Paging Alan Jacobs
I’ve been waiting for an opportunity to tempt you back to The American Scene. And I’ve finally found an article in your wheelhouse that justifies a response in excess of 140 characters. Can you resist weighing in on this provocation?
UPDATE: Despite popular demand for his unique style of learned commentary and insights, Professor Jacobs declines to take this story on. My own reaction is going to be less enlightening, but I do have something to say about this excerpt:
The annual meetings of the Modern Language Association have become somber opportunities for scholars to engage in painful rituals of self-diagnosis and confessions of despair. In 2006, Marjorie Perloff, then president of the organization and herself a productive and learned critic, admonished her colleagues that, unlike other members of the university community, they might well have been plying their trade without proper credentials: “Whereas economists or physicists, geologists or climatologists, physicians or lawyers must master a body of knowledge before they can even think of being licensed to practice,” she said, “we literary scholars, it is tacitly assumed, have no definable expertise.”
Perhaps the most telling sign of the near bankruptcy of the discipline is the silence from within its ranks. In the face of one skeptical and disenchanted critique after another, no one has come forward in years to assert that the study of English (or comparative literature or similar undertakings in other languages) is coherent, does have self-limiting boundaries, and can be described as this but not that.
Such silence strongly suggests a complicity of understanding, with the practitioners in agreement that to teach English today is to do, intellectually, what one pleases. No sense of duty remains toward works of English or American literature; amateur sociology or anthropology or philosophy or comic books or studies of trauma among soldiers or survivors of the Holocaust will do. You need not even believe that works of literature have intelligible meaning; you can announce that they bear no relationship at all to the world beyond the text. Nor do you need to believe that literary history is helpful in understanding the books you teach; history itself can be shucked aside as misleading, irrelevant, or even unknowable. In short, there are few, if any, fixed rules or operating principles to which those teaching English and American literature are obliged to conform. With everything on the table, and with foundational principles abandoned, everyone is free, in the classroom or in prose, to exercise intellectual laissez-faire in the largest possible way—I won’t interfere with what you do and am happy to see that you will return the favor. Yet all around them a rich literature exists, extraordinary books to be taught to younger minds.
As someone who aspired to be a writer, consumed novels with passion and enjoyment, completed the high school English honors track, and received the highest marks on the AP exam, it strikes me as strange in hindsight that I didn’t even consider an English major in college.
But I know the reason.
In high school, honors English students are graded largely on essays written about whatever books the class is assigned. On the whole, I studied under teachers who used those essays to improve certain aspects of my writing — upon graduation from high school I could capably organize a long essay, deploy literary devices in my prose, and polish my syntax to a sheen. I also learned that the substance of what I wrote mattered hardly at all. Perhaps I would’ve gotten points off for being logically inconsistent. Assigned an essay on a given novel, however, I could garner an A irrespective of the interpretation I offered, even when I believed my own interpretation to be utter bullshit. It hardly mattered how outlandish were my claims. I played on a competitive athletic team in high school, so I’d often get home at 7 or 8pm, dead tired from practice, facing 5 or 6 hours of homework. One assignment might be an 10 page paper on Beloved based on some essay prompt, and requiring that at least 5 quotes from the test were used to back up one’s argument. More often than not, I’d open the book, look for places where I’d starred or highlighted a paragraph (or even where previous owners of the book had highlighted!) and write whatever was required to incorporate those particular passages into some coherent argument.
Understand that I never myself believed that all interpretations of a work were equally valid, or that serious, no bullshit analysis wasn’t a worthwhile enterprise — I just didn’t have the time for it, given five AP classes, a 35 minute drive to school, and a tennis team competitive in California’s state playoffs. So I didn’t stop reading serious literature. But I did conclude that I wasn’t getting anything in English class that I couldn’t get reading a novel myself, delving into a few pieces of criticism, and mulling things over.
When I went to Pomona College I sorta hoped that the English courses there would be better, and in truth I didn’t investigate enough to make a judgment about whether or not they are, but I remember thinking as a freshman — having audited a couple English courses — that the conversation seemed just as empty of any notion that some interpretations of a novel are wrong. I figured that majoring in Politics, Philosophy and Economics, I’d glean more benefit from professors, and learn stuff I wouldn’t be able to manage on my own. If I had it to do again, I’d probably major in history, force myself to get through more than one semester of statistics, only take introductory classes in micro and macro-economics, pick and choose a few politics and philosophy classes, and spend the rest of my time taking English classes, but I’ve got a lot more discipline now than I did then.
Dear Conor,
Yes.
‘kay, Bye!
— Alan Jacobs · Oct 3, 12:39 PM · #
This article has been coming out every ten years for the past 60 and will continue to do so long, long in the future.
