View from the Bridge: the Two Cultures Debate, Its Legacy, and the History of Science
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BOARD OF EDITORS David Apter, David Baltimore, Daniel Bell, Guido Calabresi, Natalie Z. Davis, Wendy Doniger, Clifford Geertz, Stephen J. Greenblatt, Vartan Gregorian, Stanley Hoffmann, Gerald Holton, Donald Kennedy, Sally F. Moore, W. G. Runciman, Amartya K. Sen, Steven Weinberg STEPHEN R. GRAUBARD Editor of the Academy and of Dædalus PHYLLIS S. BENDELL Managing Editor KATHRYN J. GRADY Circulation Manager/Conference Coordinator MELISSA ROSER Assistant Editor MARK D. W. EDINGTON Consulting Editor Cover design by Michael Schubert, Director of Ruder-Finn Design Printed on recycled paper frontmatter sp99.p65 1 5/4/99, 2:23 PM DÆDALUS JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY OF ARTS AND SCIENCES The Next Generation: Work in Progress Spring 1999 Issued as Volume 128, Number 2, of the Proceedings of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences frontmatter sp99.p65 2 5/4/99, 2:23 PM Spring 1999, “The Next Generation: Work in Progress” Issued as Volume 128, Number 2, of the Proceedings of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. ISBN 0-87724-015-9 © 1999 by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Library of Congress Catalog Number 12-30299. Editorial Offices: Dædalus, Norton’s Woods, 136 Irving Street, Cambridge, MA 02138. Telephone: (617) 491-2600; Fax: (617) 576-5088; E-mail: [email protected] Dædalus (ISSN 0011-5266) is published quarterly by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. 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U.S.A. newsstand distribution by Eastern News Distributors, Inc., 2020 Superior Street, Sandusky, OH 44870 (Telephone: 800-221-3148). Periodicals postage paid at Boston, MA, and at additional mailing offices. Postmaster: Send address changes to DÆDALUS, 136 Irving Street, Suite 100, Cambridge, MA 02138, U.S.A. frontmatter sp99.p65 3 5/4/99, 2:23 PM Contents V Preface Catherine Epstein 1 The Politics of Biography: The Case of East German Old Communists Samantha Power 31 To Suffer by Comparison? Maya Todeschini 67 Illegitimate Sufferers: A-bomb Victims, Medical Science, and the Government Serenella Sferza 101 What is Left of the Left? More Than One Would Think Tarek E. Masoud 127 The Arabs and Islam: The Troubled Search for Legitimacy Douglas McGray 147 The Silicon Archipelago Jamie Frederic Metzl 177 Popular Diplomacy D. Graham Burnett 193 A View from the Bridge: The Two Cultures Debate, Its Legacy, and the History of Science frontmatter sp99.p65 4 5/4/99, 2:23 PM Preface to the Issue "The Next Generation: Work in Progress55 As those who read Daedalus know, the Journal's usual practice is to devote each issue to a single subject. Occasionally, however, there are compelling reasons for doing something that we have done only very occasionally in the past?collecting essays on disparate themes and publish ing them together. This tradition, which goes back to an early issue of Dcedalus from the summer of 1959, is being revived with this issue. Its title, "The Next Generation: Work in Progress," if it seems somewhat obscure to some, clearly calls for further explanation. The distinctive feature of this collection is that all of the essays originate with men and women who are only now begin ning their professional careers. To say that they are all young is to belabor the obvious. Because Dcedalus has always been proud to publish the works of younger individuals, because it has never seen its purpose to be the repeated publication of essays from a relatively small stable of well-known and very senior scholars, it is fitting that this issue should make that fact even more explicit. These men and women, recommended by those who have taught them and known them, have chosen to V This content downloaded from 72.74.225.77 on Mon, 11 Jan 2021 00:06:07 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms VI Dcedalus write on very diverse matters. Several relate to some of the more violent events of this chaotic century, giving them a dimension that earlier scholars neglected. Some, much more preoccupied with conditions that obtain today, are able to provide insight and information not commonly available through the mass media. A few, while not seeking explicitly to be prophetic, are in fact concerned with what may be impending, with what new technologies possibly portend. One of the essays recalls a debate that once greatly