Snow's Two Cultures was something I loudly cheered
when I first read about its points and for years
afterward.
But now the book and the OP strike me as not well
considered.
Net, the 'humanities' have a role much more
important than is commonly or easily described. It
took me a while to understand this point.
Sure, as an insecure a young nerd facing the world,
both nature and society, I wanted 'control' of my
life, in particular, 'security', and for those
wanted the power of 'truth' and didn't want to
settle for anything less solid than, say, plane
geometry or, in a pinch, mathematical physics. Of
course then only some of this could I articulate.
So, something like 'The Song of Hiawatha' with "By
the shores of Gitche Gumee, By the shining
Big-Sea-Water ..." seemed to me as mostly nonsense
and gibberish and at best maybe something lightly
entertaining but nothing like the 'truth' for the
power I was seeking. And maybe I was correct, but
I'm reluctant to return to that poem to be more
sure!
Eventually I concluded that (1) there is a lot about
the world, where I was trying to get control and
security, that was too complicated and subtle for
mathematics and/or mathematical physics to do me any
good and (2) that part of the world was so important
to my life that, even though I didn't have solid
tools to address it, I still had to handle it in
some sense.
Maybe 'The Song of Hiawatha' wouldn't help me
handle those complexities, but eventually I
discovered that some parts of the humanities could
to at least a useful extent.
Generally my central criticism of the humanities was
that, in strong contrast with mathematics and
mathematical physics, and, really, most of
engineering, technology, medical science, medicine,
and even law, the humanities (1) did not make clear
just what they were claiming was true and (2) for
any claims nearly never provided convincing
evidence. While these remain valid criticisms,
amazingly in places the humanities can be important
nevertheless.
Still, I was often torqued at the humanities: E.g.,
in, say, the English departments, a common claim was
that English literature had a lot of good knowledge
of people and would help readers understand people.
I concluded, and still do, that maybe a little.
Once I discovered the E. Fromm, The Art of Loving,
awash in real practical expertise, well considered
and formulated, about people, I concluded that Fromm
was a good example of progress on information for
understanding people. For more on love
specifically, actually some of the relevant articles
on Wikipedia seem quite good -- at least in places
they have explained some of what I figured out more
or less independently, at enormous cost, and added a
lot more.
So, it is possible to get some understanding of
people, but for this purpose I would mostly set
aside English literature as too thin and/or even
misleading.
For understanding people, I'd say that the most
important contribution of English literature to
understanding people is that some people like English
literature.
The crack in my scorn that got me started with the
humanities classical music. A brilliant person once
said, "Music doesn't mean anything.". Well, maybe,
maybe not, but it still can be useful for someone
wanting to understand people or even themselves,
amazingly.
Classical music was able to 'reach' me in part
because there were usually few or no words to take
literally and, thus, argue with.
Well, it turns out that classical music has
something of a language, especially about human
emotions. If want to understand people, the biggest
chapter is human emotions.
Classical music is an example of a common definition
of art as in the communications, interpretation
of human experience, emotion. Well, it can be easy
enough to find parts of classical music that are
quite effective meeting this definition of art. So,
here there is some progress in understanding humans.
One description of much of the media is vicarious,
escapist, fantasy, emotional experience
entertainment which sounds next to worthless for
the audience and, maybe, is, but we can reduce this
description to vicarious emotional experience and,
then, learn about people by feeling their emotions
-- and art has a lot of this and, thus, can help a
person understand people.
For some value for the audience, good art is
supposed to be universal and, then, often a person
in the audience can see where the art is describing
things much as in their life from which that person
can conclude, "I'm not the only one who has
encountered such a thing. That thing is not unique
to me. Whatever I did to make that thing happen,
others did the same, and maybe some of the main
causes are not really from me.".
E.g., a few weeks ago I did a search for a girl I
knew and fell in love with in high school. Yup, the
Internet showed me a scan of a high school annual
with her picture as a Homecoming Queen candidate.
To me she was always the prettiest human female I
ever saw in person or otherwise. Then many of those
days with her, decades ago, came back to me as if
they were last week. She was my first love and,
apparently, burned into my brain -- I can no more
forget her than I can forget my own name.