— Freddie · Oct 3, 06:25 PM · #
Once every ten years doesn’t seem so often to me — I wasn’t reading The American Scholar when I was 19.
— Conor Friedersdorf · Oct 3, 07:06 PM · #
But no science at all? That’s a curious omission. How did we get to the point where a person can consider himself “well-educated” having not once actually learned anything about how physical reality actually works?
— Chet · Oct 3, 07:26 PM · #
Chet and I agree: science is as important as the humanities when building correct perspective, if not more so
Of course, you can do what a lot of people do. Take free online classes at OpenCourseWare and AcademicEarth, watch lectures at Princeton, MIT and Stanford, find a syllabus and do it yourself, email professors for reading lists and commentary, rape google scholar, etc. For a man who wants to know, now is the best time ever in every sense possible.
On the primary subject of the post, I’m pretty much with Bloom. Whatever else literary scholars do, they should take the time to suggest and defend a canon with an eye toward building perspective and depth in the reader.
— Kristoffer V. Sargent · Oct 3, 07:55 PM · #
I took AP physics, honors chemistry, and honors biology in high school, and I can’t say I ever wanted to take any more science courses, though I do enjoy books on those subjects written for “non-majors,” as they say.
I agree that knowledge of science is important to be an educated person — but what kinds of knowledge of science, would you say? What’s your suggested curriculum?
— Conor Friedersdorf · Oct 3, 08:06 PM · #
Physics, biology (from the top and from the bottom, that is, genetics/biochemistry and ecology), some sociology and psychology. (No offense to geologists and chemists and the rest.) I’m not particularly impressed by high school science courses, given how many honors biology-in-high-school freshmen had to be told what a Punnett Square was in Bio 101.
Look, you wouldn’t think that your high school exposure to history, economics, and philosophy were a sufficient education in those fields (hence, you’d study them further in college.) And really, isn’t it an indication of the complete failure of your high school science education that you didn’t have any interest in more education in those fields in college?
Isn’t that exactly what our high schools are known for failing at, in fact? Science and math education? Isn’t that part of why we have a majority population of adults who outright deny the central theory of biology?
To get back to the article – I don’t see that what Majorie Perloff is saying is any less true of theology, philosophy, or economics – fields that are similarly not naturally-bounded nor suffused with any particular rigor. English/literature studies, at least, has the advantage of not setting itself up as an “ology”; as a means of studying real things in the real world. English, at least, doesn’t pretend that Moby Dick was an actual whale.
— Chet · Oct 3, 08:31 PM · #
“I took AP physics, honors chemistry, and honors biology in high school, and I can’t say I ever wanted to take any more science courses, though I do enjoy books on those subjects written for “non-majors,” as they say.”
I have a hard time imagining if I told “educated” folks “I didn’t take any lit or english courses in college, but I was in the AP english section in high school,” that they wouldn’t do anything but laugh at me, likely to my face. (FWIW, at least 75% of the guys who came with HS AP physics washed out the physics class I took in college.)Basic curriculum? The chemistry section, not chemistry appreciation, usually 200 level in the catalog. Probably the same for bio (I didn’t do it, which is a gap in my education. Kreb’s cycle?) For physics, you have to do the w/calculus section or you’re doing physics, you’re just doing longish algebra word problems. At my school that meant 221-223 instead of 201-203)
There was a book a few years ago about the history of the split between science and criticism, and the resulting effect on culture. Can’t remember the name but the basic thesis was that scientist aren’t much interested in contemporary criticism because it’s all glib argument and no new knowledge, and critics aren’t interested in science (or what scientists think) because science is now regarded (in the critics’ world) as a hyper-trade, and not real education.
Anyway, yeah, more math and science.
Can’t comment on primary subject of the post because I had more or less teh same experience with English in HS as Conor (not the time shortage, but the not taking the ideas seriously.) But my response was that I simply stopped doing the reading or the writing. That got me kicked out of AP and into bonehead, and from their into remedial. I’ve got a BS underpinning my BFA because when I was in school I wanted as little to do with literature and critique. IIRC, I took two english classes, one lit class and one or two history classes. Yes, shocking, I know, and no longer a source of pride.
— Tony Comstock · Oct 3, 08:31 PM · #
Re: science as a hyper-trade – That may not be a bad way to look at it. What I find interesting is that, as a scientist, it’s easy to graduate fairly debt-free into lucrative employment, because graduate research assistantships pay a wage as well as waving tuition, and the best science education often comes from the cheaper (and larger) public university system.
