Actor Network Theory

BACK: Actor Network Theory

What was next, after Hiroshima? What should scientists do now? Some turned to politics and rethought the relationship between science and society, expertise and democracy.

There is an emergence of technological skepticism among scientific advisors. People were doubtful that pouring in all this funding into scientific research for the development of a weapon wasn’t the right direction to go, that politicians had this image of developing a weapon before our enemies did. J. Robert Oppenheimer:

What concerns me is really not the technical problem. What does worry me is that this thing appears to have caught the imagination, both of the congressional and of the military people, as the answer to the problem posed by the Russian advance. It would be folly to oppose the exploration of this weapon. But that we become committed to it as the way to save the country and the peace appears to me full of danger

In a sense the system is like this: the politicians, who were elected by people make the decisions about what to do–the scientists only work on the technical problems given to them by the politicians. The scientists should have no say in the decision making. On top of this, there was a huge fear of spies, so saying anything against those decisions wouldn’t get you very far.

Anti-Communist Campaign

You can’t trust your own citizens! You can’t trust your scientists that are now military relevant. The militarization of research (background checks, interrogations, security clearances…) became prominent here. People’s loyalty were questioned, especially those who were in international cooperation.

“Keep your mouth shut. Don’t question the politics.”

Even though the scientific community was extremely divided, this was NOT the picture that was given. There was ONE scientific community working under ONE mind.

Science and the “Nation Security State”

Science and politics have always been connected.

After WWII, left scientists articulated a progressive view of science (internationalism, social goals). They had direct involvement in support of Cold War and political order, and scientific administrators had very ambiguous roles. This movement eventually died out because this was not a popular view back then.

Science was then integrated into the national security state–with vastly increased funding, but scientists saw their social role diminished and their political strategies narrowed. The were told to focus on their work instead their political problems. While there was more funding, there was significantly less room for action.

The red scare was obviously greatly exaggerated, because of the technology transfer problem. It was a problem of not passing on skills and practical understanding that had to make things like science work.

Perspectives on Society and Science:

Technological Determinism: Teller on the ‘laws of nature.’ Truman: we have ‘found’ the bomb, it was given to us by God, so the way we want to use it must be right.

This was just a natural process, just go with the flow. There was no use in refusing the bomb–it would’ve come up regardless. They felt like upon the discovery of nature, you would’ve found that bomb regardless–anyone who studied physics would’ve gotten there eventually, it was just lucky that we got there first. This assumed that everyone who was studying physics was for the purpose of building destructive weapons.

Technological Skepticism was the notion that people thought that technology was the solution to all of our problems. You can get rid of diplomacy, experts–you just need the most powerful weapons and everyone else will let you do what you need to do.

In the Vietnam War, they learned that technology wasn’t the solution to everything–even with the superior technology, the US still didn’t win the war.

NEXT: “Effective” Technology