You trust your friend or family member. Of course you do. But sometimes this is more difficult than at other times. Sometimes you have to make a bigger effort and exercise more faith. That is what @Lamb Chopped means by "work up" if I understand correctly. I don't think it implies the sort of mental gymnastics @pease seems to have in mind.
I'll try one more time and then I'm giving up. I repeat, I'm married cross-culturally. Most of those relationships fail, statistically.
Not according to the statistics I've seen. What I see is that, on average, the failure rate appears to be a bit higher for cross-cultural marriages.
So given that the failure rate for relationships seems to hover just below 50% by some measures, and the failure rate of cross-cultural relationships by the same measures are between 5-10% higher, it's possible that @Lamb Chopped's statement is strictly true.
Of course, put that way things aren't as stark as the original statement (and that's even before getting to a comparison of what percentage of *those* failures are caused by communication difficulties rather than other factors, or how cultural vs other differences fare in a multivariate comparison).
You trust your friend or family member. Of course you do. But sometimes this is more difficult than at other times. Sometimes you have to make a bigger effort and exercise more faith. That is what Lamb Chopped means by "work up" if I understand correctly.
Thanks, TurquoiseTastic - that makes sense. That's all I was asking.
I don't think it implies the sort of mental gymnastics @pease seems to have in mind.
Hmm. I wasn't aware of having any mental gymnastics in mind. But an observer's mileage may vary…
I also wonder if there's some chicken-and-egg going on: that to be taken "seriously" (or maybe at all), the reading matter chosen for courses addressing various literary and cultural theories needs to pay at least some attention to "canonical" texts. .
Well, there's long been a debate which now gets phrased and position in culture war terms between those who want fix historic exclusions in the canon/curriculum vs those who claim that literature courses are being shaped overly by sociology or that these changes are without merit.
We've touched on some of these issues tangentially in this thread.
The follow-on question(s) that presents itself to me is, "what is the purpose of literature" and "what is the purpose of studying literature"? And one answer that occurs is that the purpose is to preserve the primacy of the importance of literature, possibly with particular reference to liberalism. (Harking back to that quote from McLuhan.)
There's a piece in the latest LRB that touches on some of those issues (with the background of courses being cut in universities in England and Wales):
The follow-on question(s) that presents itself to me is, "what is the purpose of literature" and "what is the purpose of studying literature"? And one answer that occurs is that the purpose is to preserve the primacy of the importance of literature, possibly with particular reference to liberalism. (Harking back to that quote from McLuhan.)
I do not think that the purpose of studying literature is to preserve the primacy of studying literature. This sounds like the old Noam Chomsky quote which is something like "I do not know what post-modernism is but I suspect it is a device invented to keep academics employed."
I like the piece in the London Review of Books because I like the idea that ideas themselves change a person and as one engages with difficult literature that process changes the brains of the people who do it. That study is therefore about growth and the person as much as participating in some grand intellectual paradigm which requires and demands the involvement of individuals for it's continued existence.
Science and Engineering are often more abstract in the sense that one does not tend to grow (in the same sense) by thinking about quadratic equations or the Devonian-Carboniferous boundary.
People have often objected that there are a lot of writers and critics of literature who don't seem to be much improved people. On the other hand, there are a lot of people who aren't much improved who don't read literature.
People have often objected that there are a lot of writers and critics of literature who don't seem to be much improved people. On the other hand, there are a lot of people who aren't much improved who don't read literature.
That might be true, but two things can be true at the same time.
It is unlikely that one is going to be able to think clearly about morality and philosophy if you spend all your time thinking about geology because, fascinating as it undoubtedly is the rocks themselves offer no moral lessons. I have met many mathematicians and scientists who are lacking in emotional intelligence because they never had the opportunity to develop these faculties. Those that did almost always had some other focus on their studies at some point beyond the science.
At the same time studying philosophy or literature is not in itself a perfect structure for self examination in the sense that absolutely everyone who studies it inevitably improves themselves.
The point is that literature offers the possibility for human flourishing and improvement in a way that science and engineering in their very essence do not.
I have no idea whether I'm 'much improved' by studying this stuff any more than I can speculate whether I'd be 'more inproved' has I studied something else.
I didn't do a 'straight' single-honours so I'm either doubly 'improved' or 'semi-improved' in some areas or doubly mixed up ...
Lewis wrote a couple of interesting essays about this. Although he definitely thought there was such a thing as "good literature" versus "bad literature", he strongly objected to the idea that good literature was necessarily morally improving, or that having "good taste" in literature was in any way a sign of good character. "I enjoyed a good breakfast and I think that was a good thing, but I do not think myself a good man for enjoying it"...
There's a piece in the latest LRB that touches on some of those issues (with the background of courses being cut in universities in England and Wales):
Thanks, chrisstiles. An engaging article (with a memorable title). Satisfying an urge to quote from it:
Inhabit the Poem appears in the Library of America, alongside Nathaniel Hawthorne, Eudora Welty, Elizabeth Bishop, Herman Melville and Ursula Le Guin. That’s an elevated podium. Does it belong there? Will it last? Literary criticism typically doesn’t have a long shelf life, and that’s in part because it is or ought to be volatile and occasional: reading is a process of unsettling and rethinking, so the best criticism will unsettle its own moment and then get unsettled or outgrown by the next generation. As Vendler put it in The Ocean, the Bird and the Scholar (2015), ‘Scholarly and critical interpretations may not outlast the generation to which they are relevant; as intellectual concepts flourish and wither, so interpretations are proposed and discarded.’
