WEEK 1: TWO CULTURES

The existence of two cultures has definitely impacted my life. There is a geographic divide at UCLA, where the humanities and arts are taught in “North Campus” while the sciences and mathematics are taught in “South Campus”. A popular rhetoric, on campus therefore is that the north campus students have the creative minds while the south campus students have the analytical minds. Although this is an absolute myth of a claim, it places me right in the middle as I have my foot in both camps. I am an Economics and Financial Actuarial Mathematics double major, which means I take both the humanities classes and the mathematics/science classes.

When CP Snow coined this phrase in his lecture in 1959, it referred to literary intellectuals and scientists. He talked about a communication gap between the two groups and predicted a rise of a third culture, where there would be free communication between the two groups. However, in his book, John Brockman, disagreed with Snow and instead claimed that the third culture will be such that the scientists will have free conversations directly with the public and replace the need for a middleman. I think the modern society is closer to Brockman’s view than Snow’s. An example of this would be the YouTube channel called StarTalk Radio, which is hosted by an astrophysicist, Neil deGrasse Tyson. On this channel, Tyson talks about representation of science in movies and other pop culture, and provides scientific explanation in a way that the general public can understand. He also looks at some common pseudoscience questions or myths, and analyses them scientifically. This is a great example of scientists taking over the traditional role of literary intellectuals.

Before this week, I did not have a think about this debate, even though I came across it numerous times. I agree with Snow and Brockman, that a third culture has risen and a bit of both their visions is within this third culture. In this age, when specialization is given so much importance, I think it is definitely worth broadening one’s horizon. For me, doing this double major has been very taxing, but at the same time very enlightening.


SOURCES:

Brockman, John. The Third Culture. 1st ed. New York: Touchstone, 2010. Print.
"How Long Does Interstellar Travel Take?". YouTube. N.p., 2017. Web. 10 Apr. 2017.
Kelly, K. "ESSAYS ON SCIENCE AND SOCIETY:The Third Culture". Science 279.5353 (1998): 992-993. Web.
Snow, C. P. The Two Cultures And The Scientific Revolution. 1st ed. Mansfield Center, CT: Martino Publishing, 2013. Print.
Vesna, Victoria. "Toward A Third Culture: Being In Between". Leonardo 34.2 (2001): 121-125. Web. 

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