Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Mea culpa: there is a crisis in the humanities

sappingattention.blogspot.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

231–240 of 246 posts

Re: Mea culpa: there is a crisis in the humanities

#231

Post by frozenport »

woodandsteel wrote: post #230
woodruffw wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I received the same rant/incredulity from several of my own professors (in Philosophy). It was incredibly disheartening to see academics essentially give up on any sort of robust future for their field.

Basically the philosophy profession has given up on trying to persuade students and society as a whole of its value. I think to a great extent this is due to the logical-positivism and Russellian analytic focus that took over the profession after WWII. Before that American philosophers focused on classical philosophy, Hegelianism, and Pragmatism, all of which could be related to the realities of contemporary life and…

[dead]

Re: Mea culpa: there is a crisis in the humanities

#232

Post by [deleted] »

scott_s wrote: post #229
CuriouslyC wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing about reverse discrimination that makes it particularly egregious is that on some level people view it as more socially acceptable than traditional discrimination. Discrimination based on superficial characteristics is always, and equally wrong in all cases. Furthermore, reverse discrimination actually perpetuates the very rift that its proponents decry.

I don't want to argue the merits, but I do want to point out where the argument is. What you consider "reverse discrimination" I consider attempts to change the result of centuries of oppression. Such attempts take many forms. I do not think such attempts perpetuates the problem, but rather are attempts to rectify it. Again, I'm not trying to argue this on its merits. I just was surprised by your wording, because I g…

[deleted]

Re: Mea culpa: there is a crisis in the humanities

#233

Post by qubax »

woodruffw wrote: post #31
seibelj wrote: post #8

I was a double major in CS and Latin, and once I asked my Latin advisor about grad school for Latin. I didn’t intend on going, I was just curious about what she would say as a tenured Latin professor at a good university. The look on her face when I asked was complete shock and she went on a rant about how it was the dumbest idea ever. She told me how she was going on sabbatical to write a book that only 30 people wo…

I received the same rant/incredulity from several of my own professors (in Philosophy). It was incredibly disheartening to see academics essentially give up on any sort of robust future for their field.

Same here. Apparently the job market for philosophers, especially in academia, is terrible because there is a glut of philosophy PhDs and tenured philosophy professors stick around for decades. So most philosophy professors are associate professors who get paid a couple of thousand per semester. Can't imagine living on that in NY. Imagine having a doctorate and making $6K per year.

So I double majored in computer science and philosophy like a lot of my class mates.

Re: Mea culpa: there is a crisis in the humanities

#234

Post by elgenie »

azeotropic wrote: post #195
xigma wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's your sample size? One? Objectively speaking, if you spend five to six figures on a degree with a 10% chance of landing a job through it, that's not an attractive proposition. "Futile" may be the wrong word, a better word would be "foolish".

If you're paying tuition to do a PhD instead of receiving a stipend, you are being scammed.

And yet you're paying five to six figures in opportunity cost either way.

Re: Mea culpa: there is a crisis in the humanities

#235

Post by seibelj »

PrincessZorlda wrote: post #226
seibelj wrote: post #8

I was a double major in CS and Latin, and once I asked my Latin advisor about grad school for Latin. I didn’t intend on going, I was just curious about what she would say as a tenured Latin professor at a good university. The look on her face when I asked was complete shock and she went on a rant about how it was the dumbest idea ever. She told me how she was going on sabbatical to write a book that only 30 people wo…

I was a hard Classics major, Latin and Greek, devoted almost 10 years of my life to it, and I just had to walk away. I'm going back for CS, and this touches my soul. I'm glad I tried for it, but I need to sustain myself and feel like I am worth something at my job. You are not alone, friend.

It’s ok, life is long. Contact me if you ever want to chat, email in profile

Re: Mea culpa: there is a crisis in the humanities

#236

Post by Fomite »

throwawaymath wrote: post #148
Fomite wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the things that drove me nuts at university is how much some STEM students mocked a particular set of "...for humanities" math classes without knowing their content. There were some great applications of mathematical thinking that people were shamed about taking.

Can you give an example?

There's a course called "Math for Social Choice", for example, that focused on how voting works from a mathematical sense in one section, for example.

