Luddites revisited 2

[Paul Mackin]

On Sun, 2005-03-20 at 22:09 +0100, Otto wrote: (pointing to a critique
of Snow)


"Snow did though tip toe right up to the edge of a profound truth in his
metaphor of the two cultures.  Because while the scientists and the
intellectuals (now we speak of the real intellectuals, those of the
Left) share a common optimism, they do not any longer have any way of
communicating with each other and, more importantly, neither any longer
communicates with the rest of us.  This is so because of an unnecessary
but understandable sequence of events.  As Snow notes, as late as say
the 1850s, any reasonably well-educated, well-read, inquisitive man
could speak knowledgeably about both science and the arts.  Man knew
little enough that it was still possible for one to know nearly
everything that was known and to have been exposed to all the religion,
art, history--culture in general--that mattered.  But then with the pure
science revolution of which Snow spoke--in biology and chemistry, but
most of all in physics--suddenly a great deal of specialized training
and education was necessary before one could be knowledgeable in each
field.  Like priests of some ancient cult, scientists were separated out
from the mass of men, elevated above them by their access to secret
knowledge.  Even more annoying was the fact that even though they had
moved beyond what the rest of us could readily understand, they could
still listen to Bach or read Shakespeare and discuss it intelligently.
The reaction of their peers in the arts, or those who had been their
peers, was to make their own fields of expertise as obscure as possible.
If Picasso couldn't understand particle physics, he sure as hell wasn't
going to paint anything comprehensible, and if Joyce couldn't pick up a
scientific journal and read it, then no one was going to be able to read
his books either.  And so grew the two cultures, the one real, the other
manufactured, but both with elaborate and often counterintuitive
theories, requiring years of study."

> http://www.brothersjudd.com/index.cfm/fuseaction/reviews.detail/book_id/991/Two%20Cultures.htm

Good enough as far as it goes but of course it's possible to look at the
communication gulf between science and the humanities in a completely
different way from how Snow (and in turn the quoted writer) did. What if
Snow had tested  his gathering of non-science intellectuals with
something closer to home, something having nothing at all do do with
science, For example, what is it in Hamlet that helps provide MEANING TO
HUMAN EXISTENCE. Or, describe why Shakespeare's supreme work has SOUL.
I honestly don't think the answers given would been very satisfying to
any of us or to any scientists who happened to be listening from behind
the door. It would have been a bunch of gibberish, wouldn't it? The
amount of communication going on would have been close to nil. The thing
of it is, scientists down through the ages have learned to talk to each
other with a certain degree of precision, but unfortunately this skill
hasn't been transferable to questions of the meaning of existence and
such things as that. So why shouldn't the humanists be "luddites"--not
particularly with regard to the Industrial Revolution but with regard to
the scientific method itself.  What has science ever done in aid of the
really DEEP questions. 

Everybody knows this isn't the way things ought to be--in the best of
all possible worlds. It would be nice if not only humanists could talk
to scientists but that humanist could talk to each other. Really talk,
and mean something.  Of course the question has been studied into the
ground.  Ulrich, the protagonist of Musil's The Man Without Qualities
longs mightily and with a great deal of verbiage  for some kind of
melding of "Precision" and "Soul" but to little or no avail.