I watched this interesting youtube video - From Physics To Literature - My Story. The guy - R.C. Waldun - talks about how his initial love for physics, maths, engineering type stuff got lost in the academic rigours of early university study of those subjects, and then he found that passion again in philosophy, history, languages - humanities, basically. I can relate in some ways but in other ways not. For me, things are a lot messier than they seem to be for him. It seems like the humanities - and the study of the humanities at uni, and learning languages, and being a novelist and writer, represents a kind of panacea that has met all his needs.
But what I wonder about is how his humanities path was completely free from the stifling effect of having to approach things in a mechanical way, because it's not just science and maths that involve that aspect. Actually, I'm sure a lot of mathematicians and scientists would take issue with his portrayal of their subject area as being purely mechanical. In fact some did in the comments section. I think what he experienced is more an aspect of the early stages of the study of maths/ science/ engineering - what you have to do in first year.
There's nothing wrong with him dramatically changing his path. It's great that he was able to find something that he is passionate about and be successful at.
But I don't quite get his logic. So, he went to a maths/ science/ medicine/ engineering school for high achievers because of his passion for solving problems in theoretical physics and his obvious brilliance, but then when he got going with the course he felt stifled by how mechanical the learning process was and also by how competitive everyone was. It seems like his thinking style/ learning style didn't fit in that context. but what's interesting to me is that he took refuge in reading some of the most heavy, intellectually demanding philosphical/ theoretical texts in existence. That's interesting to me because it challenges my idea of intelligence as being a kind of homogenous thing. Maybe maths and science require a whole different kind of intelligence to the kind that can engage with high level philosophy and literary/ cultural theory. anyway, it's good to hear someone say something good about post-modernism, Derrida, Foucault, etc. for a change. Speaking of that, another interesting link here is that James Lindsay, who is currently one of the most strident critics of post-modernism, critical theory, and everything associated with it, has a degree in physics and a doctorate in mathematics. That's one of the weaknesses, I think, in many of the arguments against critical theory ||| a lot of the people making the criticism have no expertise, and no real interest, in the field of critical theory. They haven't properly engaged with the ideas - they've just engaged with one manifestation of them. And I agree that that manifestation they have experienced is kind of ugly and unpleasant, but that doesn't mean the whole field is corrupt and malevolent. For example - just to choose one kind of theory - post-colonial theory. Post-colonial theory may inform some very subversive ideologies, but, as a theory, it has a lot of interesting things to say, especially about literature. Don't forget - that's primarily what it is - it's a literary theory. At least that's how I see it, but maybe that's because my interest is in literature and literary theory.
I would love to hear R C Waldun debate James Lindsay...or maybe not. Things have gotten quite nasty in that whole debate, and, as I've written about on my blog before, there are some academics and some Christians who vehemently despise critical theory. Any debate is likely to be a kind of uncivil fight. The debate occurs, it's just that the two sides write and speak in different venues because they hate each other.
anyway, getting back to the video and R C Waldun....I can't help thinking that he can only evade the mechanical aspect/ the discipline, in the humanities because he's so brilliant. For me or you, reading Derrida, Hegel, Foucault is not going to be 'comfort reading' - a refuge from the confines of academic rigour...it's more like the opposite. Also, he says in the video that he became interested in French from learning about the French Revolution in his history studies, so he's going to study French in his second year at uni, but isn't learning a language a kind of mechanical process? Then again, I think about someone like Harold Bloom whose parents apparently only spoke Yiddish, but he had taught himself to read Yiddish, Hebrew and English by the age of 6, and then became obsessed with the poetry of Hart Crane and William Blake at around 10 or 11, which led to his brilliant career in literary scholarship. It's hard to imagine Bloom excelling in any other area of scholarship besides the humanities.
Like many brilliant people, Bloom actually didn't do that well in the school system (though he did ace the standardised tests). But once he went to university and started his academic career he quickly became a figure of massive influence.
I've known people who pursued medicine as a career, but then, once they started studying it, they found it tedious because, in the early stages, there's a lot of drudge work - e.g. memorising the names of the thousands of parts of human anatomy. It's ironic that, to get into medicine, you have to be among the best of the best academically, but then, when you get into the course, at least in the early stages, it's not very intellectually stimulating. You can see the same effect at other stages of careers as well....like with law. Like medicine, to get into law, you have to be among the best of the best academically (at least here in Australia) but I don't think that issue of being tedious in the initial stages is as big a problem with law....studying law is quite interesting and intellectually stimulating from the start, as long as you have the right kind of disposition. But then, I've heard from people who did law, graduated, then became lawyers, and absolutely hated it, because, when you first start your actual career, (apparently ... according to this person I spoke to) you have to spend the first few years doing really boring, tedious drudge work. That may not be the case for everyone, but I think that's true as a general principle. Whatever kind of career you pursue, it seems like, when you start actually working, you have to start at a basic level, and there's a sense in which it's just in the nature of work to involve things that aren't that interesting or stimulating.
Thinking about all of this, I better understand R.C. Waldun's attraction to the humanities. I felt that myself, absolutely. In many ways I am like him. If you had told me in high school that I would end up pursuing literature, history and education as some of the main strands of my career, I would have thought there was no way. In late high school, I was encouraged to do science subjects and maths and economics. English was my worst subject. I never even thought of doing history. But then, after a few years, and trying out different courses and working in admin, I realised (I think around my mid twenties) that I was actually really interested in English, History and education - all things that I had not even considered as options when I was younger.
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