Catholic Church" (Appleyard, p. 18). As Scienza Nuova matured, Bacon nurtured it with Aristotelian empiricism combined with "the acceptance of the modern view that we cannot simply reason our way to the truth. Experiment and observation are also required" (Appleyard, p. 48). Descartes, rightly called the first modern philosopher, provided the "new science" with its rules and script (Appleyard, p. 47). He published his Discours de la Methode in 1637, four years after the trial of Galileo, and the Meditations in 1641. With these works Descartes introduced the ideas of hyperbolic skepticism, the disembodiment of mind, and "the reduction of God to the status of a guarantee that the gaps in rational argument can be filled" (Alasdair MacIntyre). And when later philosophers stressed the lack of necessity of God to the argument, scientific man was left stranded on the farther shore of skepticism (Appleyard, p. 57). Thus, in Appleyard's eloquent words, science "trapped us all in our private reasons. It divided us from the world, locked us in the armored turrets of our consciousness. Outside was an alien landscape which was either illusory or meaningless, inside was the only possession of which we could be sure -- the continual, anxious chattering of our own self-awareness. Our souls were removed from our bodies" (pp. 56-57). Although Galileo lost the battle to traditional authority, he won the war. Copernicus took away our privileged place in the universe, Descartes our certainty. This "humbling of man" was continued by succeeding scientists: Darwin took away our conception of ourselves as unique and special creations of a benevolent God, and after Hutton, we were not only lost in space, but lost in time. Finally, Freud took away even our mastery of our minds (Appleyard). I define "science," therefore, as "the procedures and body of knowledge that sprang from the innovations -- technical and intellectual -- of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries" (Appleyard, p. 245), the view that "there is an objective world outside ourselves which is completely accessible to our observation and reason" (Appleyard, p. 132). I assert that science is a specialized type or subset of human reason, that it is human reason in its purest form, since science attempts to be perfectly objective and impartial and entirely exclude emotions and values. Therefore, what can be said of science can also be said of human reason, with this important note: that the converse of this proposition is invalid. And, finally, I preserve within the definition that which prevailed up to 1900 -- sometimes called "classical science" -- since many, if not most, scientists retain an essentially classical outlook: that science is the path to truth (Appleyard, p. 245). Another term which needs defined is "rationalism," since I contend that science grew out of it. By "rationalism," I mean a faith in human reason. Appleyard says America "has had to abandon the role of the state as spiritual provider" (p. 13). Although this is correct, it does not mean that the modern liberal state does not have an official religion. I agree with Walter Lippmann that a state religion exists in the United States, and that it is the religion of reason (p. 54). In Colonial America, most of the states had established religions. In Virginia, for example, the state religion was Anglicanism. But Thomas Jefferson disestablished the religion of his state with his Statute for Religious Freedom, which eventually found expression in the First Amendment to the Constitution. According to Lippmann, Anglicanism had "a creed as to how the world originated, how it is governed, and what men must do to be saved," and that "this creed was a revelation from God" (p. 53). But after Jefferson, "officially [Virginia's citizens] had to believe that human reason and not divine revelation was the source of truth" (Lippmann, p. 57). Now, few would disagree that a collective belief in divine revelation as the source of truth constitutes a religion, as with Anglicanism, but what of a collective belief in human reason as the source of truth? Lippmann points out that it is the nature of human reason to regard the conclusions to which it arrives as tentative. So we can never fully trust the conclusions reached by reason. Therefore, as Lippmann says, it requires "faith to believe that reason, though never wholly successful, will at last conquer reality" (p. 57). Thus, since faith is a defining characteristic of a religion, and since reason, like religion, presumes to explain reality, there exists a religion of reason. Science, as the purest offspring of rationalism, enjoys uncontested the highest place within the religion of our country. Science is the holiest form of rationalism, and scientists are our priests (Appleyard). Science is the authoritative element of rationalism, its guiding force. One way science serves rationalism is by providing it with a system of morals. According to Appleyard, "Science, with its denial of meanings and purpose as scientific issues, can be seen as the opposite of religion. But the way it turns this denial into the social and ethical system of liberalism means that it behaves like a religion" (p. 245). I have therefore established that the United States has an official religion, and that it is rationalism, in which science holds the highest place. So it remains to determine what sort of religion this is. First, it is clear that no rule in the moral system of rationalism can be regarded as absolute, since reason requires all propositions to be held provisionally. And faced with strong temptation, few will be restrained by a moral imperative they