How did it come to be that people with academic titles today are dumber than ordinary people and make suicidal political choices? “They are a type of conceited young masters who are convinced they stand above others, though there is no justification for it. The only justification is that they represent the ‘right’ views. A scientist belongs to the elite. But he is constantly under pressure that if he does not fit within the dominant discourse, he will be crossed out of that elite, eliminated,” said Bronisław Wildstein in a conversation with Piotr Lisiewicz on Interview with a Hooligan on Telewizja Republika. The full interview can be watched below this text (VIDEO).
The pretext for the conversation was Bronisław Wildstein’s new book A Tale Told by an Idiot or Natural Order, in which he writes about why the world is leaning toward the first tale. “If we talk about people with academic titles, today there are so many so-called ‘sciences’ that have nothing to do with science, especially in the humanities, that holding a title in some field like gender studies is more of a devaluation than an ennoblement,” Wildstein said in Interview with a Hooligan.
But the problem of spouting complete nonsense also concerns real scientists, even mathematicians or physicists. “Recently I had the chance to observe a young, outstanding Polish physicist. It was remarkable. Because when he spoke about physics, which he knows well, he refrained from radical judgments. He explained that, after all, we know very little, and what we do know only points us in a certain direction of thought. But when he spoke about political issues, of which he had not the slightest idea, he spoke very confidently, dogmatically, saying that certain things simply cannot be tolerated,” the guest recounted.
Because for spouting such nonsense, a scientist can expect rewards. “They are rewarded in every sense—prestige and all other dividends—if they say what is expected: that populism is bad, that we must defend liberal democracy, that we must save the planet because it is burning. And all of this nonsense they will repeat, without even knowing what it means.”
This, Wildstein argued, amounts to brutal censorship. “Our era prides itself on having overcome old taboos and fetishes. But it does not admit that it has created new taboos and new fetishes in their place, much more arbitrary ones.”
As an example, he cited accusations leveled against biologists who question neo-Darwinism: “I read that such a biologist is a supporter of pseudoscience. More than that—he is simply presented as a pseudoscientist. I look into who this supposed pseudoscientist is and find that he defended his PhD at Cambridge and lectured at Stanford. But then he ‘crossed over to the dark side.’”