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bngbuck
SFN Addict
USA
2437 Posts |
Posted - 01/09/2008 : 17:49:46 [Permalink]
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Cune.....
Well, Cune, we have a pretty good spread of response to this one now. I have been waiting for Marf to chime in but we haven't heard from her yet! I thought for sure she would have some response on your comment:| No, they're of no value. And it's really hard to make a career out of it, to boot |
Do you really mean that statement as simple and blunt as you have stated it, Cune? Most could agree with the second part of it, although many of those with talent in the arts (musicians, actors, writers, and a few others I could name) have found careers and some fame and fortune! But when it comes to nut-cutting time at the end of Freshman year, if you have your eye on the job market you probably had better go light on the Humanities choices for a Major course of study and degree!
That said and agreed, do you really mean that you think the Humanities are "of no value"? No value at all? Would make no difference to the state or quality of our civilization if, as a whole, they did not exist or never had? We, and the rest of the world, the human race, would be where we are today if there were not and never had been any of the Humanities? They have been of no value?
Cune, give me a simple answer, like you did to the original question, to the expansion of that thought that I have outlined above, and then maybe we'll have a spirited discussion here. As some others have suggested already, I think you have made a VERY controversial statement!
Edited for bolding and additional comment |
| Edited by - bngbuck on 01/09/2008 17:59:36 |
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Cuneiformist
The Imperfectionist
USA
4955 Posts |
 Posted - 01/09/2008 : 19:26:49 [Permalink]
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bngbuck-- forgive me. I'm simply going through a bitter phase having seen yet another cycle of jobs in academia come and go with limited offerings in the humanities but for the most mainstream of topics (US history, English, modern Middle East, etc.) and at schools where professors in my field are retiring, universities are opting not to continue the tenure-track line.
Of course I find value in the humanities. I invested money and countless hours of my life to get a PhD in the obscurest of the bunch. I am simply frustrated that my time as a paid professional in that field may fast be drawing to a close, and that led to my rather harsh remark. |
| Edited by - Cuneiformist on 01/09/2008 19:27:28 |
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H. Humbert
SFN Die Hard
USA
4574 Posts |
Posted - 01/09/2008 : 19:28:45 [Permalink]
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Chaloobi, I was being fairly broad by what I meant by "science," and didn't mean the actual formalized science of the Enlightenment. I just mean that it's a pretty well accepted fact that hunter-gather societies produced more art when technological advances allowed them to transition into agrarian societies. You're probably right that once a certain social security is attained, further scientific advanced don't necessarily produce more or better art.
| And to say that art today is higher quality than the art of Ancient Greece or Egypt or China, or even prehistoric cave people, is to misunderstand what is more a matter of subjective taste, purpose and culture than one of objective assessment of ability, technique and aesthetics. To claim superiority is more than a little ethnocentric and more or less baseless in any objective measure. You might feel the cave paintings in France are inferior to the Sistine Chapel ceiling and that is somehow a function of the culture being more scientific, but compare the Sistine Chapel to Picasso's cartoonish paintings or Pollack's sloppy scribbles. It's all a matter of what the artist was trying to do, how the art fit into the contemporary culture, and ultimately the individual observer's opinion. I've heard cave drawings described as elegant and beautiful. Assessments of art have little to do with any objective judgement of quality. |
In so far as aesthetics are concerned, you are right, and I apologize for wordings things in a way which left a contrary impression. I just meant the Sistine Chapel is technologically superior art than cave paintings, and that that's an objective fact. The discovery of proper perspective, for instance, absolutely depended upon advancements in mathematics. Egyptian art, for all it's beauty, only depicted flat people in two-dimensional profile. That wasn't just an aesthetic choice, but a technological limitation. Similarly, they can do things now with computer animation that was simply unthinkable in the early hand-drawn days of Walt Disney. Now, no one is arguing that Cars is a better film than Cinderella. I'm just saying technology absolutely affects what sort of art is possible. Now, once advancements in art are discovered, they are preserved, and individual artists are free to employ them or not as their personal aesthetic dictates.
| Science has not made us better at the humanities. It has changed our arts, given us a wider range of materials, mediums and techniques, changed how we relate to the arts we create, but it hasn't made the arts we create superior to that created in pre-science. |
This is basically what I meant. Thanks for saying it better than I.