Whereas, English majors go to private schools, rack up incredible debt to pay for undergrad and graduate school, and then graduate into basically no employment prospects in their field of expertise. At least doctors and lawyers seem to have it balanced – sure, they rack up the debt but the salary pays it off (more or less.) Is that about right? Can you graduate with a JD or an MD without a ton of debt?
— Chet · Oct 3, 08:42 PM · #
I think from the critics’ point of view, science is a “hyper-trade” because it (ultimately) doesn’t produce ideas that can be argued about. I think that’s why non-science intellectuals are so interested in cosmology; you can play around with the ideas without having any grasp of the science behind them. I have a growing suspicion that’s why they like neuroscience so much. I’ll admit to being tempted by the same fruit. For an artist, my science background is pretty good. But mostly that just means I feel entitled to say “Oh, what a pretty idea! That’s sort of like this movie I made!”
— Tony Comstock · Oct 3, 08:49 PM · #
The frame I would use is borrowed from Bacon and Hume: learn the Science of Man.
But that’s really general. For me, I focused on three general areas: all the way up, all the way down, all the way in. Particular things that you can access online? Cosmology and Astronomy, for sure. Feynman on physics. MIT’s Brain and Cognitive Science curriculum is a great. Koch’s Biology of Consciousness lectures. Mandelbrot’s MIT lecture. If you know a little math, do fluid dynamics, probability theory and learn as much as you can about algorithms — maybe the most important conceptual foundations of all. Definitely dig into complexity, living systems, and networks, if only the general concepts. Einstein, of course, Turing and Shannon. Read Dawkins’ academic work. Familiarize yourself with Westermarck vs. Freud. Wittgenstein and Godel, too, though that might just be me.
Maybe the most important thing to do: look at this picture for hours and days, and try to learn everything there is to know about it.
Study Wilczek and Asymptotic Freedom. Understand why Susskind won his debate with Hawking. Read through the recent debates between Susskind and Smolin, particularly on the Anthropic Principle, Multiverse, Eternal Inflation and the Constants of Nature.
Read Kahneman, Stanovich, Luna, Frolich and Oppenheimer. And so on.
— Kristoffer V. Sargent · Oct 3, 09:13 PM · #
Not anymore.
— Kristoffer V. Sargent · Oct 3, 09:16 PM · #
And game theory, particular core strategies vs. Nash Equilibria. But for God’s sake don’t start masturbating with tit for tat like Matoko did.
— Kristoffer V. Sargent · Oct 3, 09:21 PM · #
That’d be news to scientists, I suspect.
— Chet · Oct 3, 09:26 PM · #
Comte, Popper, Quine, Davidson, Kuhn and maybe even Feyerabend, though I think he is way way over rated and kind of a dolt.
— Kristoffer V. Sargent · Oct 3, 09:31 PM · #
Yes, all of a sudden every electronic item in my house ceased to function because someone came out with a brilliant new critique of Shockley.
You really can’t help yourself, can you Chet?
— Tony Comstock · Oct 3, 09:43 PM · #
..what? I’m sorry, if you think you’re communicating a point, you’re completely mistaken. This is utterly unintelligible, and seems completely unrelated to your risible suggestion that there is no debate about ideas in science.
— Chet · Oct 3, 09:46 PM · #
You know, it doesn’t matter how often people use the word risible here at TAS, I still have to go look it up every time.
— Tony Comstock · Oct 3, 09:53 PM · #
It’s tough, Conor, because this is exactly the take that you hear all the time from people who aren’t in English, so I can’t blame you specifically. But these complaints are almost exactly wrong, and if anything, formal English study at the graduate level is gasping for a more loose definition of what is valid interpretation— that in the desperately enforced rigor of spiraling exclusivity and a truly brutal game of numbers when it comes to employment, there is no sense of intellectual play. Like you say, though you haven’t really had exposure at the next level, so it’s hard for you to judge. I just wish you had a little more faith in an entire profession of dedicated scholars than you appear to do.
Chet and I agree: science is as important as the humanities when building correct perspective, if not more so
Both are essential, for citizens and scholars, and one thing I wish more people outside of the academy understood is how much more engaged and educated people in the humanities are in science than is popularly assumed.
— Freddie · Oct 3, 11:27 PM · #
I agree with the posters who say you need more science. I disagree with the science they recommend. Take organismic biology! By which I mean ornithology, entomology, parasitology, botany, ichthyology, malacology, mammalogy, herpetology, virology … anything that will get you to really look at what the other creatures sharng this planet actually do with their lives. Nothing will expand your imagination more, or make you a better neighbor to the rest of creation.
And take human physiology. Everyone ought to know something about how their body works – besides, it’s interesting.