suspect is only temporary, liable to change or disappear as new knowledge is discovered. Second, the existence of a rule in this morality depends solely upon the argument which supports it. If a man, therefore, as a rational being, is not persuaded by the logic of the supporting argument, he is under no obligation to conform to the rule. But even were he so persuaded, there are few for whom this is sufficient for a change of opinion, let alone motivation for an action toward which one is naturally disinclined, as per Franklin's famous quote, "So convenient a thing it is to be a reasonable creature, since it enables one to find a reason for every thing one has a mind to do" (Franklin, p. 32). Therefore, with the moral system of rationalism, each individual is free to decide for himself which rules, if any, should be followed. But it is difficult to determine how this differs from no moral system. Third, God will play no part in any moral system which rationalism may provide, since God is beyond the purview of science. Thus, even if the morality is noble and highly beneficial, it will not have much power with the majority, since a morality which lacks God is simply not compelling. Throughout history there have always been exceptions -- a few disciplined Epicureans and Stoics, a few "pure and disinterested spirits" among the scientists and academics -- but these unusual men constitute a "trifling minority" (Lippmann, p. 62). According to Lippmann, for "the great humdrum mass of mankind" "the moral life is due not to the acceptance of a set of rules but to a transformation of the will" (p. 62). And for most people this transformation requires submission to a divine will (Lippmann, p. 61), not simply "something greater than one's self," an expression with currency these days. Indeed, when challenged, the Modernist in Lippmann cannot produce a single example from all of human history of a "popular morality" "which has not had some sort of supernatural sanction" (p. 62). Science grew out of rationalism as a refined and potent form of human reason, and it has proven an extremely successful species. As Appleyard notes, science cannot "coexist with alternative explanations of belief systems" (p. 10). This he convincingly demonstrates in the case of the Western doctor and the primitive tribe. Moreover, he asserts that this happens "when [science] competes with other systems within a single nation" (p. 10), science proving so extraordinarily effective in comparison to these other systems. Science "is spiritually corrosive, burning away ancient authorities and traditions" (Appleyard, p. 9). This is due not only to science's devastating effectiveness, but also its basis of authority, for science settles all questions at the tribunal of human reason, whereas Protestantism, for example, relies upon that of divine revelation (Lippmann, p. 56). When science damages the claims of a religion, it also undermines its source of authority, for reason, as has been stated, holds everything in doubt, and doubt, according to Lippmann, is the negation of faith (p. 65). Thus, science cannot provide a compelling morality and disposes of any competing belief system which is based on tradition, myth, received opinion, poetic feeling, or divine revelation. It is no surprise, therefore, that, as the religion of the state, rationalism leaves citizens in a "bewildered quandary" (Appleyard, p. 13) and perpetual state of unease, in which the comfortable prejudices and fictions we need to live are under constant pressure. For "science is not neutral, it invades any private certainties we may establish as a defense against the bland noncommittal world of liberalism. It saps our energy" (Appleyard, p. 13). Appleyard states, "At any one time scientific man can only regard his knowledge as provisional because something more effective might come along" (p. 10). Here the expression "scientific man" may be replaced with "American citizen," since, privately, an American citizen can believe anything he wants, but publicly, as a citizen, he must regard his knowledge as provisional (Lippmann, pp. 53-54), since the official religion of his country is rationalism. But Lippmann teaches that "the common people hate reason, and that reason is the religion of an elite" (p. 56). This religion requires faith, but Lippmann thinks "more faith than the ordinary man can feel" (p. 57). He says most men
Thus, our state religion requires more faith than most of us are capable of, but nonetheless affects us with the considerable force only a religion is capable of exerting. We are indoctrinated in science by our media, high schools, universities and other institutions. Its trappings, the products of technology -- the practical application of science -- are ubiquitous. Propagandists like Bronowski, Hawking, and Sagan praise science and celebrate its accomplishments without the appearance of being offensive or misleading (Appleyard, p. 2). The result of the pervasive influence of science, according to Appleyard, is to make "it progressively more difficult to sustain either a morality or a spiritual conviction" (p. 11). Science is thus a fundamental cause of the "social recession" described by Myers. The other is our system of government.
Copyright 2001, by Christopher D. Marsh. All Rights Reserved. Reprinted here by permission of the author. Christopher D. Marsh received a B.S. degree (summa cum laude) from the University of Pittsburgh, an M.A. from Duquesne University, and an M.A.T. degree from California University of Pennsylvania. He holds a teaching certificate in mathematics and lives in Pennsylvania. |
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