ABSTRACT
Every generation thinks it discovered sex, according to an old witticism. Likewise, a historically minded reader of today’s news media might conclude that every generation thinks it invented scientific scandals, biomedical hucksterism, and scientifictechnological disasters. Postmodern “pop” culture, in particular, seems oblivious to historical context. Perhaps this is because the postmoderns are too dazzled by the glittery spectacles of the present and the promissory notes of the future to heed the lessons of the past. Consider the almost total lack of historical references in most recent media reports on the Korean biotech scandal of 2006; on the utopian-worlds-to-be advertised by stem-cell and nanotech researchers; and on the space shuttle Columbia disaster in 2003 and the levee failures in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina in 2005.1
With few exceptions (especially in the United States, where history is one of the least popular subjects among high school students and the label “outdated” is culturally akin to a death sentence), media commentary treated these developments as if they had fallen from the sky, as if they had no past or prehistory to better illuminate their meanings. One need not invoke Santayana’s by-now clichéd dictum about those who forget the past fail to recognize the dangers that await civilizations, which voyage at light speed into the cosmos with no memory of where they’ve been-and, thus, of who they are and of what they value.
