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The Two Cultures
The notion that our society, its education system and its intellectual life, is characterised by a split between two cultures—the arts or humanities on one hand, and the sciences on the other—has a long history. But it was C. P. Snow's Rede lecture of 1959 that brought it to prominence and began a public debate that is still raging in the media today. This 50th anniversary printing of The Two Cultures and its successor piece, A Second Look (in which Snow responded to the controversy four years later) features an introduction by Stefan Collini, charting the history and context of the debate, its implications and its afterlife. The importance of science and technology in policy run largely by non-scientists, the future for education and research, and the problem of fragmentation threatening hopes for a common culture are just some of the subjects discussed.
181 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1959
About the author
C.P. Snow
72 books110 followersKnown British scientist Charles Percy Snow, baron Snow of Leicester, wrote especially his 11-volume series
Strangers and Brothers
(1940-1970).
See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C._P._Snow
See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C._P._Snow
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 156 reviews
April 27, 2020
Interesting opinions on science and the cultures within science. Some of it still applies today, most of it is outdated. I was assigned to read the speech C.P. Snow gave in 1959 and decided to read the accompanying book. It was pretty hard to get through, but I did find some interesting parts. It's interesting to read for scientists, but mostly as a source of information about history.
June 2, 2019
Portuguese extended-version: https://virtual-illusion.blogspot.com...
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This book was made from a talk by CP Snow, in 1959, that made lots of ripples throughout the academy, much of them against Snow, condemning him for contributing to augmenting the divide between science and humanities. I must confess how surprised I feel reading such condemnations, even more when by people like Stephen Jay Gould.
It's strange how even today people approach this book defending, it states the obvious, but then saying the world should not be like this, because things are very simple, and we should be able to understand each other! I'm sorry for not entering the same wagon. Maybe some years ago I would agree, not today.
The two cultures here presented exist, because humans have different motivations, different drives in their lives. We can't all like the same things, because we're different. Of course we could say that much more than 2 cultures must exist, which is true, however trying to understand, at least, these groups and accept them, would make much good than just keep saying that all of us should understand the world in the same manner, or share the same world-views.
About the book itself I must say it doesn't help, because Snow doesn't help. There's no method, no true definition is presented of both sides, no characterisation of the different profiles is presented, no sociology even less a psychology is developed. Thus the argument becomes almost indefensible. And because of this Snow committed a big error, he just used to characterise the poles, the domains: science and humanities. The problem is that this is the same error of trying to classify anything as man or woman oriented, the Bell curve will say men are like this, and women like that, but beyond the mean of the curve, exists lots of men and women not identifying themselves with the labels. The same happened here. A lot of scientists love to read literature, and lots of literary people manifest interest in the sciences.
Saying this, I'm just saying the book is weak, not that the divide between mathematic and literary oriented minds don't exist.
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This book was made from a talk by CP Snow, in 1959, that made lots of ripples throughout the academy, much of them against Snow, condemning him for contributing to augmenting the divide between science and humanities. I must confess how surprised I feel reading such condemnations, even more when by people like Stephen Jay Gould.
It's strange how even today people approach this book defending, it states the obvious, but then saying the world should not be like this, because things are very simple, and we should be able to understand each other! I'm sorry for not entering the same wagon. Maybe some years ago I would agree, not today.
The two cultures here presented exist, because humans have different motivations, different drives in their lives. We can't all like the same things, because we're different. Of course we could say that much more than 2 cultures must exist, which is true, however trying to understand, at least, these groups and accept them, would make much good than just keep saying that all of us should understand the world in the same manner, or share the same world-views.
About the book itself I must say it doesn't help, because Snow doesn't help. There's no method, no true definition is presented of both sides, no characterisation of the different profiles is presented, no sociology even less a psychology is developed. Thus the argument becomes almost indefensible. And because of this Snow committed a big error, he just used to characterise the poles, the domains: science and humanities. The problem is that this is the same error of trying to classify anything as man or woman oriented, the Bell curve will say men are like this, and women like that, but beyond the mean of the curve, exists lots of men and women not identifying themselves with the labels. The same happened here. A lot of scientists love to read literature, and lots of literary people manifest interest in the sciences.
Saying this, I'm just saying the book is weak, not that the divide between mathematic and literary oriented minds don't exist.
March 28, 2021
I read this (the original, published in 1959) in college. It was assigned reading. The premise, that mankind was dividing into two separate and non-communicating communities of arts and science, didn't seem revolutionary then. The poles still exist today, but are even less evident among the many other polarizations in current culture: economic, religious, political, racial, and ethnic.
From the vantage point of fifty years of actual observation, the polarizations persist not because they are natural but because they are convenient. Humans seem to thrive in "us and them" dichotomies. We create them. We feed them. We make jokes about them: "There are two types of people; ..."
And yet it also seems we ignore them, as we actually live our lives. There may be scientists (certainly engineers) who have no artistic impulse, but also many more who do. And people straddle divides every day, even as they may identify with this or that community.
Robert Frost was right. Building walls doesn't make better neighbors, but we build them anyway. Partly from fear; partly of necessity; mostly (I think) from habit.
From the vantage point of fifty years of actual observation, the polarizations persist not because they are natural but because they are convenient. Humans seem to thrive in "us and them" dichotomies. We create them. We feed them. We make jokes about them: "There are two types of people; ..."
And yet it also seems we ignore them, as we actually live our lives. There may be scientists (certainly engineers) who have no artistic impulse, but also many more who do. And people straddle divides every day, even as they may identify with this or that community.
Robert Frost was right. Building walls doesn't make better neighbors, but we build them anyway. Partly from fear; partly of necessity; mostly (I think) from habit.
September 18, 2012
Let's say 3.5 stars.
Snow's general argument, that science people and humanities people should just all get along already, is near and dear to my heart. I went to a nerdy science high school, so half my classmates were practically born with a slide rule in their hand, and the other half were the children of doctors and lawyers who wanted their kids to go to the good public high school but who were not exactly thrilled about all the math they were being subjected to. (It was an interesting early lesson in the socioeconomics of education how few poor classmates I had, but that's another story.) The end result was that half my friends spent all their time complaining that they even had to take English and read books, and the other half would get all defensive (understandably so) and scornfully remind everyone that math can't describe love.
Basically, I wanted to wring all their necks, so when I heard of this CP Snow character who had coined the phrase "The Two Cultures," I figured I'd enjoy reading his lecture.
The problem is, the essay is sort of a muddled mess. He starts out describing the cultural gap, and laments the fact that most literary intellectuals couldn't explain The Second Law of Thermodynamics, which he describes as the scientific equivalent of Shakespeare. Amen to that.
But then he tries to tie the who thing to the future of developing nations, makes a bunch of laughably, horribly, awfully, painfully optimistic predictions about the fate of said nations, all while talking in circles about the differences between British, American, and Russian education.
In other words, taken as a whole coherent lecture, it basically isn't coherent. I'm not even entirely sure that the difference in cultures was even his main POINT, but it's hard to tell between all of the rambling asides he makes.
This edition also contains the sequel to the original lecture, where he revisits his initial thoughts in the context of the various criticisms he's received, which turns into an even less coherent jumble of words than the first one.
If the concept interests you in the first place, it's worth reading the original lecture, just to see what the big deal is all about. It's only maybe 50 pages; you can read it in an hour.
Which brings me to my final criticism. Seriously, how does anyone justify an introduction of historical context EQUALLY AS LONG as the actual content of the book? The scientist in me is scoffing at the typically pompous literary intellectual who must have made that decision.
Snow's general argument, that science people and humanities people should just all get along already, is near and dear to my heart. I went to a nerdy science high school, so half my classmates were practically born with a slide rule in their hand, and the other half were the children of doctors and lawyers who wanted their kids to go to the good public high school but who were not exactly thrilled about all the math they were being subjected to. (It was an interesting early lesson in the socioeconomics of education how few poor classmates I had, but that's another story.) The end result was that half my friends spent all their time complaining that they even had to take English and read books, and the other half would get all defensive (understandably so) and scornfully remind everyone that math can't describe love.
