Philosopher Daniel Dennett once asked: Would you rather be remembered for being right about something, or for being “original and provocative?”
I’ve been mulling over Dennett’s conundrum in the aftermath of a recent visit to Stevens of Steve Fuller, a sociologist at the University of Warwick. Fuller is a trip. He seems to be literally intoxicated by ideas. He talks rapidly, at high volume, grinning, eyes popping, waving his arms around so wildly that I feared for those nearby him. He is serious and not serious, deadly earnest one moment and guffawing the next. Ideas, names, and book titles gush out of him.
Trained in history, philosophy, theology, and sociology, Fuller is almost absurdly erudite—he loves tracing his enthusiasms to antecedents in the history of ideas—but he exudes not the slightest whiff of snobbishness. This was apparent when he was fielding questions from students after his talk—and when he was having lunch with me and a half dozen other professors at a Greek restaurant in Hoboken.
We were noisily debating some philosophical something when a voice boomed out: “Hey, are you guys professors or something?” It was a big, barrel-chested, blue-suited policeman, looming over our table. I thought he was going to tell us—and especially Fuller—to pipe down.
But no, the cop, whose daughter was just starting college, wanted to ask us why college is so damn expensive. Fuller proceeded to extol the merits of the British system of higher education, and soon Fuller and the cop were chatting abut the pros and cons of capitalism and socialism, disagreeing on some issues and agreeing on others.
In his public talk, Fuller defended transhumanism, or the idea that humans should embrace genetic engineering and other technologies that can help us transcend our biological limits. He argued for reforms in our political and legal systems to maximize the benefits and minimize the harm from technological self-improvement.
Among his ideas: ethical restrictions should be relaxed so people can volunteer for risky experiments aimed at human enhancement. If science extends our life spans, the elderly can help solve the overpopulation problem by leaving Earth in spaceships.
But Fuller is like no other transhumanist I’m aware of. At various moments, he sounds like a postmodernist, socialist, libertarian, utilitarian, or Jesuit (and in fact he was raised Catholic, and still has a strong affinity for Catholicism). If you made a Venn diagram of ideologies that Fuller at least partially inhabits, there would be only one person at their intersection, Fuller himself.
I don’t know how many people Fuller converts. Probably not many. He didn’t convert me to his transhumanist vision. My version of paradise calls for radical social and cultural changes—especially the end of militarism—not designer babies.
But Fuller constantly provoked me. Introducing Fuller at his public talk, my pal Jim McClellan, an historian of science here at Stevens, quoted from a scholar who had seen Fuller in action. “I witnessed one of the few wild intelligences that I’ve seen in decades of being around academics,” the scholar said. “It was a joyful thing.”
It’s easy for scholars to be right, especially if they are safely right, not pushing the boundaries of received wisdom. What’s harder is to be original, surprising, and challenging.
Fuller made me reconsider my own beliefs about human destiny, the meaning of life, the nature of truth. I suspect many others who read his works or hear him speak are provoked as well. And these days, maybe provocation—especially the kind that gets us to question our own worldviews—is a better outcome than conversion.
John Horgan directs the Center for Science Writings, which belongs to the College of Arts & Letters. This column is adapted from one originally published on his ScientificAmerican.com blog, “Cross-check.”
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