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Comment on Isaac Asimov Laments the “Cult of Ignorance” in the United States (1980) by Sally M. Chetwynd
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Comments for Open Culture
Rochester Institute of Technology, via Wikimedia CommonsIn 1980, scientist and writer Isaac Asimov argued in an essay that “there is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there always has been.”
One might in some respects charge Asimov himself of elitism when he concludes, “We can all be members of the intellectual elite.”
But perhaps not even Isaac Asimov could have foreseen the bitter polarization and disinformation campaigns that technology has also enabled.
Needless to say, “A Cult of Ignorance” was not one of Asimov’s most popular pieces of writing.
First published on January 21, 1980 in Newsweek, the short essay has never been reprinted in any of Asimov’s collections.