Basically, I wanted to wring all their necks, so when I heard of this CP Snow character who had coined the phrase "The Two Cultures," I figured I'd enjoy reading his lecture.
The problem is, the essay is sort of a muddled mess. He starts out describing the cultural gap, and laments the fact that most literary intellectuals couldn't explain The Second Law of Thermodynamics, which he describes as the scientific equivalent of Shakespeare. Amen to that.
But then he tries to tie the who thing to the future of developing nations, makes a bunch of laughably, horribly, awfully, painfully optimistic predictions about the fate of said nations, all while talking in circles about the differences between British, American, and Russian education.
In other words, taken as a whole coherent lecture, it basically isn't coherent. I'm not even entirely sure that the difference in cultures was even his main POINT, but it's hard to tell between all of the rambling asides he makes.
This edition also contains the sequel to the original lecture, where he revisits his initial thoughts in the context of the various criticisms he's received, which turns into an even less coherent jumble of words than the first one.
If the concept interests you in the first place, it's worth reading the original lecture, just to see what the big deal is all about. It's only maybe 50 pages; you can read it in an hour.
Which brings me to my final criticism. Seriously, how does anyone justify an introduction of historical context EQUALLY AS LONG as the actual content of the book? The scientist in me is scoffing at the typically pompous literary intellectual who must have made that decision.
April 9, 2008
Another fine selection from Canto's outstanding line of Cambridge Publishing reprints, CP Snow's seminal essay is referenced widely enough -- and simply enough grokked -- that one might consider it, as Calvino wrote, with "Books Everyone Else Has Read and So It's As If You've Read Them, Too". It's short and absolutely worth your time, with an excellent critical essay introducing the polemic itself (noting especially the litotic third taxon of Snow's partitioning).
December 8, 2021
"Since the gap between the rich countries and poor can be removed, it will be."
The gap was, in fact, not removed.
The gap was, in fact, not removed.
January 13, 2011
I am surprised this work is not more a part of the liberal arts college curriculum; it’s clearly written, pretty short, and addresses a very interesting, relevant issue – the split between literary intellectuals and scientific intellectuals.
These two groups, each comprised of many very smart people, seem to exist largely in a state of mutual incomprehension (and sometimes mistrust, even scorn).
For so many scientists, their literary experience is limited to “a bit of Dickens.”
In the literary culture, most are completely unaware of the Second Law of Thermodynamics – the scientific equivalent to: “Have you read Shakespeare?”……
These two groups, each comprised of many very smart people, seem to exist largely in a state of mutual incomprehension (and sometimes mistrust, even scorn).
For so many scientists, their literary experience is limited to “a bit of Dickens.”
In the literary culture, most are completely unaware of the Second Law of Thermodynamics – the scientific equivalent to: “Have you read Shakespeare?”……
December 12, 2020
The word "tech-bro" gets thrown around a lot in the terminally-online community. In many ways, Snow was the original "tech-bro", waxing eloquent about the merits of science as a tool to solve all the problems of the world that the other culture, that of the "literary intellectual", had let fester for so long. While the term comes with the baggage of misogyny and subtle racism, which might not be entirely relevant in this context (1950's British academia was definitely a white boys' club, though, so there's that), the modern tech-bro shares much of the same worldview espoused by Snow.
When I came across a summary of his Rede Lecture thesis, I was anxious to get my hands on the text, if only to tear it apart. This is where Stefan Collini's excellent introduction works its magic. In fact, you could pick this book up simply to go through it. In 75 pages (nearly two-fifths of the length of the book), the introduction provides a detailed socio-political and historical background of the era as well as that of Snow and his primary detractors. This provides much-needed context for going through the book's core thesis and convinced me to appraise Snow's arguments in good faith.
This lecture is largely a commentary on pedagogy within the narrow geographical and temporal confines of interwar Britain. However, Snow had quite a bit to say on the general zeitgeist, not just of his own era, but also ours in the 21st century. He was remarkably prescient in pointing out issues that would, in the long run, prove to be a detriment to inter-disciplinary cooperation in solving humanity's burgeoning crises. However, in the process, he paints with the broadest brush possible such as when he says of the literary intellectuals:
or, his indictment of the apolitical staidness of engineers:
It goes without saying that such analysis is reductive, however, in my anecdotal experience, one can possibly draw a straight line between the engineers that Snow talks about and the Elon Musk-worshipping, "just-learn-to-code" tech-bros who lack a deeper understanding of the issues plaguing society and whose solutions amount to plastering deep wounds with technological band-aids. Similarly, it's possible that literary intellectuals are, to a large extent, skeptical of technological advancement. After all, stalwarts such as Tolkein and Lewis constantly allude to the superiority of tranquil pastoralism over "brutish" industrial advancements.
A rather surprising aspect of this work is that, although the text talks almost exclusively about academia, the subtext is full of the kind of class analysis that you wouldn't really expect to come from a resident of the Imperial Core. If you can look past his paternalistic treatment of the Third World, you can see vestiges of deep-seated solidarity for the working classes in Snow's writing. He constantly laments about the outsized influence of out-of-touch intellectuals in the shaping of the world and makes such well-meaning, but ultimately laughable predictions like:
It's well worth remembering that, while built upon an underlying thesis, this is far from being an academic treatise, and, as such, Snow fails to provide hard data while making some of his generalized statements. In fact, the whole lecture feels like a long, drawn-out diss track against the snobs in academia at the time who dismissed science as unworthy of the status of being an "intellectual" pursuit. On the whole, though, it is a short and fierce book chock-full of interesting ideas and zany predictions well worth your time if you are interested in catching a sliver of post-War optimism and naivete unrestrained by such things as peer-review. I'll leave this with another quote from Stefan Collini's introduction:
When I came across a summary of his Rede Lecture thesis, I was anxious to get my hands on the text, if only to tear it apart. This is where Stefan Collini's excellent introduction works its magic. In fact, you could pick this book up simply to go through it. In 75 pages (nearly two-fifths of the length of the book), the introduction provides a detailed socio-political and historical background of the era as well as that of Snow and his primary detractors. This provides much-needed context for going through the book's core thesis and convinced me to appraise Snow's arguments in good faith.
This lecture is largely a commentary on pedagogy within the narrow geographical and temporal confines of interwar Britain. However, Snow had quite a bit to say on the general zeitgeist, not just of his own era, but also ours in the 21st century. He was remarkably prescient in pointing out issues that would, in the long run, prove to be a detriment to inter-disciplinary cooperation in solving humanity's burgeoning crises. However, in the process, he paints with the broadest brush possible such as when he says of the literary intellectuals:
“Intellectuals, in particular literary intellectuals, are natural Luddites.”
or, his indictment of the apolitical staidness of engineers:
“...not so engineers, who are conservative almost to a man. Not reactionary in the extreme literary sense, but just conservative. They are absorbed in making things, and the present social order is good enough for them."
It goes without saying that such analysis is reductive, however, in my anecdotal experience, one can possibly draw a straight line between the engineers that Snow talks about and the Elon Musk-worshipping, "just-learn-to-code" tech-bros who lack a deeper understanding of the issues plaguing society and whose solutions amount to plastering deep wounds with technological band-aids. Similarly, it's possible that literary intellectuals are, to a large extent, skeptical of technological advancement. After all, stalwarts such as Tolkein and Lewis constantly allude to the superiority of tranquil pastoralism over "brutish" industrial advancements.
A rather surprising aspect of this work is that, although the text talks almost exclusively about academia, the subtext is full of the kind of class analysis that you wouldn't really expect to come from a resident of the Imperial Core. If you can look past his paternalistic treatment of the Third World, you can see vestiges of deep-seated solidarity for the working classes in Snow's writing. He constantly laments about the outsized influence of out-of-touch intellectuals in the shaping of the world and makes such well-meaning, but ultimately laughable predictions like:
“This disparity between the rich and the poor has been noticed. It has been noticed, most acutely and not un-naturally, by the poor. Just because they have noticed it, it won't last for long. Whatever else in the world we know survives to the year 2000, that won't. Once the trick of getting rich is known, as it now is, the world can't survive half rich and half poor. It's just not on.”