Well, we were young: We saw each other for 18
months and started when she was just 12 and in the
seventh grade and I was 14 and in the ninth grade.
I was a nerd, socially awkward, and not good at
understanding the emotions of a young woman, and we
were both afraid of rejection. So we were to afraid
to communicate clearly and accumulated quite a list
of false beliefs about each other that had us making
mistakes in our relationship. At one point, some of
her mistakes got me to draw some seriously wrong
conclusions, and I walked away from her. I don't
think that there was anything seriously wrong, and
everything wrong was based just on
mis-communications, My heart was broken, and I later
discovered that so was hers.
Then there's Wagner's opera Lohengrin, first
performed in 1850, about a knight, Lohengrin, of the
Holy Grail who marries sweet Elsa. Yes, the Wagner
"Bridal Chorus" or "Wedding March" music is from
their marriage in that opera. Elsa is misled by an
evil witch, makes a mistake, and Lohengrin is forced
to walk away from his new bride.
So, Lohengrin told me that I was not the first guy
to walk away from the young woman he loved and that
such things go back to at least 1850.
Also, Lohengrin and I made similar mistakes: We
asked too much of the understanding of our women and
should have had arranged a less 'brittle' situation.
Nerd guys: Listen up here and learn.
As good art communicates emotions about the human
experience, members of the audience can begin to
learn more about other people.
The best art, in the humanities, can be astoundingly
effective in communicating about humans; we don't
want to be without the results; and technical fields
are so far no substitutes.
> we don't want to be without the results; and technical fields are so far no substitutes.
True enough, for now. Once our understanding of human psychiatry is more complete, a much more accurate model will hopefully be possible. Of course getting a true understanding of another's mental state at any point in time to simulate the model forward to predict their next behavior will be the hard part. Even doing such forward prediction with the (compared to biological brains) toy computers we have today is already almost impossible if one wants absolute certainty.[1]
Of course one can view all artistic observations of human behaviors so far as a sort of an indirect empirical guide to human behavioral patterns.
Although it is often to the frequent irritation of those of us not blessed with a natural abundance of social skills that those who have the understanding allowing them to write down such observations are also often unable to understand that others do not possess their same social talents and that therefore many unspoken assumptions need to indeed be spoken up of.
[1] Computers are of course 100% predictable, short of a true random # generator plugged into the side, but there is a large gulf of difference between "theoretically doable" and "here is a state frozen 8GB 3.2GHZ desktop PC, tell me what is going to happen next without booting it up."
Yup. And had I known that, been able,
in verbal, emotional, psychological,
and social skills,
to have acted on it, and done so at all well, then
as soon as that girl I knew in high
school, starting when she was 12, was
out of high school and I was out of
college, we would have gotten married
and my life would have been much different
and quite likely much better.
Side
point: High school first love is
not necessarily just a joke, just
an unwelcome threat of too much
emotional involvement, an unmarried
pregnancy,
or something just
to be thrown away. In particular,
a lot of high school girls will get
married at the traditional time,
in June after their high school graduation,
so that from age 12 to marriage she
is short of time to learn about young
men, find some good catches, pick one,
build a relationship, after trashing
a few,
go steady, and get engaged, all in
time for her high school graduation.
To nerd boys talking to girls: Don't
just play Anatomy 101 Hands on Lab,
contact comfort cuddling, caring about
her and protecting her, joining your
life with hers, etc. and in addition
be sufficiently articulate and clear
with, right, a natural language, e.g.,
English, to eliminate "many unspoken
assumptions". Else your communications
can be poor leading to misunderstandings,
that is, she can accumulate a list of
things about you that are wildly false,
and similarly for you about her. Then
after a few weeks of you two acting on
those misunderstandings, your relationship
can be in real trouble. That's what
that girl and I did; there was actually
nothing really wrong, but the misunderstandings
ruined our relationship.
