On Thursday 03 June 2021 14:03:32 J Leslie Turriff wrote:
On 2021-06-03 15:24:29 deloptes wrote:
J Leslie Turriff wrote:
This surprises me not at all. It's the same
mentality that kept
General Semantics from being taught as well.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_semantics
it would be sufficient if classical logic were thought at school
- conjunction
- disjunction
- equivalence
- implication
4 operations that most of the people do not understand - especially the
implication. this makes it possible to do false conclusions. Also it
makes it impossible to dispute over anything. Total mess!
Yes; but teaching such concepts leads to people becoming able to think for
themselves, which is anethema to authoritarians, be they corporate or
government. :-) "We will tell you what to think."
The core tenets of General Semantics are also easy to grasp:
• Over-generalizing (labeling) leads to false conclusions (The map is not
the territory) What was true in the past is not necessarily true today
Generalizations about groups of people doesn't necessarily apply to
individual members
• Very few issues are two-valued
Leslie
Might as well contribute my 2 cents' worth to the discussion.
Myself, I get gobsmacked practically every day with various species of
ignorance. But since my background is in the Humanities, more or less, that
is what I notice the most. And I think it is good to point out this
characteristic mark in what most people complain about along these lines
(of "what's wrong with the world/education/government/etc.); while the things
that most offend my sensibilities are those kinds of blunders, at least I can
recognize that there are other kinds of knowledge, other kinds of ignorance,
other worlds of experience.
In my reading, I notice errors that would never have found their way into
print only 25 years ago. (I don't just mean online reading, or self-published
materials, but rather mainstream books and periodicals.) Books from big
publishers are now full of semiliterate crap that staggers the imagination.
Little details give a quick glimpse. How often do I read somebody writing
about "honing in" [WRONG] on a point, rather than "homing in"
[correct]? I
used to keep a list of these grievances, until my hard drive crashed, with a
view to writing some sort of essay on the sad state of the English language,
in its various forms and literatures; and I might still write it, but I need
to recover that data, or to start the list again. And I could give hundreds
more examples, but readers either know what I mean, or they don't.
I came across an online news article about how history was no longer being
offered as a course of study (what they call a "major" in the U.S.) in many
universities; that it would soon become available only in elite schools, and
that the poor or less privileged would naturally be guided to more current
or "practical" fields. The same could be said for nearly any of the
Humanities; not only history, but also Classics, as well as the study of any
subjects that are not tied to either business or the STEM subjects. Also, the
so-called "soft" sciences (sociology, anthropology, archaeology, and so on);
now they are disparaged as not so "necessary" as the "hard" sciences
(those
that emphasize measurement, numbers, quantification, etc.); not that these
things are not "valued" in a way, as entertainment, or diversion, or hobbies
for the rich or leisure class - but they aren't considered worth the time,
effort and expense to teach ordinary folks.
The general population, if they have any interest in these matters, are
expected to do it on their own; to teach themselves by haphazard reading and
study, which of course makes them especially susceptible to conspiracy
theories and other kinds of manipulation. It is worth noting that most of the
9/11 terrorists had engineering degrees. It isn't that they didn't have
enough background in science or maths; it is that their minds had not been
broadened by education, reading, and the experience of other people's world
views.
Don't even get me started about the lack of education in music! It's not that
I believe everybody ought to become a musician; only that everybody ought to
have some real education in music (i.e., learn to play an instrument or two,
learn a little about music theory), because it opens up the mind to other
ways of thinking about the world.
The same with travel, and learning foreign languages, the study of history,
anthropology, and other paths to open up our experience of the world. There
is nothing better to teach us about the relativity of our values and concepts
than to be immersed in a culture that is totally different from the one in
which we were brought up. None of our assumptions about the world work any
more; we have to learn to think about the world differently, because
everybody around us lives in that different world of experience.
And as for history, there is a saying, "The past is a foreign country: they do
things differently there." (I forget who said/wrote it first, but online
sources tell me that it was a novelist by name of L.P. Hartley.) When we
immerse ourselves in another person's thoughts and experience of the world,
it opens up new possibilities for ourselves, in our own world.
