Overhead Projector Way Over McCain’s Head
Requested Zeiss Starmaster; unfunded by Congress
An Incitement to Riot on Behalf of the Human Imagination
If we find an answer to that [why it is that we and the universe exist], it would be the ultimate triumph of human reason – for then we would know the mind of God.
Steven J. Hawking, A Brief History of Time, 1988
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There is not now, nor has there ever been, a greater source of imaginative space than the idea of the universe, the heavens, the galaxies, the cosmos, the Biblical “world without end”, our outer space. International efforts to explore space involve unprecedented levels of capital investment, an unselfish exchange of intelligence in anticipation of conditions and goals that, literally beyond us, cannot be defined. Manifestly these explorations affirm that we are one planet, Shakespeare’s “pendent world”, with a unique set of natural laws and a unique place in the universe. Symbolically, without any standard measure of return value, space exploration is an investment in hope, innovation, cooperation and curiosity.
- Man Ray’s 1938 Tube Poster
I call on fellow educators, the intellectually curious, the believers in ingenuity, those dwellers in the unknown and purveyors of creativity to protest the suffocation of the American imagination as promoted by John McCain and Sarah Palin. Their dismissive ignorance of poetic and scientific curiosity is an affront to progress and a promise to further erode America’s once unchallenged leadership in technological and creative innovation. In repudiation of McCain’s embarrassing and disdainful rant against the “3 million dollar ‘overhead projector’” for the Adler Planetarium that Barack Obama supported (with a bipartisan group of Congressional representatives from Illinois), we must declare, “Enough! Enough of your embodied support of arrogant stupidity, your fear of research, your vow to manifest a lack of education.”
Just as McCain/Palin have a right to adhere to their own narrative of the creation of the universe, with no further exploration desired, we have a right to expand our knowledge of the natural world and explore uncharted territories both literal and poetic. I dare them, in their myopic world-view, to reject as non-existent what they simply have no ability to imagine. I riot on behalf of those who hold that ability sacred.
Our inner cities with occluded night skies and insular pockets of poverty hold extant venerable institutions built to share the kind of knowledge that metaphorically transports, and we should take pride in upgrading them to standards that dignify the information they present. None are more iconic than Chicago’s Museum Campus, and the Adler Planetarium, the oldest planetarium in the western hemisphere with its 40 year-old projector. Planetariums alone, as convincing simulacra, powerfully showcase the achievements of space exploration and feed the imaginations of curious visitors including millions of school children from whom the next American visionaries will likely emerge.
The planetarium experience is unlike any other, a world view made possible by the insistent commitment of centuries of visionaries, and actualized through the initiative of a few leaders willing to gamble on potential. The return on the gamble is a sure bet – that by acknowledging that all courageous advances are first conceived of in the limitlessness space of the human imagination – future innovators are encouraged to reach for the stars.