Realize some emotions she likely has: First
being a girl, her emotions are likely more
intense than yours. E.g., she has
emotions about pregnancy, if she gets pregnant
some really strong, good emotions if she
wants to be pregnant and some really strong,
bad emotions if she doesn't. Second, learn
to read her emotions in her facial expressions.
Sorry, guys, even if you are a normal male
and not a nerd, from birth she is an
astoundingly talented and devoted reader of
facial expressions while you are thinking
about the posts in the crib, how the latch
mechanism works, how to escape to get to the
toy firetruck on the floor (not really
a joke), and how to control it via C++ code.
She does a lot of communicating
with facial expressions. Third, with
her strong emotions, and because she is
a girl and generally more vulnerable to
"the hostile forces of nature and society"
than you are, she tends to be afraid.
Indeed, serious anxiety disease is much
more common for human females (maybe 4:1) than
in males. So, one thing you should do,
and that you might get hugs, kisses, and
more for, is to help her with her fears,
i.e., provide her with some emotional
security. The relationship is not
all about hands on lab.
Fourth, one thing she is afraid of is
being rejected by you. If you are a mean
guy, then you may be able to exploit this
to your (likely only short term)
advantage and manipulate her to
be intimidated, subordinate, subservient,
subjugated, etc. (you don't really
want that, do you?). If you are a nicer guy,
then you will give her some of the highly
coveted emotional security of letting
her know you are not about to reject her --
right, she might take advantage of this,
feel entitled, take you for granted,
and abuse your effort. To know,
read her emotions. Fifth, to help her
with the emotions closer to your
relationship, use the famous three
little words, "I love you", sometimes
a lot. And, "say it with flowers" or
some such things. Else she can be
afraid that you are drifting away from
her. Sixth, realize that she's a
mammal (not just a joke about her bust line)
and, like all baby mammals (even
though she is not exactly still a baby)
she does not (emphasize this with
flashing letters and some huge font
size) want to feel alone -- for her
to feel alone can be just terrifying to
her. Indeed, one reason for cell phones
is so that girls can continue to gossip
while mobile, and they gossip
(may I have the envelope please) so that
they don't feel alone, so that they
feel acceptance and approval from membership
in a group that they get by bringing
the group juicy tidbits of gossip (read some
D. Tannen, long at Georgetown) --
built one of a heck of cell phone and
smart phone industry. Seventh, when
everything does hit the fan, slow
down, calm down, back down, relax,
count slowly to 20, maybe type in all
your thoughts and review them 24 hours
later, maybe even days later,
etc., and see how to correct
the situation. In all of this, be
highly aware of her emotions. Did
I mention the importance of her emotions?
Maybe use some reflective
listening techniques ("What I heard you
explain was ...; is this about right?")
also intended for good parenting of
children and likely also useful if
you are CEO of a startup.
There's more.
Maybe I will get a blog and post a
more complete and better organized
presentation.
But for this thread, at least for now, some parts of
the humanities can be crucial for
understanding people.
But now the book and the OP strike me as not well considered.
Net, the 'humanities' have a role much more important than is commonly or easily described. It took me a while to understand this point.
Sure, as an insecure a young nerd facing the world, both nature and society, I wanted 'control' of my life, in particular, 'security', and for those wanted the power of 'truth' and didn't want to settle for anything less solid than, say, plane geometry or, in a pinch, mathematical physics. Of course then only some of this could I articulate.
So, something like 'The Song of Hiawatha' with "By the shores of Gitche Gumee, By the shining Big-Sea-Water ..." seemed to me as mostly nonsense and gibberish and at best maybe something lightly entertaining but nothing like the 'truth' for the power I was seeking. And maybe I was correct, but I'm reluctant to return to that poem to be more sure!
Eventually I concluded that (1) there is a lot about the world, where I was trying to get control and security, that was too complicated and subtle for mathematics and/or mathematical physics to do me any good and (2) that part of the world was so important to my life that, even though I didn't have solid tools to address it, I still had to handle it in some sense.
Maybe 'The Song of Hiawatha' wouldn't help me handle those complexities, but eventually I discovered that some parts of the humanities could to at least a useful extent.
