We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. From the very serious to the extremely frivolous... lets see what is on the mind of the Samizdata people.
Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]
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Samizdata quote of the day – in praise of aristocratic tutoring Today, tutoring is seen mostly as a corrective to failures within the bureaucratic structures of education, like an intervention to help out a course, grade, or test. In general, those doing well in school don’t get tutoring—it’s like we’re applying the secret genius sauce solely to the kids who aren’t going to be geniuses.
– Erik Hoel
Interesting essay, well worth reading the whole thing.
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Who Are We? The Samizdata people are a bunch of sinister and heavily armed globalist illuminati who seek to infect the entire world with the values of personal liberty and several property. Amongst our many crimes is a sense of humour and the intermittent use of British spelling.
We are also a varied group made up of social individualists, classical liberals, whigs, libertarians, extropians, futurists, ‘Porcupines’, Karl Popper fetishists, recovering neo-conservatives, crazed Ayn Rand worshipers, over-caffeinated Virginia Postrel devotees, witty Frédéric Bastiat wannabes, cypherpunks, minarchists, kritarchists and wild-eyed anarcho-capitalists from Britain, North America, Australia and Europe.
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I tend to stand in awe of those who are responsible for designing and producing our modern tech. My phone, my sports watch, my digital piano, movie and music streaming. There must be some exceptionally clever people working away to make this stuff happen. Genius level? I’m not sure, but certainly pretty clever.
I’m not sure I would include Karl Marx among that list of genius minds. A very original thinker certainly but also very wrong and responsible for an incalculable amount of human misery.
The Rational Optimist substack has articles on how AI education programs can act as private tutor for any child. Makes it sound wonderful. https://rationaloptimistsociety.substack.com/p/why-im-obsessed-with-ai-schooling
It could be a real game changer, and surely can’t be more subversive than current schooling, especially with awake parents watching what it shows the kids.
There are lot of different thinkers mentioned in the essay.
The most important thing about the political and economic ideas of Karl Marx and Tolstoy is that they are WRONG – flat WRONG, we can not learn-from-them in a positive sense, they do not make-a-contribution in a positive sense. Spengler in his “Decline of the West” would not accept this – to him if a thinker was cited by lots of people and was very influential, then there must be some positive element in their ideas – and that is just NOT so.
The same is true of the political and economic ideas of Bertrand Russell and Wittgenstein – the socialism (and although he called himself a liberal or even a Whig – Bertrand Russell was indeed a socialist – and not a thoughtful one, in that he just assumed Collectivism to be true) of Bertrand Russell is just wrong. And the political and economic ideas of Wittgenstein were both wrong and border line insane – such as when he went to try to emigrate to the Soviet Union and told the embassy staff that he, Wittgenstein, thought that Trotsky was correct. Wittgenstein was not mocking the embassy staff, he was so “out of it” that he did not grasp the basic facts of the situation.
So we have to be careful with words like “genius” and teaching our children to be “great thinkers” – if this turns out to mean they come out with crack brained nonsense and become incapable of basic reasoning. And this can also be held against ME – as I am sometimes so lost in theory that I trip over ordinary common sense things in life (for example not caring enough what gardening will cost me – because I just want to silence the nagging of a neighbour, so I can get back to my own thoughts – this is NOT good).
Reality is not “shadows on the cave wall” – Plato was wrong, reality-is-real. And education, whether in school or home schooling, should be based on the fact that the world around us is real – and so is our own mind (the free will human agent, the person – the “I”). And that reasoning should be applied to ordinary life – as well as to high theory.
As for searching for what a child is good at, and training the child in this trade – that is not evil, it is good. It means that the child will, even if they choose not to make this trade their work, always have something to “fall back on” – and do not have to sit facing the wall thinking “there is no way I can get a job”.
I certainly do NOT agree with the German practice of forbidding Home Schooling (indeed it is a wicked law) – but Bavarian (I typed Bavarian – not German) schools are good – they identify what a child is good at, and they try to train the child to be able to make a living – that is a good thing, not a bad thing. I wish I had gone to such a school.
As for American schools – President Eisenhower was correct, John Dewey did great HARM.
It is all very well “allowing children to be creative” – but they must be taught basic facts and basic skills, and a lot of American schools do-not-do-that.
Both good schools and good Home Schooling should (must – if they are to be good) teach children basic facts and skills. And give them training in some occupation in which they can earn a living – even if they choose not to follow this particular line of work.
As for tutoring.
Many people get Rousseau exactly wrong – yes wrong.