Re: Mea culpa: there is a crisis in the humanities

#237

Post by mancerayder »

pjc50 wrote: post #174
igravious wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You'll notice the tag-line for the blog is “Digital Humanities: Using tools from the 1990s to answer questions from the 1960s about 19th century America.” That's what I've been doing for the last half a decade, Digital Humanities (DH). DH is what you get when you ask yourself, “What happens when you add computational methods to the scholar's toolkit? What kind of questions can you ask? What does it imply for scholars…

Peterson is telling people what they want to hear, which is why he has an audience. He's not carrying out a sincere inquiry into philosophical truth. Same difference as why newspapers have an astrology column not an astronomy one.

Peterson is telling people what they want to hear, which is why he has an audience. He's not carrying out a sincere inquiry into philosophical truth.

What people want to hear is condemnation of de-platforming, shouting down and other behaviors new to the last decade or two in academia. He's also not a philosopher, he's a psychiatrist. His comments around the postmodernist influence in the Humanities and the cultural effects - right or wrong - are a fascinating topic of debate quite relevant to this thread.

Re: Mea culpa: there is a crisis in the humanities

#238

Post by tptacek »

nradov wrote: post #159
notafraudster wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this a point you'd like to elaborate on? Without accusing you of anything, when I read a one sentence dismissal of humanities/social sciences, what I tend to think is that this is someone who thinks "post-modernism is bullshit", "third wave feminism is bad", "intersectionality isn't real", "everything is cultural marxism", "safe spaces", etc. and who is appealing to Jordan Peterson as an expert on everything. If w…

OK I'll bite. In what sense is post-modernism not bullshit? What has it ever done to actually increase practical human knowledge, improve standards of living, or create a better society? Humanities and social sciences in general have created a lot of value, but post-modernism appears to be uniquely worthless due to never actually making any progress. Just a lot of empty pontificating and spinning in circles.

I'm not sure you know what you've bitten off. What does your question even mean? What aspect of "post-modernism" are you hoping to tear down? One assumes you're referring to hopelessly abstruse liberal arts senior theses, and is left to wonder whether you're aware of e.g. postmodern architecture. Deliberate, original works of postmodern literary theory might be incomprehensible, but the ideas of postmodernism --- metafiction, irony, intertextuality --- dominate our culture. Have you never seen or heard a remix?

Re: Mea culpa: there is a crisis in the humanities

#239

Post by nradov »

tptacek wrote: post #238
nradov wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OK I'll bite. In what sense is post-modernism not bullshit? What has it ever done to actually increase practical human knowledge, improve standards of living, or create a better society? Humanities and social sciences in general have created a lot of value, but post-modernism appears to be uniquely worthless due to never actually making any progress. Just a lot of empty pontificating and spinning in circles.

I'm not sure you know what you've bitten off. What does your question even mean? What aspect of "post-modernism" are you hoping to tear down? One assumes you're referring to hopelessly abstruse liberal arts senior theses, and is left to wonder whether you're aware of e.g. postmodern architecture. Deliberate, original works of postmodern literary theory might be incomprehensible, but the ideas of postmodernism --- met…

What does your definition even mean? On that basis you could claim almost anything as "postmodern". It's so vague as to be utterly meaningless.

I assert that we would have remixes even if postmodernism had never become a thing. Prove me wrong.

Re: Mea culpa: there is a crisis in the humanities

#240

Post by tptacek »

nradov wrote: post #239
tptacek wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure you know what you've bitten off. What does your question even mean? What aspect of "post-modernism" are you hoping to tear down? One assumes you're referring to hopelessly abstruse liberal arts senior theses, and is left to wonder whether you're aware of e.g. postmodern architecture. Deliberate, original works of postmodern literary theory might be incomprehensible, but the ideas of postmodernism --- met…

What does your definition even mean? On that basis you could claim almost anything as "postmodern". It's so vague as to be utterly meaningless. I assert that we would have remixes even if postmodernism had never become a thing. Prove me wrong.

I'm sorry, I don't understand your question. Postmodern architecture is an actual thing; architects do not regard it as "so vague as to be utterly meaningless". There are famous postmodern buildings. Your last sentence amounts to the declaration that we'd have had postmodernism even if postmodernism never began a thing. Sure, I agree, it would have a different name. What's your point?

I feel like maybe your problem is that you're just not very familiar with what postmodernism means in art, architecture, literature, film, and music.

Post reply on HN