Generally my central criticism of the humanities was that, in strong contrast with mathematics and mathematical physics, and, really, most of engineering, technology, medical science, medicine, and even law, the humanities (1) did not make clear just what they were claiming was true and (2) for any claims nearly never provided convincing evidence. While these remain valid criticisms, amazingly in places the humanities can be important nevertheless.
Still, I was often torqued at the humanities: E.g., in, say, the English departments, a common claim was that English literature had a lot of good knowledge of people and would help readers understand people. I concluded, and still do, that maybe a little.
Once I discovered the E. Fromm, The Art of Loving, awash in real practical expertise, well considered and formulated, about people, I concluded that Fromm was a good example of progress on information for understanding people. For more on love specifically, actually some of the relevant articles on Wikipedia seem quite good -- at least in places they have explained some of what I figured out more or less independently, at enormous cost, and added a lot more.
So, it is possible to get some understanding of people, but for this purpose I would mostly set aside English literature as too thin and/or even misleading.
For understanding people, I'd say that the most important contribution of English literature to understanding people is that some people like English literature.
The crack in my scorn that got me started with the humanities classical music. A brilliant person once said, "Music doesn't mean anything.". Well, maybe, maybe not, but it still can be useful for someone wanting to understand people or even themselves, amazingly.
Classical music was able to 'reach' me in part because there were usually few or no words to take literally and, thus, argue with.
Well, it turns out that classical music has something of a language, especially about human emotions. If want to understand people, the biggest chapter is human emotions.
Classical music is an example of a common definition of art as in the communications, interpretation of human experience, emotion. Well, it can be easy enough to find parts of classical music that are quite effective meeting this definition of art. So, here there is some progress in understanding humans.
One description of much of the media is vicarious, escapist, fantasy, emotional experience entertainment which sounds next to worthless for the audience and, maybe, is, but we can reduce this description to vicarious emotional experience and, then, learn about people by feeling their emotions -- and art has a lot of this and, thus, can help a person understand people.
For some value for the audience, good art is supposed to be universal and, then, often a person in the audience can see where the art is describing things much as in their life from which that person can conclude, "I'm not the only one who has encountered such a thing. That thing is not unique to me. Whatever I did to make that thing happen, others did the same, and maybe some of the main causes are not really from me.".
E.g., a few weeks ago I did a search for a girl I knew and fell in love with in high school. Yup, the Internet showed me a scan of a high school annual with her picture as a Homecoming Queen candidate. To me she was always the prettiest human female I ever saw in person or otherwise. Then many of those days with her, decades ago, came back to me as if they were last week. She was my first love and, apparently, burned into my brain -- I can no more forget her than I can forget my own name.
Well, we were young: We saw each other for 18 months and started when she was just 12 and in the seventh grade and I was 14 and in the ninth grade.
I was a nerd, socially awkward, and not good at understanding the emotions of a young woman, and we were both afraid of rejection. So we were to afraid to communicate clearly and accumulated quite a list of false beliefs about each other that had us making mistakes in our relationship. At one point, some of her mistakes got me to draw some seriously wrong conclusions, and I walked away from her. I don't think that there was anything seriously wrong, and everything wrong was based just on mis-communications, My heart was broken, and I later discovered that so was hers.
Then there's Wagner's opera Lohengrin, first performed in 1850, about a knight, Lohengrin, of the Holy Grail who marries sweet Elsa. Yes, the Wagner "Bridal Chorus" or "Wedding March" music is from their marriage in that opera. Elsa is misled by an evil witch, makes a mistake, and Lohengrin is forced to walk away from his new bride.
So, Lohengrin told me that I was not the first guy to walk away from the young woman he loved and that such things go back to at least 1850.
Also, Lohengrin and I made similar mistakes: We asked too much of the understanding of our women and should have had arranged a less 'brittle' situation.
Nerd guys: Listen up here and learn.
As good art communicates emotions about the human experience, members of the audience can begin to learn more about other people.
The best art, in the humanities, can be astoundingly effective in communicating about humans; we don't want to be without the results; and technical fields are so far no substitutes.
Took me a while to see these points.