… That study is therefore about growth and the person as much as participating in some grand intellectual paradigm which requires and demands the involvement of individuals for it's continued existence.
I think it's about the development of society as much as individuals.
The point is that literature offers the possibility for human flourishing and improvement in a way that science and engineering in their very essence do not.
My experience is less clear-cut. Thinking about (and learning) programming languages has had a significant impact on the way I think, more generally.
Science and Engineering are often more abstract in the sense that one does not tend to grow (in the same sense) by thinking about quadratic equations or the Devonian-Carboniferous boundary.
I'm not sure it's helpful to try and make this kind of distinction, there are other abilities and habits of thought fostered by those subjects
Science and Engineering are often more abstract in the sense that one does not tend to grow (in the same sense) by thinking about quadratic equations or the Devonian-Carboniferous boundary.
I'm not sure it's helpful to try and make this kind of distinction, there are other abilities and habits of thought fostered by those subjects
The only lesson one can take from nature is that one can never take lessons from nature.
Yes? No? Maybe? It just comes off as fairly trite.
I apologise, it is not supposed to be trite. In some areas of biological science there is a significant amount of ethics embedded inside the paradigm, but those scientists who operate within it seem ill equipped to think about it. For example the whole thing about the HeLa cell line continued for decades without, apparently, anyone within the field of human cell biology thinking it was a problem, or possibly thinking too hard about it. So it is not that science is somehow tangential to the messy questions of human ethics and that scientists themselves have "risen above" the types of issues which would be problematic in other contexts.
I believe it is very often the case that scientists are not trained in the humanities at all, and hence these questions often do not come up.
If you have been exposed to the messy questions of human history and literature and so on then I think you are better equipped to identify difficult issues. If you are extremely well trained in operating a microscope or solving equations these kinds of questions often do not occur to you.
Not everyone is the same of course. Some scientists and mathematicians have developed advanced emotional intelligence. Most have not, in my experience over the decades.
Funnily enough, my experience is that humanities types often know painfully little science. Perhaps we've not moved on from the Two Cultures described by C P Snow?
You probably can't take lessons from nature per se but you can learn a lot from the scientific process and scientific thinking itself. It's for example sobering how counterintuitive the universe gets at very small and very large scales. Even Galilean relativity is difficult to intuitively grasp; Einsteinian orders of magnitude more so. But where we are led by the evidence we must go.
Yes? No? Maybe? It just comes off as fairly trite.
I apologise, it is not supposed to be trite. In some areas of biological science there is a significant amount of ethics embedded inside the paradigm, but those scientists who operate within it seem ill equipped to think about it. For example the whole thing about the HeLa cell line continued for decades without, apparently, anyone within the field of human cell biology thinking it was a problem, or possibly thinking too hard about it.
It's more likely that these attitudes are prevalent across society and concrete events such as this one are more likely to manifest themselves in certain fields than others.
I believe it is very often the case that scientists are not trained in the humanities at all, and hence these questions often do not come up.
The volumes of writing against attempts to decolonise and/or widen the literature curriculum would very much run against the idea that reading the humanities[*] (itself an imprecisely broad term) would lead to better handling of these questions when they do come up.
[*] And if we are broadening consideration to the humanities rather than literature, it's not clear to me that history, sociology etc deal with these issues any better
Funnily enough, my experience is that humanities types often know painfully little science. Perhaps we've not moved on from the Two Cultures described by C P Snow?
You probably can't take lessons from nature per se but you can learn a lot from the scientific process and scientific thinking itself. It's for example sobering how counterintuitive the universe gets at very small and very large scales. Even Galilean relativity is difficult to intuitively grasp; Einsteinian orders of magnitude more so. But where we are led by the evidence we must go.
As a humanities wonk, I'm inclined to agree. My knowledge of science, beyond an O-Level in Geology is woefully inadequate.
I rarely contribute to threads about science here as I know precious little about it.
That doesn't stop me pontificating on other threads where I know diddly-squat in comparison with other Shipmates of course ... 😉
I've come across medics and other scientists who've tried their hand at poetry and creative writing or who've mugged up on painting and art in retirement etc.
I can't think of many humanities bods who've decided to grapple with quantum physics for instance, although one former journalist I know springs to mind.
There's always an exception to any rule.
But in general, yes, I have to admit I think you're right.
Lewis wrote a couple of interesting essays about this. Although he definitely thought there was such a thing as "good literature" versus "bad literature", he strongly objected to the idea that good literature was necessarily morally improving, or that having "good taste" in literature was in any way a sign of good character. "I enjoyed a good breakfast and I think that was a good thing, but I do not think myself a good man for enjoying it"...
I agree.
I have not noticed much correlation at all between any course of study, intellectual discipline or whatever and either moral or spiritual virtue. I have met some estimable but also some pretty distasteful arts graduates over the years, and the same for scientists, engineers and whatever. Though I have not enough of @Basketactortale's geologists to comment fairly on that discipline, I have not been aware of any particular turpitude or iniquity among their rank.
I certainly have not seen either in the abstract or experientially that the study of literature endows those that have followed that course with exceptional virtue, or even emotional intelligence.
There are academic disciplines that I think have more intellectual credibility and others that have less, but that is another matter altogether. Because of the reaction any comment is likely to provoke, I am keeping my views on this to myself.
