BUT there's something suspect about SONG's grand vision. It's unlikely that a higher regard for intellectual achievement is a panacea for declining American economic competitiveness.
The Geeks' thesis is an odd combination of old-fashioned conservative thinking--just change attitudes and everything else will follow--and nouveau Nerd militancy. They challenge the orthodox liberal view of education; instead of radical legislative action, the Nerds want a cultural catharsis. But their solution misses the point on several issues.
SONG is playing a chicken-and-egg game. Do Nerds become Nerds because of social ostracization, or do they suffer ostracization because of their nerdiness. SONG would claim the latter. A Nerd, as they tacitly define it (they never do so explicitly, preferring to keep membership wide open) is a lover of knowledge who suffers socially because of it.
Might the Geeks have it backwards? Tomorrow's Nerds may enter the world predisposed to intellectual pursuits, but their minds are still tabula rasa. Might it be the social humiliation they suffer--a result of funny looks, facial blemishes, body odor or one of a thousand other causes--which steers them away from crowds and towards libraries?
If this is so--and it certainly is in many cases--then the Nerds shouldn't be railing against their own persecution. They should be grateful for it, because it makes them what they are.
SONG members are also rather naive to think that a cultural elevation of the intellectual is the cure-all for economic stagnation. In the Soviet Union, a university professorship is among the most revered occupations, and Soviet schoolchildren often aspire to a life of academia.
Yet the entire country (with the exception of the military) is suffocating in a technological vacuum. According to a delegate of a U.S. computer exhibit in the Soviet Union, many Russians are amazed when they first see that a Xerox machine "knows" how to copy the Russian alphabet.
The USSR (and there are plenty of other examples) demonstrates that however much the pursuit of knowledge is revered, political forces play a critical role in fostering or impeding economic success.
For all its faults, the SONG Manifesto is a eye-opening document. And before SONG's celebrity status disappears in a puff of chalk smoke, they may just succeed in bringing American antiintellectualism down a notch or two.