It's well worth remembering that, while built upon an underlying thesis, this is far from being an academic treatise, and, as such, Snow fails to provide hard data while making some of his generalized statements. In fact, the whole lecture feels like a long, drawn-out diss track against the snobs in academia at the time who dismissed science as unworthy of the status of being an "intellectual" pursuit. On the whole, though, it is a short and fierce book chock-full of interesting ideas and zany predictions well worth your time if you are interested in catching a sliver of post-War optimism and naivete unrestrained by such things as peer-review. I'll leave this with another quote from Stefan Collini's introduction:
“At the heart of the concept of the 'two cultures' is a claim about academic disciplines. Other matters are obviously intimately involved - questions of educational structure, social attitudes, government policy-making and so on. But if the concept is to possess any continuing persuasiveness it must offer an illuminating characterisation of the divide between two sorts of intellectual enquiry.“
December 16, 2023
This is an odd book because we basically don't read it for the reasons the author intended. You're likely reading this because the idea of academic disciplines being incapable of communicating with one another was solidified here and has been debated and modified ever since.
The interesting thing is that for Snow, that idea was merely setting up his intended point about collaboration to address global poverty. The reason we don't care much about his point is that many of his assumptions about politics, industrialization, and development seem very out of date. So instead, we return to his premise and skim his conclusion.
I think this is mostly useful as a framing device for other conversations. In what ways do scholars today feel that this resonates across disciplines? What does it say about their ability to be literate outside their own field? And it remains, to me, an open question about how best to apply this to non-academic fields. Can you extrapolate the premise to far in attempting to address not merely academic cultures, but "culture"?
A final note, my edition has an extensive introduction. I found it helpful to read the short biography of Snow in it, but I came back and read the rest of the introduction after reading the main text. This made the argument easier to follow and it also let me have my own reaction first before testing it against the arguments of the introduction. Just my preference.
The interesting thing is that for Snow, that idea was merely setting up his intended point about collaboration to address global poverty. The reason we don't care much about his point is that many of his assumptions about politics, industrialization, and development seem very out of date. So instead, we return to his premise and skim his conclusion.
I think this is mostly useful as a framing device for other conversations. In what ways do scholars today feel that this resonates across disciplines? What does it say about their ability to be literate outside their own field? And it remains, to me, an open question about how best to apply this to non-academic fields. Can you extrapolate the premise to far in attempting to address not merely academic cultures, but "culture"?
A final note, my edition has an extensive introduction. I found it helpful to read the short biography of Snow in it, but I came back and read the rest of the introduction after reading the main text. This made the argument easier to follow and it also let me have my own reaction first before testing it against the arguments of the introduction. Just my preference.
May 28, 2019
This was a very interesting and provoking consideration of who needs who the most between the two cultures of the humanities people and the science people. Snow himself was a scientist-turned-novelist who believed in the power of, and need for technology to solve problems, and saw a lot of ignorance/pessimism from the English lit-elites. Snow gave the first lecture in 1959, so a number of his comments are dated, but the intro helps with context, and the whole book calls for educators to get the two cultures talking to each other. It's especially apropos as I'm talking with some men about starting a liberal arts college in the digital generation.
May 9, 2023
was not expecting the industrial revolution chat in this, super excited for ideologies seminar this week.
beyond the classic arguments re the relative merits and faults of the major educational systems, the two parts i found most interesting:
- (to paraphrase heavily) his basic idea about yeah scientists might not read books but have you ever got a humanities person to try to explain a basic scientific concept. not perhaps deeply profound but I hadn't ever thought of this in such a mirrored way
- the kind of tiered but everyone is still involved in the science society ideal he sets up at the end. through very tenuous connections made by a brain far too tired for it to make much sense it reminded me of Eric Winsberg's seminar he gave on public participation in science
beyond the classic arguments re the relative merits and faults of the major educational systems, the two parts i found most interesting:
- (to paraphrase heavily) his basic idea about yeah scientists might not read books but have you ever got a humanities person to try to explain a basic scientific concept. not perhaps deeply profound but I hadn't ever thought of this in such a mirrored way
- the kind of tiered but everyone is still involved in the science society ideal he sets up at the end. through very tenuous connections made by a brain far too tired for it to make much sense it reminded me of Eric Winsberg's seminar he gave on public participation in science
March 28, 2023
some good thoughts but he’s a little intense
June 5, 2023
بالنظر لتاريخ صدور الكتاب،فالكتاب مهم ومهم جدا
بالنظر لتاريخ قراءته 2023
فالكتاب عادي، فالأفكار التي طرحها الكتاب،وإن كانت ثورية في وقتها فقد كتب بعدها العديد من الأبحاث والدراسات والكتب.
هذا الكتاب هو حصيلة محاضرة لتشارلز سنو
وهو من الأفراد الذي جمع بين الثقافتين "الثقافة العلمية والثقافة الأدبية"
وأثار في محاضرته نقاشًا حول أحد مظاهر المجتمعات الحديثة خاصة بعد عصر التنوير والأنسنة الأوربية، وتفاقم الثورة الصناعية (بأطوارها المختلفة) وتعاظم دور العلم وتمظهراته التقنية في الحياة البشرية وهو «انقسام المثقفين» إلى فئتين: المثقفين الأدبيين من جانب والذين يحتكرون لقب «مثقف»، والعلماء على الجانب الآخر،
والذي نتج عنه انقطاع التواصل بين أفراد الفئتين؛ والذي يراه الكاتب أحد أسباب التأخر في فهم وتحليل المشكلات داخل المجتمعات وبالتالي إعاقة تقدم وتحسين الحياة البشرية.
وبحسب رؤيته تتسم الحياة الفكرية للحضارة الغربية بالانقسام الشديد بين من ينحصر نشاطهم الفكري على العلوم الطبيعية والتطبيقية فقط؛ وبين من ينحصر نشاطهم الفكري على الآداب والفنون والعلوم الإنسانية أو كل ما تشمله الثقافة التقليدية. في حين يستقر عند كل فئة انطباع خاطئ عن الفئة الأخرى.
ويرصد الكتاب أزمة الانفصال بين العلوم الطبيعية والعلوم الإنسانية وبين روادها
فمن جانب هناك المثقفون الأدبيون الذين اقتصرت ثقافتهم على المواد الأدبية من تاريخ وأدب وشعر وفلسفة،وهم بطبيعتهم متشائمون
وبين العلماء الطبيعيين "المتفائلين بطبعهم"
والذين هم في الغالب لا يقرأون الكتب،لديهم نشاط غير عادي مصطلحات مضبوطة،يبحثون عن النتائج أكثر،ولا يبالون كثيرا بمآسي الحياة.
ثم تحدث عن ضرورة ردم تلك الفجوة من أجل انطلاقة المسيرة العلمية بصورة أفضل
الطرح الذي قدمه سنو في كتابه كان ثورة علمية في وقته وأثار العديد من ردود الفعل،إلا أن ما قدمه قد بات معروفا اليوم ، بل إن حديث علماء الاجتماع اليوم ليس فقط عن ضرورة الاطلاع على التخصصات الأخرى،بل هم يتحدثون عن نهاية عصر التخصص أصلا
فالثورات التكنلوجية ونهاية الحدود الفاصلة بين التخصصات العلمية وتعقد الظواهر والأنساق الطبيعية والعلمية والتحولات الكبرى ،كل ذلك يجعل اليوم من العكوف على تخصص واحد أضحوكة فضلا عن أن يكون له وزن علمي..
