floorpigeon | (no subject)

Seeing today's xkcd and having just finished a math class, I have to wonder if I'm one of those people with a Math Crush. Like, it's no wonder: I typically enjoy things which freak me out and seem alien and difficult to encompass... or something.....

I think I'm crushing on... mathematics... because it's so icy and unavailable... and goes so well with fairy-tales..... *headdesk* I've evolved, you see, way past the intermediate stage of crushing on imaginary people, straight to disciplines and categories of knowledge (as long as they seem to reject me). It's only logical.

A corollary of this is that I keep doubting the worth of the stuff I'm excited about, like studying the Romantic poets and reading Milton, Bronte and Goethe this spring and and stuff.

Abstractly, I know that it would enrich me and is relevant to my interests, but after a quarter of physics, programming & math (and panicking at all but physics), it's hard to escape a deep sense of dissatisfaction with more... subjective/historical study, even if analytical. Like, a part of me wonders if it's worthwhile to learn the humanities at school. It feels like blasphemy when I say it, but there it is. It probably didn't help that I just finished one humanities program which was focused on freshman composition and introductory analysis (though I enjoyed the readings) and a poetics course that was 90% bullshit and 10% Marxism (plus extra 2% modern political discourse), though I enjoyed the opportunity to finish my H/D fic, I guess. My poetics course started out seriously analytical, but after we stopped reading actual philosophical/textual analysis and started reading stuff random activists wrote on Current Issues, I just got frustrated. I never really felt I got a grounding in hard-core criticism. And I get frustrated with people not being ready for honest hard-core critique of their work, too.

If I can't challenge myself sufficiently this spring quarter with my Romantics project, I don't know if I can justify continuing with my humanities degree. Which is (like I said) ridiculous, but that's how I currently feel. The only humanities I really want to a part of is going to have to be as rigorous as the sciences, just in a different sphere. I don't even know if that's possible in a non-interdisciplinary way (like, philosophy can't exist properly without science, say). I guess I just really like learning entirely new things, rather than simply new(ish) approaches to old(ish) things I've already thought about. There's a universe of difference (in that regard) in reading Marx, say, from an introduction to kinematics or neural networks or chaos theory, etc.

I feel like so much of what I do in humanities/English classes is just sharpening and focusing skills/ideas I already possess. How do I break out of that sort of rut? I rarely feel like I discover things the way I do in a physics or programming class. I don't feel forced to think logically-- I mean, it's encouraged but not required in the humanities I've had so far. The main benefit seems to be from simply broadening my erudition (reading more of the English Canon) and sharpening skills I already possess, as I said. The secondary benefit of growing through intense conversation with other minds is rare. That is to say, people say interesting things, but the level of discourse that would be truly meaningful to my growth is very rare. If I were in a class with 100% engaged advanced students, maybe it'd be different. Or not.

I guess ultimately I realize that the sciences have equal or greater potential to seem 'old' and/or 'pointless' or 'empty'. I've had enough bad math classes to know all about how to make it seem not worth trying. Part of it's that I'm at Evergreen, which doesn't exactly have super-high standards on the bullshit-o-meter in learning. Just as humanities may seem too 'fuzzy' and irrelevant, so science may seem too dry and 'application-fixated'. Partly it's just inherent personality mismatch: I'm a generalist and a person who likes to approach things both holistically and analytically. I want a systems-eye-view, metaphors included. I want to see how knowledge is both abstractly based and formed and shown in many permutations and disciplines. I am deeply frustrated with the idea of being stuck in either the sciences or the humanities. This sort of cross-sectional yearning is why I'm *at* an interdisciplinary school like Evergreen, but so far I haven't really been able to make the edges meet.

I do think I have more to learn, just in English alone-- in terms of tightness, analysis and focus in composition and in terms of sheer erudition (I've still only read one of Shakespeare's plays!). The reason I took the fuzzy poetics class is that I did think I had more to learn in terms of lit-crit also. I'm not against the ideas being played with (Marxism, queer theory, whatever), but I am not willing to simply accept them or see them predominantly on ethical or social terms. When it comes to social systems, I generally just want to understand as abstractly/unbiased as possible.