And how are we defining science, or STEM [science, technology, engineering, mathematics] if we're comparing to humanities more widely? Are we including social sciences? There are lots of places where science and the arts cross over, particularly when it comes to the performing arts but also when it comes to visual arts and crafts. Via my interest in textile and fibre crafts, it's incredibly obvious how much technical and scientific skill goes into eg sewing a garment or knitting a lace shawl. Look at hand-knitted (on tiny needles, not much bigger/thicker than sewing needles) Shetland lace and tell me that's not advanced engineering!
I apologise, it is not supposed to be trite. In some areas of biological science there is a significant amount of ethics embedded inside the paradigm, but those scientists who operate within it seem ill equipped to think about it. For example the whole thing about the HeLa cell line continued for decades without, apparently, anyone within the field of human cell biology thinking it was a problem, or possibly thinking too hard about it. So it is not that science is somehow tangential to the messy questions of human ethics and that scientists themselves have "risen above" the types of issues which would be problematic in other contexts.
I believe it is very often the case that scientists are not trained in the humanities at all, and hence these questions often do not come up.
If you have been exposed to the messy questions of human history and literature and so on then I think you are better equipped to identify difficult issues. If you are extremely well trained in operating a microscope or solving equations these kinds of questions often do not occur to you.
Not everyone is the same of course. Some scientists and mathematicians have developed advanced emotional intelligence. Most have not, in my experience over the decades.
I don't think that conflating ethics and emotional intelligence is a helpful way of looking at the issues.
Medicine is both the science and the practice of caring for patients. There are patient-facing roles, which I would expect to involve a degree of emotional intelligence (I don't know if it's explicitly identified in the job descriptions). Meanwhile, there are non-patient-facing roles, for example on medical ethics boards, which require at least a working understanding of ethics as a discipline.
And, as Pomona draws attention to, making hard-and-fast boundaries between science or STEM and humanities is an unhelpful way of dividing up the extraordinary range of productive and fulfilling work, callings and professions (cf labour) in which human beings engage.
One of the strengths of literature is that, at least in principle, anyone who has been through a western education system should be able to start engaging with it. That this doesn't happen in practice, to me says quite a lot about the embedded biases that persist within western education and attitudes to literature. Which are the things, rather pertinently, that several schools of literary criticism seek to foreground.
And with regard to those who labour, the working class, I'm put in mind of groups like the Workers' Educational Association (established in 1903), whose mission “is to bring adult education within reach of everyone who needs it, fighting inequality and promoting social justice”.
I apologise, it is not supposed to be trite. In some areas of biological science there is a significant amount of ethics embedded inside the paradigm, but those scientists who operate within it seem ill equipped to think about it. For example the whole thing about the HeLa cell line continued for decades without, apparently, anyone within the field of human cell biology thinking it was a problem, or possibly thinking too hard about it. So it is not that science is somehow tangential to the messy questions of human ethics and that scientists themselves have "risen above" the types of issues which would be problematic in other contexts.
I believe it is very often the case that scientists are not trained in the humanities at all, and hence these questions often do not come up.
If you have been exposed to the messy questions of human history and literature and so on then I think you are better equipped to identify difficult issues. If you are extremely well trained in operating a microscope or solving equations these kinds of questions often do not occur to you.
Not everyone is the same of course. Some scientists and mathematicians have developed advanced emotional intelligence. Most have not, in my experience over the decades.
I don't think that conflating ethics and emotional intelligence is a helpful way of looking at the issues.
Medicine is both the science and the practice of caring for patients. There are patient-facing roles, which I would expect to involve a degree of emotional intelligence (I don't know if it's explicitly identified in the job descriptions). Meanwhile, there are non-patient-facing roles, for example on medical ethics boards, which require at least a working understanding of ethics as a discipline.
And, as Pomona draws attention to, making hard-and-fast boundaries between science or STEM and humanities is an unhelpful way of dividing up the extraordinary range of productive and fulfilling work, callings and professions (cf labour) in which human beings engage.
One of the strengths of literature is that, at least in principle, anyone who has been through a western education system should be able to start engaging with it. That this doesn't happen in practice, to me says quite a lot about the embedded biases that persist within western education and attitudes to literature. Which are the things, rather pertinently, that several schools of literary criticism seek to foreground.
And with regard to those who labour, the working class, I'm put in mind of groups like the Workers' Educational Association (established in 1903), whose mission “is to bring adult education within reach of everyone who needs it, fighting inequality and promoting social justice”.
Medics learn ethics. It's literally a part of the course.
Medicine is both the science and the practice of caring for patients.
Medics learn ethics. It's literally a part of the course.
Not everyone who works in the field of medicine is a medic. And not everyone who practices medicine is a medic. (Although there seems to be some variation in informal uses of the word across different countries.)
I also see that while nursing is part of the field of medicine, it's not considered to be part of the practice of medicine. (Whether this has anything to do with traditional gender roles is another matter.)
And while it appears that healthcare professionals are expected to study ethics, this doesn't seem to be the case for healthcare non-professionals (eg assistants).
Medicine is both the science and the practice of caring for patients.
Medics learn ethics. It's literally a part of the course.
Not everyone who works in the field of medicine is a medic. And not everyone who practices medicine is a medic. (Although there seems to be some variation in informal uses of the word across different countries.)
FWIW, in the US (and maybe Canada?), medic is pretty much only used to refer to emergency first responders, particularly military/combat first responders. At least that’s my experience. I’ve never heard it used to refer to, say, a doctor.
