Vivek is Right

America was Founded By Enlightenment "Nerds"; Let's Revive Their Culture

Vivek Ramaswamy recently set off a firestorm with his critique of anti-intellectualism in American culture:

“Our American culture has venerated mediocrity over excellence for way too long — at least since the Nineties, and likely longer. That doesn’t start in college, it starts young…A culture that celebrates the prom queen over the math olympiad champ, or the jock over the valedictorian, will not produce the best engineers.”

Ramaswamy’s critique is accurate, though the decline in intellectual culture began much earlier than the 1990s. It traces back to the 1970s, a shift I witnessed firsthand during my high school years.

When I first walked through the front doors of my school, I saw a prominent display of photos celebrating math and science competition winners from the 1950s and 1960s. Rows of earnest, crew-cut, all-American boys embodied the post-Sputnik focus on science and engineering that had fueled the Space Race. But the last photo on that wall was dated 1972. After that, either students stopped participating in such competitions, or the school stopped honoring their achievements.

By the time I graduated in 1980, those crew-cut achievers had been relegated to a forgotten back room. In their place, football and basketball trophies had taken center stage. Participation in math contests, debate, or any other intellectual competition had become a one-way ticket to social ostracism.

This shift wasn’t just confined to my high school—it reflected a broader cultural transformation. As Vivek observed, popular entertainment has contributed to that transformation: the cool and the glamorous are celebrated, while the earnest studiousness once embodied in characters like Wally Cleaver is now derided.

The Decline Documented

The cultural transformation contributed to the decline in academic attainment. In 1983, the National Commission on Excellence in Education published A Nation at Risk: The Imperative for Educational Reform, a scathing indictment of the state of American education. It found that SAT scores had declined by 40–50 points between 1963 and 1980 and reported alarming statistics:

"Only one-fifth [of high school students] can write a persuasive essay; and only one-third can solve a mathematics problem requiring several steps."

This decline that began in the 1970s has continued for decades. The Program for International Student Assessment (PISA), which compares educational systems worldwide, shows that America’s rankings in math and science have steadily plummeted among developed nations.

Anti-intellectualism remains alive and well in schools today. At one of my son’s school award ceremonies, I was dismayed to hear the vice-principal announce, “Now we’re going to honor the real stars: these students didn’t just study; they excelled in two or more sports.” By that logic, someone like Charles Steinmetz—whose breakthroughs in electrical engineering helped power America’s industrial rise—wouldn’t qualify as a “real star.” Nor would hundreds of other innovators who fueled America’s prosperity over the last two centuries.

One of the few bright spots in this dismal scenario has been immigrants, who haven’t been immersed for generations in the sort of anti-intellectual culture that prevailed at my high school. In recent years, immigrant families have dominated academic competitions, from spelling bees to science contests. Consider, for example, the surnames of the 2024 U.S. Biology and Chemistry competition teams: Ohshima, Wang, Sun, Song, Chen, Liu, Asthana, Ling. Foreign-born scholars now constitute 60% of engineering and mathematics/computer science doctorate holders.

America: Founded and Built by “Nerds”

Fringe partisans have accused Ramaswamy of attacking “American culture,” but in reality, he’s advocating for a return to the true American culture, a culture that can be traced through the crew-cut guys in my high school all the way back to our Founding Fathers.

The Founding Fathers, who were steeped in Enlightenment ideals of scientific exploration and relentless pursuit of knowledge, all cherished studiousness and the life of the mind:

• Thomas Jefferson: Learned Latin, Greek, and French before he was nine and ultimately spoke six languages. Reveled in the study of architecture, engineering, and botany.

• Benjamin Franklin: Was the quintessential "nerd" of his era, challenging himself to improve his intellect in some way every single day. He invented bifocals, the Franklin stove, and the lightning rod, and spoke five languages.

• John Adams: Spoke four languages as a child, entered Harvard when he was 15, and spent countless hours reading and writing about government theory and law.

• James Madison: Was a gnomish, 5’4, 100lb scholar who meticulously studied ancient governments to design the U.S. Constitution.

• George Washington: Applied the scientific method to agriculture, experimenting with crop rotation and other innovations.

• John Jay: Graduated college at 19; learned four languages before he was ten; intensively studied political philosophy.

These men were closer to modern “nerds” than to quarterbacks or prom queens. Had they been around in the 1970s and attended my high school, they would have been marginalized and probably subjected to wedgies and swirlies.

Silicon Valley: Sustained by Imported Talent

The pioneers of Silicon Valley were cut from the same cloth as the all-American, crew-cut kids in my high school’s forgotten photos. William Shockley, Bill Hewlett, Dave Packard, Robert Noyce, Gordon Moore—these alpha nerds not only created thousands of high-paying jobs but also gave the U.S. a commanding technological edge.

As anti-intellectualism took root, the domestic supply of such innovators dried up. Increasingly, it was immigrants like An Wang (China) and Andy Grove (Hungary) who took the lead. I worked in Silicon Valley in the 1990s, and only one of the dozen companies I joined (Sun Microsystems) had a native-born American founder; even he had immigrant cofounders. I will be forever grateful to those immigrants who gave me highly remunerative opportunities that enabled me to quit my day job while I was still in my 30s.

Today, over half of Silicon Valley’s most valuable companies were founded by immigrants. In the burgeoning field of artificial intelligence, 28 of the top 43 companies were co-founded by immigrants.

The Future: A Cultural Revival

As Vivek suggests, we can maintain America’s position as a global innovator without importing millions of immigrants, but it will require a cultural shift—or, more accurately, a cultural revival. We need to reverse decades of anti-intellectualism and return to the Founders’ Enlightenment-based culture: one that esteems studiousness and relentless pursuit of academic excellence. Until then, we will continue relying on immigrants whose values better align with this American tradition.

To do otherwise risks more than ceding global technological leadership. It means forfeiting millions of highly rewarding jobs, the kind that once empowered individuals like me to achieve financial independence in my 30s. A return to our roots is not just a moral imperative—it’s a strategic necessity.