At the end of his novel “Emile” – the pupil, now grown up and married, does not wave the tutor farewell – the pupil asks the tutor to stay and continue to guide him in everything. This is terrible.
The “liberating” education pushed by Rousseau is not liberating at all – like John Dewey, Rousseau has produced pupils who do not actually know very much (in terms of facts and skills) and depend on the praise (generating “self esteem”) of their teachers and others, because they (the pupils – students) have nothing, objectively, to be proud of (independently proud of – regardless of whether they are praised by other people or not) – not knowing very much and having no real skills. They remain, at bottom, as useless at 18 (or whatever age) as they were when they 5 years old – and that is just awful.
The tutor becomes like Rousseau’s “Lawgiver” – telling everyone what the real “General Will” is. This is tyranny dressed up as freedom. Dependency.
A good tutor (unlike the tutor in Rousseau’s novel), a good teacher, waves a child goodbye when that child becomes an adult – knowing that the adult will be able to make their own way in the world.
I find both the premise to be wrong and the solution to be too narrow. Of course the world is filled with geniuses, certainly in the way that matters. Why do we care about geniuses — because they make the world a better place, and only a fool would question the spectacular advances in human kind (outside the realm where genius rarely appears — politics) are not just growing but exponentially growing. And all that advance is based on legions of geniuses working in companies, or starting companies transforming the world. Ray Kurzweil (a genius inventor himself) has written extensively about this subject, and I’d recommend any of his books.
I’m not sure I agree at all that many of the people who he categorized as genius did much for the human condition. As is often the case we hear about all the super smart philosophers Nietzsche, Freud or writers like Tolstoy and Ibsen. I’m sorry but although I am sure a lot of people enjoyed his impenetrably, always suicidality depressing books I don’t think Dostoevsky has advanced the human condition very much at all. I can say for sure that nothing Ibsen wrote or Nietzsche thought has helped me one little bit.
I’m an engineer so I might be biased, but I think the contribution of literature and philosophy to the human condition has been tiny compared to what tools, engineering and science as done, and in those fields we have advanced dramatically, and continue to advance exponentially.
But regardless of the legions of unknown and known geniuses that drive the world forward there are many well known ones too. The whole panoply of tech bros comes to mind — people who invented whole new swaths of human endeavor (and of course my favorite of all Elon Musk who is probably the most important human alive today.) I don’t care about advances in philosophy, since I think most philosophy is mental masturbation, and I don’t care much about advances in the humanities because I think they practically speaking contribute very little to the human condition. And I think it is surely a matter too of visibility. It is a fact that a million times more people know who Taylor Swift or come to that the most overrated writer in the 20th century Ernest Hemingway are than know who William Shockley or Dawon Kahng are. You might not know them but you have half a trillion of their inventions in your pocket right now.
There is a huge difference between celebrity geniuses (of which Einstein was the archetype and was himself undoubtedly a genius), and ordinary geniuses that you have never heard of.
However, on the latter point I think he is right that our terrible, terrible school system is like an albatross around our necks. Run, of course by the government. I often see civilization as the competition between technology to enrich us and politics to impoverish us. Fortunately technology is growing so fast politicians can’t put it back in its box. But the solution to the education problem is not one specific thing. No doubt one on one tutoring is often effective for some kids, but for others it is not, it is too intense, they need to discover on their own, or they need the support of a classroom structure. What we really need is an open mind and a competitive environment in education where parents can find what is best for their individual kids, what works best to achieve their specific goals. Where we are more open to what “educated” actually means. I’m not more in favor of dictating one way or the other. What I am in favor of is offering a range of options, and let them compete for resources to see which is most effective.
The tangible techie stuff has given us wonderous tools with which we can do the things for and to humanity that are important.
But the less tangible areas are where we go to decide what our values are, or should be. It’s only after we make those decisions that we can choose and build the tools needed to serve us and our values.
So I think they both serve our purposes, in theory.
This might be why, when all extant tools and techs are available to all societies, it is still those societies that have examined and improved their values in accordance with what we call Western Thought that make a better life for their peoples.
Clearly, it isn’t JUST engineering or tech that define those differences in human outcome.
@bobby b
But the less tangible areas are where we go to decide what our values are, or should be.
