2018
Implications of the rise of western science and engineering /technology
NOTE: PBS Series: The West and the Rest with Niall Ferguson on PBS and covers many of these themes in two parts.
My thesis here:
- The success of science and engineering as the instruments to deliver in the here-and-now what religion had long promised created a situation in which 'science', tech, engineering became for SOME the new sacred 'text' replacing the Bible as a authoritative guide for all aspects of life [NOTE Burke's words at three points in the clip on ideologies "...it is a scientific fact..." Implications?
- Enlightenment values were undermined by the development of nationalism and populism, something that none of the early E thinkers anticipated. They were internationalists.
- You may believe you know what populism is?? read this from the Economist. But in brief: "populists are defined by their claim that they alone represent the people, and that all others are illegitimate " Does this sound familiar?? [words of Jan-Werner Müller, a political scientist at Princeton University].
I. European Cities and Technology: Science and Technology interact; become mutually reinforcing?? Admittedly what follows is inevitably impressionistic:
- Medieval walls removed and grandes boulevards replace them; Cartesian 'design' applied now to urban planning.
- Paris of Hausmann; boulevard
- Vienna: before and after and today [Volksgarten 'Peoples' Garden']
- Public works projects
- Croton aqueduct (1842);
- Paris: sanitation and sewers; tourism
- Suez canal; Panama Canal. Not only engineering triumphs, but also just as significant the organization of capital to finance the constructions of railroads, the Suez Canal [Société Générale].The financing of canals and of railroads.
- Compare these to the creations of the past. Example1; example2;
- The Industrial Revolutions:
- First Phase: Before 1850: agriculture, then textiles, iron, steam
- Second Phase: After 1850: steel, chemicals, electricity; oil and electronics in the mid 20th Cent. Note that industrialization developed especially in those very same areas in Europe that had supported Academies earlier.
II. Europe and the World. Note the words of the French premier in the mid 19th cent. Julien Ferry “The policy of colonial expansion is a political and economic system ... that can be connected to three sets of ideas: economic ideas; the most far-reaching ideas of civilization; and ideas of a political and patriotic sort. ... In the area of economics, I am placing before you, with the support of some statistics, the considerations that justify the policy of colonial expansion, as seen from the perspective of a need, felt more and more urgently by the industrialized population of Europe and especially the people of our rich and hardworking country of France: the need for outlets [for our exports]. ... Gentlemen, we must speak more loudly and more honestly! We must say openly that indeed the higher races have a right over the lower races .... I repeat, that the superior races have a right because they have a duty. They have the duty to civilize the inferior races .... In the history of earlier centuries these duties, gentlemen, have often been misunderstood; and certainly when the Spanish soldiers and explorers introduced slavery into Central America, they did not fulfill their duty as men of a higher race .... But, in our time, I maintain that European nations acquit themselves with generosity, with grandeur, and with sincerity of this superior civilizing duty."
Africa 1884 after the Conference in Berlin. such division [below] would not be possible without a clear superiority in technology and science and a clear sense of a mission to civilize.
Map of Asia and SE Asia:
French empire
US holdings
On the justification of imperialism...Recall the comments fo Julien Ferry provided last week and need not be repeated here.
III. Changes in the structure of Science and Education..
Universities were re-established after the defeat of Napoleon 1814, and the new focus was on science (and not theology). Note: there were few 'centers of learning' outside of Europe and North America in the period 1800 to 1880. Most notably consider the influence of Justus Liebig at Giessen Germany ( 1803 – 18 April 1873). who was instrumental in establishing the connection between scientific scholarship and industry. What made Germany so successful was the close relationship that developed between science and industry:
As a professor, Liebig devised the modern laboratory-oriented teaching method and the first research seminar (still the foundation of higher education in science and the humanities). His students went on to establish scientific institutes throughout the western world. In particular, he is noted for the development of what we now call 'organic' chemistry; as the "father of the fertilizer industry" for his discovery of nitrogen as an essential plant nutrient, and his formulation of the Law of the Minimum which described the effect of individual nutrients on crops (check the side of any box of breakfast cereal to see evidence of his work).
At another level: the modernizing countries of Europe were becoming:
- Increasingly secular; often formally anti-cleric
- Political Institutions: focus on three major components,
- democracy (that sovereignty is derived from the people; elections, parties),
- constititutionality (the significance of a written constititution for defining rights and limits on government, e.g., 10th Amendment), and
- rule of law (procedures for protecting one's rights in respect to person and property, Napoleonic Code).
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Skepticism about the role of government (either coming from the old guard that favored authoritarian monarchy or radical socialism that transferred ownership to the proletarian state).
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Nationalism [places the 'needs' of the national community before those of the individual] and Populism [proposes that the common people are exploited by a privileged elite, and which seeks to resolve this. The main ideology of populists can be left, right, or center...And increasingly a third debate, namely to control costs of public services]
- Believed firmly in the benefits public education:
- for science for technology and
- for improved standard of living
- for an informed and active citizen.
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The implementation of Enlightenment values led, as noted above, to more democratic systems, elections, social mobility and to a new focus on "citizens" [instead of 'subjects' or 'believers'] as the new standard for gauging 'humanity': The 'Volksgarten' ; Piazza del Populo, etc, in contrast to the Old Order and Cartesian plan of Catherine de Medicis for the enclosed and royal garden Tuileries,
and the
Boulevard Italiens.
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A more balanced perspective: this was an atmosphere in which science might thrive, in which it could work together with engineering to facilitate not only higher standards of living for an ever greater number of people [note the comparatives], but also to allow for / demand a dramatic increase in the exploitation of natural resouces. Nonetheless, the very success of this combination of science and technology led to the belief among some Euro-Americans that
- --humans were in control of their destiny, that
- --some groups were superior to others, and that
- --science and technology could recognize / produce the superior human being.
- Consider: what is the status of these values in the contemporary world? And how is progress in science and technology has affected and been affected by these values?