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"A man is his own easiest dupe, for what he wishes to be true he generally believes to be true." --Demosthenes
"The first principle is that you must not fool yourself - and you are the easiest person to fool." --Richard P. Feynman
"Face facts with dignity." --found inside a fortune cookie |
| Edited by - H. Humbert on 01/09/2008 19:30:10 |
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bngbuck
SFN Addict
USA
2437 Posts |
Posted - 01/10/2008 : 00:39:48 [Permalink]
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Cune.....
Yeah, Cune, I know! It's the shits! I selected Psychology after two years of Engineering, because I had some damn fool notions about learning something about people! Shit! Might as well taken up theology and learned about God!
Like you, I went the whole nine yards to a doctorate! Big fucking deal. Couldn't make enough to support my (then) pot habit! My old man; rich prototypical Republican reactionary said: "Son, if you have any sense at all, go into business! That way, you can support your expensive tastes which I have been supporting until now!"
With his help, I did! Made some money. Quite a bit! Never once directly practiced the skills and applied the professional knowledge I had painstakingly acquired in college. But they were there and still are, and I am glad of it, as I have a lot of useful knowledge and perception insights that I never would have developed from Engine School.
But I worked my ass off to make a buck, none of the money I have today was handed to me. I spent better than twenty years of my life earning, husbanding, and investing it! And I really didn't enjoy the means to the end, but I really wanted the end. Independence! Real independence!
Cune, if you desire money to any degree beyond survival or maintenance level, go into the business world! Even Jerome, who aspires far too early in his tender young life to be a practicing intellectual, does understand this! He is, primarily, a businessman.
In this country, that is where the bread, and the butter is! Anyone with a quick mind, some real smarts, and the desire to make a (big) buck, can! And soon enough, unless you're greedy, to make enough to invest and quickly segue to others making your money for you. I retired when I was about fifty. I live well. Most importantly, I have the TIME and the financial resource to do damn near anything I want to!
My wife works and makes a lot of money in her profession (high end accounting and financial management) Once a month, I tell her to quit, lay back, and smell the flowers. She doesn't NEED to work! Nope, she is much happier applying her skills to the problems that need such skills applied, and that is her fulfillment. I don't understand it, and never will; but Chacun voit midi à sa porte. To each his own!
But, she is much younger than I, and is practicing what she learned to become a MBA in accounting! I would be ashamed to put a PhD after my name in common parlance, because I have never counselled a patient nor given a professional opinion in the academic discipline in which I was trained. I could sure as hell tell you how to work the stock market, though!
Anyway, don't apologize, I understand your frustration! It's a pretty tough world, and you damn near have to have money to make it a halfway happy world! And frequently you can't do what you want to do to get where you want to be, or to have what you want to have! |
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Cuneiformist
The Imperfectionist
USA
4955 Posts |
Posted - 01/10/2008 : 05:27:21 [Permalink]
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Well, obviously if there are no jobs for my in my field, then I'll have to go into another line of work. And it's entirely likely that whatever new vocation will be more lucrative than my current earnings. Which is fine. Just a shame since I put so much effort into this.
And FYI, bngbuck-- arguing that something is a smart move based on the fact that Jerome (who believes, among other things, that the US is a Communist state and that the NFL predetermines the results of its games) gets it is, well, not the most convincing bit of evidence. |
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chaloobi
SFN Regular
1620 Posts |
Posted - 01/10/2008 : 06:37:43 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by H. Humbert
Chaloobi, I was being fairly broad by what I meant by "science," and didn't mean the actual formalized science of the Enlightenment. I just mean that it's a pretty well accepted fact that hunter-gather societies produced more art when technological advances allowed them to transition into agrarian societies. You're probably right that once a certain social security is attained, further scientific advanced don't necessarily produce more or better art. |
This is probably just a semantics argument now but I wouldn't characterize the agricultural revolution as scientific advancement. Those folks had no clue about science, they just stumbled upon a way to get a more secure food supply which also paved the way for more social specialization, and so on.
| I just meant the Sistine Chapel is technologically superior art than cave paintings, and that that's an objective fact. The discovery of proper perspective, for instance, absolutely depended upon advancements in mathematics. Egyptian art, for all it's beauty, only depicted flat people in two-dimensional profile. That wasn't just an aesthetic choice, but a technological limitation. |
There are definitely mathmatical tools that can be used to render meticulous perspective in drawings but that is not a requirement for creating realistic 3-d drawings and paintings. Someone completely ignorant of geometry can produce beautiful realistic drawings. And it's been about 16 years since I took art history but I seem to recall some evidence that the ancient Egyptians were aware of how to render more realistic drawings but there were rigid culturally based (religous, I think) requirements for their art. I can't give a source on that, however...