بالنظر لتاريخ قراءته 2023
فالكتاب عادي، فالأفكار التي طرحها الكتاب،وإن كانت ثورية في وقتها فقد كتب بعدها العديد من الأبحاث والدراسات والكتب.
هذا الكتاب هو حصيلة محاضرة لتشارلز سنو
وهو من الأفراد الذي جمع بين الثقافتين "الثقافة العلمية والثقافة الأدبية"
وأثار في محاضرته نقاشًا حول أحد مظاهر المجتمعات الحديثة خاصة بعد عصر التنوير والأنسنة الأوربية، وتفاقم الثورة الصناعية (بأطوارها المختلفة) وتعاظم دور العلم وتمظهراته التقنية في الحياة البشرية وهو «انقسام المثقفين» إلى فئتين: المثقفين الأدبيين من جانب والذين يحتكرون لقب «مثقف»، والعلماء على الجانب الآخر،
والذي نتج عنه انقطاع التواصل بين أفراد الفئتين؛ والذي يراه الكاتب أحد أسباب التأخر في فهم وتحليل المشكلات داخل المجتمعات وبالتالي إعاقة تقدم وتحسين الحياة البشرية.
وبحسب رؤيته تتسم الحياة الفكرية للحضارة الغربية بالانقسام الشديد بين من ينحصر نشاطهم الفكري على العلوم الطبيعية والتطبيقية فقط؛ وبين من ينحصر نشاطهم الفكري على الآداب والفنون والعلوم الإنسانية أو كل ما تشمله الثقافة التقليدية. في حين يستقر عند كل فئة انطباع خاطئ عن الفئة الأخرى.
ويرصد الكتاب أزمة الانفصال بين العلوم الطبيعية والعلوم الإنسانية وبين روادها
فمن جانب هناك المثقفون الأدبيون الذين اقتصرت ثقافتهم على المواد الأدبية من تاريخ وأدب وشعر وفلسفة،وهم بطبيعتهم متشائمون
وبين العلماء الطبيعيين "المتفائلين بطبعهم"
والذين هم في الغالب لا يقرأون الكتب،لديهم نشاط غير عادي مصطلحات مضبوطة،يبحثون عن النتائج أكثر،ولا يبالون كثيرا بمآسي الحياة.
ثم تحدث عن ضرورة ردم تلك الفجوة من أجل انطلاقة المسيرة العلمية بصورة أفضل
الطرح الذي قدمه سنو في كتابه كان ثورة علمية في وقته وأثار العديد من ردود الفعل،إلا أن ما قدمه قد بات معروفا اليوم ، بل إن حديث علماء الاجتماع اليوم ليس فقط عن ضرورة الاطلاع على التخصصات الأخرى،بل هم يتحدثون عن نهاية عصر التخصص أصلا
فالثورات التكنلوجية ونهاية الحدود الفاصلة بين التخصصات العلمية وتعقد الظواهر والأنساق الطبيعية والعلمية والتحولات الكبرى ،كل ذلك يجعل اليوم من العكوف على تخصص واحد أضحوكة فضلا عن أن يكون له وزن علمي..
Read
December 6, 2017I feel like I was sold a false bill of goods.
This was supposed to be the essay that set out clearly the gulf between the sciences and the humanities. I’d been hearing about it for years. I’m pretty I sure I skimmed it once online: “Yep, the sciences… yes, literary… poor communication… dire consequences, ok…” I’d ordered a hard copy some time ago. I anticipated an explanation of oppositional modes of thought, of how these two cultures are so distant. Something that would define patterns or trajectories of scholarship, or of discourse.
But no.
Perhaps the fault was mine, my expectations where they were. If that’s what I was looking for or what you’re looking for, well, this summary basically covers it. Instead, Snow’s essay is about politics, comparative education systems, and income inequality. Bringing the disciplines together, he says, is necessary for closing the gulf between rich and poor. He only characterizes—no, caricatures—the two disciplines.
Or if we’re honest in our analysis, he really just makes an argument that our politicians should be better versed in the sciences, so we can teach more science to our students, because that is the solution to our economic problems.
And in the end, Snow doesn’t seem to think much of the humanities. (By the way, I don’t recall the term “humanities” appearing anywhere in the essay. Instead, it’s “literary intellectuals” by which he appears to mean writers and critics, and not scholars, and within that, maybe even just novelists. And he certainly doesn’t seem to mean the arts more broadly; he doesn’t use the word “arts” until the last page of the sequel essay he wrote four years later.) No, mostly he makes fun of the literary intellectuals, who he claims labeled themselves intellectuals and, being a bunch of luddites, immerse themselves in the past, “wishing the future did not exist.” He even titles a section: “Intellectuals as Natural Luddites.” The literary intellectuals are the traditionalists, he says, and are ill-suited for contemporary times.
The culture of scientists, on the other hand, “contains a great deal of argument, usually much more rigorous, and almost always at a higher conceptual level, than literary persons’—even though the scientists do cheerfully use words in senses which literary persons don’t recognize, the senses are exact ones. And as if to put a pin on the point: “Remember, these are very intelligent men.” And later: “In the moral, they are by and large the soundest group of intellectuals we have; there is a moral component right in the grain of science itself, and almost all scientists form their own judgments of the moral life.”
Any such defense of the literary crowd? Nope. But wait! The scientists, says Snow, don’t read very much. “Their imaginative understanding is less than it could be. They are self-impoverished.” Ah, there is the value of the writers. But wait—what’s the next sentence? “But what about the other side [the literary intellectuals]? They are self-impoverished too—perhaps more seriously, because they are vainer about it.”
Really? I guess Science is the true intellectual feat of humanity, says Snow, and what the writers need to do is learn more about it and spread the good word more. And having established that, Snow takes on the education system in the U.K., measuring it up against the U.S.A. and the U.S.S.R., hardly to return.
Is there anything about empirical sources of knowledge (science!) versus discursive sources of knowledge (humanities!)? Nope. Anything about isolating variables in experiments versus hypothetical variables in fiction? Nope. Anything in there about the balance of reason and feeling? Nope. This is what I wanted. This is what it seems the title suggests. Or, this is what I projected onto the title. I was looking for an exploration of the differences between those who scour the world for knowledge and those who explore the implications of that knowledge. I was hoping for something that laid out different intellectual frames of thinking, the kind you’ll find in James Turner’s book Philology: The Forgotten Origins of the Modern Humanities.
No such landscape here.
Now, to his credit, in his essay three years later (“The Two Cultures: A Second Look”), Snow admits that describing the two cultures wasn’t really his goal—it was about income inequality: “Before I wrote the lecture I thought of calling it ‘The Rich and the Poor’, and I rather wish I hadn’t changed my mind.”
And further to his credit, he says there’s nothing original to his thoughts, and he downplays any significance to his words except that they happened to come at a time when people wanted to hear about… two cultures. He writes:
My guess is that the title made the piece. It captured a general sense of divide. And it promises a lot, and I bet people (like me) heard about it, projected layers and nuance onto it, and then talked about it with others. The title is perfect in its simplicity, after all. It suggests its conclusion right from the get go, and this makes coffee table conversation easy. And so, while I do think Snow’s moral center is generally praiseworthy—his whole goal is to help the impoverished people of all nations find gainful employment for healthier, happier, and longer living—the work left me wanting to read something else.
PS. Something else worth reading is the Introduction, by Stefan Collini, written in 1993. But that's a whole separate review.
Do I recommend it? No. Kind of a bear to get through, and a little insulting. But perhaps yes, so that you can be authoritative when people bring it up.
Would I teach it? No. Something like this might be useful in an interdisciplinary class like the digital humanities class I’m about to teach, but this isn’t the text I would choose.