I think that is true, but I’m not sure any of us should be taking our values from Anna Karenina. And similarly I think from all the supposedly great works of literature. The reality is that many of these, and I’d add to that the writings of many philosophers, are simply too dense and difficult for most people (myself included) and so they aren’t getting their values there, and they aren’t having their values challenged there either. I had an aunt who was a Professor of English Literature at LSU. She explained that most of what people in that field talk about is so tied up in internal jargon and self referential notation that nobody outside the field would know what they are talking about. Or as she said, “they know more and more about less and less, until they know everything about nothing.”
It is one of the reasons I dislike Hemingway so much. the values he conveys are quite horrific. I think it is the only time I’d use the term “toxic masculinity” and mean it seriously.
So, these great geniuses that we are supposed to learn from? Ibsen, Tolstoy and so forth — which of them honestly can you say have had much of an effect on your personal values, or, come to that, the values of the society we live in? I think our values are derived from rather more prosaic sources and through a process of experimentation rather than plowing our way through “For Whom the Bell Tolls” or “The Brothers Karamazov”. Not that I don’t think some of that material can be enjoyable, but let’s not overstate its impact, or throw the word “genius” about too freely.
I recently replaced my swollen cellphone battery. I know it was a battery because it said “battery” on it. When I opened the phone, it was an impenetrable densepack to me. But that phone has become central to my life without me knowing much at all about it.
Similarly, I enjoy life in a society in which rights and responsibilities and values have been informed by – have been built upon – a body of philosophy and writings that goes back centuries, and which is a similar impenetrable densepack to me. From Hammurabi to Locke to Rand through many other writers and thinkers, I live within a western code of values and assumptions that didn’t arise from thin air, but from centuries of argument and testing and reformulating . . .
I can attempt impenetrable Russian authors writing about times I never saw, and, even without my complete understanding, they inform me about past systems and thoughts and governments. Dostoevsky wasn’t writing to me or for me, and yet I can glean enough from him to know what systems I’d not care to resurrect. And what I am unable to glean from him, other more capable readers can, and they add that to our social discussion.
Things can have huge effects even without popular reach. How many people do you think have read the Federalist Papers? Contrast that with, have the FedPapers affected our legal system? I don’t understand my phone’s workings OR a lot of past philosophic debate, but my life is affected by both. And our lives are improved when we know exactly how yucky toxic masculinity can be. 😉
So I wouldn’t teach tech to everyone, nor would I teach Olde Russian Novels to everyone. But they both have a place.
Looking back to my schooldays in the 1960s and 70s, I get the feeling that most of the teachers were going through the motions. They turned out mostly literate and numerate drones for the workplace, workplaces that for the most part involved fairly mundane jobs. I was an above average but mediocre student. It is only as I’ve grown and embraced life long learning that I have come to suspect that I might have been very much more above average if I had received a better education that a state comprehensive sausage factory could provide.
A lamp to be lit, not a vessel to be filled!
I’m not sure it really is a reflection on reality to imagine that our values, morals and institutions are the result of a rational reasoned debate. You bring up one of the few exceptions — the federalist papers — but even there I think that the result was largely just an evolutionary change from the Westminster system adapted to fit the special circumstances of the New World and the failed experiment of the confederation. I think it is worth pointing out that the difference between the American Revolution and the French Revolution was that the American Revolution in most respects wanted to keep things the same, whereas the French Revolution wanted to change absolutely everything.
You rightly delegate expertise in the construction of your phone to the engineering experts who have evolved the set of knowledge, skills and tools over millennia to make it possible. And that is right to do so, especially so since those men make products that they try to convince you to buy in a competitive environment. They live and breathe and prosper by your approval. But do we really want to delegate the construction of our morals, values and institutions to professors of literature, or deans of philosophy, bishops of the church, or, god help us, politicians? Perhaps the least worthy members of society to make such decisions, especially so when they DON’T have to compete for your business, they impose their prognostications on you with legally sanctioned force.
Values, morals, institutions evolve over time due to external pressures not so much due to intellectual reasoning, and certainly not due to impenetrable fiction. And so while I don’t totally disagree with your points, I think what offended me in the OP was not so much the idea that smart men affect society, but rather the examples of the smart men they chose, Tolstoy, Ibsen, Nietzsche, Hertz, Dostoevsky, Marx. As to the two scientists he mentions — Hertz and Maxwell — I mean sure, though they seem a strange choice among the many remarkable men (and occasional woman) available to list.
But back to the Federalist papers, I’ll grant you that at this point in history there was a cluster of about twenty truly remarkable men, deeply, deeply flawed men — slaveholders FFS — but remarkable nonetheless, that all coincided in the same place at the same time. It is a remarkable thing, and I’m not sure why. “Cometh the hour cometh the man” perhaps? But that hour hath cometh many times producing a charlatan or a fool rather than a savior. There are certain events in history, that one and, more contemporaneously, the failed assassination of Trump, that makes an implacable atheist like myself wonder about divine providence.