| I'm just saying technology absolutely affects what sort of art is possible. Now, once advancements in art are discovered, they are preserved, and individual artists are free to employ them or not as their personal aesthetic dictates. |
But the original question was about how the humanities are valued by our science and technology society vs. pre-science civilization. I think it's a reasonable argument that we don't love the work of any oil painter today the way that work was loved in the 15th century. And we don't love the sculpture produced today the way the ancient greeks loved, worshipped really, the sculpture of their time. For us these things have been reduced to curiosities and demonstrations of skill, whereas in ancient times they were the only lasting images of people - or anything - possible. And though we can create amazing fantastical images using commputer animation, none of that work will ever affect people today the way low tech art affected people throughout most of human history. I think it's a safe argument that science and technology have created a culture that values the huamnities much less than in our past. |
-Chaloobi
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BigPapaSmurf
SFN Die Hard
3192 Posts |
Posted - 01/10/2008 : 06:47:29 [Permalink]
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| This is probably just a semantics argument now but I wouldn't characterize the agricultural revolution as scientific advancement. Those folks had no clue about science, they just stumbled upon a way to get a more secure food supply which also paved the way for more social specialization, and so on. |
Is this like when a science experiment is done in the forest and nobody is around to confirm the data? Just because they had no formal science doesnt mean they couldnt do science, logic has always existed and goes well with trial and error. |
"...things I have neither seen nor experienced nor heard tell of from anybody else; things, what is more, that do not in fact exist and could not ever exist at all. So my readers must not believe a word I say." -Lucian on his book True History
"...They accept such things on faith alone, without any evidence. So if a fraudulent and cunning person who knows how to take advantage of a situation comes among them, he can make himself rich in a short time." -Lucian critical of early Christians c.166 AD From his book, De Morte Peregrini |
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chaloobi
SFN Regular
1620 Posts |
Posted - 01/10/2008 : 08:19:47 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by BigPapaSmurf
| This is probably just a semantics argument now but I wouldn't characterize the agricultural revolution as scientific advancement. Those folks had no clue about science, they just stumbled upon a way to get a more secure food supply which also paved the way for more social specialization, and so on. |
Is this like when a science experiment is done in the forest and nobody is around to confirm the data? Just because they had no formal science doesnt mean they couldnt do science, logic has always existed and goes well with trial and error.
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I'm thinking of the difference between having no way to explain the natural world beyond superstition vs having a systematic method of analysis to puzzle out the real answers to most of the Big Questions. Back then the gods brought drought and plenty to the fields inspiring myth, art, dance, poetry and music. Whereas today drought and plenty are explained with meteorology, geology, etc. Thus the humanities have far less importance in our culture. |
-Chaloobi
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marfknox
SFN Die Hard
USA
3739 Posts |
Posted - 01/10/2008 : 09:44:26 [Permalink]
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In general I agree with the article's premise; the humanities are valuable for their own sake. Though they are generally not grouped with the humanities, I feel the same way about art, and believe it or not, religion. Actually, I often think the main difference between most religions and the arts is that the people involved in religion just don't realize that what they are doing is human exercises that evoke a human response. Most religious leaders and adherents make the mistake of taking their mythos for literal truth. But I think much of the emotions and thoughts involved in religion and the arts are the same; they both deal creatively with morals and ethics, human relationships and psychology.
From the article: | It's a pretty idea, but there is no evidence to support it and a lot of evidence against it. If it were true, the most generous, patient, good-hearted and honest people on earth would be the members of literature and philosophy departments, who spend every waking hour with great books and great thoughts, and as someone who's been there (for 45 years) I can tell you it just isn't so. Teachers and students of literature and philosophy don't learn how to be good and wise; they learn how to analyze literary effects and to distinguish between different accounts of the foundations of knowledge. |
The main problem I have with this is that the argument isn't that the more deeply immersed in the humanities a person is, the better they will be, but rather, that in general the humanities makes people reflect more deeply on life and act more deliberately, which presumably would make them more ethical. Of course scholars who study the humanities would primarily be adept at analysis – that is their occupation.