— Pat · Oct 4, 03:25 AM · #
Freddie, I think Marjorie Perloff, at least, is exactly right. I’m not sure whether I agree with your assertion that only certain kinds of interpretations are considered valid (I might agree if you replaced the word “valid” with the word “marketable”), but Perloff’s lament is not about the looseness of interpretations, but about the looseness of English literature as a subject or discipline. If she’s wrong and you’re right, tell me this: what is the particular body of knowledge that the scholar of English literature is assumed to have mastered?
I went to a very good grad school in English literature, and I encountered fellow grad students who had only a glancing familiarity with Shakespeare and had never read Chaucer and Milton. Exactly what body of knowledge is it that we literature types are all supposed to have mastered?
— Kate Marie · Oct 4, 03:33 AM · #
I’ve been reading about austrailian aborigines and how certain members of their society were qualified to tell certain important stories to initiates conveying knowledge that the initiates need to be adult members of their society. It seems like english literature used to be very similar. It was all about transmiting this shared knowledge—the canon and the accepted interpretations—to initiates. Maybe changes in our society forced changes in our use of stories.
— cw · Oct 4, 05:53 AM · #
Part of the problem with the assumption that all English students should be generalists is that it is contrary to the “hive mind” vision of human knowledge. It is to the benefit of the academy, of the human intellectual endeavor, to have a multitude of individuals with highly specific knowledge, rather than a whole bunch of generalists. This way, when someone needs highly specific knowledge, it’s available, in journal articles and books and lectures. This has been the standard in the sciences for a long time now. Having microbiologists who aren’t just specialists in the study of yeasts but in the study of specific yeasts is better for the aggregate knowledge of the human species. And, yes, this is to the detriment of a broader understanding of the field in general, and at the cost, to some degree, of mutual intelligibility. That microbiologist is unlikely to be fully versed in the latest developments of string theory or electrical engineering. But that doesn’t have a negative impact on the greater pursuit of scholarship, because other people are.
It’s similar in English. It is better for us to have someone whose individual pursuit is New Historicist analysis of 19th century French lyric poets because the collective benefits more from that specific field of knowledge being available to whoever needs it than for that person to have read every great book but have new statements to make about none of them. The question is, what is the purpose of the academic endeavor? If it’s to satisfy aesthetic considerations of what being a scholar should mean, or to produce well-rounded men of letters who are jacks of all trades and masters of none, then sure, English isn’t working. But neither are any other fields in the academy. If, rather, the goal is to follow the paths of human intellectual endeavor wherever they lead us and to explore each avenue with as much rigor and depth as we can, then I think we’re doing okay.
It’s inevitable, Katie, that we’ll both revert back to our individual experience, and I don’t think that will benefit either of us. I don’t want to question your experience. All I can say is that, in my experience, I can’t imagine an English doctoral candidate without a thorough understanding of Shakespeare. But even beyond that, I think the point has to be made that there could never be one canon that everyone is expected to be proficient in without excluding an awful lot of brilliant and teachable literature. The question, to my mind, isn’t what everyone has read, but how everyone reads what they do read. The shared experience shouldn’t, and perhaps can’t, be one of content, but rather one of process. And that’s why I chafe at Conor’s reading of the field— whatever problems English has, a lack of analytical rigor is not one of them.
— Freddie · Oct 4, 03:57 PM · #
Freddie, I’m not arguing that all English majors should be generalists, but that unless they have some common general knowledge of English literature, it’s very hard to define what the discipline is about. The microbiologist isn’t expected to be an expert in all scientific fields, but is expected to have some basic grounding/expertise in the field of biology.
Beyond that, is there a shared experience of process in English? If so, what is it? You yourself were just complaining that what’s considered a valid interpretation of a text in the field is too constricting. It seems to me the microbiologist can describe both what expertise any microbiologist should have and the kinds of processes/inquiries/researches which would be considered valid.
P.S. I must quibble with your description of the English specialist and point out that she/he would not be studying 19th century French lyric poets at all.
— Kate Marie · Oct 4, 04:43 PM · #
I can’t imagine that many English graduate students come out of accredited programs without a working knowledge of decon, New Historicism, psychoanalytic theory, feminist theory, queer theory, Marxist and post-Marxist….
I must quibble with your description of the English specialist and point out that she/he would not be studying 19th century French lyric poets at all.
Actually, I used that example because I am helping a friend copy edit and revise her dissertation (at an Ivy league program), and it’s about French lyric poetry. (Although not New Historicism.) She’s in English, not comp lit. My understanding is that this sort of thing is usually possible if you have a fairly understanding department and a U with fairly malleable graduation requirements. But you’re right, it was a poorly chosen example.
