HPCwire: High-Tech in an Anti-Intellectual Culture

The Leading Source for Global News and Information Covering the Ecosystem of High Productivity Computing

HPCwire >> Blogs

Blog: From the Editor

April 25, 2008

High-Tech in an Anti-Intellectual Culture

"Over 75 percent of Americans don't know they're alive." I half expect to see such a headline someday as yet another example of how poorly educated the U.S. citizenry has become. It's not quite that bad yet, but research has consistently shown us how uneducated students and working adults are in this country. The data reflects not just a lack of education, but a lack of commitment to intellectual pursuits.

Therein lies a problem for the U.S. high-tech industry. Although the nation remains the leader in information technology, it has become increasingly dependent upon the scientists and engineers in other countries to feed its high-tech habit. Recent studies released by the Council on Competitiveness (which I cover in this issue) concludes one of the three major barriers to greater use of high performance computing is lack of human talent and expertise in the U.S. A number of other reports, including the landmark Educational Testing Service study, "America's Perfect Storm," also point to the disconnect between our tech-dependent economy and the lack of math and science education.

Why should this be so? The hard truth is that, in the U.S., there's a cultural contempt for education that underlies our seemingly modern society. Its origins can be traced back to the birth of the nation when we broke away from our "elite" European forbearers. The modern version of this contempt is apparent in our political and religious institutions, many of which have become not just anti-science, but also, more generally, anti-intellectual.

Exhibit number one is the Bush regime, with its antipathy towards science and its embrace of religious fundamentalism. The federal "No Child Left Behind" educational policy is based on rote learning, not critical thinking. This approach has been promoted on the right side of the political spectrum for a while. Intellectuals are derided as "liberals" or "elitists" -- which are synonymous in conservative-speak. Essentially, it's the sin of knowledge, where a certain level of education or even a progressive attitude towards learning is disdained.

In a Wall Street Journal blog post this week, Thomas Frank, author of "What's the Matter with Kansas," explains:

"It is a stereotype you have heard many times before: Besotted with latte-fueled arrogance, the liberal looks down on average people, confident that he is a superior being. He scoffs at religion because he finds it to be a form of false consciousness. He believes in regulation because he thinks he knows better than the market...."Elitism" is thus a crime not of society's actual elite, but of its intellectuals."

Fifty-plus years ago, Adlai Stevenson was the prototypical Democratic "egghead" who was relentlessly punished for his intellect by his political adversaries. During one of his presidential campaigns, a supporter assured Stevenson that he was certain to "get the vote of every thinking man." Stevenson allegedly replied: "Thank you, but I need a majority to win." He lost both his presidential bids, the first in 1952, and then in 1956.

Ironically, it is often Ivy League-educated conservatives who promote this elitism meme. More disconcerting though, is that the left is beginning to play into this intellectual bigotry. The recent Democratic battle for the President is turning into a kind of reality show popularity contest for relating to the common folk, where drinking whiskey and bowling have become essential campaign activities. The conventional wisdom for pols: hide your intellect from the citizenry, lest you make them feel inferior.

That might help explain why the 2008 Science Debate was replaced with the Compassion Forum right before the Pennsylvania Democratic primary. The Forum was basically a discussion about the religious views of the candidates. While I'm up for a good conversation about morals and spiritual beliefs as much as the next guy, it was unfortunate that one of the moderators felt compelled to ask Senator Obama if he "believed the Earth was created in six days." What good is that little nugget of information for qualifying the next leader of the Free World? It's depressing enough that we aren't allowed to have a presidential candidate who doesn't profess his or her belief in a supernatural being, but why do we feel the need to embarrass them with unanswerable theological questions?

It would be great if the aforementioned Science Debate was rescheduled. (There is talk of it being moved to Oregon for its upcoming primary in May.) I'd be interested to hear the candidates' views on where science and technology fit into their world view. I'd love for some candidate to make a case for putting science and education at the front of the discretionary federal budget rather than at the rear. It also might be a good venue to suggest to the electorate that the pursuit of knowledge is more patriotic than wearing a flag pin and more fulfilling than watching America's Next Top Model.

In an op-ed piece this week, Bob Herbert of the New York Times wonders why there is not an education discussion in the presidential campaign. At a time when globalization is bringing increased competition and U.S. educational performance is nose-diving, Herbert laments that "no one seems to have the will to engage any of the most serious challenges facing the U.S." Summing up, he concludes:

"While we're effectively standing in place, other nations are catching up and passing us when it comes to educational achievement. You have to be pretty dopey not to see the implications of that."

So far, we've managed to delay the worst effects on our economy by importing technological talent at a record clip. If you look at the personnel roster of any U.S.-based technology firm, you'll quickly grasp how thoroughly internationalized these companies have become. But if the majority of the natives fail to keep up educationally and economically, the whole model will likely collapse.

