Isaac Asimov? Robert Burnham Jr.? Thomas M. Nichols? Apocryphal?
Question for Quote Investigator: A science fiction luminary said:
There is a cult of ignorance in the United States … nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that “my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.”
These words have been credited to Isaac Asimov. Would you please help me to find a citation together with the full statement.
Reply from Quote Investigator: In January 1980 Isaac Asimov published an opinion piece in “Newsweek” magazine containing the following passage. Boldface added to excepts by QI:1
There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there always has been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that “my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.”
Asimov’s essay advocated the following:
I believe that what we badly need is social approval of learning and social rewards for learning.
Below are additional selected citations in chronological order.
In February 1980 the passage above was reprinted in “Quote: The Weekly Digest” with an ascription to Asimov.2
In March 1982 “Astronomy” magazine published an interview with Robert Burnham Jr., the author of the massive reference work “Burnham’s Celestial Handbook”. Burnham employed the quotation:3
Scientists get very bad press. Isaac Asimov, in one of those entertaining “My Turn” editorials in Newsweek once said that there is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and always has been. There is a strain of anti-intellectualism winding its way through our political and cultural life, as he put it.
And science gets the blame, rather unfairly, for the misuse of technology. So anyone who shows any signs of brains, wit, or talent is denounced as an egghead.
In 2017 international affairs specialist Thomas M. Nichols published “The Death of Expertise: The Campaign Against Established Knowledge and Why It Matters”. The quotation appeared as the epigraph of the introduction:4
There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there always has been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that “my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.”
Isaac Asimov
In conclusion, Isaac Asimov deserves credit for this quotation which he published in “Newsweek” magazine in 1980.
Image Notes: Picture Multi-Level Library in Germany from detait at Unsplash. The image has been cropped and resized.
Acknowledgements: Great thanks to Sue Ferrara and Lizard whose messages led QI to formulate this question and perform this exploration. Both mentioned the attribution to Isaac Asimov.
- 1980 January 21, Newsweek, A Cult of Ignorance by Isaac Asimov, Quote Page 19, Column 1, Newsweek Inc.: The Washington Post Company, Washington D.C. ↩︎
- 1980 February 17, Quote: The Weekly Digest, Volume 79, Number 7, May we quote you on that? Quote Page 146, Column 1, Public Speakers Press Inc., Anderson, South Carolina. (Verified with scans) ↩︎
- 1982 March, Astronomy, Volume 10, Number 3, Section: Astronomy Forum, An Interview with Robert Burnham Jr., Start Page 24, Quote Page 28, Column 3, AstroMedia Corp., Milwaukee, Wisconsin. (Verified with scans) ↩︎
- 2017 Copyright, The Death of Expertise: The Campaign Against Established Knowledge and Why It Matters by Tom Nichols (Thomas M. Nichols), Chapter: Introduction: The Death of Expertise (Epigraph), Quote Page 1, Oxford University Press, New York. (Verified with scans) ↩︎