— Freddie · Oct 4, 05:04 PM · #
I’m enjoying the discussion between Freddie and Kate (I’m a failed English major) and I don’t want to derail it, but I had a sudden thought about a strange asymmetry:
Not that these are bad things to do, or bad resources, but consider: learning and doing science is a hell of a lot harder than learning and doing literary criticism.
Shouldn’t science be the thing you study formally in college, where the help and guidance of expert professors and tutors is available, and lit criticism be the thing you pick up on your own from popular books and online lectures?
To some extent, I just don’t understand this attitude that an amateur literary education isn’t something to be proud of and could never qualify you as a “man of letters”, but that an amateur science education not only is completely reasonable and admirable, qualifies you to hold forth on scientific topics, but is the absolute best we could expect from people who aren’t going to be employed in the sciences or medicine. Isn’t that how we get members of Congress up there saying that “methane isn’t a carcinogen” during debates on climate change legislation?
— Chet · Oct 4, 05:43 PM · #
For what it’s worth, it’s quite possible, and common in fact, to obtain a doctorate in English without knowing much at all about Chaucer, Shakespeare, or Milton on the one hand, or about post-structuralism, feminism, queer theory, psychoanalysis, Marxism, or New Historicism, et al, on the other hand.
Judge that fact as you will
PS: It’s quite wrong for Freddie to claim that writing an English dissertation on French poetry or on any other sort of literature in a language other than English is typical at all in the field. I would not want to be Freddie’s friend looking for a job teaching English literature on the basis of a dissertation on French literature — especially in the midst of this recession, which has made a bad academic market in English even worse than it usually is.
— HB · Oct 4, 07:30 PM · #
PS: It’s quite wrong for Freddie to claim that writing an English dissertation on French poetry or on any other sort of literature in a language other than English is typical at all in the field.
That’s interesting— please find, and quote, where I said such a thing was typical. Take your time.
For what it’s worth, it’s quite possible, and common in fact, to obtain a doctorate in English without knowing much at all about Chaucer, Shakespeare, or Milton on the one hand, or about post-structuralism, feminism, queer theory, psychoanalysis, Marxism, or New Historicism, et al, on the other hand.
For what it’s worth, I assert the opposite of what you have just asserted. And one’s as good as the other. Judge that fact as you will. (Please note the use of a period to finish a sentence. That’s the sort of insider info you learn in English school.)
— Freddie · Oct 4, 08:00 PM · #
I can’t imagine that many English graduate students come out of accredited programs without a working knowledge of decon, New Historicism, psychoanalytic theory, feminist theory, queer theory, Marxist and post-Marxist…
By that rubric, Freddie, T.S. Eliot, Henry James, Hazlitt, Matthew Arnold — indeed, most of the great literary critics in history — wouldn’t make it out of accredited programs without doing a lot of catch-up work. Your characterization of the area of general expertise expected of most English Ph.D’s is both remarkly content-free and, for lack of a better phrase, remarkly presentist. If an English grad’s expertise consists in knowing how to do particular kinds of sometimes faddish twentieth century critiques (and, believe me, I’ve bullshitted with the best of ‘em), I think the discipline has lost a sense of its raison d’etre. Why are those kinds of processes/critiques inextricably tied to English literature? Why not get rid of English and have a Department of Literary Criticism?
You’re correct that this discussion is inevitably going to depend on impressions, rather than empirical evidence. Or maybe I’m just too lazy to look into what evidence is actually out there.
— Kate Marie · Oct 4, 08:26 PM · #
Your characterization of the area of general expertise expected of most English Ph.D’s is both remarkly content-free and, for lack of a better phrase, remarkly presentist.
You know, I’d say that the thing that depresses me most about how The American Scene’s comments have changed is not that it isn’t friendly, but rather that everyone has decided that the way to proceed is to act as though every conversation we have here is a competition to see who can poke the most holes— in other words, every comment is read in the most critical way possible. Kate, did I say, or even imply, that I was making anything resembling a comprehensive statement on what I think is, or should be, a graduate English curriculum? I am baffled, baffled, that anyone could read what I said and assume that. Of course that is not comprehensive or complete, nor was it intended to be. The only context in which it could be taken as such is in the (depressingly) default mode of this blog’s comments: assume the worst of every comment you read, and do your best to interrogate each in the way that leads you to have the lowest possible interpretation of it.
— Freddie · Oct 4, 08:31 PM · #
Freddie, please forgive me. I wasn’t trying to be ungenerous in my reading of your comments; that really is how I was reading your comments, but I was reading and commenting quickly (in between lots of other things I have to do), so I apologize for misreading you. I’m not trying to poke holes in your comments/arguments; I’m trying to get at what general body of knowledge, what content, you think it’s reasonable to expect that English grads will have mastered as a foundation — before specialization, that is. It seems to me that it’s the kind of question one should be able to answer about any discipline or field of knowledge.
