Freedom of research must be preserved from subordination to cultural policy

Evidence

What truly mattered to German scientific (and more generally, intellectual) elites, and to the best and most distinguished individuals among them was the preservation of their integrity as scholars and spokesmen of Reason. And that task did not include (and did exclude in case of conflict) concern with the ethical meaning of their activity. As Alan Beyerchen found out, in the spring and summer of 1933 the luminaries of German science, people like Planck, Sommerfeld, Heisenberg, or von Laue, all ‘counselled patience and restraint in dealing with the government, especially regarding dismissals and emigration. The primary goal was to preserve the professional autonomy of their discipline by avoiding confrontation and waiting for orderly life and procedures to resume.’ They all wanted to defend and to save what mattered to them – and save it they did, as soon as they showed a readiness to forget about what mattered less. — Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust, 360 (#exemplifies, via linked claim)

MECHANIZATION has emphasized complexity and confusion; it has been responsible for monopolies in the field of knowledge; and it becomes extremely important to any civilization, if it is not to succumb to the influence of this monopoly of knowledge, to make some critical survey and report. The conditions of freedom of thought are in danger of being destroyed by science, technology, and the mechaniza- tion of knowledge, and with them, Western civilization. — Harold Innis, The Bias of Communication, 1123 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Scholarly fields are constrained by society, institutions, and cultural tradition; Preserving professional autonomy outweighed ethical concern for elite scientists — Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust, 360; Mechanized knowledge creates monopolies that endanger freedom of thought — Harold Innis, The Bias of Communication, 1123 (+1 more)

Related

• Preserving professional autonomy outweighed ethical concern for elite scientists (similarity 0.91)
• Elite silence follows the ideal of value-free rational professionalism (similarity 0.79)

Broader Connections

• Preserving professional autonomy outweighed ethical concern for elite scientists #exemplifies (0.85) — Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust, 360
• Mechanized knowledge creates monopolies that endanger freedom of thought #complicates (0.72) — Harold Innis, The Bias of Communication, 1123