I have been thinking a lot about an alarming trend in this nation that appears to elevate ignorance.
Because recently I’ve met and heard from too many who seem to favor the guy who knows zilch, nothing, minus-nada about a complicated subject, then spit out bald contempt for the many men or women who went to college and do know.
No, college is not necessary for every profession, but for some of them, it is a matter of life and death. Our lives, our deaths.
Take bridge design and engineering.
I first fell in love with the story of the old Tacoma Narrows Bridge when I was a pint-sized geek at what was then North Auburn Elementary School in the late 1960s and early ‘70s. The school’s librarian, Mrs. Sidwell, would set me up so I could watch over and over again a short film about the bridge’s collapse in 1940, mere months after it had opened to the public.
From the time the deck was built, it moved up and down in windy conditions, so workers nicknamed it “Galloping Gertie.” Its main span finally collapsed in 40-mph winds on the morning of Nov. 7, 1940, the deck moving back and forth in an alternating, twisting motion that increased in energy until it tore apart. The collapse killed Tubby, a cocker spaniel, and injured people who were escaping or trying to rescue the dog.
Ever since that event, Gertie’s collapse has had a profound effect on science and engineering. Physics textbooks describe it as an example of “elementary forced mechanical resonance,” but there was more to it. In technical terms, moderate winds produced “aeroelastic flutter that was self-exciting and unbounded: for any constant sustained wind speed above about 35 mph, the amplitude of the (torsional) flutter oscillation would continuously increase, with a negative damping factor, i.e., a reinforcing effect, opposite to damping.”
Now, I am not a bridge builder, and I don’t understand much about the meaning of the sentence above. Still, when I am on a bridge, I don’t want to fret the chance it may collapse and dump me into the water, or drop me into a deep canyon or ravine. I want the bridge’s builders, designers and engineers to have studied those things and understand them well in advance so I don’t have to worry.
Until recently, I was certain most of my fellow Americans shared my feelings. But I am no longer confident that such is the case.
The trend toward ignorance does not stop at bridge design. It has seeped into our assessment of the people whom we elect to public office, and from there to whomever they choose to run their departments.
Personally, just as I don’t favor amateurism in bridge, rocket or road design, or in the pharmaceutical field that produces the many medications I take, I don’t like government by amateurs or lackeys whose only qualification is loyalty or service to a leader.
We had that system in this nation up until the 1880s — it was called “The Spoils System” —but in the 1880s, forward-thinking people replaced it with another based on actual merit and demonstrated ability to perform the work expected. This was called civil service reform.
It appears now the recent trend would prefer to take us backward 140 years to the old spoils system. I say no. It ran its day. It should be a relic of the past. The complexities of the world in which we live in 2024 demand we put people in positions of responsibility who know what they are doing.
What do you think?
Robert Whale can be reached at robert.whale@soundpublishing.com.
