How Knowledge Sets Those Who Pursue It Apart

            In “Becoming a Weapons Scientist, ” Hugh Gusterson (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugh_Gusterson) examines the scientists who develop nuclear weapons for the United States Military from an anthropological perspective (2004).  Interestingly, Gusterson himself was once an anti-nuclear activist and seems to remain against the development of such weapons, thus providing him with certain biases and viewpoints on nuclear science that make for interesting discussion over the course of his involvement in the lab.  However, as his study of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s scientists progresses, in particular his research pertaining to a young and very much unique physicist named Sylvia, his fear of nuclear holocaust are lessened.  By understanding the motives of individuals working in the nuclear complex (which often coincide with his own surprisingly enough), he looses many of his preconceived notions and fears pertaining to nuclear arms.  He is very much aware of his positions, adding a rather reflexive side to his own discussions. 

            His research, however, is not only focused on the evolution of his ideas, but also of those of his subjects.  At one point he discusses how their interactions change all those involved.  His ideas influence the scientists in the lab as much as their ideas influence by him.  In this sense, Gusterson points out that learning and understanding do not exist in vacuum, nor are they properties of the researcher alone.

            Perhaps the most striking concept Gusterson touches on is the re-socialization of new laboratory recruits.  I myself found this to coincide with ideas developed in “How medicine constructs its objects” (Byron 1994).  As I mentioned in my previous post “How We Change,” medical training often isolates those who undergo the process of learning about the body.  They cease to see themselves as a person amongst people, but as a body amongst bodies.  The strangeness that greater understanding of the physical aspects of the human condition and the intimate nature of the patient-doctor relationship leads to the separation of physicians from the rest of humanity is both disturbing and thought provoking.  It, in turn, leads to my question concerning whether or not other specialists feel such isolation.

            Gusterson shows the nuclear complex indoctrinates new recruits to the lab.  The lab actively “produces new thinking, feeling, believing, [and] acting selves among its scientists”  (Gusterson 2004, 10).  That is to say, their education changes the ways they think and perceive the world.  Even their senses of morality are affected by their work environment, as demonstrated in Sylvia.  However, they do not seem nearly as isolated as the medical students portrayed in “How medicine constructs its objects,” rather quite the opposite as they actively pursue interests that seem almost too normal for bomb builders.  Perhaps this is because nuclear physics does not pertain to the human body, nor do these scientists focus on how nuclear weapons change people.  What is key to the difference between physicists and doctors is that nuclear scientists can journey beyond that lab to learn about opposing views on nuclear weapons while physicians cannot simply unlearn their knowledge of the body and how our perceptions are influenced by our physical existences (for are our perceptions any more than our understandings of interactions between our physical selves and the world around us?).  Thus, while knowledge does set those who pursue it apart from others with less understanding of certain phenomena, it seems safe to say that analyzing our own existences isolates more than understanding the outside world for it challenges and changes our notions of what it means to be human.