My version of The Rant might make it seem that I discount the value of the
hard sciences, and would like to see the Humanities and those soft science
better funded. And it is true, I believe that those fields have suffered by
an unfair competition against the more "practical" fields. But I would not
have people ignorant of science and maths. I watch a lot of science shows on
television, so I try to keep up with what's going on in the world. You
wouldn't want me working in rocket science, but I pay attention to what the
scientists are telling us. You also wouldn't put me in charge of anything
that requires advanced mathematics skills; but I would be up for a discussion
of mathematical ideas or (especially) paradoxes, such as infinite sets or
Godel's theorem.
One of those problems that comes up a lot in the practical application of
science and technology is why the problems we set out to solve are often
exacerbated by the solutions. Technology was supposed to make life easier for
us, but instead we have greater disparity of wealth, homelessness,
disenfrancisement and dispossesion, widespread hunger, disease, and so on.
Those algorithms that were supposed to eliminate human error end up making
decisions to kill humans, or at least to arrest them, based on the data they
are fed.
What is that saying? "garbage in, garbage out"? It is not that I don't
welcome
the science, not that I resist modern technology; but it is only as good as
the data that it is fed. If we ask the wrong questions, we keep getting wrong
answers; if we set out to solve social problems, but start with assumptions
that contain prejudices (hidden even from ourselves), then we end up
reinforcing and intensifying the very problems that we want to solve.
The different kind of critical thinking that is taught in the Humanities gives
us the tools to consider the humanity of the people themselves. Too
often "the people" are regarded as no better than herds of animals; when
dealing with government agencies, one cannot fail to detect the attitude of
utter contempt for the very persons that they are supposed to be serving.
It is not the fault of any one person, nor of too much or too little emphasis
on one field of study over others. (I would remind readers that the British
empire was ruled by persons who were steeped in the Classics and ancient
history, so the Humanities are not by themselves protection against tyranny.)
What we need is emphasis on more well rounded education, rather than to allow
people to live inside their own self-contained bubbles, or to move only
within social circles where everybody else's bubble is like our own.
Everybody will naturally find their own abiding interests, anyway, regardless
whether they are forced to study other subjects; but making everybody more
aware of the rest of the world, and how other people experience the world
differently from ourselves; to experience a little of their world, to
appreciate beauty in another person's culture or way of life. That will give
us the opportunity to develop compassion.
And again, it must not be the narrow province of a small group of rich,
entitled or elite persons ... whoever they are ..., but ought to be available
to everybody. Education ought to be free, and funded by the state; libraries
ought to be free, and funded by governments, local and at other levels. Where
one cannot get an education, at least libraries offer another way. But now,
again, there is talk sometimes of getting rid of libraries altogether
(because you can "consume" all that "content" on your computer or
other
devices); and a lot of the books in my own personal library have come from
libraries - books that were discarded from circulation, which I bought up
cheap.
The "answer", broadly speaking, is the same as ever. We need more education,
and everybody needs it, and needs more of it. Where everybody disagrees is
that we each feel, in our own bubbles, or in our own social circles, that it
is our own field (or fields) that have suffered.
What we really each believe, secretly, is that the world would be better off
if only we ourselves (or somebody like us, only better, or improved) were
allowed to run things. And then, you would see, we would put things right!
This is a kind of apocalyptic or magical thinking, in its way (my own special
field of study). The believer in these areas looks to overturn the wrong
social order; the unjust or ignorant or corrupt will be thrown down, and the
righteous or good people (ourselves) will at last be recognized, and assume
their rightful places of authority.
The antidote of the Humanities is to broaden our experience: either directly,
through travel, immersion in another culture, learning a new language; or
indirectly, for example through reading, if they are the kinds of books that
make us experience the world from a radically different perspective. The
trend of the hard sciences, by contrast, tends to sharpen our focus on
discrete points of facts or evidence, but sometimes cannot put together bits
that, due to our own blind spots, seem unrelated.
I could write much more, no doubt, though it will probably be more of the
same. I would be glad to give more specific details, on request, but I would
hope that my general themes are clear enough.
Bill