— Kate Marie · Oct 4, 09:02 PM · #
I might add, Freddie, that when you seemed to imply that I assumed all English students should be generalists, I didn’t immediately begin lamenting the state of the comments section here at TAS and accusing you of an uncharitable reading of my comments. I simply tried to correct the impression you had apparently received.
— Kate Marie · Oct 4, 09:41 PM · #
Sorry, one last thing.
Freddie, you said the following in your first response to me: “The question, to my mind, isn’t what everyone has read, but how everyone reads what they do read. The shared experience shouldn’t, and perhaps can’t, be one of content, but rather one of process.”
If you believe the shared experience of English students shouldn’t and can’t be one of content, I think my reading of your comments was not unfair, though it may have been incorrect. What do you mean when you say this? And what do you think should be considered a body of knowledge that all English students/scholars should have mastered? Seriously, is it unfair of me to ask?
— Kate Marie · Oct 4, 09:49 PM · #
It’s not unfair for you to ask. It just requires an awful lot of thinking and composing on my part. Bear in mind, too, that it isn’t as if we aren’t going to have overlaps in terms of content; of course we will. But I question the utility of defining an advanced education in English by shared readings rather than shared methods of reading. But maybe I shouldn’t be extreme and should just instead advocate for a pedagogy that combines certain amounts of content and process. What I would ask, though, is that we admit that any definition of prerequisite reading is inherently ideological, no matter how vanilla we intend to be.
— Freddie · Oct 4, 09:54 PM · #
Also… I don’t mean to ever say that my vision of an English curriculum is the only or best way forward. Just that it’s my vision. It’s also worth saying that I am personally in a Rhetoric and Composition program, a field that is in some places (like my U) defining itself as a separate major and department from English, so that may be important.
— Freddie · Oct 4, 10:12 PM · #
What I would ask, though, is that we admit that any definition of prerequisite reading is inherently ideological, no matter how vanilla we intend to be.
Sure, I have no problem admitting this, but isn’t any definition of prerequisite shared “methods of reading” also ideological? It seems to me that defining an academic field or discipline is an inherently ideological undertaking.
Rhetoric and Composition? Very interesting — and it’s interesting to hear where you’re coming from, so to speak. Thanks.
— Kate Marie · Oct 5, 12:07 AM · #
I sort of hate to take this position when everyone’s so high on the 50th anniversary of CP Snow’s lecture about humanities luminaries’ poor grasp of science, but for what it’s worth (possibly not much: I was an English/American lit major) I think all y’all are full of it and Conor’s science background is fine for an “educated” guy. I’m about to write too much.
I mean, if you’re there, I guess the one thing is it would be good to do a bit more math — through multivariate calc and linear algebra, and everyone needs more stats. I think it would be nice if everyone took some kind of real analysis too because that’s a kind of thinking and approach I don’t think the other sciences Conor mentioned will cover and it would be nice to have a vague idea what mathematicians “do.” Beyond that I think you’re OK inasmuch as “necessary” stuff is concerned. One way the world has changed since Snow’s lecture is it’s kind of amazing how much science you do know by the end of those AP classes. I mean, Freddie’s wrong when he says people in the humanities are more engaged in science than is “popularly assumed;” the reason for that assumption is the crap people in the humanities put out when they talk science. They certainly think they’re engaged. But I don’t really think they need to be beyond the Conor level, so it’s OK.
Partly that’s based on experience. In industry, and a lot lately, I’ve had people working for me with high school educations an much less science background than Conor’s. Some — not all, not most — have developed quite a formidable grasp of whatever they’re doing for me, to the point where if I send ‘em off to a conference or something I’m pretty confident they can field whatever comes their way. I’m guessing Conor can do OK. That’s in part an acknowledgement that what KVS implies is right and Chet wrong: science basics are a pretty good candidate for learning solo. My experience was that all the math and science I learned pre-college was from textbooks [can it, Freddie] and it was adequate enough for placing into whatever I wanted in college (I was Math 55 for those of you, of whom there are surprisingly many, to whom that means something, if it matters): there I found that that sort of experience wasn’t tremendously rare. Professional scientists routinely get on top of new fields as needed by reading a lot of literature and then hitting a couple seminars: I got a job in nonlinear optics/LIDAR design with very, very little undergrad training in it, and in two years I was leading projects. That’s a not-abnormal career path in science. We all buy freaky textbooks all the time. You need a class for access to the professor’s unique perspective: in advanced science that’s useful, in “things people should know to be ‘eddicated,’” not so much.
