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Last night, my beloved daughter was ranting about how she can't do the kind of "bullshit" they want her to do in her history/literature Classic Mythology class -- that is, interpret Greek vases and writings -- because it's all made up and bullshit and it's not like math! How the hell did I raise two kids who say crap like this? I'm an anthropologist by training, damn it! And I did lots of art and literature interpretation in my time!
Anyway, this morning she sent me this link (though, dear, you must have hand typed the link, because I had to correct it to get there). It's a fun link.
I'm trying to figure out how to explain explication and interpretation -- she still has three more gen ed classes of this type to get through after this in order to graduate.
It's not bullshit, except when it is, for starters. When it is bullshit, it's bullshit for the same reason that bullshit science is bullshit: bad faith manipulation of the source material. Leaving out important investigative steps that are there to safeguard the honesty of the process. That kind iof thing.
There is more fuzziness to humanities, but there is fuzziness to all interpretations of observations. The greater fuzziness in humanities is partly due to the fact that there is fuzziness in the boundaries between object, subject, medium, information, method and reporting. But you know what else is fuzzy? The boundary between humanities and science, and most certainly the boundary between humanities thinking and science thinking. Don't give me that "two cultures" crap. For one thing, the two cultures crap irritates me because it marginalizes me personally yet afuckinggain. I'm in the margin for everything else, and it gets old.
Okay, now I have to go make lunch.
On another front: I did get to the touchscreen/ballot scanner class last night, though late, because if you have to go to something at the Emeline county buildings complex and you don't have really precise directions you have to give up and go home and get the really precise directions. I did find out there is a back way out of the complex, besides the really creepy narrow route under Highway One: it's the really creepy frontage road that follows Highway Seventeen and eventually takes you to one of those cult ghost towns. And there's no place to turn around in the dark till you get to the entrance ramp to Highway Seventeen.
However, I am pleased to announce that our federally-mandated electronic voting machines are state-mandated to have nearly ungameable paper trails, and have other honesty-checks built into every step of the way. They're also not connected by ethernet or whatever, so they can't be gamed from outside in real time.
When I first moved to this county, election fraud was a way of life. Ballot boxes would disappear for hours. Precincts would be counted with more Republican votes than there were voters. All that kind of stuff. Yes, in small stakes Santa Cruz county. Then there came the University and the Progressive Revolution -- I was a pollwatcher long before I was an election clerk.
So, anyway, no rain today. And forty-three pounds for sure, it's held for several days.
Anyway, this morning she sent me this link (though, dear, you must have hand typed the link, because I had to correct it to get there). It's a fun link.
I'm trying to figure out how to explain explication and interpretation -- she still has three more gen ed classes of this type to get through after this in order to graduate.
It's not bullshit, except when it is, for starters. When it is bullshit, it's bullshit for the same reason that bullshit science is bullshit: bad faith manipulation of the source material. Leaving out important investigative steps that are there to safeguard the honesty of the process. That kind iof thing.
There is more fuzziness to humanities, but there is fuzziness to all interpretations of observations. The greater fuzziness in humanities is partly due to the fact that there is fuzziness in the boundaries between object, subject, medium, information, method and reporting. But you know what else is fuzzy? The boundary between humanities and science, and most certainly the boundary between humanities thinking and science thinking. Don't give me that "two cultures" crap. For one thing, the two cultures crap irritates me because it marginalizes me personally yet afuckinggain. I'm in the margin for everything else, and it gets old.
Okay, now I have to go make lunch.
On another front: I did get to the touchscreen/ballot scanner class last night, though late, because if you have to go to something at the Emeline county buildings complex and you don't have really precise directions you have to give up and go home and get the really precise directions. I did find out there is a back way out of the complex, besides the really creepy narrow route under Highway One: it's the really creepy frontage road that follows Highway Seventeen and eventually takes you to one of those cult ghost towns. And there's no place to turn around in the dark till you get to the entrance ramp to Highway Seventeen.
However, I am pleased to announce that our federally-mandated electronic voting machines are state-mandated to have nearly ungameable paper trails, and have other honesty-checks built into every step of the way. They're also not connected by ethernet or whatever, so they can't be gamed from outside in real time.
When I first moved to this county, election fraud was a way of life. Ballot boxes would disappear for hours. Precincts would be counted with more Republican votes than there were voters. All that kind of stuff. Yes, in small stakes Santa Cruz county. Then there came the University and the Progressive Revolution -- I was a pollwatcher long before I was an election clerk.
So, anyway, no rain today. And forty-three pounds for sure, it's held for several days.
no subject
It's not bullshit, except when it is, for starters. When it is bullshit, it's bullshit for the same reason that bullshit science is bullshit: bad faith manipulation of the source material. Leaving out important investigative steps that are there to safeguard the honesty of the process. That kind iof thing.
Yes, that. It's easier to be accidentally dishonest in the fuzzy-studies *I think*. It's probably equally easy to ignore conflicting evidence you know about, but I think it's easier to then get *caught* in the sciences.
I went to a good school, and avoided most of the fuzzy studies and nearly all of the humanities, and it was a long time ago, but I hear too many stories of teachers you have to agree with (to get a good grade) particularly in literature and history lately. That's bad teaching, and makes it easier for people to claim it's all opinions.
In school, among my parents' friends, and among my own, I notice quite clearly that science people are more interested and know a lot more about the humanities than humanities people do about science, in general. It's even built into the course structures of most places I've checked -- there's often some variant of "physics for poets", but the science majors take the same lit courses as the lit majors and the same history courses as the history majors and the same music courses as the music majors and the same art courses as the art majors (though not *usually* to the point of a double major). (At engineering schools you get people with very narrow focus, not at all like this, but that's not where I've been or investigated.)
no subject
(I've spent some time these holidays created flowcharts for how to cite books, journal articles, etc, in the hopes that it'll be easier for the coming year's students to cope with than the text-and-links webpages we presently have that are oh-so-clearly designed by librarians. This isn't really a two-cultures thing, though: I don't think the text-and-links are overly useful for anyone. Still, baby engineers in particular balk at having to read lots of stuff.)
no subject