This is an essay that my late father, Amnon Katz, wrote in 1986. I have translated the text here from the original Hebrew.
The Head of the Ape Academy
It is generally accepted and known that a scientist sometimes has to restrain himself and not publish openly the results of his research. The reasons for this are to be found in the practical value of his finding, the material utility that it can provide to an enemy or a rival, and in the material damage that it can cause in the hands of the masses.
When Giordano Bruno and Galileo Galilei stood before the judges of the Inquisition (the first in 1592 and the second in 1633) the motive for silencing their voice was entirely different.
Few then could envision a practical use or any material damage from the awareness of the fact that the earth is not the center of the universe. The damage that was foreseen was spiritual, as in “he looked at it and got hurt.” [This is a reference to the Talmudic story of “Four Entered the Orange Grove”, about being hurt by too much exposure to knowledge or light.] The Church Elders were concerned (with good reason) that the new scientific knowledge would change the world view of the masses and would shake the spiritual foundations on which the social order of the middle ages was built.
Nowadays, these are not the motives that require scientists to be silent — in the natural sciences. But in the humanities?
More than seventeen years ago, my article “The Ancient Hebrew World” was published (Haaretz Jan. 31, 1969). The article engendered a lot of responses. The sharpest and most prominent of them came from the pen of the late Professor I. Kutcher (Haaretz July 2, 1969) who wrote:
A young Israeli scientist, a professor of nuclear physics at the Weizmann Institute in Rehovot, lectured at the Weizmann Institute from an opening chapter from the lecture on the subject of Israel Whence and Whither and published in “Culture and Literature’ (Jan 31, 1969) under the title “The Ancient Hebrew World”. It turns out that in this lecture he set out to teach on a number of topics — Hebrew Bible, Hebrew linguistics, the history of the ancient orient, mythology and more. What is equally true about all of these subjects is that they are not the subject of his research at the Weizmann Institute.
Today it is accepted that the days have passed when a Jew could learn all seven wisdoms while standing on one foot, as suggested by Mendele the Bookseller, from the book “Shadow of the World” , which contains all seven wisdoms in seven small pages, as the slackers of Slackerville supposed. [Reference to Shalom Yacov Abramowitz].
This is the consistent tenor of Kutcher’s words.
What would Professor Katz say about these kinds of research methods in his own field; if a professor of Hebrew language were to write a “scientific” article on a topic from the field of nuclear physics…
I read all of Professor Kutcher’s words from beginning to end, and I did not find in them any substantive criticism of my article. He did not attack any specific point, and also did not deny the truth of the general conclusion. Quite to the contrary, at times he seemed to strengthen my claims: “The amusing thing is that indeed (by chance!) Professor Katz is right: there are cities with Canaanite names on the coasts of the Mediterranean…”
A few months later, I chanced to lecture on the same topic at the Weiss Auditorium in Jerusalem. After the lecture a few people from the audience approached me to exchange ideas. Among them was a young man (his name, sadly, I can’t remember) who introduced himself as a student of Professor Kutcher. The student confirmed that his professor did not disagree with the factual content of my words, but rather he questioned my right to say them.
There is no doubt that Professor Kutcher was better versed in the topic than I was, more expert than I to explore it, and if he himself had wanted to explain the topic to the public, my own words would have been superfluous. But Professor Kutcher did not want to.
Several years went by until I understood the stance of Professor Kutcher of the humanities and his motives. Perhaps the best way to explain them is by an example, taken from the movie Planet of the Apes (1968, Fox Twentieth Century, based on Pierre Boulle’s French book).
A spaceship that goes out to explore new worlds lands by accident on earth after “time travel.” Meanwhile civilization on earth has collapsed, and in its place an ape society has arisen — gorillas, chimpanzees and orangutans. The apes have adopted certain foundations of the human culture that preceded them. They ride horses, shoot with guns, live in houses. They can speak and also read and write. In the area of physiology they have gotten as far as experiments in brain surgery. Compared to them, the remnants of humanity have regressed to the state of wild animals. They cannot speak and have no tools (like the yahoo from Gulliver’s travels in the land of the horses.)
