Science and art should be partners rather than enemies

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/aug/31/paralympics-science-art-world-beauty

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Danny Boyle called it one of the most beautiful speeches in Shakespeare and the inspiration behind his celebration of Britian in the opening ceremony of the Olympics. "Be not afeard; the isle is full of noises, sounds, and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not." Here Caliban is describing the wonder and beauty of his island. "Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments will hum about mine ears; and sometime voices that, if I then had waked after long sleep, will make me sleep again; and then in dreaming, the clouds methought would open, and show riches. Ready to drop upon me, that when I waked I cried to dream again."

But is this really modern Britain? This week, the woman who has taken to sleeping behind the wheelie bins round the corner from the vicarage explained that she was woken up in the middle of the night by two young men urinating on her. It's more Clockwork Orange than The Tempest. "Be not afeard" – I don't think so. Often the Elephant and Castle can feel like a place stripped of wonder.

The Tempest was much in evidence again at the opening of the Paralympics, with Sir Ian McKellen taking centre stage as Prospero, complete with magic cape and book of spells. Whereas Boyle called his show Isles of Wonder, this one was called Enlightenment. Stephen Hawking called on people to "look up at the stars" and a young actress, Nicola Miles-Wildin, played Prospero's daughter, Miranda, with that other famous speech: "How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world that has such people in't."

Yet on the surface, Enlightenment and The Tempest make unlikely companions, for it has long been argued that the Enlightenment was a process of disenchantment. As Max Weber explained, traditional societies regard the world as "a great enchanted garden". This is the world-view of The Tempest. In contrast, modern societies, through science and secularisation, have purged the world of magic and laid it out as a blind play of impersonal forces. The magical power claimed by the priests and Prosperos of this world was nothing more than that – a claim to power, and power rooted in hocus-pocus, mystification and fear. The Enlightenment claimed that, once the world was properly understood by reason, there would be nothing left to fear. Oh, how wrong they were.

Despite its obvious advantages, disenchantment has had a big hand in the instrumentalisation of modern life: houses have become machines for living in, people are treated as things and power is mediated by impersonal bureaucracy and administration. The new Prosperos measure and count. Instead of a book of spells, they send out forms and produce league tables. Their power has less charisma but, precisely because it is not personal, it spreads into every corner of our lives. This is the new domination. And it is ubiquitous. As the modernist housing projects around the Elephant are pulled down, I reflect on how right Adorno was to warn against the damnable dehumanisation brought about by these anonymous, suited Prosperos.

That's why the most inspiring thing about the Paralympic ceremony was that it offered an understanding of science that did not strip the world of wonder. Here science and art were no longer conceived of as enemies but as partners in the common task of making the world a more beauteous place, a world as welcoming and magical to the outcast Calibans of this world as it is to kings and dukes. Only this will bring about the brave new world of Miranda's vision – glorious humanity, in all its diversity, restored to fullness of life.