Chippewa wrote: | Failure to recognize analogies, even intuitively leads to such blanket assumptions. Why did Einstein play Bach? Would Einstein have been able sense an unrecognized basis for the relationship of matter and energy or later of gravity without occasional seemingly unrelated aesthetic inspiration from a mathematically oriented early-18th century musician? |
And recurve boy wrote: | I don't know many engineers or scientists that don't engage in any humanities. |
Better educated people tend to engage in the humanities on their own, but it is hard to say whether or not it makes them better people because there are all sorts of other social factors that would need to be separated out to do proper studies. While we can be sure that an English or History major is engaged with the humanities, we can't just assume that a PhD physicist or non-college-educated plumber is not. My Uncle was a factory worker starting as soon as he finished HS, and he collected books on Renaissance artwork and read lots of classic novels on his own. I don't think anyone has done even one proper study to truly find out if people who are engaged with the humanities behave differently than those who are not, and given all the complications with such a study don't think such a proper study will, or maybe even could, ever be done.
Part of the complication with studying the impact of humanities on society is this: what does it mean to have a proper education and exposure to the humanities? My favorite conservative, and one of my favorite writers, Jacques Barzun, deals with the issues of how modern society and education deals with the humanities, arts, and history today in his book "The Culture We Deserve". The chapter "Exeunt the Humanities" is most relevant to this conversation, and here he makes an argument that the humanities are in fact useful, but they have lost their original us |
"Too much certainty and clarity could lead to cruel intolerance" -Karen Armstrong
Check out my art store: http://www.marfknox.etsy.com
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| Edited by - marfknox on 01/10/2008 09:46:27 |
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marfknox
SFN Die Hard
USA
3739 Posts |
Posted - 01/10/2008 : 09:56:06 [Permalink]
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chaloobi wrote: | And though we can create amazing fantastical images using commputer animation, none of that work will ever affect people today the way low tech art affected people throughout most of human history. I think it's a safe argument that science and technology have created a culture that values the huamnities much less than in our past. |
I agree that we don't view old works the way the people at that time did, but you seem to think that they revered them because they were so enthralled with the skill of the crafters and connected this skill with something transcendent. First, I should point out that the visual arts is often not grouped with the humanities, which include history and literature. But even if we are talking about art, I think you are wrong if you think people today aren't equally moved. For instance, there are people who still faint or break into tears at the sight of the Sistine Chapel. There is at least one book about people crying spontaneously in front of pictures. Having attended the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts – which is really old school – some of those people adore the old masters in a way that resembles religious adoration (though many of them are atheists and agnostics), and they coo and ooo and ahhh when someone does something really spectacular with oil paint. There are people into digital arts that get quite emotional and in a state of awe when they see the latest high tech digital animations.
I also think you overemphasize only one reason why those old works were valued by the people at that time, and disregard other reasons. The ancient Greeks did not worship art. Far from it, many of them agreed with Plato's thoughts on aesthetics, and viewed art as inferior to life, and life as inferior to the divine forms. The art in the pre-Renaissance was largely created as objects to aid in worship of the divine, but not regarded as divine themselves, and the art of the Renaissance became increasingly humanistic, meaning it was starting to do what novels and films and representational art today do: tell stories and illustrate impressions of people as they are, most often for the sheer pleasure or entertainment of it. If anyone worshipped art or regarded the objects of art themselves as having supernatural qualities, it has been many tribal cultures, who have been the most likely to regard artistic talent in an individual as a magical ability.
| Back then the gods brought drought and plenty to the fields inspiring myth, art, dance, poetry and music. Whereas today drought and plenty are explained with meteorology, geology, etc. Thus the humanities have far less importance in our culture. |
Actually, as societies like the Greeks became less and less dependant on superstition, and more cosmopolitan, influenced by outside cultures, interested in philosophy, their art became more skillfully sophisticated and realistic. Also, religion among the Romans was more a ceremonial thing associated with the state than a deeply spiritual thing. As time went on, people participated in religious rituals and festivals increasingly to show allegiance to the state, not as a way to move the divine forces to do what they wanted them to do. On a personal level, skepticism became more and more prevalent as the record showed the gods to be highly inconsistent and unpredictable. We know this from writings of the time, historians, philosophers, and poets – all people involved in the humanities!