I also think if you have Conor’s background and are reading your National Geo, or NYT science section, or the like, you’re as well versed in most areas of science as most working scientists. All scientists read a lot of specialist lit, and probably get some personally delivered where they’ll read all the “good parts” (e.g. my wife and I get Biophysical Journal, I’m in ACS and get Biochemistry, I get Protein Science and on and off Journal of the Optical Society of America) and probably the strongest among them get some of the top-tier generalist journals (in our case Science and Nature) — reading the latter regularly means you probably have a good idea what the biggest ideas going on are, in most of science. I’d guess that describes about 2% of scientists (still a lot!). The rest of them aren’t more hip about, say, cosmology than Conor is. That’s another way the post-Snow world is different: the lay science press is not so bad. It’s bad, but there are gems, and you’ll find them if you’re generally inclined to read a lot.
I also think that the current generation of scientists better walk softly when applying the old Snow thesis. The older generation I think still has “Renaissance men” who are remarkably knowledgeable about arts and culture: Jeremy Knowles was as polished a man as I’ve met, for example. Those young assistant profs and postdocs? Not so much. That’s a stereotype, and there are of course very many exceptions, but I don’t think it’s a given (or even typical) anymore that your postdocs write really well or are widely read in humanities.
But I rebel more against this, oh yeah you need to know quantum, and ecology, an’ so on, crap, because since Snow’s time a lot of other knowledge has gone away. It’s uncommon for people to be comfortable in more than one language, quite rare for more than two. It’s gotten rarer for people to have a piano in their home. At the same time culture has globalized — well-read, I think, now means you’ve read Indian and Chinese and Arabic and Nigerian and Mexican writers or can at least name some, and well-travelled in the humanities means some awareness of art in those cultures, and the practical advantages to societies where that cross-cultural awareness is valued have grown.
I worry that engineering knowledge is shrinking too. I mean, it doesn’t seem right if you can’t rebuild an engine (maybe with a little help) or operate a lathe (alone!) You really, really ought to be able to make minor electrical repairs, or wire up a quickie amplifier. You want to learn that quantum field theory, be my guest, but, I think you’d be better off if your house had a single piece of furniture you’d made. Then there’s medicine, about which far too much to write.
There’re other kinds of knowledge I worry about. My wife and I would both say that certain scientific and mathematical insights have made our lives wholler, better, deeper. But I think there’s a lot of accessible “sort of” science that does as well. Can you name all the birds you see when you walk to work most days? If you look out a window right now, can you identify the trees? Winter is coming, and cedar waxwings will return here soon, and I think about that. When I walk I hear the conversation around me and it makes my life a lot deeper. (FD: but I first got into this as a young man when I discovered a lot of great biochemists were birdwatchers. But still.) Go hit up your most outdoorsy friend, and the next time you’re on a hike as him to name four trees as you pass them. That knowledge is dying. Pick that over more science than Conor has.
I’m skeptical of claims science makes you more informed on policy issues; I’m not sure I have a good answer for that stuff. Because I worked on gas-phase molecular structure, I shared lab space with a bunch of very talented atmospheric chemistry guys who became friends. They know lots more, then, about geophysics than I do, and fundamentally the reason I believe in anthropogenic global warming is they do, and they’re solid, and I trust their explanations. I can read their lit and do read some — but the fact is if those guys decided to argue all of a sudden that the whole thing’s a crock, they’d pummel me, and all of you too. One of my thesis advisors, in fact, does think it’s a crock, though he’s pretty left-wing on most issues. I wouldn’t advise you trying to argue it with him; he’s one of the world’s best analytical chemists. That kind of science knowledege isn’t going to help you with policy. In the end you have to trust expert consensus.
I think pretty strongly Freddie’s claim about science and generalism — “study of specific yeats” — is wrong, or anyway I’ve made a career out of assuming it is. The examination of the research interests and histories of major successful researchers will tend to back that. It’s not that there isn’t some hyperspecialization but it is generally thought of as a bad thing and certainly some breadth will help you get established. But I understand why it looks that way sometimes from outside science.
OK, too much. I’m genuinely amazed that Chet made this point: in recent days, Chet tried using some quantum principles he didn’t understand an couldn’t define, wrongly, to vociferously defend a wrong understanding of natural selection, and is now biffing neurobiology down there with the same, well of course this is right, dumbth. Which tells you something about science education, such as it is.
— Sanjay · Oct 5, 02:26 AM · #
Um, no. Look, Sanjay, you’ve claimed that Bell’s Inequality (which you insist has something to do with two bells not equaling each other) is within your field of expertise.
Fair enough. Believe me when I tell you that natural selection is well within mine. I don’t expect that to have an impression on you, since the only person you’ve ever been impressed with is yourself, but I thought I’d put that out there. The rest of your post is nothing more than your typical self-aggrandizement.
