Most people, and particularly teachers, don’t like it much.
I hadn’t thought about it before, but I think that this is one of the reasons that people can’t let go of the Apollo cargo cult. They see doing it in any other way as too risky, even though it has been thoroughly demonstrated that the big-rocket approach is unaffordable.
The Innovator (A Pharaoh Speaks)
I SAID, “Why should a pyramid
Stand always dully on its base?
I’ll change it! Let the top by hid,
The bottom take the apex-place!”
And as I bade they did.
The people flocked in, scores on scores,
To see it balance on its tip.
They praised me with the praise that bores,
My godlike mind on every lip.
–Until it fell, of course.
And then they took my body out
From my crushed palace, mad with rage,
–Well, half the town was wrecked, no doubt–
Their crazy anger to assuage
By dragging it about.
The end? Foul birds defile my skull.
The new king’s praises fill the land.
He clings to precepts, simple, dull;
His pyramids on bases stand.
But–Lord, how usual!
Stephen Vincent Benet, 1918