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"Too much certainty and clarity could lead to cruel intolerance" -Karen Armstrong
Check out my art store: http://www.marfknox.etsy.com
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chaloobi
SFN Regular
1620 Posts |
Posted - 01/10/2008 : 10:52:41 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by marfknox
chaloobi seems more concerned with the know-how when he wrote: | And practicality is what it's all about these days. You have to earn your keep if you didn't inherit it and there is little earning potential in whining, however creatively and beautifully, about how cruel life is. |
The sort of "practicality" that you are talking about are not practical, they are arbitrary market forces. What do you mean by "earn your keep"? You mean complete some act within a market system which yields income. But market forces are similar to the forces in nature: mindless, aimless, and therefore often causing incredible and easily preventable suffering, for no reason at all. |
I was attempting to be deeply critical of the US capitalist system through caustic deadpan sarcasm in that sentence. And at the same time to express a truth about how our culture regards the humanities.
| Also, the amount of income is fairly inconsistent and arbitrary with regards to human values. |
Is it? Or does it show what we truely value as a culture? | People value the creativity of musicians more than they value the work of the companies who produce and market it, but the companies get a far higher share of the income produced from CD sales than musicians do. |
More than music and musicians our culture values people who can turn a commodity into wealth. A musician generally can't do that, but a company can. | People value research into curing serious diseases more than they value pop entertainment, but pop stars get paid more than the average medical researcher. |
I know I do. But everyone knows this is the case so why do we as a culture not boycott pop stars in favor of medical research? | The quote the "Heiress" in one of Bernard Shaw's plays: "I am perfectly well aware that my income has no reference whatsoever to my merit." |
Regardless of what Shaw wrote, the truth in our society is income, and all the materialistic status symbols it buys, is a HUGE measure of the worth of the invdividual in most circles. | Now IMO, it is no big deal if income doesn't match up with how society values the work of the individual, |
You haven't convinced me it doesn't. You've expressed your opinion, which more or less agrees with mine, but it is arguable society rewards according to the true values of the culture. | however, it is a great tragedy when people can't do or stop doing more valuable work because they can't earn a livable income off doing what they are best at. The statistics on trained artists are that they quit the profession within the first ten years of practice. And I know way too many people this has happened to. I know a writer who gave up writing because his girlfriend had a baby and he had to start earning a decent income. I know two incredibly talented women artists who are working "Dilbert" office jobs that they hate, because they don't have husbands or families with money to help support them, and they are both terrified of financial insecurity. |
I think it's a great tragedy, but I think it also reflects the value our society places on the humanities. It's shameful.
| These people are not "whiners". |
I used that word to express the existential angst felt by all of humanity since we became self aware. That's truely what the huamities are all about - facing the fear and sorrow of the many cruelties of life and life's end and trying to express the associated emotion and/or make sense of it all. In a cold and compassionless sense, it's whining about the raw deal of our existance and IMO in many ways our culture has become cold and compassionless.
| They are exceptionally talented and their talents have gone to waste for no good reasons because they have buckled down and accepted that fate – decided to "earn their keep" as you say. |
That's the fundamental premise of life in America - nobody gets anything for free - work work work. Earn your keep or find yourself out on the street. It's shameful.
| Other people don't accept it, and fight for either the creation of institutions to support the humanities or for public policies that would prevent this from happening. Those are your "whiners." I suppose you would have us all just shut up, take that job behind the line at Starbucks, and accept all of the crummy things about society which could be improved. |
This is the pitfall of deadpan sarcasm through text, and I know better. |
-Chaloobi
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chaloobi
SFN Regular
1620 Posts |
Posted - 01/10/2008 : 11:06:00 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by marfknox
But even if we are talking about art, I think you are wrong if you think people today aren't equally moved. |
Then we will have to disagree on this one.
| I also think you overemphasize only one reason why those old works were valued by the people at that time, and disregard other reasons. |
I believe the humanities (and art) are rooted one way or another in what amounts to existential angst. Be it atheistic philosophy, creating a statue of Zeus for worship, or telling the story of how a neighbor died, it's all drawn from the same well.
| Back then the gods brought drought and plenty to the fields inspiring myth, art, dance, poetry and music. Whereas today drought and plenty are explained with meteorology, geology, etc. Thus the humanities have far less importance in our culture. |
Actually, as societies like the Greeks became less and less dependant on superstition, and more cosmopolitan, influenced by outside cultures, interested in philosophy, their art became more skillfully sophisticated and realistic. Also, religion among the Romans was more a ceremonial thing associated with the state than a deeply spiritual thing. |
Note that the Agricultural Revolution predates the Greeks by up to six thousand years. And my belief about the nature of the humanities (and art) is unmoved. I recoginize the complexity of human culture, but I believe the source is the same. |
-Chaloobi
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H. Humbert
SFN Die Hard
USA
4574 Posts |
Posted - 01/10/2008 : 11:16:36 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by chaloobi
I believe the humanities (and art) are rooted one way or another in what amounts to existential angst. Be it atheistic philosophy, creating a statue of Zeus for worship, or telling the story of how a neighbor died, it's all drawn from the same well. |
So then if the humanities aren't as important to us than they were historically, are you saying we have less existential angst today? Wouldn't this actually be an argument for the timeless applicability of the humanities?
