KNOW-HOW AND CULTURAL SELF-CONFIDENCE

I’m looking at some old magazine ads touting “American know-how”. Do you remember “know-how”? If you do, you’re old enough to collect Social Security benefits.

“Know-how” was one of the enduring buzzwords of the fifties. It meant technical competence, of course, but much more. It was an attitude and a philosophy. Technical competence was the decisive factor in almost all aspects of life. There were hardly any problems that couldn’t be solved with the right tools, the right training, and enough elbow grease. Seemingly intractable social ailments such as war, crime, and poverty would be eradicated if the right people applied the right methods. Almost no challenge was beyond the reach of “know-how”.

Was Our Confidence Justified?

It was easy to believe in “know-how” then. America was the dominant power in the world. We were the only major industrialized nation not to have fought World War II on its own soil. Our unmatched industrial capacity had helped us defeat Tojo and Hitler. The crime rate had plunged dramatically since the thirties. Our economy was growing by leaps and bounds. We were by far the world’s largest exporter of manufactured goods. By 1955, Americans had developed vaccines to prevent polio and other crippling diseases, and we had effective antibiotics to treat other diseases. Nuclear power-“Atoms for Peace”– promised limitless cheap energy.  A middle-class American family enjoyed levels of comfort, leisure, entertainment and mobility unimaginable a few decades earlier. No other people had ever had it so good. No other nation had come close.

We also seemed supremely competent in international matters. Our advances in agriculture would end famines forever. Advances in travel and communications would tie the world together, reduce misunderstanding, and promote peace. We’d win the good will of foreigners with electricity and well projects.

Even the United Nations- an American project at first- seemed to be working. It seemed a useful tool for promoting peace and freedom. Its most important project in the fifties was defending South Korea from Communist invasion. It was much later that we came to revile the UN as a hive of scum and villainy***.

The National Mood Sours

“Know-how” fizzled in the early sixties. Afterward, to mention it was to mark oneself as hopelessly unhip and unaware. The JFK assassination had soured the country’s mood. Riots tore many of our cities apart. Failed social experiments had fostered skyrocketing crime rates. Our most cherished institutions were under assault in the universities and the press.

By 1965, talk of “know-how” was out of touch with the national mood. To many of us, it seemed a cruel joke.

Coming Soon: What Went Wrong? What Can We Do?

(***…a hive of scum and villainy… This is how Alec Guinness as Obi-Wan Kenobi described Mos Eisley in the first Star Wars movie.)

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