agitated scholars in both the sciences and the humanities?the discussion opened by C. P. Snow's celebrated lecture in 1959 on "The Two Cultures." We are constantly told that the new generation is ahistorical, that it is too little concerned with those questions that once so agitated men and women in the past. Not the least of the contributions of this issue of Dcedalus may be that it argues for some revision of that commonly held view. If historical schol arship has changed and is changing?if the methods and ques tions of yesterday are not always as compelling as they once were?this does not suggest that historical scholarship has lost its earlier savor. One of the possibilities too rarely considered today is that history, and particularly the history of this cen tury, may be one of the more preoccupying academic concerns of intellectual men and women in the coming decades, and that contributions to that history will come from scholars and others in many parts of the world. Support for this issue of Dcedalus has come entirely from individuals. It is a pleasure to thank Marc Leland, Edwin McAmis, Irving Rabb, and Malcolm Wiener for what they have done to make this issue possible, but also for their support of two other publications: a history, "Dcedalus: Forty Years On," and a comprehensive index of the 164 Dcedalus issues published since 1958. S.R.G. This content downloaded from 72.74.225.77 on Mon, 11 Jan 2021 00:06:07 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms The Politics of Biography 1 Catherine Epstein The Politics of Biography: The Case of East German Old Communists IOGRAPHY, LIKE BIG GAME HUNTING, is one of the recognized forms of sport; and it is as unfair as only sport can be.” “ 1 B So wrote Philip Guedalla, an English historian, in 1920. Guedalla’s quip refers to the practice of writing biography, but it also captures the spirit of a significant but little-noted phe- nomenon: the exploitation of biography for political ends. In this century of war, revolution, dictatorship, and genocide, personal experience has often become the measure of moral and political reputation. In dramatic, often cataclysmic times, indi- viduals—as soldiers or civilians, victims or perpetrators, revo- lutionaries or reactionaries—have made choices according to chance, destiny, or moral-political persuasion. In subsequent political regimes, the biographies that emerged from those choices constituted political authority or, just as frequently, political opprobrium. To return to Guedalla’s metaphor of biography as game hunting, the use and abuse of biography has been an oft- played sport in twentieth-century politics. And, in many re- spects, it has been unfair. Biography is a sitting target; nothing can alter the facts of a life already lived. Moreover, the rules of the sport—what constitutes a “good” or “bad” biography— change both according to the regime in power and current political climate. Catherine Epstein is Lecturer in Modern European History at Stanford University. 1 epstein.p65 1 5/4/99, 2:26 PM 2 Catherine Epstein The term “biography” has two rather different meanings. It can refer to the lived experience of an individual, or it can refer to the text or description of the life of an individual. Both meanings are relevant to a discussion of the politics of biogra- phy. The former has received much attention; the latter, rather little. Historians have long argued that biographical experi- ence, often phrased in generational terms, shapes future politi- cal views and mores. The experience of trench warfare in World War I, for example, radicalized the generation of 1914— both to the left and to the right. Historians have also long asserted that political conflict emerges when generations shaped by profound yet disparate experiences coexist in a single polity. The generation of 1968, for example, challenged the postwar consensus forged by its elders after 1945; this has had lasting political consequences in the United States and Europe. The historian’s repertoire has not featured the politics of biography as text. Biography, like all texts, lends itself to differ- ent and multiple readings, and thus to revision and manipula- tion. The twentieth century has seen a particularly widespread (re)interpretation of past biography for political purposes. This practice has worked to demonize past forms of rule, to legiti- mate new political regimes, and to consolidate ongoing political orders; it has also helped undermine governments, as we shall see.