As someone who spends a lot of time with academics, I object to the routine use of "doctor" to describe people who have not obtained a doctorate. I know that the situation is not the same in all countries but a medical degree in the UK is the equivalent of two bachelor degrees. It is possible to earn a medical doctorate but many do not obtain that qualification.
Now you are free to object to the way I describe people who have medical degrees and practice medicine, that's your prerogative.
I will continue to use a standard dictionary definition of medic.
If you would like to continue discussing the substantial issue then that's fine but I will not entertain additional comments about the way I choose to use the dictionary. Thank you.
Now you are free to object to the way I describe people who have medical degrees and practice medicine, that's your prerogative.
I will continue to use a standard dictionary definition of medic.
That is certainly your prerogative, and I certainly don’t object to it.
But for my part, given that this is an international board, I try to avoid usages that I have learned may cause confusion or be misunderstood in other parts of the Anglosphere. Doing otherwise strikes me as devaluing the basic goal of effective communication.
Now you are free to object to the way I describe people who have medical degrees and practice medicine, that's your prerogative.
I will continue to use a standard dictionary definition of medic.
That is certainly your prerogative, and I certainly don’t object to it.
But for my part, given that this is an international board, I try to avoid usages that I have learned may cause confusion or be misunderstood in other parts of the Anglosphere. Doing otherwise strikes me as devaluing the basic goal of effective communication.
I was unaware that there was any military association with the term. On that the USA appears to be unique. I cannot use terms in a way that satisfied your usage if I am unaware of it. In the UK medic is a common way in academic circles to describe students of medicine and shorthand for people who practice medicine when one dies not want to use the honorific doctor.
Can we move on or if there something else to say on this? If so please continue but I will not be responding to further discussion of the dictionary definition.
In the humanities versus science debate, an old question is whether it is more important to read "Hamlet" or to learn the laws of thermodynamics. My response to this is that while one can read various other works of Shakespeare that involve many of the same ideas and themes, there is nothing that can be substituted for the laws of thermodynamics.
And while it appears that healthcare professionals are expected to study ethics, this doesn't seem to be the case for healthcare non-professionals (eg assistants).
I teach an undergraduate module on death, dying and bereavement (I am a qualified nurse and a non-medical doctor). The majority of my students are health care assistants doing a health and social care degree. They most certainly do studying ethics, applying ethical models to a variety of topics and scenarios; it would be hard to teach them the module without discussing ethics.
Thanks, Heavenly Annie - that's helpful. (My reading, as far as I could get without being able to access the content of various teaching materials, was that health care assistants and others need to know and understand applicable ethical standards and responsibilities, but were not required to study ethics as such. Do all health care assistants do degrees?)
If you would like to continue discussing the substantial issue then that's fine but I will not entertain additional comments about the way I choose to use the dictionary. Thank you.
Can we move on or if there something else to say on this? If so please continue but I will not be responding to further discussion of the dictionary definition.
Where I think this is relevant to the topic of literature is in wondering how much progress it's possible for someone to make if they persist in thinking of words as having definitive meanings. Dictionary definitions are contingent. The meaning of words ebb and flow and fall in and out of use. Moreover, many writers of literature play with words and their meanings in their works.
Lewis wrote a couple of interesting essays about this. Although he definitely thought there was such a thing as "good literature" versus "bad literature", he strongly objected to the idea that good literature was necessarily morally improving, or that having "good taste" in literature was in any way a sign of good character. "I enjoyed a good breakfast and I think that was a good thing, but I do not think myself a good man for enjoying it"...
This is not the neutral comment it appears. It is a very specific dig at F R Leavis, a hated Cantabrigian professor of English literature, who proposed a revised canon and approach to the study of literature which very much treated is as a moral agent and source of enlightenment. His love of George Eliot in particular was founded in his profound identification with the moral purpose of her writing.
Thanks, Heavenly Annie - that's helpful. (My reading, as far as I could get without being able to access the content of various teaching materials, was that health care assistants and others need to know and understand applicable ethical standards and responsibilities, but were not required to study ethics as such. Do all health care assistants do degrees?)
I don’t know how many health care assistants do degrees but the availability of student loans in the UK has meant that more young working class students are studying for degrees and part time online learning, such as I teach, enables them to study alongside their paid work. Often my students express the desire to get degrees for career advancement as well as extending their knowledge and improving their practice.
My students on the death studies module come from many different walks of life, not just health care assistants; morticians, chaplains, registrars, people facing their own mortality or that of their loved ones. We explore topics such as defining a good death, ethical decision making, legal aspects, autonomy and capacity, medicalisation, assisted dying, and withdrawal of treatment. For instance, the discussion on assisted dying takes place at the end of the ‘dying’ block of study and has a real life case study of a man who chose to end his life in a clinic but we return to the case study in the ‘bereavement’ block when we explore the impact of his choice on his wife. A good death, autonomy and choice are consequently explored from different perspectives. Ethical debates are a normal part of health and social care and, consequently, a component of every undergraduate module I teach, from public health to mental health.
(I started my own career on a youth training scheme as a carer in a residential home. I cared for my first dying person when I was 17 years old)
Now you are free to object to the way I describe people who have medical degrees and practice medicine, that's your prerogative.
I will continue to use a standard dictionary definition of medic.
That is certainly your prerogative, and I certainly don’t object to it.
But for my part, given that this is an international board, I try to avoid usages that I have learned may cause confusion or be misunderstood in other parts of the Anglosphere. Doing otherwise strikes me as devaluing the basic goal of effective communication.
