Week 1. Two Cultures

Blog Post 1

I guess the best description for my stance in this continuing quarrel of the matter of "Two Cultures" -introduced by C.P. Snow in 1959- may be that, I want to be a believer of the possibility and existence of that middle ground, like a bridge or even like a "third culture" in which Kevin Kelly mentions in his article. Through the article "Third Culture", Kelly expresses that technology could actually be that third culture separate to but integrating the two cultures, in which differed slightly from the form introduced by C.P. Snow's in 1964. 

["Bridge Between Two Human Minds" by Richard Tuschman]

Although C.P. Snow strongly emphasized the drastically contrasted concepts of such "two cultures", of the Arts versus the Sciences, I believe that depending on certain perspectives towards the issue, the two cultures may not be so strictly separated from one another. 

In the West, U.S. especially, I believe math is not entirely math, and I believe science is not entirely science (whatever form of science you may interpret it to be implied). I believe math is literature in use of numerical language, and I believe science is the description of a natural or unnatural 

phenomenon defined through literature. 

Thinking about this topic for several days, it was rather hard for me to enjoin myself to one category of the two contrasted cultures, as battle-like as it seems. However, this constant implication of such concept in my life was more than eye-opening to the different symbolic ways of my life and of academics.

[Science as Art, "Meteorite Pop Art"© AMNH/D. Ebel]

Working at a law firm as a paralegal, and studying Asian-Humanities in UCLA, I write motions, agreements and many more documents requiring tens of pages each day. In this, I have to say that literature cannot be set as such a separate culture on its own-as art-, but rather a part of both two –or three-, cultures; just as the middle ground, like a bridge, or even like a “third culture” relative to C.P. Snow’s introduced theme of the two cultures. 

Writing persuasive documents, the facts are like supportive systems to a flowing body of words written to get to the heart of the reader, in this case the judge. Similar to Prof. Victoria Vesna’s example of using “Poetic License as a tool” of Sokal and Briemont, perhaps we can simplify this situation first and ponder, could the “two cultures” possibly and actually be ‘One culture’ and ‘One Family’ with two fundamental embryos within?

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Sources

Huxley, Thomas. "Science and Literature Are Not Two Things, but Two Sides of One Thing." Like Success. LikeSuccess, n.d. Web. 3 Apr. 2016.

Kelly, Kevin. "The Third Culture" Science 13 February 1998: Vol. 279 no. 5353 pp. 992-993. Web.

Parry, By Wynne. "Science as Art: A Gallery." LiveScience. TechMedia Network, 23 June 2011. Web. 04 Apr. 2016.

Snow, C. P. “Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution.” Reading. 1959. New York: Cambridge UP, 1961. Print.

Tuschman, Richard. "Image: 433305, Caption: Bridge between Two Human Minds." Stock Illustration. Richard Tuschman, n.d. Web. 04 Apr. 2016.

Vesna, Victoria. “Toward a Third Culture: Being in Between.” Leonardo 34.2 (2001): 121-25. Web.