Saturday, July 4, 2009

5 reasons why Independence Day is the Geekiest Holiday of Them All

Independence Day is secretly a great geek holiday. Underneath all that grilling and baseball and apple pie is a holiday dedicated to those inventors and makers who dedicated themselves to the proposition that all men are created equal. So while you’re at the beach, or the stadium, or while flying your awesome 3D Star Wars Starfighter Kites, pour a cold one in honor of these five* geeky reasons to celebrate the 4th of July:
5. Two if by sea: David Bushnell’s Turtle and Abraham Lincoln’s scheme for a floating drydock. In 1776, Bushnell invented this one-man submarine-cum-bomb-deployment mechanism for sabotaging British ships. Meanwhile, Lincoln is the only president to own a patent, though he failed to monetize it. (I’m assuming this doesn’t include Al Gore, who invented the internet and then won a presidential election.)
4. It’s a little-known fact that America was actually founded by the characters of Independence Day.
3. Fireworks. Especially Even when they’re illegal.
2. Summer Fun: No list of Founding Geeks would be complete without Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin. This weekend, in the spirit of grilling out by the pool, let’s pay tribute first to Thomas Jefferson’s dumbwaiters and wine elevators. They bring you food and drink, almost automagically. Don’t forget Franklin’s swim fins. What could be geekier than inventing–as an eleven year old–the idea of swim fins, and implementing it yourself? Not much. (More Franklin inventions.)
1. Family: In The Invention of Air: A Story of Science, Faith, Revolution, and the Birth of America, Steven Johnson makes the connection between geekery and freedom explicit: “In the popular foklore of American history, . . . the founders’ various achievements in natural philosophy–Franklin’s electrical experiments, Jefferson’s botany–serve as a kind of sanctified extracurricular activity. They were statesmen and political visionaries who just happened to be hobbyists in science, albeit amazingly successful ones. Their great passions were liberty and freedom and democracy; the experiments were a side project. But the Priestly view suggests that the story has it backward.”
As a backdrop to this larger point about the interconnectedness of science, reason, politics, and faith, The Invention of Air has some great descriptive riffs on Joseph Priestley’s home laboratories, and his efforts to do his work amid the tumult of professional and family life. The very last words of Johnson’s book, from the acknowledgments, tie the activities of Founding Father to modern GeekDad:
Joseph Priestley lived in a world dramatically different from the one I live in, but the one aspect of his life that seems immediately familiar lies in his descriptions of life at home with Mary and the kids: writing in a house filled with the boisterous play of children; the daily intellectual camaraderie of sharing ideas with a lifelong partner.
On Johnson’s account, that boisterous play of children is not an impediment to, but a powerful engine of, creativity. Which is what GeekDad is all about!

I know the canonical number of items for a blog list is 10, but the steak’s not going to burn itself. Have a great holiday!


By Jason B. Jones

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