I think Evergreen just doesn't have many programs that mix up the humanities and the sciences in ways I find satisfactory; there's one next year, but it's only for freshmen and intended as a foundation/survey course, not an instrumental approach. Sometimes it's just that it requires more math than I have so far, and sometimes the science is too 'fuzzy' (phrases like 'the philosophy of science' make me twitch in traumatic response). We did read a play in my physics program, and I wrote a story, so it's been the most interdisciplinary one so far. I think I'm being more critical than is warranted in some ways, probably. The truth is, I just haven't taken enough science, and it sucks.

I don't know.

If anyone can defend a humanities education to me-- not in principle, but to me-- as opposed to a further battle with science (because I can only take one program at a time in my school)-- I'm all ears.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Humanities education is useful for existing in (and understanding) your society as a well-rounded/informed human. Helps build empathy and knowledge of context. Yeah that's general, but also specific to you. /cheating

But I'll waffle and say I don't think it's always necessary (or possible) to do it in a school. Everyone has a different way of getting knowledge. And if you're feeling your school has a high ratio of bs courses, you may not get what you want. So I'll waffle on you getting a degree in whatever.

As for what degree to get, I'd be thinking about what you want to do after school and what degree/knowledge/personal connections you'd make in the dept would help you get there. Or might even be as simple as: your degree matters little to your future, so humanities is the funnest, or easiest, or maybe the one that will get you the best grades.

You're probably right that humanities is the easiest, haha. That's been precisely my problem! This lack of challenge is making me extremely fidgety. We don't have grades, so that's not really a problem. I suppose you're right about connections, but we also have no departments, hahaha. I could take Shakespeare instead of biology fall quarter, but the prof who teaches it is an emeritus professor, so I'm not sure if it's going to be socially useful. I've mostly decided to go heavier on the science. Not because of what I'd get a degree *in*, but just to get a more general education. Ideally I'd also get music instruction, but that's too optimistic.

As far as knowledge-making, I feel like currently science makes me thinking harder/broader/deeper than humanities stuff, or at least it feels more difficult and new (probably because it is). While I can be challenged by humanities-type thinking, it's usually more about sharpening skills I already have (as I said) rather than developing new ones, which feels too much like stagnation. Besides that, to be well-rounded, don't you need science AND arts/humanities AND music AND lab/practical application components?

I don't have endless time, of course, so I have to decide things like, 'I probably shouldn't randomly take this Classics and theater program even though it'd make me more well-rounded'. I don't know if theater is a vital part of a humanities education or not... and how am I supposed to choose between that and Milton, anyway? I probably have more use for Milton.

I feel like for me, science is what would make me more 'well-rounded', maybe that and music and theater, which is why I'm skeptical of the 'usual' defense of the humanities. Besides, I'm only thinking of dropping the Shakespeare-only program in favor of another program (biology) which also includes some Shakespeare, so it's not exactly an extreme shift, haha.

lol. I do think you're right about expanding into areas you don't have as much experience with will make you better educated.

But I guess I'm also for some of the less navel-gaze-y/bs humanities too, like history, languages, things that overlap with social sciences etc. Maybe I'm forgetting, but I don't remember hearing about a history class?

I did take some Greek/Roman history, though not enough-- I could take more this summer but probably don't have room. Plus, it would partly be a retread. As far as American history, I'd have gotten some in the Shakespeare class I mean not to take this fall (Shakespeare and 19th C. America). Otherwise, it's one of those things that are often politicized and/or vaguely useless. I'm all about humanities that aren't lit that are rigorous (when I have the opportunity, at least). I loved ethnography and archeology... linguistics was a challenge for sure. So I'm not totally leaving that behind. :)

I guess I was saying 'humanities' when I mean lit. It's lit I want to beat over the head with a blunt object in frustration. >___>; That 'Trangressive Bodies' class was -really- not what I needed, I guess.. :>