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"A man is his own easiest dupe, for what he wishes to be true he generally believes to be true." --Demosthenes
"The first principle is that you must not fool yourself - and you are the easiest person to fool." --Richard P. Feynman
"Face facts with dignity." --found inside a fortune cookie |
| Edited by - H. Humbert on 01/10/2008 11:17:27 |
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marfknox
SFN Die Hard
USA
3739 Posts |
Posted - 01/10/2008 : 11:18:53 [Permalink]
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chaloobi wrote: | I was attempting to be deeply critical of the US capitalist system through caustic deadpan sarcasm in that sentence. And at the same time to express a truth about how our culture regards the humanities. |
I see. Sorry about that. The word "whining" through me off.
| Is it? Or does it show what we truely value as a culture? |
I don't think it shows what we truly value as a culture at all. A lot of people think the way income is dolled out isn't fair at all, but we all have to pick our battles and most of us don't regard that overwhelming battle as worth the effort to take up. I also think most people are fine with income not reflecting the values of the culture, so long as extreme unfairness or injustice isn't taking place. I mean, I said I don't mind it so long as everyone can make some kind of decent living doing what they are best at if they want to.
| More than music and musicians our culture values people who can turn a commodity into wealth. A musician generally can't do that, but a company can. |
That is what happens in our culture due to many forces, but I don't think the forces which make it happen are most peoples' values. It is weird to say "our culture values". Culture itself isn't intentional. Culture is the sum of a society's customs, creations, values, and mindsets. If you mean that the majority of people in our society consciously value people who can turn a commodity into wealth more than they value the commodities themselves, I disagree. Most people don't think much on it at all, so they can't be said to be expressing any values. Those who do think about it tend to express a value for the creators more than the profiteers. The profiteers simply gain more because they are doing what they are good at: making money.
| I know I do. But everyone knows this is the case so why do we as a culture not boycott pop stars in favor of medical research? |
Because researchers are making a living and I don't think anybody thinks that there are potentially great researchers going into the business of being a pop star 'cause the pay is better. Individuals are good at different things and if they are in a healthy and encouraging environment with opportunities, they will be drawn into a career where they can do what they are good at. There would only be a problem if we had all these out of work researchers who had to go work in the service industry or such for little pay, and if 90% of the people trained for research and interested in having a career in it quit within the first 10 years of their careers because there were no funds to support their personal livelihood. That is not the case with researchers, but it is the case with writers, artists, and others involved in the humanities.
| Regardless of what Shaw wrote, the truth in our society is income, and all the materialistic status symbols it buys, is a HUGE measure of the worth of the invdividual in most circles. |
Much less so than in past historical eras; Modern Western society is remarkably more horizontal than the East and in pre-modern eras. I'm not saying you aren't right, I think you are. But that is not the whole picture, and so I think your statement "the truth in our society is income" is a large overstatement.
| I think it's a great tragedy, but I think it also reflects the value our s |
"Too much certainty and clarity could lead to cruel intolerance" -Karen Armstrong
Check out my art store: http://www.marfknox.etsy.com
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chaloobi
SFN Regular
1620 Posts |
Posted - 01/10/2008 : 12:03:22 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by H. Humbert
Originally posted by chaloobi
I believe the humanities (and art) are rooted one way or another in what amounts to existential angst. Be it atheistic philosophy, creating a statue of Zeus for worship, or telling the story of how a neighbor died, it's all drawn from the same well. |
So then if the humanities aren't as important to us than they were historically, are you saying we have less existential angst today? Wouldn't this actually be an argument for the timeless applicability of the humanities?
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By existential angst I'm meaning to encompass the entire scope of ingnorant fear of the world around us - so maybe it's not a good choice of words. A HUGE portion of that has been ironed out, more or less, by science. If you think of it in terms of the possible questions we can ask about any observation or phenomenon, Who, What, Where, When, How and Why, science can more or less answer all of these except Why. This is new. Through most of human history we depended on the humanities to give us these answers. And boy did they; in myriads of wonderful and creative ways. But now, all that's left is Why. |
-Chaloobi
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| Edited by - chaloobi on 01/10/2008 12:04:09 |
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Are the Humanities of any Value, really?