I was unaware that there was any military association with the term. On that the USA appears to be unique. I cannot use terms in a way that satisfied your usage if I am unaware of it. In the UK medic is a common way in academic circles to describe students of medicine and shorthand for people who practice medicine when one dies not want to use the honorific doctor.
Can we move on or if there something else to say on this? If so please continue but I will not be responding to further discussion of the dictionary definition.
I have never heard of people in the UK using "medics" to refer specifically to medical professionals who don't have a doctorate, and I often hear people in the UK using it to refer to paramedics. Also, I know a *lot* of academics including STEM academics and none would be offended by using the term "doctor" for people with a degree in medicine without a doctorate - because terminology within the medical professions is just different (eg non-surgical doctors and surgeons using different honorifics). When someone refers to a medical doctor, everyone knows what they mean.
Language is descriptive not prescriptive, and common use comes into play way before dictionaries record it. Suggesting that only dictionary definitions are the "real" meanings of words would be strongly refuted by any linguistics professional.
Thanks again, Heavenlyannie. (Apologies for for mistyping your screen name last time.) That's … a much more human-centred perspective than I manage. Both emotional intelligence and ethics are a bit of an afterthought in my line of work. (As is, for example, evident in the focus and direction of travel of AI and its creators.)
Back on the topic, one of the ways in which I find literature beneficial is how it reveals and opens up other perspectives. I don't as a rule find it very affective unless I go out of my way to concentrate and try to inhabit those perspectives, which can be a rather disconcerting experience.
Lewis wrote a couple of interesting essays about this. Although he definitely thought there was such a thing as "good literature" versus "bad literature", he strongly objected to the idea that good literature was necessarily morally improving, or that having "good taste" in literature was in any way a sign of good character. "I enjoyed a good breakfast and I think that was a good thing, but I do not think myself a good man for enjoying it"...
This is not the neutral comment it appears. It is a very specific dig at F R Leavis, a hated Cantabrigian professor of English literature, who proposed a revised canon and approach to the study of literature which very much treated is as a moral agent and source of enlightenment. His love of George Eliot in particular was founded in his profound identification with the moral purpose of her writing.
Lewis' principles and tastes were much opposed to Leavis - and I think one difference between them is that Leavis strongly believed there was a canon (he called it the "tradition") and that books outside the canon weren't worth reading. Leavis believed that there were only five novelists in the English language (Austen, Eliot, Conrad, James, Lawrence). Also, Leavis thought Donne was much better than Milton and the romantic poets. (Leavis thought he was following Eliot, but Eliot's opinion was more subtle: he thought modern poets would write better poetry following the example of Donne).
One literary historian mischievously suggested that all modern literary critics are intellectual descendants of either Leavis or Lewis, with the progressive revisionists being descendants of Lewis. (Progressive revisionists may have fallen out with their father but the family resemblance is still there.)
Leavis v Lewis does appear to have become quite personal. From Mere Inkling Press (a retired Lutheran pastor who served 24 years as a US Air Force chaplain), C.S. Lewis’ Nemesis: F.R. Leavis:
When C.S. Lewis died, one of his Cambridge colleagues uttered a shocking statement—to his Cambridge students.
“C.S. Lewis is dead,” announced F.R. Leavis to his English literature students at Cambridge University a few days later, while the world mourned for Kennedy (the President was assassinated the same day).
American novelist and essayist D. Keith Mano, then studying at Cambridge, remembers Leavis continuing his brief commentary on Lewis’ passing as follows: “They said in The Times that we will miss him. We will not. We will not.”
It appears that it was Leavis who Lewis had in mind when he wrote An Experiment in Criticism (already mentioned on this thread).
Anybody who dogmatically pronounced that only their own pet five novelists counted as the real ones, whoever they chose and no others would immediately put me in the opposite camp, whichever it was. It strikes me as intellectual self-righteousness.
Both Leavis and Lewis were very much out of favour when I was at university, Leavis less so, I think.
But then all the noise and kerfuffle was over Structuralism at that time and that drowned out almost anything else. Leavis loomed in the background but I'm not sure his views held much traction or influence.
Lewis wrote a couple of interesting essays about this. Although he definitely thought there was such a thing as "good literature" versus "bad literature", he strongly objected to the idea that good literature was necessarily morally improving, or that having "good taste" in literature was in any way a sign of good character. "I enjoyed a good breakfast and I think that was a good thing, but I do not think myself a good man for enjoying it"...
This is not the neutral comment it appears. It is a very specific dig at F R Leavis, a hated Cantabrigian professor of English literature, who proposed a revised canon and approach to the study of literature which very much treated is as a moral agent and source of enlightenment. His love of George Eliot in particular was founded in his profound identification with the moral purpose of her writing.
Lewis' principles and tastes were much opposed to Leavis - and I think one difference between them is that Leavis strongly believed there was a canon (he called it the "tradition") and that books outside the canon weren't worth reading. Leavis believed that there were only five novelists in the English language (Austen, Eliot, Conrad, James, Lawrence). Also, Leavis thought Donne was much better than Milton and the romantic poets. (Leavis thought he was following Eliot, but Eliot's opinion was more subtle: he thought modern poets would write better poetry following the example of Donne).
One literary historian mischievously suggested that all modern literary critics are intellectual descendants of either Leavis or Lewis, with the progressive revisionists being descendants of Lewis. (Progressive revisionists may have fallen out with their father but the family resemblance is still there.)