Without a fundamental change in the culture, the U.S. science and technology community will be relegated to pursuing its agenda as a special-interest lobbyist, against the backdrop of a disinterested citizenry. This is pretty much the case today. Broad support for a technology society, as is the case in much of Eastern Asia, India and Europe, will require us to change our attitudes. Political leaders can help, but we can't rely on them alone to reshape values. If we expect to have our plasma TVs, iPods and cancer drugs, but are not willing to participate in their development, we'll end living in the second-class nation we deserve.

-----

As always, comments about HPCwire are welcomed and encouraged. Write to me, Michael Feldman, at editor@hpcwire.com.

Posted by Michael Feldman - April 25 @ 6:49PM

(Digg, Technorati, more)

Discussion

There are 0 discussion items posted.

Join the Discussion

You must be a registered user in order to comment on HPCwire stories.

Members enjoy:

	Access to Special Content, including Podcasts, Webcasts, and Whitepapers and more!
	Ability to take an active role in the discussions that are shaping the HPC technology discipline!
	Special offers available only to HPCwire members!

Become a Registered User Today!

Registered Users Log in Here to Comment

Email Address:	Password (case sensitive)

Remember me	Forgot Password?

Michael Feldman

Michael Feldman is the editor of HPCwire.

More Michael Feldman

Feature Articles

The Week in Review

C-DAC announces plans for a petaflop system; IBM researchers are working on vertical integration techniques to extend Moore's Law another 15 years. We recap those stories and more in our weekly wrapup.
Read More...

Moscow State University Supercomputer Has Petaflop Aspirations

The Moscow State University supercomputer, Lomonosov, has been selected for a high-performance makeover, with the goal of tripling its processing power to achieve petaflop-level performance in 2010. T-Platforms, who developed and manufactured the supercomputer, is the odds-on favorite to lead the project.
Read More...

Intel Ups Performance Ante with Westmere Server Chips

Right on schedule, Intel has launched its Xeon 5600 processors, codenamed "Westmere EP." The 5600 represents the 32nm sequel to the Xeon 5500 (Nehalem EP) for dual-socket servers. Intel is touting better performance and energy efficiency, along with new security features, as the big selling points of the new Xeons.
Read More...

Read more HPCwire features...

Top Headlines

Australia Commissions Cray Supercomputer

Mar 19 | OfficialWire | New super to support intelligence work Down Under. Read more...

Intel Partners See 'Easy' Upgrade Path With Xeon 5600 Chips

Mar 18 | ChannelWeb | Westmere parts already showing up in HPC machines. Read more...

AMD: OEMs primed for Opteron 6100s

Mar 17 | The Register | But what about the tier ones? Read more...

Arrival of the Desktop Supercomputer

Mar 17 | Cadalyst Magazine | A new generation of workstations is changing the nature of technical computing. Read more...

Scheduling HPC In The Cloud

Mar 17 | Linux Magazine | Latest iteration of Sun Grid Engine able to tap into Cloud. Read more...

Read more headlines...

Featured Whitepapers

Virtualization for Aggregation And The vSMP Architecture™

Jan 12 | | In-depth look at vSMP Foundation server virtualization technology, technical implementation, use cases and capabilities. The technical whitepaper provides an architectural overview and details on the three vSMP Foundation products: vSMP Foundation for SMP, vSMP Foundation for Cluster and vSMP Foundation for Cloud.

Copper Cable Technologies for High Performance Computing

Jan 18 | | This white paper discusses Gore’s copper cable assemblies, and how they continue to exceed the standards for providing reliable, cost-effective solutions for high-performance computer applications.

View the White Paper Library

Multimedia

Webcast: Virtualized Data Center Roundtable

Join this online panel discussion for live Q&A with leading industry experts, analysts, and end-users to discuss the latest innovations, best practices, barriers to implementation, and measurable benefits of server virtualization with a particular focus on today's real world solutions.

Webcast: Watch SC09 Birds of a Feather Video: Scalable Fault-Tolerant HPC Supercomputers

Learn about scalable fault-tolerant architectures and examples of energy efficient and scalable supercomputing clusters using dual QDR InfiniBand to combine capacity computing with network failover capabilities with the help of programming languages such as MPI and a robust Linux cluster management package.

Webcast: High Performance Computing for a Smarter Planet

LIVE@SCO9: The IBM team discusses new innovations in hardware, software and services that help clients better understand their workloads and get insight from their R&D efforts. Technology demonstrations include the soon-to-be-released Power7 HPC processor, the DCS990 system with 2.4 petabytes of storage, the xCAT management tool, secure HPC cloud computing and more. Winners of two HPCwire Readers' and Editors’ Choice Awards! Take the IBM virtual tour at SC09 or more information go online to: http://www-03.ibm.com/systems/deepcomputing/sc09.html