Comment by jtheory | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jtheory | Hacker News Reader

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Can you offer any more concrete specifics? I studied humanities in college (primarily music, some English lit and creative writing, some French lit, ancient Eastern philosophy, etc. -- also compsci, but mostly humanities), and it was something of a mixed bag as educations go, but I did build some very valuable communication and thinking skills along the way.

I'm not at all clear how especially something like studying ancient Chinese philosophers could fit into your generalizations, but regardless -- mastering communication and clear thinking on complex, diverse topics is hugely valuable in almost any endeavor, and I've encountered some shamefully poor communicators (and unclear thinkers) in the tech world.

I suspect if the humanities could successfully focus on good outcomes in these categories, and demonstrate the value, they'd benefit from it... somehow blending in applied rationality with the standard paths would be awesome, and if that were available I'd go that route again, if I had the choice again.

You have given good examples yourself. Before the acceptance of French into humanities, it was just a language evolving with its speakers. After that it was given the status of "official", with official grammar to maintain purity. But who decided which vernacular was pure and which wasn't? The powers that be. The privileged noble who had time for it. While it resulted in better economic opportunities for everyone (while requiring no effort from those who already spoke the pure form), it also quashed the cultural diversity.

English is another example. People in most of the world learn British English, simply because English was taught to them when British ruled them because they wanted to create a English speaking cheap workforce. Now that British are gone, their legacy remains. For example, Shakespeare is still mandatory to learn in India, and novels that are today confined to humanities in Britain, are most read in India - they don't read catcher in the rye, they read The Tempest and The Woman in White etc. You can see that firsthand - Indians use idioms that long ago fell out of use in Britain. "Please do the needful" anyone? "I was doing that only"? This is not just about Indians. Germans, as I have been told, learn UK English in school. But eventually all their clients are American, so they end up learning American vernacular and spellings. They can't be blamed, every default is American now.

Coming to Eastern philosophy, consider this: the earth is round, people are equal so how come there is something called East or West. It is arbitrary! It is THE example of grouping and stereotypes[1]. There is a large branch of sociology and history dealing with this idea.[2] I will leave it at that since this is closer to my heart and thus I am prone to be biased. Plus, I am still reading more about it.

The idea is not that Chinese philosophers would fit in my description or not, the idea is that the philosophers you call Chinese are just a sect of a philosophers in China. But when first non-Chinese went into China, their interest wasn't in philosophy but in the money Chinese had. Through that economical agent they measured everything that was there - the economically weak Chinese philosophers were neglected and forgotten into history and the official Chinese doctrine accepted as the one true 'Chinese'. "Because that is what makes them different." It is why when China dabbles into modernism we call them copycats and not just coming to equal terms. They HAVE to be different, right?

I went overboard, I suppose. I am not a good writer nor a native English speaker. Indian, actually. Regarding music, I think it should belong to science and mathematics :)

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ingroup

2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orientalism

> Germans, as I have been told, learn UK English in school. But eventually all their clients are American, so they end up learning American vernacular and spellings.

Eh?

The UK is a very large trading partner of Germany.

German exports to UK 2012:73 Billion euro

German exports to US 2012:87 Billion euro

German global exports: 1095 Billion

So, please. Who's the imperialist and marginaliser now? The US accounts for just 7.9% of german exports, so "most of their clients" abroad - rubbish.

It is deeply ironic that you're complaining about foreigners studying classics of British English, while contrasting with classics from American English as though that would be an obviously superior and more rational choice.

You were arguing that the humanities were a tool for cultural domination, though, that cultural domination was somehow among (or even the main) role of humanities studies.

My examples don't show that the humanities have any role in exacerbating the reality of some cultures dominating others, though. How does it help cultural domination if American, Christian students learn that none of Jesus' ideas were actually original to him?

Certainly, East/West is arbitrary, as is whether "North" is on top of the globe or on the bottom (an inverted globe is just as valid). You can study things like this in the humanities, whereas you'll never even think about them if you take a technical track. You even mention above that there are large branches of sociology and history dealing with this -- so are the humanities enforcing Orientalism, or actually combating it?

Final point, though it's more minor - about this:

> Before the acceptance of French into humanities, it was just a language evolving with its speakers. After that it was given the status of "official", with official grammar to maintain purity. But who decided which vernacular was pure and which wasn't? The powers that be. The privileged noble who had time for it. While it resulted in better economic opportunities for everyone (while requiring no effort from those who already spoke the pure form), it also quashed the cultural diversity.

See the Académie française (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acad%C3%A9mie_fran%C3%A7aise) -- French has not been a language evolving naturally with its speakers since the 1630s. There certainly are external forces pushing the French to adopt more loanwords like "email" and so on, but what's cause would you point to for that? Surely not French literature and language programs in other countries...? If anything, me studying Camus and Voltaire introduces more French speakers who use classical French, rather than adopting to a naturally-evolving language (in spite of the Académie française...).

Honestly, this is part of what I mean about learning to support a reasonable argument. It's not effective to construct examples to "support" a point you've already committed to. You'll do better taking a reasonably representative set of specific examples of a phenomenon, discarding your earlier assumptions, and look for the best explanation. That's your new starting point.

> <i>Honestly, this is part of what I mean about learning to support a reasonable argument. It's not effective to construct examples to "support" a point you've already committed to.</i> Point taken.

As I said, I am still reading and since the subject is close to me I tend to run into my own biases.

<i> > so are the humanities enforcing Orientalism, or actually combating it?</i> I am not a Marxist who believes every odd thing is intentional. But I do believe that humanities aren't as critical to The System as they are portrayed to be. They are very well an integral part of The System. And The System is all about money which humanities don't bring any more - hence the decreasing interest. For example, science is about pursuit of pure knowledge, but then most of its funding comes from DARPA, isn't it? So, in a peaceful world, scientific pursuit WILL dwindle. That is just the fact. Whether intentional or consequential, or whether science wants to bring peace or not, those questions are beyond my understanding as of now. And I think they will remain conjectural even after my death.

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