“It
is but a small step from self-reliance to self-indulgence.”
----from “The Quotations of Chairman Joe”
Haynes Johnson was an American Journalist and author
who made regular appearances on national television—most notably
Washington Week in Review, where he would comment upon the
times. As a reporter for the Washington Evening Star, Johnson
earned the Pulitzer Prize for his coverage of the March in Selma
Alabama, and later reported the fall of Richard Nixon while working
for The Washington Post. He had the bearing of a man who'd
been around the block more than once and his observations were always
penetrating. (1)
Late in life Johnson became concerned with, and began
writing about the overarching transcendence of American culture from
community to tribe, from self-reliance to self-indulgence; a theme
that courses through these columns as we record the death throes of
the late, great, United States of America.
Late last summer, as we spent time sailing on the big
pond, I spent time in the berth reading Margaret Truman's biography
of her father. The times, being what they are, required an act of
ablution. Basic hygiene demanded it.
I have previously noted how every generation waxes about
the virtues of youth and how the intervening years have brought
nothing but disappointment, if not imminent ruin. (2) This, appears
to be universal observation.
“Living
is easy with eyes closed
misunderstanding
all you see”
---John Lennon and Paul McCartney Strawberry
Fields Forever
So it is quite natural to turn to one's youth and
ponder paradise lost, it is quite another to misunderstand all you
see.
Caesar Disgustus looks to his youth to seek not
ablution, but restoration...if not retribution.
Reading books about Harry Truman and the immediate
postwar era conjures a time when America stood astride the world as a
result of war, but that is not the lesson to be gleaned from a field
laid waste. It is also not a time to be seen through the
rose-colored lens of bigotry as the 'golden age' in which whole
segments of American Society were left behind. This is the world our
Caesar Disgustus, and his political party—mired in myopia—would
have us return. This is the ugly side of America, an America in
which many a hard lesson had yet to be learned.
But there are, as there always are, other sides to a
story. Foremost, it was a time when a nation, emerging from
depression and then war, had a heightened sense of community. It was
also a time when government was pro-active; not always re-active;
when government looked ahead, instead of looking behind; when
leadership was not in denial but actually planned for the future.
To illustrate, Johnson exhumes a man who has not figured
in our collective memory as prominently as he should. His name was
Vannevar Bush. Bush was in charge of organizing war production and,
therefore, moved closely to the vortex of power. He also played a
significant role in the development of modern computer technology.
Here is Johnson's account:
“At
the end of the Nineties, an internal IBM paper recounted a
long-forgotten article published in the summer of 1945 during the
closing weeks of World War II. In it, Vannevar Bush described a
theoretical machine called the Memex, never built, that could extend
human memory by mechanically organizing information and making it
readily accessible through a web of associations. A Memex, he
explained to readers of the 'Atlantic Monthly' in July 1945, 'is a
device in which an individual stores all his books, records, and
communications, and which is mechanized so that it may be consulted
with exceeding speed and flexibility...
“Looking
ahead, Bush envisioned machines capable of compressing a library of a
million volumes into a box placed on the end of a desk before the
person operating it from a keyboard. A 'slanting translucent screen'
extending from the machine would display information the user wanted.
'The world,' he noted that July of 1945, 'has arrived at an age of
cheap complex devices of great reliability; and something is bound to
come of it.' In recalling Bush's Memex more than half a century
later, IBM said his article describing it 'turned out to be of those
time-bomb essays—a piece so far ahead of its time that it takes
decades to recognize its genius. For the Memex in essence is a
personal computer, and more than that it is a personal computer in
which information is bound together by links of association. Every
time a Web user fires up her browser and navigates from site to site,
following threads of relationship as she roams, she is, in effect,
continuing a journey that began with Vannevar Bush more than half a
century ago.”(3)
Vannevar
Bush (4) would, along with Admiral Leahy, brief President Truman on
progress in the development of the Atomic Bomb; but it was his report
to Truman in July 1945, that marks his place in history.
It
“was thirty-four pages long and titled, simply,
'Science—The Endless Frontier.' It became one of the most
influential documents in the nation's history, with results felt for
the rest of the century and beyond. It set in motion the forces that
crested so powerfully in the America of the Nineties with the
creation of the great technology-driven boom. Bush's report was
instrumental in creating the National Science Foundation and, through
federal grants, the further expansion of university and
private-industry research laboratories, as well as their connection
with such places as the National Institute of Health. His vision
transformed the relationship of science and government by advocating
government support for basic research in universities and private
industry. From it, too, flowed the same support for basic research
in peacetime that his White House's Office of Scientific and Research
Development had given to universities and industries in wartime.
Despite its influence, except for some academics and aging
policymakers, more than half a century later the American people
remain largely unaware of the contents, or even the existence, of
Vannevar Bush's report. History, capricious as ever, has assigned
credit for shaping the future to others...
“Without
the adoption of Bush's ideas as a pillar of national policy, many of
the most significant scientific and technological innovations of the
next half-century, including those in the field of computer science,
would not have occurred. In this paper, commissioned eight months
earlier by a dying Franklin D. Roosevelt who had asked him to propose
the direction for American science and technology policies in the
postwar world, Bush strongly urged Truman to break from the past and
set an unprecedented peacetime goal for the United States: To make an
open-ended government commitment to support long-term scientific and
technological research.
“In
Bush's mind, this was the great lesson of World War II. All elements
of society, working cooperatively, had led to the scientific and
technological developments that changed the nature of warfare and set
the stage for the betterment of civilian society...
“For
progress to continue in the new post-World War II era, Bush Argued,
policymakers had to discard old ways of thinking. In the past,
despite the myths about American yeoman tinkerers possessing unique
talents, Americans did not lead the world in developing new
technologies. They believed they could always import knowledge for
their scientific and technological progress, largely by building on
basic discoveries of European scientists. That belief had guided the
nation until World War II. It was not longer relevant, for, as Bush
said: 'A nation which depends upon others for its new basic
scientific knowledge will be slow in its industrial progress and weak
in its competitive position.”' (5)
Johnson
duly noted that historically the United States would, in the
aftermath of any great conflict, withdraw and go back to business as
normal. But this time was different, this time leadership had
vision; and this time leadership had the courage to act upon the
recommendations. Remarkably, Johnson further noted, it all seems to
have occurred without rancorous debate. “It simply seems
to have happened”.
Imagine, if you can, an America today where the climate
crisis as well as many other challenges are treated with the same
response. Imagine, if you will, a government that celebrates
knowledge, not ignorance. Imagine a government informed and
flexible, not hidebound by ideological imperative. Imagine a nation
not weak, confused and afraid, but a nation confident and strong; a
nation self-reliant instead of self-indulgent. These, are the
measures of our time. This, the promise of America, is the
measure of what we've lost. We are losing, if indeed we have not
already lost, the future.
“An'
Br'er Putin, he jus' laugh and laugh”
Impeach and Imprison.
______________
- For more information on Haynes Johnson see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haynes_Johnson
- See previous post: March 20, 2015: Old Man’s Lament, So Much Older Then, I Cannot Write Act III
- Johnson, Haynes. The Best of Times. Copyright 2001, 2002 by Haynes Johnson. Harcourt, Inc., San Diego, New York, London. Pages 30-31
- For a biography of Vannevar Bush see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vannevar_Bush
- Op. Cit. Pages 31-33
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