In addition to valuing nerds as a way to win against the Soviets, there was also a latent fear of a revolution in America that would be supported by and follow the example of the USSR, which created an understanding that the masses had to be kept placated. And if there was anything too awful about society, it would be criticized by the USSR for the sake of gaining soft power, which provided an additional incentive to fix it. Regardless of all the problems that the USSR had, a world order with competing powers (multipolarity) seems to me to be the only way of keeping the worst abuses of any power in check.
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ristoril_zip@lemmy.zip 5 days ago
After WWII there was a halcyon era where nearly every adult in America agreed that nerds had been crucial to our winning. That’s why Operation Paperclip came to be where we stole all the former Axis nerds we could find.
It also led to an unprecedented boom in education spending, research spending, etc., mostly aimed at beating the USSR at technological development. Sputnik goosed that significantly, and the Apollo program briefly did as well, until Americans got bored of Moon landings…
That was probably the first major flashing red warning light most of us ignored: Moon landings… boring!!!
Anyway, educated people started doing things that weren’t directly associated with winning the Cold War, like exposing the dangers of lead in everything, the dangers of smoking, the dangers of chlorofluorocarbons, the dangers of greenhouse gasses, etc.
That threatened the ability of grotesquely wealthy hoarders to hoard even more grotesque levels of wealth.
So they started the project to dismantle education in America.
That project kicked into afterburn once the USSR collapsed and the Cold War ended.
And so far, nerds haven’t been successful in regaining their status.
Objection@lemmy.ml 5 days ago
SocialMediaRefugee@lemmy.world 5 days ago
I’d say it was more of a pushback by the religious right against what they saw as liberalism in the schools. Starting with the late 70s then the election of Regan you saw a huge rise in the evangelicals and they became affiliated with the republicans.
kent_eh@lemmy.ca 5 days ago
Also around that time televangelist Pat Robertson was an advisor to Reagan and even tried his own run for president.
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pat_Robertson
SocialMediaRefugee@lemmy.world 5 days ago
The 700 Club. It was on constantly during the day when I was a kid.