NASA Ames, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
By Mark Mamerow
NASA’s new telescope is an amazing scientific and engineering accomplishment, but a groundswell of opposition has arisen to the naming of the telescope after James Webb. He directed NASA in the 1960s and led the agency in its successful quest to mount manned missions to the moon. A recent New York Times feature by Michael Powell tells the story of progressive opposition to the Webb name.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/19/us/james-webb-telescope-gay-rights.html
The problem is that James Webb, prior to joining NASA, served as an undersecretary of State in the Truman administration. The Lavender Scare of the early ‘50s, running parallel to the Red Scare, led to the ouster of some 5,000 to 10,000 gays from their government positions, tarred as “perverts”. The young scientists who currently oppose the naming of the Webb Telescope feel that Webb was complicit in the homophobic prevailing attitude of the patriarchy, as we might call it, and did not intervene on behalf of State Department, or later, NASA employees, whose lives and careers were ruined by the gay purges.
The anti-Webb movement has gained some momentum. The Royal Astronomical Society of Britain now forbids use of the words “James Webb and insists that the telescope be referred to as “JWST”. Influential scientific publications such as Scientific American have piled on.
However, there’s no direct evidence that Webb ever publicly discriminated against a gay employee. Discrimination did happen, but the identification of Webb as a primary perpetrator, has been debunked. The real complaint is that Webb was in the top administrative hierarchy of government agencies, at a time that those agencies were shamefully purging gay employees. Shameful, that is, by today’s standards, and that’s the crux of the issue. Should Webb be held to today’s social mores?
According to Chanda Prescod-Weinstein, 40, a theoretical cosmologist who describes herself as a “Black queer Jewish person”, the answer is yes. Prescod-Weinstein says her writings on gender and science are inseparable and feels that no public figures from the 50s and 60s should be honored. “Rename the Kennedy Center for Harriet Tubman”, she advocates.
Opponents of the Webb name don’t give him much credit for his documented battle against segregationist governor George Wallace, who tried to block the recruitment of black scientists and engineers to the NASA facility in Huntsville. Webb refused to buckle under pressure from Wallace and his ilk.
I have two takeaways from this controversy:
The first is the legitimate question of determining how we judge historical figures. Do we honor them for their famous accomplishments? Or must we take into account the full circumstances of their lives? These lives often include ugly and even bigoted attitudes which, though accepted at the time, are clearly wrong when viewed through today’s lens. Slaveowners George Washington and Thomas Jefferson: need I say more? Another flavor of this applies to more contemporary figures. Should I refuse to watch “Chinatown” because director Roman Polanski sexually assaulted a 14-year-old? Are Woody Allen movies off limits? How does this apply to the controversies around Confederate statues? The revanchist Right has argued that reverence for “history” should leave those statues in place, and that opponents of the statues are unfairly judging Confederate heroes.
There is a reasonable standard that can be applied to the honoring of personally flawed historical figures. The standard revolves around the question of WHY are we honoring this person? If the person is being honored for outstanding contributions or achievements that benefitted society in general, there should not be a problem. We honor George Washington for his leadership of the Continental Army, and his service as first President of the American republic. We honor Thomas Jefferson for his writings and ideas in the service of freedom and democracy—he did write the Declaration of Independence; and for his material contributions to the nation—he engineered the Louisiana Purchase and founded the Library of Congress. But we don’t honor either of them for their role as enslavers of other human beings. Those actions were unfortunate, even evil by today’s standards, and are regrettable. But in the end, they don’t negate the positive impact of the person.
In contrast, it makes little sense to honor Confederate war heroes. Their contributions were to a treasonous attempt to overthrow the US government, and, ultimately, in service of the preservation of slavery. Those negatives were not side effects or collateral damage—they were the very reasons the Confederate generals fought. Why in God’s name would we erect statues of slavery loving traitors to the nation? It’s an easy line to draw.
The second takeaway is simply the observation, documented in these discussions before, that “psychodrama” and maximalism among progressives is derailing efforts to make social progress, and is, frankly, opening progressive organizations to mockery. In an opinion piece by Michelle Goldberg,
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/16/opinion/left-activism.html
she details how many progressive organizations are in disarray and tumult because younger staff members are making irrational, dogmatic demands. The problems include maximalism – demanding that the organization refuse any compromise; an inability to distinguish between discomfort and oppression; and the insistence that progressive organizations be places of therapeutic healing. However, Goldberg’s contention is that the “fever is breaking” and organizations are coming back to Earth.
After attending a play in Crystal City, Virginia, recently, and listening to the pre-performance announcements, that included a boilerplate apology to the Native Americans who occupied these lands on the banks of the Potomac centuries ago— I’m not so sure.