As to the lower number of geniuses per capita, I think that is more to do with visibility than absence. There are only so many celebrity genius slots available in the media, and when they are taken up by ephemeral fluff, the true genius goes back anonymously to his lab and invents things to make all our lives massively better.
100%.
The humanities teach us how to apply things, and why.
@neonsnake
The humanities teach us how to apply things, and why.
Do they? I mean I know that is how humanities departments make the case for their funding, and I understand that it is a cute little catch phrase that fits neatly on a meme. But what is the evidence that that is actually true? The reality is that people decide how to live their lives based on the social group they are part of, what are their expectations, whether parents or friends or local church or what their favorite pop star tells them.
I mean the Bible and Marx, for example, do have some impact but mostly not, people shape their influence around the community standards that have evolved over time. That is why Christians don’t want to kill gay people and why Marxists want to redistribute your money but not their own.
The reality is that morals, standards and institutions evolve in response to the changing environment in which they are found, and modify and align according to fitness functions in some the same ways that biological evolution behaves. Nobody dramatically changes society by publishing some profound novel or some great philosophy. I think in some respects the opposite is true — people form the morals, values and standards that suit them best and then find some sort of support, some sort of echo chamber, in written materials.
For sure that does lead to further development — when you realize you are a libertarian you might read Rand and her writings help develop your thinking along those lines further. But that is just fitting into a new community, and an expansion within the echo chamber.
Just as a concrete example, I used to be part of an evangelical church and saw a lot of people “give their lives to Christ.” Almost without exception nobody was convinced by preaching the Bible to them, or sharing Christian doctrines. Almost without exception people were welcomed into a friendly loving community of the church, and it fulfilled that most basic of human needs. And part of the price of admission was that you had to start believing all the Bible stuff. That is the way it works in reality, for the vast majority of people anyway. As far as I can see anyway.
The most important thing for a tutor to do is to help the student (the pupil) understand the principles of reasoning (Critical Thinking – NOT Critical Theory, which sounds the same but is the opposite).
This leads to the student (pupil) being able to judge the beliefs of the tutor themselves – and even decide that those beliefs are WRONG. It enables the student to think-for-themselves – on the basis of sound principles of reasoning. Which the student can use on THEMSELVES – for example my late friend Antony Flew was not “converted” from socialism by some other person, what happened was that over time he applied evidence and sound reasoning to his own socialist beliefs and found them to be mistaken.
The bizarre thing about many of the philosophers mentioned in the essay is that they did not follow the basic principles of reasoning as laid out by Aristotle and others. They may indeed have been incredibly intelligent – but because they were not following sound principles in the very structure of their “arguments” they reached bizarre (and FALSE) conclusions.
These is no reason why a philosopher should be obscure – as Harold Prichard (Professor of Moral Philosophy at Oxford) used to say – if an ordinary man on the bus passing this lecture hall could not, having made a good faith effort, understand my lectures – the fault is mine, not his. It is the job of a teacher (and of a thinker) to put real effort into making their work as clear as possible – so, if they make an effort, the ordinary person can understand it. And the basic principles of sound reasoning are not that complicated – and lead to understandable “Common Sense” (as Thomas Reid used to say) results.
Philosophers such as Harold Prichard and Sir William David Ross at Oxford had a much better grasp of the basic (Aristotelian) rules of reasoning than their more famous counterparts at Cambridge in the same time period – the Cambridge men (including Wittgenstein) being more famous, more fashionable, but far less sound.
It is also the case that non philosophers educated at Oxford in this period, such as J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S.Lewis had a better grasp of what is proper reasoning and what is crooked (false) reasoning, than some (some – not all, M.J. Oakeshott and Enoch Powell being obvious exceptions) people educated at Cambridge in this period of history. Cambridge groups like the Apostles Club (Bertrand Russell and co – although the club went back long before him, and I believe that Lord Keynes was also a member, although I could be mistaken about that) who mixed extreme arrogance with astonishing ignorance of basic matters – ignorance they covered up with their arrogance, which included a snobbish sneering attitude towards anyone who pointed out errors of fact, or errors of reasoning, in their work.
It was often the most extreme socialists who were also the most extreme snobs – “do you not know who I am!” being their, unspoken – but deeply implied, default position. Their response to criticism, to the pointing out of errors of fact or errors of reasoning, being sneering contempt and mockery.
