Isaac Asimov, American writer, “There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been”

Isaac Asimov (1920-1992) was one of the greatest and most prolific science fiction writers. He is best known for his Foundation and Robot series of books as well as for developing the Three Laws of Robotics.

However, one of his works that is often cited is an essay that was published in Newsweek in January of 1980 called ‘The Cult of Ignorance’ in which he criticized the anti-intellectualism in the United States, which he says “there has always been.” Over 40 years later what he has to say feels just as true today as when it was written.

The falsehood of “my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge”

Asimov believed that intellect among the public was key for a healthy democracy and thus starts out his essay ‘The Cult of Ignorance’ by saying: “It’s hard to quarrel with that ancient justification of the free press: ‘America’s right to know.’”

However, he immediately follows with, “It seems almost cruel to ask, ingeniously, ‘America’s right to know what, please? Science? Mathematics? Economics? Foreign languages?’” Whereupon he notes, “none of those things, of course. In fact, one might well suppose that the popular feeling is that Americans are a lot better off without any of that tripe.”

“There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there always has been,” he reasons. He points out that “the strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way throughout political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that ‘my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.’”

The professor of biochemistry at Boston University doubles down on this idea saying that those who are educated and in the public eye dumb down their own knowledge when speaking to the public “in order to avoid offending their audiences by appearing to have gone to school.” Otherwise, they may suffer the fate of politicians like two-time presidential hopeful Adlai Stevenson.

While he campaigned with a “high-brow” style, Stevenson lost in 1952 and 1956 to Dwight D. Eisenhower, “who invented a version of the English language that was all his own and that has been the despair of satirists ever since.”

Freedom doesn’t validate ignorance

While Asimov picked out George Wallace, the former governor of Alabama and staunch segregationist, in his essay for constantly targeting the “pointy-headed professor” in his speeches, the intellectual pointed out that a new buzzword arose that we still hear today: “elitists.”

“That’s the funniest buzzword ever invented because people who are not members of the intellectual elite don’t know what an ‘elitist’ is, or how to pronounce the word,” Asimov quips, adding, “As soon as someone shouts ‘elitist’ it becomes clear that he or she is a closet elitist who is feeling guilty about having gone to school.”

How many times do we hear today some politician tell us, “Don’t trust the experts!” This saying has been used to justify the ranks of dedicated people in civil service across numerous government agencies who have decades of experience being culled over the past year. These actions have been carried out by people who have little to no knowledge in the matters of the agencies they are supposed to be running.

Grant us a free press… provided the people can read

Asimov laments that “the American public, by and large, in their distrust of experts and in their contempt for pointy-headed professors, can’t read and don’t read.” However, he believed “every human being with a physically normal brain can learn a great deal and can be surprisingly intellectual.”

“I believe that what we badly need is social approval of learning and social rewards for learning,” he stated. “We can all be members of the intellectual elite and then, and only then, will a phrase like ‘America’s right to know’ and indeed any true concept of democracy, have any meaning.”

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