I recall at my doctoral orals I was asked which critic I had modeled myself after (very problematic given the huge emphasis then on deconstructionism and the New Historicism!). I said with fear and trembling, "Lewis" and got back incredulous unbelief from most of my committee. They demanded I justify my choice. I said, "I want a form of criticism that allows me to create new works, not simply to dissect and disintegrate the old ones." Lewis of course wrote quite a bit of original work of his own; Leavis, as far as I can tell, never wrote aught but criticism. And in that Leavis is like the vast majority of critics during the 20th and I think 21st century, not that I've been keeping up with them. But during my dissertation research I noticed that practically all the literary critics before the 20th century had original work to their credit, as well as criticism; even WW Greg had a dog owners' handbook in his bibliography! But by WWII this had largely passed, as far as I could tell. I prefer the older styles.
Anybody who dogmatically pronounced that only their own pet five novelists counted as the real ones, whoever they chose and no others would immediately put me in the opposite camp, whichever it was. It strikes me as intellectual self-righteousness.
Doesn’t it concern you that this sort of attitude makes you very easy to manipulate ?
Is it churlish to see a resemblance to religious dogmatic beliefs? There appears to be people who have a pseudo-religious fanaticism about certain books and certain authors which seems unhealthy.
Why pick on religion? Dogmatism is also evident in at least some political belief systems and scientific schools of thought.
I think the model of seeing meaning within the pages of a holy book comes from religion. Dogmaticism insists that one isolate oneself from any other influence outside of the text.
For someone who claims to be influenced by dictionary definitions, it would be helpful if you could appraise yourself of the dictionary definition of dogmatism, and its origins. Unless you're being ironic.
For someone who claims to be influenced by dictionary definitions, it would be helpful if you could appraise yourself of the dictionary definition of dogmatism, and its origins. Unless you're being ironic.
I do not understand your point. A religious person has faith in their holy book and the dogmatic person insists that the truth within is to be accepted more than the truth without.
As others have illustrated above there are some critics who say dogmatically one thing and some who say another.
For someone who claims to be influenced by dictionary definitions, it would be helpful if you could appraise yourself of the dictionary definition of dogmatism, and its origins. Unless you're being ironic.
I do not understand your point. A religious person has faith in their holy book
It seems rather more likely that the entity Leavis had faith in was himself. I don't see his faith as emanating from the books of the novelists he considered to be "great". As far as I can work out, his selection best exemplify the values he considered to be most worthwhile or worthy. His central criterion for great writing was that it had "a vital capacity for experience, a kind of reverent openness before life, and a marked moral intensity".
and the dogmatic person insists that the truth within is to be accepted more than the truth without.
I'm not sure what you mean by "within" and "without". A dogmatist is a person who is stubbornly committed to their own opinion.
As others have illustrated above there are some critics who say dogmatically one thing and some who say another.
That is the case in all walks of life, not just religion or literature.
You also wrote:
I think the model of seeing meaning within the pages of a holy book comes from religion.
I presume you're using quotes around "holy" there. What about The Communist Manifesto, or Clause IV of the Labour party Constitution, or the Constitutions of various countries?
Dogmaticism insists that one isolate oneself from any other influence outside of the text.
Which I can't see any justification for. Why does there have to be a text to be dogmatic about to the exclusion of other influences?
In any case, I don't get the impression that Leavis isolated himself from the influence of other texts; he just didn't accept that they were as "great" as the ones he identified.
Comments
So given that the failure rate for relationships seems to hover just below 50% by some measures, and the failure rate of cross-cultural relationships by the same measures are between 5-10% higher, it's possible that @Lamb Chopped's statement is strictly true.
Of course, put that way things aren't as stark as the original statement (and that's even before getting to a comparison of what percentage of *those* failures are caused by communication difficulties rather than other factors, or how cultural vs other differences fare in a multivariate comparison).
Hmm. I wasn't aware of having any mental gymnastics in mind. But an observer's mileage may vary…
The follow-on question(s) that presents itself to me is, "what is the purpose of literature" and "what is the purpose of studying literature"? And one answer that occurs is that the purpose is to preserve the primacy of the importance of literature, possibly with particular reference to liberalism. (Harking back to that quote from McLuhan.)
https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v48/n16/colin-burrow/good-weird-or-bad-weird
I do not think that the purpose of studying literature is to preserve the primacy of studying literature. This sounds like the old Noam Chomsky quote which is something like "I do not know what post-modernism is but I suspect it is a device invented to keep academics employed."
I like the piece in the London Review of Books because I like the idea that ideas themselves change a person and as one engages with difficult literature that process changes the brains of the people who do it. That study is therefore about growth and the person as much as participating in some grand intellectual paradigm which requires and demands the involvement of individuals for it's continued existence.
Science and Engineering are often more abstract in the sense that one does not tend to grow (in the same sense) by thinking about quadratic equations or the Devonian-Carboniferous boundary.
That might be true, but two things can be true at the same time.
It is unlikely that one is going to be able to think clearly about morality and philosophy if you spend all your time thinking about geology because, fascinating as it undoubtedly is the rocks themselves offer no moral lessons. I have met many mathematicians and scientists who are lacking in emotional intelligence because they never had the opportunity to develop these faculties. Those that did almost always had some other focus on their studies at some point beyond the science.
At the same time studying philosophy or literature is not in itself a perfect structure for self examination in the sense that absolutely everyone who studies it inevitably improves themselves.
The point is that literature offers the possibility for human flourishing and improvement in a way that science and engineering in their very essence do not.
