The Cassandra Complex - Brian Stableford [105]
“I shall not,” he confirmed, accepting her drift for the moment. “Edgar Burdillon might, but Edgar has ambition, as you’ve doubtless noticed. If he thought it might further his career … but in all likelihood, he lacks the necessary narcissism. I’m no admirer of conspiracy theories, but I strongly suspect that long before Roslin’s favorite sheep was unveiled to the world five years ago, there was more than one rich narcissist in America who had already commissioned his employees to carry forward the task of duplicating him with all possible expedition. There’s no fool like a vain fool, and American fools are currently the vainest of the vain. Not that I have anything against Americans per se, of course—the USA produces the world’s best-educated and most highly accomplished scientists, even if it has to import most of the raw material from the Far East. Its native stock has, alas, been temporarily ruined by feminism.”
“I don’t see how,” Lisa retorted—a little acidly, because she considered herself a feminist and could not abide the contemporary fashion that led so many women of her generation to refuse the label.
“Not intentionally, of course,” he said, smiling as if the tenor of her response had scored him a point in some mysterious game. “Indeed, it might be more accurate to say that it is the reaction against feminism that has secured the unfortunate and unintended consequences. The fact that more and more American women have become scientists during the last thirty years would not have been problematic had they simply been absorbed into the prevailing culture of science, but the growing resentment against them felt by their male colleagues and the consequent closure of ranks has resulted in the emergence of a distinct cultural divide. In England, which is nowadays among the last nations to be overwhelmed by the tide of cultural progress, we still speak of the two cultures as a way of contrasting science and the absurdly misnamed humanities, but the only genuine culture is scientific and technological, and the only meaningful cultural divisions are those that develop within science.”
“I see,” Lisa was quick to say, anxious not to be forced back into a purely submissive role, meekly accepting of his penetrative wisdom. “You’re talking about holism versus reductionism—holism being seen as metaphorically female, with an emphasis on consensus and conciliation, while reductionism is metaphorically male, on account of being individualistic and imperialistic. But every geneticist knows that it’s a false dichotomy—and even if it weren’t, I can’t see how it’s spoiled a whole generation of American scientists.”
“That’s not what I said,” Miller pointed out. “What I lamented is its present effect on the raw material of science: the brains of the young. In recent years, far too many feminists have been sidetracked into compiling what they imagine to be a feminist critique of science and technology, criticizing their supposedly excessive masculinity—and however nonsensical such critiques may be, they have had their influence on educational practice and evaluation. It won’t last, of course—feminists will realize soon enough that they have been tricked.”
“Tricked? By the great secret conspiracy of male chauvinists?”
“Where large numbers of people have identical interests, no conspiracy is needed to make them act in concert,” he replied, taking such evident delight in his cleverness that Lisa almost suspected him of applying a peculiar kind of intellectual algeny, by means of which he was assiduously weaving the residual pleasure of their recent sexual activity into something more purely intellectual. “The victories that feminism has won in the economic arena have not been without their cost, and consciousness-raising works both ways. The same arguments that alerted women to all they had been unjustly