The spaceship crashes in a desert-like area. After a long trek the astronauts arrive at a watering hole and they bathe in it. There they are joined by a troop of humans. After a while the apes show up and capture the entire troop and the astronauts among them. At this point the protagonist is indistinguishable from the other humans that surround him. He is naked just like them, because he took his clothes off to bathe, all of his equipment has been lost and even the ability to speak has been taken from him, because a bullet from the hunters has struck his throat. He finds himself in a cage, and the apes who oversee him treat him like an animal.
The protagonist succeeds — by tracing letters on sand — in drawing the attention of a female zoologist who is studying the human animals. She is a young and brilliant chimpanzee. Her research has already convinced her that the human animals have a potential for intelligence. Her boyfriend, a male chimpanzee, is an archaeologist. His discoveries point to the conclusion that the culture of the apes developed from a human civilization that preceded it — a conclusion that most of the apes find hard to even imagine. The two chimpanzee researchers are very happy with this unusual human they have found who advances their research.
The two chimpanzee researchers are directly answerable in their work to the head of the science academy. He is an old and dignified orangutan, a figure whose depth is not easy to fathom (played under the ape mask by Maurice Evans.) Intelligence and wisdom are reflected clearly from all his actions. There is no doubt that he understands all too well the discoveries of the young chimpanzees and their significance. When he brings up certain questions or points out missing links in the interpretation of the discoveries, he is always right. Every meeting between him and the young researchers appears legitimate. But the sum total of his interventions is suspicious. The consistent result is a disruption of the research. When the protagonist, whose ability to speak is returning. is about to be relegated to physiological experiments involving brain surgery (and this fate has already befallen his fellow astronauts who can now no longer speak), the young researchers rebel and flee with the astronaut.
Toward the end of the movie a decisive confrontation takes place between the researchers and the head of the academy. They meet in a cave in the forbidden zone. The cave contains an archeological discovery — a doll that looks like a human, not an ape — that proves unequivocally that the earlier civilization belonged to humans and not apes. At this point we might expect the old orangutan to fawn on the young chimpanzees and to admit that they had been right all along. He does not do this, not because he doubts the truth of their conclusions, but because he has never doubted. The new discovery is not new for him. He has known it for years and restrained himself from divulging it for deep reasons which for him were paramount.
The young researchers saw in science a goal in itself and believed implicitly that exposing the truth is always for the best. The head of the academy, who was charged with overseeing science for the sake of society and in its name, accepted the ape society and its rules as the highest values that he, the academy and even science itself must serve. The conflict between the researchers and their supervisor did not reflect a disparity of knowledge or understanding, of scientific outlook or methodology. It was a conflict of values. The head of the academy, like Solon of Lydia, was willing to hide and silence any scientific truth, if he saw in it a danger to the spiritual foundations of the society of the apes. One of these foundations was the belief in the superiority of apes over man. Even though the head of the academy knew there was no truth to this, he forced himself to be silent in order not to deprive the ape nation of the peace of mind inherent in that belief. And because he required himself to be silent, he did not look kindly on the uninhibited zeal for the truth of his underlings.
Today the natural sciences have been disconnected from ideology and world view. In any event, those dealing in these sciences are usually free from societal and moral pressure. Not so the scholars in the humanities. These are still mulling over sensitive and controversial topics and are torn between the subject of their work and their social affiliation.
These were, therefore, the genuine motives of Professor Kutcher. That is why he sought to silence me without getting into a substantive discussion, without contradicting my words and without offering an alternative version of the facts. It was not just about the factual issues that we didn’t disagree, but also about their projected effect on society. I hoped, as Professor Kutcher feared, that revealing the facts would send shock waves to the foundation of Israeli society. I saw in this shock an opportunity for a change of direction in order to open up for Israel the bright future that she deserves.
Grand Prairie, Texas, June 22, 1986.
Amnon Katz
A Video of Me Reading the Essay
The Original Essay In Hebrew
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Also by Amnon Katz: Greater than Ourselves
About the Author
Amnon Katz was a physicist, an aerospace engineer, a pilot, an essayist and poet, as well as a member of the Canaanite movement in Israel.