I have no idea whether I'm 'much improved' by studying this stuff any more than I can speculate whether I'd be 'more inproved' has I studied something else.
I didn't do a 'straight' single-honours so I'm either doubly 'improved' or 'semi-improved' in some areas or doubly mixed up ...
My experience is less clear-cut. Thinking about (and learning) programming languages has had a significant impact on the way I think, more generally.
What I see Lewis doing there is, primarily, knowingly playing with the word "good" (and providing a framed snapshot of British society).
I'm not sure it's helpful to try and make this kind of distinction, there are other abilities and habits of thought fostered by those subjects
The only lesson one can take from nature is that one can never take lessons from nature.
I apologise, it is not supposed to be trite. In some areas of biological science there is a significant amount of ethics embedded inside the paradigm, but those scientists who operate within it seem ill equipped to think about it. For example the whole thing about the HeLa cell line continued for decades without, apparently, anyone within the field of human cell biology thinking it was a problem, or possibly thinking too hard about it. So it is not that science is somehow tangential to the messy questions of human ethics and that scientists themselves have "risen above" the types of issues which would be problematic in other contexts.
I believe it is very often the case that scientists are not trained in the humanities at all, and hence these questions often do not come up.
If you have been exposed to the messy questions of human history and literature and so on then I think you are better equipped to identify difficult issues. If you are extremely well trained in operating a microscope or solving equations these kinds of questions often do not occur to you.
Not everyone is the same of course. Some scientists and mathematicians have developed advanced emotional intelligence. Most have not, in my experience over the decades.
You probably can't take lessons from nature per se but you can learn a lot from the scientific process and scientific thinking itself. It's for example sobering how counterintuitive the universe gets at very small and very large scales. Even Galilean relativity is difficult to intuitively grasp; Einsteinian orders of magnitude more so. But where we are led by the evidence we must go.
It's more likely that these attitudes are prevalent across society and concrete events such as this one are more likely to manifest themselves in certain fields than others.
The volumes of writing against attempts to decolonise and/or widen the literature curriculum would very much run against the idea that reading the humanities[*] (itself an imprecisely broad term) would lead to better handling of these questions when they do come up.
[*] And if we are broadening consideration to the humanities rather than literature, it's not clear to me that history, sociology etc deal with these issues any better
As a humanities wonk, I'm inclined to agree. My knowledge of science, beyond an O-Level in Geology is woefully inadequate.
I rarely contribute to threads about science here as I know precious little about it.
That doesn't stop me pontificating on other threads where I know diddly-squat in comparison with other Shipmates of course ... 😉
I've come across medics and other scientists who've tried their hand at poetry and creative writing or who've mugged up on painting and art in retirement etc.
I can't think of many humanities bods who've decided to grapple with quantum physics for instance, although one former journalist I know springs to mind.
There's always an exception to any rule.
But in general, yes, I have to admit I think you're right.
I have not noticed much correlation at all between any course of study, intellectual discipline or whatever and either moral or spiritual virtue. I have met some estimable but also some pretty distasteful arts graduates over the years, and the same for scientists, engineers and whatever. Though I have not enough of @Basketactortale's geologists to comment fairly on that discipline, I have not been aware of any particular turpitude or iniquity among their rank.
I certainly have not seen either in the abstract or experientially that the study of literature endows those that have followed that course with exceptional virtue, or even emotional intelligence.
There are academic disciplines that I think have more intellectual credibility and others that have less, but that is another matter altogether. Because of the reaction any comment is likely to provoke, I am keeping my views on this to myself.
Medicine is both the science and the practice of caring for patients. There are patient-facing roles, which I would expect to involve a degree of emotional intelligence (I don't know if it's explicitly identified in the job descriptions). Meanwhile, there are non-patient-facing roles, for example on medical ethics boards, which require at least a working understanding of ethics as a discipline.
And, as Pomona draws attention to, making hard-and-fast boundaries between science or STEM and humanities is an unhelpful way of dividing up the extraordinary range of productive and fulfilling work, callings and professions (cf labour) in which human beings engage.
One of the strengths of literature is that, at least in principle, anyone who has been through a western education system should be able to start engaging with it. That this doesn't happen in practice, to me says quite a lot about the embedded biases that persist within western education and attitudes to literature. Which are the things, rather pertinently, that several schools of literary criticism seek to foreground.
And with regard to those who labour, the working class, I'm put in mind of groups like the Workers' Educational Association (established in 1903), whose mission “is to bring adult education within reach of everyone who needs it, fighting inequality and promoting social justice”.
Medics learn ethics. It's literally a part of the course.
I also see that while nursing is part of the field of medicine, it's not considered to be part of the practice of medicine. (Whether this has anything to do with traditional gender roles is another matter.)
And while it appears that healthcare professionals are expected to study ethics, this doesn't seem to be the case for healthcare non-professionals (eg assistants).
Now you are free to object to the way I describe people who have medical degrees and practice medicine, that's your prerogative.
I will continue to use a standard dictionary definition of medic.
If you would like to continue discussing the substantial issue then that's fine but I will not entertain additional comments about the way I choose to use the dictionary. Thank you.
But for my part, given that this is an international board, I try to avoid usages that I have learned may cause confusion or be misunderstood in other parts of the Anglosphere. Doing otherwise strikes me as devaluing the basic goal of effective communication.
I was unaware that there was any military association with the term. On that the USA appears to be unique. I cannot use terms in a way that satisfied your usage if I am unaware of it. In the UK medic is a common way in academic circles to describe students of medicine and shorthand for people who practice medicine when one dies not want to use the honorific doctor.