— Chet · Oct 5, 05:23 AM · #
Freddie,
I have been to “English school” myself, and therefore I know full-well that there are graduate programs in English that do not require one to study Chaucer, Shakespeare, or Milton on the one hand or your laundry-list of 1980’s critical theory on the other hand. I also know that it is quite possible to have a successful career in English without studying Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, or 1980’s critical theory.
PS: Your “plangent” call for greater civility here rings hollow indeed, given the excessive nastiness and vitriol of your earlier reply to me.
— TRB · Oct 5, 02:58 PM · #
Sanjay is pretty much right. You learn the intricate details of a science if you need to rush out to the frontier and discover. For most people, it’s cool if you just know and understand the lessons of science, and the reasons why we think we can trust them.
I do think, however, that there exists a scientific ‘canon’: a set of fundamental works and concepts which everyone should be familiar with if they aspire to be considered educated. For instance, I think everyone should know why we believe in a big bang, and why we’re pretty sure the universe just ‘happened’ about 14 billion years ago. I think everybody should know why evolution is a robust theory of human origins. I also think everyone should know about Phineas Gage and Capgras and what happens if you damage your ventromedial prefrontal cortex, and therefore why we’re 99.9999% sure that dualism is wrong and physicalism is right and morality is an instinct. And, finally, I definitely think everyone should know about social psychology, heuristics and the different ways our minds can be in error, and therefore why humans are not just groovy but also very very dangerous animals.
Beyond that, it’d be nice if everyone knew where to find and distinguish among various answers when a question pops up. Issue spotting and analysis, in the language of law.
— Kristoffer V. Sargent · Oct 5, 03:58 PM · #
KVS – interesting, I hadn’t thought of the “everyman’s” need for knowledge of the law, but now that you bring it up, I agree. What would you suggest as a “law canon” for the layperson? I.e. someone who’s previous knowledge of the law comes from watching Law and Order marathons?
— Chet · Oct 5, 05:24 PM · #
Regarding the assertion that analytical rigor is not absent from the modern English department, I hope that “decon, New Historicism, psychoanalytic theory, feminist theory, queer theory, Marxist and post-Marxist…”
are not intended as evidence of analytical rigor.
I spent a couple of decades, off and on, in the humanities, and all of the above
were evidence only of obscurantism, near incoherence, and, as a wise man once phrased it, “the cosmic aggrandizement of petty resentments.”
Critical theory was impressive only in one respect: its seemingly infinite expansion into other spheres of learning (and here learning is defined loosely as making up rules as one goes along).
— David L. Pelfrey · Oct 5, 07:51 PM · #
Chet, I’ve thought about it since yesterday, and I’m afraid my list is not going to be that interesting or groundbreaking.
I think everyone should know how to protect themselves from abuses of authority, and know by heart what to do and say if one’s rights are being trampled. Of particular importance is stop search and seizure jurisprudence and the freedom of citizens to speak at officers. So many of my friends wanted to know what to say to overzealous cops that I printed out a little guidebook for them to carry around, reference, and even present to officers who reveal themselves to be a little fuzzy on the idea of rights and boundaries.
I also believe everyone should know the ideas which animated the writing and ratification of the Constitution, particularly the deep concerns of the anti-federalists and the way the federalists sought to allay them.
I think everyone should know the law of wills in their home state. Too many people make simple errors which end up nullifying their wills. For instance, I won a case a few weeks ago contesting a will whose witnesses signed in the kitchen rather than in the bedroom where the testatrix was sleeping. That was it: witnesses signed out of line of vision, and the will was void.
I think they should teach domestic law in high school. I think everyone should know what kind of shit they’re in for if they decide to get married too quickly or start spawning kids willy-nilly. Custody battles, support complaints and drawn-out divorces are some of the most pathetic events you’ll see on this earth. People have an idea of this, of course, but I think it should be pounded down their throats at a young and impressionable age.
— Kristoffer V. Sargent · Oct 6, 05:59 PM · #
Interesting. Any chance you’d make that available on the web? Anonymously, perhaps, if you felt that need. (I don’t know what it’s like for lawyers to give the appearance of legal “advice” to the entire internet via a pamphlet. Maybe that’s bad? I don’t know.)
Protecting oneself from abuses of authority is one of those situations where the popular advice is contradictory – many people (predominantly white) suggest that you should vocally oppose these abuses as they happen; many others (predominantly minorities) suggest that only an idiot would do so, and that it is far better to simply sit (lie?) there and be abused, and then try to forget it ever happened.
Interesting thoughts, though, despite what you were afraid of.
— Chet · Oct 7, 04:42 PM · #