Lasting impressions: Snow is sometimes humble and deeply interested in the issues of his day. And, he appears to have credentials: he had both a PhD in Physics and had published numerous novels and works of non-fiction. But the text falls short of its title. This isn’t about “The Two Cultures”—it’s about global income inequality. If you want to read about the sciences and humanities, keep looking…
This was supposed to be the essay that set out clearly the gulf between the sciences and the humanities. I’d been hearing about it for years. I’m pretty I sure I skimmed it once online: “Yep, the sciences… yes, literary… poor communication… dire consequences, ok…” I’d ordered a hard copy some time ago. I anticipated an explanation of oppositional modes of thought, of how these two cultures are so distant. Something that would define patterns or trajectories of scholarship, or of discourse.
But no.
Perhaps the fault was mine, my expectations where they were. If that’s what I was looking for or what you’re looking for, well, this summary basically covers it. Instead, Snow’s essay is about politics, comparative education systems, and income inequality. Bringing the disciplines together, he says, is necessary for closing the gulf between rich and poor. He only characterizes—no, caricatures—the two disciplines.
Or if we’re honest in our analysis, he really just makes an argument that our politicians should be better versed in the sciences, so we can teach more science to our students, because that is the solution to our economic problems.
And in the end, Snow doesn’t seem to think much of the humanities. (By the way, I don’t recall the term “humanities” appearing anywhere in the essay. Instead, it’s “literary intellectuals” by which he appears to mean writers and critics, and not scholars, and within that, maybe even just novelists. And he certainly doesn’t seem to mean the arts more broadly; he doesn’t use the word “arts” until the last page of the sequel essay he wrote four years later.) No, mostly he makes fun of the literary intellectuals, who he claims labeled themselves intellectuals and, being a bunch of luddites, immerse themselves in the past, “wishing the future did not exist.” He even titles a section: “Intellectuals as Natural Luddites.” The literary intellectuals are the traditionalists, he says, and are ill-suited for contemporary times.
The culture of scientists, on the other hand, “contains a great deal of argument, usually much more rigorous, and almost always at a higher conceptual level, than literary persons’—even though the scientists do cheerfully use words in senses which literary persons don’t recognize, the senses are exact ones. And as if to put a pin on the point: “Remember, these are very intelligent men.” And later: “In the moral, they are by and large the soundest group of intellectuals we have; there is a moral component right in the grain of science itself, and almost all scientists form their own judgments of the moral life.”
Any such defense of the literary crowd? Nope. But wait! The scientists, says Snow, don’t read very much. “Their imaginative understanding is less than it could be. They are self-impoverished.” Ah, there is the value of the writers. But wait—what’s the next sentence? “But what about the other side [the literary intellectuals]? They are self-impoverished too—perhaps more seriously, because they are vainer about it.”
Really? I guess Science is the true intellectual feat of humanity, says Snow, and what the writers need to do is learn more about it and spread the good word more. And having established that, Snow takes on the education system in the U.K., measuring it up against the U.S.A. and the U.S.S.R., hardly to return.
Is there anything about empirical sources of knowledge (science!) versus discursive sources of knowledge (humanities!)? Nope. Anything about isolating variables in experiments versus hypothetical variables in fiction? Nope. Anything in there about the balance of reason and feeling? Nope. This is what I wanted. This is what it seems the title suggests. Or, this is what I projected onto the title. I was looking for an exploration of the differences between those who scour the world for knowledge and those who explore the implications of that knowledge. I was hoping for something that laid out different intellectual frames of thinking, the kind you’ll find in James Turner’s book Philology: The Forgotten Origins of the Modern Humanities.
No such landscape here.
Now, to his credit, in his essay three years later (“The Two Cultures: A Second Look”), Snow admits that describing the two cultures wasn’t really his goal—it was about income inequality: “Before I wrote the lecture I thought of calling it ‘The Rich and the Poor’, and I rather wish I hadn’t changed my mind.”
And further to his credit, he says there’s nothing original to his thoughts, and he downplays any significance to his words except that they happened to come at a time when people wanted to hear about… two cultures. He writes:
The first deduction, then, is that these ideas were not at all original, but were waiting in the air. The second deduction is, I think, equally obvious. It is that there must be something in them. I don’t mean that they are necessarily right…but contained in them or hidden beneath them, there is something which people, all over the world, suspect is relevant to present actions. It would not have mattered whether these things were said by me or Bronowski or Kling, or A or B or C.
My guess is that the title made the piece. It captured a general sense of divide. And it promises a lot, and I bet people (like me) heard about it, projected layers and nuance onto it, and then talked about it with others. The title is perfect in its simplicity, after all. It suggests its conclusion right from the get go, and this makes coffee table conversation easy. And so, while I do think Snow’s moral center is generally praiseworthy—his whole goal is to help the impoverished people of all nations find gainful employment for healthier, happier, and longer living—the work left me wanting to read something else.
PS. Something else worth reading is the Introduction, by Stefan Collini, written in 1993. But that's a whole separate review.
Do I recommend it? No. Kind of a bear to get through, and a little insulting. But perhaps yes, so that you can be authoritative when people bring it up.
Would I teach it? No. Something like this might be useful in an interdisciplinary class like the digital humanities class I’m about to teach, but this isn’t the text I would choose.
Lasting impressions: Snow is sometimes humble and deeply interested in the issues of his day. And, he appears to have credentials: he had both a PhD in Physics and had published numerous novels and works of non-fiction. But the text falls short of its title. This isn’t about “The Two Cultures”—it’s about global income inequality. If you want to read about the sciences and humanities, keep looking…
April 10, 2016
The Two Cultures
C.P. Snow
I read this book a couple of decades ago, but recently realized I could only remember a bit of it. So I decided to read it again. Only The Rede Lecture (1963) has been read and reviewed; not the second part of the book writen in 1963: The two cultures, a second look.
I. The Rede Lecture (1959)
Under the catching concept that a divorce has happened between the arts and the sciences, Snow puts his finger on critical failures of UK's educational system of the time. He contends that the closing of the gap lying between these two cultures is necessary both in practical and intellectual senses (p. 50). Going beyond the topic of the two cultures, The Rede Lecture tries to identify where the current educational system was failing: In leading to the intellectual oportunity loss directly attributable to the divide between arts and sciences (the two cultures), in the inability to properly invest on productive industry, and in the inability to educate a workforce needed to help reduce the gap between poor and rich countries.
1. The two cultures
Summary: Snow declares the existence of "a gulf of mutual incomprehension" between literary intellectuals and scientists, particularly, the physicists. The former do not appreciate the fact that scientific culture is a culture in both intellectual and antropological sense. As examples of the intellectual impoverishment he mentions that the litearary intellectuals can not describe the second law of thermodynamics, which he defines as "about the scientific equivalent of: Have you read a work of Shakespeare's?". For the science camp, he mentions that most scientists his team had interviewed (about 30-40 thousand, about 1 in 4 in the UK, most aged under 40) confessed not having read much but "a bit of Dickens". He blames for this situation the specialization in the UK school education system, perhaps dictated by the Oxford and Cambridge scholarship examinations (p. 19). And warns that "All the lessons of our education history suggests we are only capable of increasing specialisation, not decreasing it." (p. 19)
2. Intellectuals as natural ludites
Summary: Intellectuals have not yet (in 1959) begun to comprehend the industrial revolution. The industrial-scientific revolution, and the agricultural revolution "are the only qualitative changes in social living that men have ever known." Neither the traditional culture nor the scientists listenend to the needs to train people in science, particularly applied science. In fact, he accuses both of them of snobism. And harshly scolds such snobs with sentences of the kind: "The industrial revolution looked very different accourding to whether one saw it from above or below."
3. The scientific revolution
Summary: The scientific revolution is the application of science to industry (p. 29). He has realized to his surprise that in the USA (where there is a wider acquaintance with industry) no novelist has ever assumed his readership to be acquainted with industry. Pure scientists have been ignorant of productive industry (p. 31). Yet, educating in "productive industry" (PI) is essential to "coming out on top of the scientific revolution" (p. 37). Compares UK to USA and USSR. The Russians have a deeper understanding of the PI than the American or the English. Then outlines his specification for coming on top of the industrial revolution, in terms of how many men and women are to be educated at university level in each of 4 categories (pp. 37-8). Among the advanced countries, he thinks that the UK has the most "precarious position" (p. 38) because their ancestors had invested too little talent in the industrial revolution and too much in the Indian empire (p. 39). He then warns that the UK must make changes and educate themselves "or watch a steep decline in our own lifetime".