Hat tip to my late friend Antony Flew for pointing out the greater influence of the ordinary rules of reasoning in Oxford (in this historical period – not later) – although he may have been somewhat biased being an Oxford man himself.
Paul Johnson’s book “Intellectuals” is good on what these over rated people were really like – including “God’s older brother” Tolstoy.
On Russian literature – Dostoevsky looked critically at himself and changed his opinions in the light of evidence and reasoning (he may still have been wrong – but there was critical reasoning going on with him).
Tolstoy? Certainly not – no real critical examination of his own doctrines.
A great writer most certainly – but not a great thinker, for a great thinker must apply evidence and critical reasoning (again Critical Thinking NOT Critical Theory – which is its opposite, Critical Theory being Marxist dogmatism) to-their-own-beliefs.
Also, especially as one gets older (I am rather old myself), there is no shame in asking for help from the person one is communicating with.
“Please run through the stages of your argument again – explaining each stage, I am not as quick witted as I used to be”.
And “please give me some time to think about this, to examine the evidence and argument, I can no longer just reply in seconds”.
These statements are in no way shameful – they are necessary and correct.
If the other person just sneers – the fault is not yours, the fault is theirs.
I have checked now – the late Lord Keynes was in the Cambridge Apostles.
So were at least three traitors for the Soviet Union – Blunt, Burgess and Cairncross, but the formal agents did much less damage than some of the other members (such as Bertrand Russell).
It is the “spell of Plato” – a belief that intellectuals should plan society and make everyone their puppets, and a total disregard for evidence and for ordinary reasoning.
I am reminded of the arrogance of Bertrand Russell’s kinsman – Prime Minister Lord Russell and his man Sir Charles Trevelyan founder of the British Civil Service (if you believe either of these men believed in “laissez faire” you have been mislead).
Introducing state schools in Ireland (1831 – at the suggesting of Lord Stanley later the Earl of Derby) is the correct policy. “Why is it the correct policy?” Because it is – because we say so.
Introducing a Poor Law Tax into Ireland (1838) is the correct policy. “But the economy, even the economy that is NOT dependent on the potato, is now not doing very well, there seem to be a lot more poor people….” Then increase the Poor Law Tax – and then increase it again and again! And get the areas of Ireland that have not yet gone bankrupt to bailout the areas that have gone bankrupt!
“But the whole of Ireland now seems to be falling apart – with much of the population dying or fleeing the country” – Shut up! We can not be mistaken – we are intellectuals!
If one looks at American cities under Democrat control today – the same thinking is at work, it is always more spending and more taxes, the rulers never question themselves, they never stop to critically examine their own beliefs.
We have all of these rather stark examples throughout history of attempts at ways of living that clearly didn’t work, but if we never examine them, we’re not progressing as a civilization, we’re just repeating bad days one after another.
I look at the humanities as having value, not for the pretty writing styles and word choices, but as encapsulations of human history. I am left cold at pretty writing for pretty writing’s sake. Poetry does nothing for me. I’m in it for the content, not the form.
So many people nowadays (boy, is THAT an old-sounding phrase) seem to be ignorant of what has been tried in humanity’s past. Reading older literature – along with non-fic history itself – is one of the best ways to make progress instead of just repeating mistakes. The humanities give us that option.
@bobby b
Reading older literature – along with non-fic history itself – is one of the best ways to make progress instead of just repeating mistakes. The humanities give us that option.
I think some wise soul once said that the only thing we learn from history is that we learn nothing from history.
But maybe that is a cheap shot, I think I at least in some part agree with you.
Maybe because everything is more complicated, not low hanging fruits? maybe there are just less things to discover.
@lucklucky
Maybe because everything is more complicated, not low hanging fruits? maybe there are just less things to discover.
I think exactly the opposite of this is true. For sure things are more complicated but we have VASTLY superior tools to discover things with. It is worth remembering that Einstein did not have a computer, and Newton had to invent calculus to make the paradigm shifting discoveries he did.
And second, the irony of science is that the more we discover the more we realize we don’t know. So discovering things tends to increase the space of undiscovered things still to explore.
“Why we stopped making Einsteins”. Two reasons.
Because children are no longer taught basic knowledge – they are left to (if they make the effort privately) find out things for themselves – and even a genius will not go far if they are not taught what has already been found out. “We stand on the shoulders of those who have gone before us” – otherwise each generation has to work out how to make an handaxe.
