The flurry of discussion in the media that presidential elections provoke gives us a chance to take a snapshot of the philosophies and attitudes that drive us. And while I think there are a number of respectable sentiments in the current culture, I see a flaw in thinking that warrants attention and thought.
Though we often pay lip service to Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s admirable words, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself: nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror, which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance,” we do not even try to live up to them in our foreign policy decisions.
America has given the world the car, the airplane and almost every innovation in solid-state physics and electronics. It is the same nation that put its men on the moon and has sent its crafts to the farthest depths of outer space ever reached by mankind. In recent years it has found itself unjustifiably and insanely obsessed by fear and paranoia.
We have a belief that dogmatic religious fundamentalists operating from caves and primitive governments pose an “existentialist threat” that could compromise “our very existence.”
This brand of disproportionate fear has become a commonly used tool of persuasive politics, with national figures and various editorial boards encouraging the mentality that enemies of America will “destroy the West.”
These thoughts have clouded our priorities in regard to what America needs to do to maintain its present eminence.
Our current culture favors any candidate who pays the most lip service to unlimitedly bolstering our already immense defenses and, in the face of our fear, gives the emptiest expressions of blind patriotism.
As a result, we are paying increasingly less attention to the real virtues that have brought America to where it is ““ in my opinion, much of this is due our scientific and technological vitality.
If there is any force that is capable of eroding the standing in the world that we have built up during hundreds of years of brilliant innovation and progress, it is not terrorists who live in caves. It is our irrational fear of them and the way it turns our culture’s focus from our real, substantial strengths and their continued development, to our enemies’ weaknesses and primitive militarism.
At a time when government funding for science and engineering research is at an all-time low, and our participation in efforts at the forefront of basic physics, biomedical research, fusion and energy resources is suffering greatly, we dedicate far more time comparing who more fervently wants to kill terrorists than on discussion of our decline in these areas.
While we mire ourselves in this overblown fear, other countries in the world ““ China, India and Japan to name a few ““ continue to develop their scientific and technological prowess, inching closer to reaching and surpassing America’s strength in these regards.
If anything, it is not the trivial ignorance and dogma of fundamentalism abroad that threatens our standing, but our own fear and lack of understanding of our true strength.
I hope that in the coming election, we will not vote out of any measure of fear. Both candidates have shown beyond any doubt their resolve to deal with violent extremism in practical and effective ways, and there should be no doubt that America is easily capable of doing this.
Despite the general lack of interest in matters of science and technology in the media and public, Barack Obama, despite his flaws, uniquely has demonstrated an appreciation of the fact that as a nation we urgently need to strengthen our support of science and engineering efforts. As a result, he has won the unprecedented endorsement of some 60 Nobel Prize winners in science.
His campaign has not played to our irrational fears of enemies who are far weaker than we are, but rather the understanding that America will continue to be a great nation if it preserves and develops its many strengths.
We will indeed need to face the many real challenges the future holds; I think his winning the election would represent the beginning of a return of some sense of proportion to the way we see ourselves and the world.
Mehta is a third-year electrical engineering student.