4. The Rich and the Poor
Summary: Snow identifies the "gap" between rich and poor nations as the main issue caused by the scientific revolution, and makes a plea for the West to help in reducing such gap. Its "divided culture", he says, is a "trouble" to this (p.42), as it incapacitates the West to grasp the size of the problem and the acceleration required to fix it. The example set by China (p. 45), which had transformed its society and education system in just 10 years, proves that lack of industrial tradition is not an impediment to industrialization, and therefore only "will" is needed (p.45). It is therefore possible to carry out the scientific revolution in India, Africa, South East Asia, Latin America, the Middle East within 50 years. Aside from will, capital is needed (p.46), in fact trained human capital. Snow proposes that enough scientists (armies of them) be educated by the West and sent to these countries to develop them. The qualitites of the scientist are glorified as being ideal for the task (p. 46). Reducing the gap between the rich and poor countries is an imperious need, and participating is needed to avoid that the West becomes an "enclave", and the UK and "enclave of an enclave".
Criticism on chapter 4: This chapter leaves me with the feeling that Snow is aiming at an incredibly complex problem which requires much deeper analysis. Of course, it is easy to see this in 2016, about the time he predicted was needed to fix the problem. In hindsight, his strategy seems simplistic at best. I wonder if Snow's vision can be termed as "postocolonial" in the sense that (1) he is in possession of truth (he knows what needs to be done, with little analysis to back his views up), and (2) he ignores any forces of transformation that are borne within those countries. The fate of the poor world is viewed as dependent exclusively on the will of the West. He fails to recognize the need for local empreneurship to be the leading force in the development of poor countries. In his vision, intervention by the West, rather than collaboration, will fix the problem.
C.P. Snow
I read this book a couple of decades ago, but recently realized I could only remember a bit of it. So I decided to read it again. Only The Rede Lecture (1963) has been read and reviewed; not the second part of the book writen in 1963: The two cultures, a second look.
I. The Rede Lecture (1959)
Under the catching concept that a divorce has happened between the arts and the sciences, Snow puts his finger on critical failures of UK's educational system of the time. He contends that the closing of the gap lying between these two cultures is necessary both in practical and intellectual senses (p. 50). Going beyond the topic of the two cultures, The Rede Lecture tries to identify where the current educational system was failing: In leading to the intellectual oportunity loss directly attributable to the divide between arts and sciences (the two cultures), in the inability to properly invest on productive industry, and in the inability to educate a workforce needed to help reduce the gap between poor and rich countries.
1. The two cultures
Summary: Snow declares the existence of "a gulf of mutual incomprehension" between literary intellectuals and scientists, particularly, the physicists. The former do not appreciate the fact that scientific culture is a culture in both intellectual and antropological sense. As examples of the intellectual impoverishment he mentions that the litearary intellectuals can not describe the second law of thermodynamics, which he defines as "about the scientific equivalent of: Have you read a work of Shakespeare's?". For the science camp, he mentions that most scientists his team had interviewed (about 30-40 thousand, about 1 in 4 in the UK, most aged under 40) confessed not having read much but "a bit of Dickens". He blames for this situation the specialization in the UK school education system, perhaps dictated by the Oxford and Cambridge scholarship examinations (p. 19). And warns that "All the lessons of our education history suggests we are only capable of increasing specialisation, not decreasing it." (p. 19)
2. Intellectuals as natural ludites
Summary: Intellectuals have not yet (in 1959) begun to comprehend the industrial revolution. The industrial-scientific revolution, and the agricultural revolution "are the only qualitative changes in social living that men have ever known." Neither the traditional culture nor the scientists listenend to the needs to train people in science, particularly applied science. In fact, he accuses both of them of snobism. And harshly scolds such snobs with sentences of the kind: "The industrial revolution looked very different accourding to whether one saw it from above or below."
3. The scientific revolution
Summary: The scientific revolution is the application of science to industry (p. 29). He has realized to his surprise that in the USA (where there is a wider acquaintance with industry) no novelist has ever assumed his readership to be acquainted with industry. Pure scientists have been ignorant of productive industry (p. 31). Yet, educating in "productive industry" (PI) is essential to "coming out on top of the scientific revolution" (p. 37). Compares UK to USA and USSR. The Russians have a deeper understanding of the PI than the American or the English. Then outlines his specification for coming on top of the industrial revolution, in terms of how many men and women are to be educated at university level in each of 4 categories (pp. 37-8). Among the advanced countries, he thinks that the UK has the most "precarious position" (p. 38) because their ancestors had invested too little talent in the industrial revolution and too much in the Indian empire (p. 39). He then warns that the UK must make changes and educate themselves "or watch a steep decline in our own lifetime".
4. The Rich and the Poor
Summary: Snow identifies the "gap" between rich and poor nations as the main issue caused by the scientific revolution, and makes a plea for the West to help in reducing such gap. Its "divided culture", he says, is a "trouble" to this (p.42), as it incapacitates the West to grasp the size of the problem and the acceleration required to fix it. The example set by China (p. 45), which had transformed its society and education system in just 10 years, proves that lack of industrial tradition is not an impediment to industrialization, and therefore only "will" is needed (p.45). It is therefore possible to carry out the scientific revolution in India, Africa, South East Asia, Latin America, the Middle East within 50 years. Aside from will, capital is needed (p.46), in fact trained human capital. Snow proposes that enough scientists (armies of them) be educated by the West and sent to these countries to develop them. The qualitites of the scientist are glorified as being ideal for the task (p. 46). Reducing the gap between the rich and poor countries is an imperious need, and participating is needed to avoid that the West becomes an "enclave", and the UK and "enclave of an enclave".
Criticism on chapter 4: This chapter leaves me with the feeling that Snow is aiming at an incredibly complex problem which requires much deeper analysis. Of course, it is easy to see this in 2016, about the time he predicted was needed to fix the problem. In hindsight, his strategy seems simplistic at best. I wonder if Snow's vision can be termed as "postocolonial" in the sense that (1) he is in possession of truth (he knows what needs to be done, with little analysis to back his views up), and (2) he ignores any forces of transformation that are borne within those countries. The fate of the poor world is viewed as dependent exclusively on the will of the West. He fails to recognize the need for local empreneurship to be the leading force in the development of poor countries. In his vision, intervention by the West, rather than collaboration, will fix the problem.
January 18, 2019
the following link will give you an excellent review and analysis on what C.P. Snow meant by "the two cultures": https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01p...
it portrays the (global) educational gap between Sciences and Art, and how it affects us as individuals and society (by global CPS meant U.K., U.S., & U.S.S.R).
by "affects" i mean 60 years ago!. still, it's very informative and gives you some clues on why such a gap is still present.
at the end of the book the guy "translates" that gap into rich and poor countries. he naively believed that the gab "will be removed". on each day that now passes by... current economy is proving him dead wrong!.
he also states that scientific revolution will flourish if we get rid off the "H-bomb war, over-population, [and] the gap between the rich and the poor." at least we humans don't use H-bombs no more.
it portrays the (global) educational gap between Sciences and Art, and how it affects us as individuals and society (by global CPS meant U.K., U.S., & U.S.S.R).
by "affects" i mean 60 years ago!. still, it's very informative and gives you some clues on why such a gap is still present.
at the end of the book the guy "translates" that gap into rich and poor countries. he naively believed that the gab "will be removed". on each day that now passes by... current economy is proving him dead wrong!.
he also states that scientific revolution will flourish if we get rid off the "H-bomb war, over-population, [and] the gap between the rich and the poor." at least we humans don't use H-bombs no more.
November 22, 2020
Entellektüel gelişim için güzel sorgulayıcı bir eser.
