“The scientist, like the magician, possesses secrets. A secret — expertise — is somehow perceived as antidemocratic, and therefore ought to be unnatural.”
"Books of the Times" in The New York Times (6 July 1981)
Context: For every wicked witch there is, in our culture, a black magician, an alchemist, a Flying Dutchman, a Doctor Strangelove, a Vincent Price. The scientist, like the magician, possesses secrets. A secret — expertise — is somehow perceived as antidemocratic, and therefore ought to be unnatural. We have come a long way from Prometheus to Faust to Frankenstein. And even Frankenstein's monster is now a joke. Mr. Barnouw reminds us of "The Four Troublesome Heads" (1898), in which a conjuror punishes three of his own severed heads because they sing out of tune; he hits them with a banjo.
This book, at once scrupulous and provocative, reminds us of two habits of mind we seem to have misplace — innocent wonder and an appreciation of practical brain power. Peeled grapes are out and LSD is in. (Again, alas.) If we laugh at Frankenstein, we also laugh at Bambi. We are more inclined to shrug than we are to gasp. Isn't everything a trick? Am I putting you on? Of course not; you wouldn't fit. Hit me with a banjo.
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John Leonard 42
American critic, writer, and commentator 1939–2008Related quotes
Section 2 : Religion
Founding Address (1876), Life and Destiny (1913)
Context: Of the origin of things we know nothing, and can know nothing. Perfection does not reveal itself to us as existent in the beginning; but as something that ought to be, something new which we are to help create. Somehow the secret of the universe is hidden in our breast. Somehow the destinies of the universe depend upon our exertions.
“The secret of a Scientist is not what he knows. It’s what he asks.”
Source: Raft (1991), Chapter 4 (p. 45)
“All registers which, it is acknowledged, ought to be kept secret, ought certainly never to exist.”
Source: (1776), Book V, Chapter II, Part II, Appendix to Articles I and II, p. 935.
“Possessing by letting go of things was a secret of ownership unknown to youth.”
“Women are naturally secretive, and they like to do their own secreting.”
Source: The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
Section 2 : Religion
Life and Destiny (1913)
