There are two schools of physics. And there are the good guys and the bad guys, and its perfectly obvious, and its very interesting. And there are great physicists in Russia, but physics is developing much more rapidly in the West, and although it looked for a while like something good would happen there, it hasnt.
Now this doesnt mean that technology is not developing or that they are in some way backward that way, but Im trying to show that in a country of this kind the development of ideas is doomed.
You have read about the recent phenomenon in modern art. When I was in Poland there was modern art hung in little corners in back streets. And there was the beginning of modern art in Russia. I dont know what the value of modern art is. I mean either way. But Mr. Khrushchev visited such a place, and Mr. Khrushchev decided that it looked as if this painting were painted by the tail of a jackass. My comment is, he should know.
To make the thing still more real I give you the example of a Mr. Nakhrosov who traveled in the United States and in Italy and went home and wrote what he saw. He was castigated for, I quote the castigator, A 50-50 approach, for bourgeois objectivism. Is this a scientific country? Where did we ever get the idea that the Russians were, in some sense, scientific? Because in the early days of their revolution they had different ideas than they have now? But it is not scientific to not adopt a 50-50 approachthat is, to not understand what there is in the world in order to modify things; that is, to be blind in order to maintain ignorance.
I cannot help going on with this criticism of Mr. Nakhrosov and to tell you more about it. It was made by a man whose name is Padgovney, who is the first secretary of the Ukranian Communist Party. He said, You told us here (He was at a meeting at which the other man had just spoken, but nobody knows what he said, because it wasnt published. But the criticism was published.) You told us here you would only write the truth, the great truth, the real truth, for which you fought in the trenches of Stalingrad. That would be fine. We all advise you to write that way. (I hope he does.) Your speech, and the ideas you continue to support smack of petty bourgeois anarchy. This the party and people cannot and will not tolerate. You, Comrade Nakhrosov, had better think this over very seriously. How can the poor man think it over seriously? How can anyone think seriously about being a petty bourgeois anarchist? Can you picture an old anarchist who is a bourgeois also? And at the same time petty? The whole thing is absurd. Therefore, I hope that we can all maintain laughter and ridicule for the people like Mr. Padgovney, and at the same time try to communicate in some way to Mr. Nakhrosov that
we admire and respect his courage, because we are here only at the very beginning of time for the human race. There are thousands of years in the past, and there is an unknown amount of time in the future. There are all kinds of opportunities, and there are all kinds of dangers. Man has been stopped before by stopping his ideas. Man has been jammed for long periods of time. We will not tolerate this. I hope for freedom for future generationsfreedom to doubt, to develop, to continue the adventure of finding out new ways of doing things, of solving problems.
Why do we grapple with problems? We are only in the beginning. We have plenty of time to solve the problems. The only way that we will make a mistake is that in the impetuous youth of humanity we will decide we know the answer. This is it. No one else can think of anything else. And we will jam. We will confine man to the limited imagination of todays human beings.
We are not so smart. We are dumb. We are ignorant. We must maintain an open channel. I believe in limited government. I believe that government should be limited in many ways, and what I am going to emphasize is only an intellectual thing. I dont want to talk about everything at the same time. Lets take a small piece, an intellectual thing.
No government has the right to decide on the truth of scientific principles, nor to prescribe in any way the character of the questions investigated. Neither may a government determine the aesthetic value of artistic creations, nor limit the forms of literary or artistic expression. Nor should it pronounce on the validity of economic, historic, religious, or philosophical doctrines. Instead it has a duty to its citizens to maintain the freedom, to let those citizens contribute to the further adventure and the development of the human race. Thank you.
III. This Unscientific Age
I have completely run out of organized ideas, but I have a large number of uncomfortable feelings about the world which I havent been able to put into some obvious, logical, and sensible form. So, since I already contracted to give three lectures, the only thing I can do is to give this potpourri of uncomfortable feelings without having them very well organized.