Daha fazlası için;
https://bit.ly/2HoZJGB
Daha fazlası için;
https://bit.ly/2HoZJGB
March 4, 2019
This was assigned reading for my Humanities MA over ten years ago. The premise is simple enough: there are two groups of people in the intellectual world - literary intellectuals and scientific intellectuals. These two cultures have their own languages and approaches to life and education, and they seem ignorant of one another, much to the ultimate peril of the world they share.
Snow advocates for greater scientific literacy, and stands on the side of industrialists and the scientifically literate, whom he views as those who actually get things done in the world and who will be greatly needed to do the work of solving the issues of poverty, hunger, and inequality. He’s practical in that regard, and his intentions are noble, though his words are extremely general. His criticism of literary intellectuals being natural luddites also stings and doesn’t seem accurate to me even when applied in a general sense.
In this edition of the book, Snow revisits his lecture four years later and talks about the response to it, as well as its shortcomings. This includes overestimating the speed of China’s industrialization, the omission of the social sciences in his separation of the cultures, and not simply naming it “the rich and the poor,” as that was the main thrust of the lecture he wanted his listeners to focus on.
Instead, most critics got bogged down in semantics and micro details instead of using the lecture as a jumping off point for a discussion of how an interdisciplinary approach to education, with an emphasis on scientific literacy, could be used to resolve many of the world’s most persistent problems.
Yes, we can discuss how accurate Snow’s dichotomy of intellectual life actually was and is, but that would be missing the greater goal. Were he to give this lecture in 2019, I fear people would still fall into the same old patterns of criticizing the most surface level points from the sidelines while neglecting the more noble intent of Snow’s words.
Snow advocates for greater scientific literacy, and stands on the side of industrialists and the scientifically literate, whom he views as those who actually get things done in the world and who will be greatly needed to do the work of solving the issues of poverty, hunger, and inequality. He’s practical in that regard, and his intentions are noble, though his words are extremely general. His criticism of literary intellectuals being natural luddites also stings and doesn’t seem accurate to me even when applied in a general sense.
In this edition of the book, Snow revisits his lecture four years later and talks about the response to it, as well as its shortcomings. This includes overestimating the speed of China’s industrialization, the omission of the social sciences in his separation of the cultures, and not simply naming it “the rich and the poor,” as that was the main thrust of the lecture he wanted his listeners to focus on.
Instead, most critics got bogged down in semantics and micro details instead of using the lecture as a jumping off point for a discussion of how an interdisciplinary approach to education, with an emphasis on scientific literacy, could be used to resolve many of the world’s most persistent problems.
Yes, we can discuss how accurate Snow’s dichotomy of intellectual life actually was and is, but that would be missing the greater goal. Were he to give this lecture in 2019, I fear people would still fall into the same old patterns of criticizing the most surface level points from the sidelines while neglecting the more noble intent of Snow’s words.
January 21, 2010
While Snow did refer to his family background and class, it wasn't until Collini's introduction that I understood just how much the 'two cultures' were wrapped up in class issues. After understanding the historical background of the lecture, it is obvious that Snow was coming from a deeply personal place and did indeed view literary elites as 'the enemy,' not just of scientists, but of innovation.
While Snow refers to big, sometimes emotive ideas, i.e. world peace through closing the gap between the rich and the poor, these ideas are reduced to their 'scientific', therefore, meaureable qualities. He then goes on to say that he has no idea how this will work in the real world, that he has no sense of the political, meanwhile attacking the literary world, whose talents lie in just that shadow - creating a space in which ideas can be played out, science can be transferred to non-scientific minds, ideas are implemented throughout society.
The main point of contention I have found with Snow's argument is that is coming from a very personal place, but is presented as 'fact' rather than opinion. Take for example, his rant against Faulkner in the early essays that later became the Rede lecture - that Faulkner 'gives sentimental reasons for treating Negroes as a different species.' Anyone who has studied Faullkner seriously would laugh at this as a reactionary statement, not a considered one. Yet, just these kinds of thoughts, coupled with Snow's personal history with England's class and educational systems are the basis for his attack on the literary world.
that being said, his suggestions for moving forward by educating the world at large in science is a noble one, I just don't understand why he has to take literature down with him!
While Snow refers to big, sometimes emotive ideas, i.e. world peace through closing the gap between the rich and the poor, these ideas are reduced to their 'scientific', therefore, meaureable qualities. He then goes on to say that he has no idea how this will work in the real world, that he has no sense of the political, meanwhile attacking the literary world, whose talents lie in just that shadow - creating a space in which ideas can be played out, science can be transferred to non-scientific minds, ideas are implemented throughout society.
The main point of contention I have found with Snow's argument is that is coming from a very personal place, but is presented as 'fact' rather than opinion. Take for example, his rant against Faulkner in the early essays that later became the Rede lecture - that Faulkner 'gives sentimental reasons for treating Negroes as a different species.' Anyone who has studied Faullkner seriously would laugh at this as a reactionary statement, not a considered one. Yet, just these kinds of thoughts, coupled with Snow's personal history with England's class and educational systems are the basis for his attack on the literary world.
that being said, his suggestions for moving forward by educating the world at large in science is a noble one, I just don't understand why he has to take literature down with him!
August 10, 2022
I do believe this is the most boring book I’ve ever read. It’s not that it’s a bad book, poorly written, or on a subject of no interest, but that it’s so outdated. That there are two university cultures, one occupied by the sciences and the other by the humanities, or that nations are divided by those that prosper by science and the industry it spawns, thus rich nations and poor ones—yes, 60 years after this book was written, we know. Of course, in many ways, these things have gotten worse. The humanities are littered with postmodernists now who critique science with victim-culture political correctness without a clue of what science is, what it does, or how it does it. There were three billion humans when Snow wrote this book, now there are eight. Some things are better, a lot is worse. While this book is said to have been an earthquake in 1959, today, it’s a bit like saying there are two peoples, rural and urban. Okay…
August 25, 2021
i read this as part of my slow ongoing STEM-apologetic reading project, and also because of leo brieman's paper 'statistical modeling: the two cultures'. i enjoyed the introduction by collini dramatically more than snow's rede lecture itself; as collini notes, the lecture itself did not age well or retain it's relevance particularly long. but collini's contextualization of the lecture was valuable to me for it's academic history.
i would love to see the 'two cultures' divide placed into the context of a larger 'scientism -> science wars -> weakness of scientific institutions in the social media age' narrative. would also love to see connections to neoliberalism traced out, and to read an ethnography that takes technology seriously as an entity in its own right, rather than treating it as the natural outgrowth of basic science.
i would love to see the 'two cultures' divide placed into the context of a larger 'scientism -> science wars -> weakness of scientific institutions in the social media age' narrative. would also love to see connections to neoliberalism traced out, and to read an ethnography that takes technology seriously as an entity in its own right, rather than treating it as the natural outgrowth of basic science.
April 18, 2008
the author (who was some sort of a scientist and also some sort of a literary figure) examines what he sees to be the growing divide between the scientific community and the humanities. it's not that it's dated, because the divide is still there, but his approach to the problem seems (fifty years on) a little naive and maybe a bit alarmist.
it would be kind of nice if educated people took some kind of interest in science and mathematics, though. and nothing frustrates me more than scientists and mathematicians who refuse to look beyond their own fields.
it would be kind of nice if educated people took some kind of interest in science and mathematics, though. and nothing frustrates me more than scientists and mathematicians who refuse to look beyond their own fields.
May 18, 2013
Well, I can't possibly rate this book, for it is basically a historical document for me. It was written more than 50 years ago, half a century, when sciences and technologies have not reached their status as of today.
But the introduction is superb. It summarizes and analyzes critically, it discusses the changes after Snow delivered the old lecture, it points out its problems - things that no longer apply - but also talks about the implications to the modern time, for there are still lessons worthy of learning.
