'The spark gap is mightier than the pen': the promotion of an ideology of science in the early 1930s. Issue 2 (4th May 2017)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Bud, Robert
• Is Part Of: Journal of political ideologies. Volume 22:Issue 2(2017)
• Page Start: 169
• Page End: 181
• Publication Date: 2017-05-04
• Subjects: Right and left (Political science) -- History -- Periodicals; Political science -- Philosophy -- Periodicals; Political science -- History -- Periodicals; Ideology -- History -- Periodicals; 320.5
• DOI: 10.1080/13569317.2017.1298548
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1356-9317

Abstract

Abstract: Materialist ideologies multiplied in Britain during the 1920s. H G Wells promoted a strongly atheist programme grounded in expert scientific leadership of society. To that vision, this article contrasts scientific humanism. The article suggests that this project of Julian Huxley was pioneered through the short-lived magazine The Realist before 1930 and then much more successfully through the medium of radio. Although such Marxists as J.D. Bernal have been better remembered, the airtime of communists and atheists was strictly limited. Instead many series of debates about science and its social function in the years 1930 to 1934 were produced by the BBC's Mary Adams drawing on Huxley's coterie assembled for The Realist . Thereby scientific humanism was broadcast to hundreds of thousands. The article therefore suggests we pay more attention to the particular ideology of science that the BBC could broadcast as it explored the opportunities and negotiated the constraints of a technology that was threatening the old world.