Can we move on or if there something else to say on this? If so please continue but I will not be responding to further discussion of the dictionary definition.
I recommend both.
Where I think this is relevant to the topic of literature is in wondering how much progress it's possible for someone to make if they persist in thinking of words as having definitive meanings. Dictionary definitions are contingent. The meaning of words ebb and flow and fall in and out of use. Moreover, many writers of literature play with words and their meanings in their works.
This is not the neutral comment it appears. It is a very specific dig at F R Leavis, a hated Cantabrigian professor of English literature, who proposed a revised canon and approach to the study of literature which very much treated is as a moral agent and source of enlightenment. His love of George Eliot in particular was founded in his profound identification with the moral purpose of her writing.
My students on the death studies module come from many different walks of life, not just health care assistants; morticians, chaplains, registrars, people facing their own mortality or that of their loved ones. We explore topics such as defining a good death, ethical decision making, legal aspects, autonomy and capacity, medicalisation, assisted dying, and withdrawal of treatment. For instance, the discussion on assisted dying takes place at the end of the ‘dying’ block of study and has a real life case study of a man who chose to end his life in a clinic but we return to the case study in the ‘bereavement’ block when we explore the impact of his choice on his wife. A good death, autonomy and choice are consequently explored from different perspectives. Ethical debates are a normal part of health and social care and, consequently, a component of every undergraduate module I teach, from public health to mental health.
(I started my own career on a youth training scheme as a carer in a residential home. I cared for my first dying person when I was 17 years old)
I have never heard of people in the UK using "medics" to refer specifically to medical professionals who don't have a doctorate, and I often hear people in the UK using it to refer to paramedics. Also, I know a *lot* of academics including STEM academics and none would be offended by using the term "doctor" for people with a degree in medicine without a doctorate - because terminology within the medical professions is just different (eg non-surgical doctors and surgeons using different honorifics). When someone refers to a medical doctor, everyone knows what they mean.
Language is descriptive not prescriptive, and common use comes into play way before dictionaries record it. Suggesting that only dictionary definitions are the "real" meanings of words would be strongly refuted by any linguistics professional.
Back on the topic, one of the ways in which I find literature beneficial is how it reveals and opens up other perspectives. I don't as a rule find it very affective unless I go out of my way to concentrate and try to inhabit those perspectives, which can be a rather disconcerting experience.
Lewis' principles and tastes were much opposed to Leavis - and I think one difference between them is that Leavis strongly believed there was a canon (he called it the "tradition") and that books outside the canon weren't worth reading. Leavis believed that there were only five novelists in the English language (Austen, Eliot, Conrad, James, Lawrence). Also, Leavis thought Donne was much better than Milton and the romantic poets. (Leavis thought he was following Eliot, but Eliot's opinion was more subtle: he thought modern poets would write better poetry following the example of Donne).
One literary historian mischievously suggested that all modern literary critics are intellectual descendants of either Leavis or Lewis, with the progressive revisionists being descendants of Lewis. (Progressive revisionists may have fallen out with their father but the family resemblance is still there.)
Leavis v Lewis does appear to have become quite personal. From Mere Inkling Press (a retired Lutheran pastor who served 24 years as a US Air Force chaplain), C.S. Lewis’ Nemesis: F.R. Leavis: It appears that it was Leavis who Lewis had in mind when he wrote An Experiment in Criticism (already mentioned on this thread).
Both Leavis and Lewis were very much out of favour when I was at university, Leavis less so, I think.
But then all the noise and kerfuffle was over Structuralism at that time and that drowned out almost anything else. Leavis loomed in the background but I'm not sure his views held much traction or influence.
I recall at my doctoral orals I was asked which critic I had modeled myself after (very problematic given the huge emphasis then on deconstructionism and the New Historicism!). I said with fear and trembling, "Lewis" and got back incredulous unbelief from most of my committee. They demanded I justify my choice. I said, "I want a form of criticism that allows me to create new works, not simply to dissect and disintegrate the old ones." Lewis of course wrote quite a bit of original work of his own; Leavis, as far as I can tell, never wrote aught but criticism. And in that Leavis is like the vast majority of critics during the 20th and I think 21st century, not that I've been keeping up with them. But during my dissertation research I noticed that practically all the literary critics before the 20th century had original work to their credit, as well as criticism; even WW Greg had a dog owners' handbook in his bibliography! But by WWII this had largely passed, as far as I could tell. I prefer the older styles.
Doesn’t it concern you that this sort of attitude makes you very easy to manipulate ?
I think the model of seeing meaning within the pages of a holy book comes from religion. Dogmaticism insists that one isolate oneself from any other influence outside of the text.
I do not understand your point. A religious person has faith in their holy book and the dogmatic person insists that the truth within is to be accepted more than the truth without.
As others have illustrated above there are some critics who say dogmatically one thing and some who say another.
I'm not sure what you mean by "within" and "without". A dogmatist is a person who is stubbornly committed to their own opinion.
That is the case in all walks of life, not just religion or literature.
You also wrote: I presume you're using quotes around "holy" there. What about The Communist Manifesto, or Clause IV of the Labour party Constitution, or the Constitutions of various countries?
Which I can't see any justification for. Why does there have to be a text to be dogmatic about to the exclusion of other influences?
In any case, I don't get the impression that Leavis isolated himself from the influence of other texts; he just didn't accept that they were as "great" as the ones he identified.