Someone can “do very well” at school and get a degree from an “elite university” – and still know bugger-all.
And….
Children are no longer taught Critical Thinking, the basic art of sound reasoning, they are taught (mutant Marxist) “Critical Theory” instead of Critical Thinking.
What fundamental Physics was discovered in the last 50 years?
OMG OMG OMG I find myself agreeing with Fraser Orr again!!!
Literature – especially if it is seriously attempting to address social phenomena – is usually the worst sort of emotional suasion, untethered to reality. And we are living in a generation that all too readily confuses reality and fantasy in making its assessments and laws.
For the past 200 years all the arts have adopted the romantic notion of The Artist as an outsider/rebel/visionary/prophet/iconoclast/truth-teller. The results have not been conducive to social stability and progress.
Classroom-based ‘frontal’ education (even more frontal nowadays if your teacher is trans) was established to turn farm children into factory and office workers. That no longer seems to be necessary – a new set of skills is required. So a new educational regimen will emerge.
@lucklucky
What fundamental Physics was discovered in the last 50 years?
Well the obvious answer is the mechanism for inertial mass regarding the Higgs field, but that is entirely not the point. Just because one field of endeavor isn’t advancing doesn’t mean we aren’t making Einsteins. It just means we have retargeted our energies in a more fruitful direction.
Of course because advances in one field most times only start by discoveries in other fields. But reality is not limitless.
And also other serious limitation: human body and human senses.
It’s a sad feature of the mass public education system nowadays that teachers specialise in one specific subject but fail to connect it to others, because they themselves had never been exposed to such free exploration of knowledge.
Specialised courses exist, but still rigidly defined by syllabus. The type of unbounded discussion of topics and concepts is not easy to emulate, because you’ll need persons with curiosity and attained knowledge in a number of fields in both the sciences and humanities.
Then you need space and time. I often wish I had more time to delve into tangential topics rather than plug away at the stuff tested in the exam, but there’s just not enough time to do so! Teachers are constantly burdened by the expectation of teaching to the test, and often even the students prefer this.
I also viewed the various fields of knowledge this way:
1. Science tells you whether a certain thing could be done.
2. Economics and some humanities tells you what happens if this thing is done, or not done.
3. Other humanities and religions guide you to whether this thing should be done, or how it should be done.
We focused so much on 1, a lot of the 2 and 3 have been neglected. And those who keep harping on 2 and 3 turned out to be the watermelons, most of the time.
@The Wobbly Guy
Teachers are constantly burdened by the expectation of teaching to the test, and often even the students prefer this.
I hear this complaint a lot and I don’t agree at all. I think, as long as it is a good test, teachers should teach to the test. Their goal should be to convey to the students a body of knowledge and skills and then have the students assessed in the degree to which they have acquired those skills. Sometimes the tests need to be improved for sure, but the basic principle is a good one.
3. Other humanities and religions guide you to whether this thing should be done, or how it should be done.
TBH I think this is a bumper sticker that just does not correspond to reality. In fact I think in some respects religion and the humanities, insofar as they impact public morals and values and purpose, often do so in a very negative way. The reality is our public values and morals are mostly an evolved system developing what works, what people feel comfortable with. The use of religion and the humanities is often a tool of the powerful to manipulate this evolutionary process to their advantage. What the humanities do sometimes is give people a platform and language to talk about some things, and so I think there is some value in that, but I think their value to society is greatly over-rated. Your view that we have neglected the humanities and religion is one with which I could not disagree more. We have spent VASTLY too much time and resources on this. My God, think about how much energy, money and resources are consumed even today by religion!
And I loathe this thread of thinking in society that if you aren’t familiar with Dostoevsky or James Joyce then you are an ignoramous. In truth most people familiar with these works are familiar only from reading Cliff’s notes or the Wikipedia article to impress their friends. I would not think someone ignorant if they didn’t know the difference between a boson and a lepton, but somehow being “well read” is a mark of your ability to contribute to society?
I often thing that those novelists that we apotheosize, are like the guys who paint a blob on a canvas and sell it for a million bucks. There is a certain “the emperor has no clothes” feeling about it (though in fairness high end artwork is mostly about tax fraud than actual art.) “I spent a hundred hours slogging through ‘Ulysses’ so you’d better think I am damn smart and cultured as a consequence.”
@lucklucky
Of course because advances in one field most times only start by discoveries in other fields. But reality is not limitless.
Reality is to all intents and purposes limitless within the scope of humanity.
And also other serious limitation: human body and human senses.
That is why we invented tools.