But the introduction is superb. It summarizes and analyzes critically, it discusses the changes after Snow delivered the old lecture, it points out its problems - things that no longer apply - but also talks about the implications to the modern time, for there are still lessons worthy of learning.
March 6, 2019
The culture of science and the culture of humanities cannot be united because they belong to two entirely different rivers. So there is a growing misunderstanding between the people of these two cultures. This book can be better understood if it is read after reading the novels 'The Masters' and 'The Affair' written by C.P.Snow. If you don't have that much time, you can also go for the dramatized versions of them which are shorter.
September 22, 2014
Very dated by now, but I think his main observation still stands: That the humanities/social sciences and the "real" sciences hardly talk, and that the people in those two "camps" hardly know anything about each other's fields. One of the prices to pay for specialization, I guess, but very sad as well, and with possible bad consequences, as it might be a democratic problem. Worth reading, for the reference and obviously for the main point.
Want to read
May 20, 2009Fascinating essay about the book by Peter Dizikes: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/22/boo... who discusses whether a "third culture" (evolutionary biologists, psychologists and neurscientists) is "superseding literary artists in their ability to 'shape the thoughts of their generation.' "
April 27, 2009
Delightful quick autobiographical read details Snow's mutually exclusive circles of literary and scientific friends. I notice much the same in my own life. I don't meet many mathematicians, scientists or technicians who are into poetry or literature generally.
September 28, 2018
كتاب جميل وبسيط من إصدرات مجلة الفيصل السعودية.
فكرة الكتاب مهمة، وإن تم تناولها الآن بشكل أوسع وأفضل.
فكرة الكتاب مهمة، وإن تم تناولها الآن بشكل أوسع وأفضل.
May 5, 2021
حجم الموضوع لا يتناسب مع ما قرأته هنا... الهُوة بين الأدب والعلم أو الثقافة الأدبية والثقافة العلمية لم تُردم في هذا الكتاب
June 7, 2021
This was an interesting essay (or a small collection of essays) on the cultural divide between scientists (and technologists, etc.) and what C.P. Snow calls "literary intellectuals". It's an informal divide, but very real. Snow was both a chemist and a writer, and as such he felt he was in a unique position to straddle the divide between these two cultures so estranged from each other. I can relate as I see myself firmly in both cultures, and I have since my youth. He wrote this in 1959, and laments that even 30 years prior the cultures were already pulling apart but were at least on speaking terms. But Snow claims that by the late 1950s things were already icy between them. I found this surprising, as I always assumed that the gulf between "readers" and "techies" was something that emerged in my lifetime, but it's obviously much older.
Snow talks about how in the 1800s it was considered a mark of high esteem to be reasonably well versed in both literature and science, whereas now people on either side tend to view the other with a distant contempt. One quote captures this well: "Once or twice I have been provoked and have asked the company how many of them [literary intellectuals] could describe the Second Law of Thermodynamics. The response was cold: it was also negative. Yet I was asking something which is about the scientific equivalent of: 'Have you read a work of Shakespeare's?'" I remember Arthur Koestler wrote, perhaps in Act of Creation, something such that people will have no hesitation expressing their opinions on modern art, while saying with almost a kind of pride at being baffled by how a toaster works. Not exactly the same idea, but along the same lines. Neither side is bad, neither is completely right or wrong about the other, but there is a wide gulf of mutual understanding. Furthermore, people in each camp tend to socialize with mostly people from their own side, tend to hold similar political beliefs, tend to express similar ideas of society and human nature. This was written in 1959 and it's just as true today. How much misunderstanding is there between is because we no longer break bread?
To clarify the title, Snow makes the case that the true Scientific Revolution was not the new ideas of nature that emerged from astronomy in the 1600s, but the application of science and technology to industry in the early 1900s. He argues that this revolution is similar to how the Industrial Revolution before it brought material changes to the lifestyles and standards of living of millions of people. Snow emphasizes that so many innovations of the 1800s where the result of tinkerers. That approach was defined people with bold ideas and precision skills, but categorically different from the deliberate application of scientific knowledge that took off in the early 1900s. When I read this I'm picturing the revolver vs the atomic bomb, the railroad engine vs the Saturn V rocket. No amount of tinkering can take you to the moon. Some things are just of a different order. The best example of this is how our daily lives are saturated with electronics, something that could not happen without a high degree of applied science. Snow's point is that these dramatic lifestyle changes were a direct result of applying science to new ideas. With this definition in mind, he traces the historical development of the cultural divide, which he grounds in the optimism of material gains of prior generations from technology and the promise of a better tomorrow through industrial technology. As he describes it, the intellectual snobbishness about technologists is rooted in class elitism. A common expression of this is the collective lament of writers and artists decrying the rise of factories and urbanization, ruining the idyllic life of old; on the other side is the fact that the poor of the world flocked to these same factories and cities, suffering those conditions as an improvement over a lifetime of toil working the land. It's easy to complain about the big factory in town when you don't have to worry about it closing.
A final point: as with most books that call for changes, this book is stronger in describing a problem than in the proposed solution. Snow speaks from the position of British academia and he compares the British system of the time with that of the Soviet system and the American system. It's interesting as a historical perspective, but I think the real strength of the book is describing these two cultures, not how to unify them. I think that's its strength and on that alone I can recommend it as an interesting read.
Snow talks about how in the 1800s it was considered a mark of high esteem to be reasonably well versed in both literature and science, whereas now people on either side tend to view the other with a distant contempt. One quote captures this well: "Once or twice I have been provoked and have asked the company how many of them [literary intellectuals] could describe the Second Law of Thermodynamics. The response was cold: it was also negative. Yet I was asking something which is about the scientific equivalent of: 'Have you read a work of Shakespeare's?'" I remember Arthur Koestler wrote, perhaps in Act of Creation, something such that people will have no hesitation expressing their opinions on modern art, while saying with almost a kind of pride at being baffled by how a toaster works. Not exactly the same idea, but along the same lines. Neither side is bad, neither is completely right or wrong about the other, but there is a wide gulf of mutual understanding. Furthermore, people in each camp tend to socialize with mostly people from their own side, tend to hold similar political beliefs, tend to express similar ideas of society and human nature. This was written in 1959 and it's just as true today. How much misunderstanding is there between is because we no longer break bread?
To clarify the title, Snow makes the case that the true Scientific Revolution was not the new ideas of nature that emerged from astronomy in the 1600s, but the application of science and technology to industry in the early 1900s. He argues that this revolution is similar to how the Industrial Revolution before it brought material changes to the lifestyles and standards of living of millions of people. Snow emphasizes that so many innovations of the 1800s where the result of tinkerers. That approach was defined people with bold ideas and precision skills, but categorically different from the deliberate application of scientific knowledge that took off in the early 1900s. When I read this I'm picturing the revolver vs the atomic bomb, the railroad engine vs the Saturn V rocket. No amount of tinkering can take you to the moon. Some things are just of a different order. The best example of this is how our daily lives are saturated with electronics, something that could not happen without a high degree of applied science. Snow's point is that these dramatic lifestyle changes were a direct result of applying science to new ideas. With this definition in mind, he traces the historical development of the cultural divide, which he grounds in the optimism of material gains of prior generations from technology and the promise of a better tomorrow through industrial technology. As he describes it, the intellectual snobbishness about technologists is rooted in class elitism. A common expression of this is the collective lament of writers and artists decrying the rise of factories and urbanization, ruining the idyllic life of old; on the other side is the fact that the poor of the world flocked to these same factories and cities, suffering those conditions as an improvement over a lifetime of toil working the land. It's easy to complain about the big factory in town when you don't have to worry about it closing.
A final point: as with most books that call for changes, this book is stronger in describing a problem than in the proposed solution. Snow speaks from the position of British academia and he compares the British system of the time with that of the Soviet system and the American system. It's interesting as a historical perspective, but I think the real strength of the book is describing these two cultures, not how to unify them. I think that's its strength and on that alone I can recommend it as an interesting read.
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