Week 1 - Two Cultures

This week's topic is the concept of the "two cultures," a term coined by C.P. Snow in his essay The Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution to describe the separation between people in the fields of literature and science. Snow explains that this gap's source lies in the public education system, which entertains and encourages the idea of the two disciplines being distinct from one another and without crossover. He later augmented this view with a prediction in a later essay, predicting a third group that would serve as a bridge between the two separate sides.


http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/an-update-on-cp-snows-two-cultures/

As a UCLA student and a Chinese American citizen, the separation between science and literature has always been very evident in my life. The layout of the academic campus speaks for itself - while I won't waste space rehashing what others have said before, the physical separation between North and South Campus at UCLA reinforces the idea that there shouldn't be intermixing between fields of study. The culture I was raised in doesn't pull punches either; my ethnically Chinese family told me repeatedly through my upbringing that the science and engineering path led to jobs, while the literature and art path did not. Having been a student all my life, I have always been surrounded by this very compartmentalized way of thinking, and to a great extent my choices have reflected it.

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In spite of this separation, I would argue that UCLA attempts to bridge the gap between worlds. Many have brought forth their own views on what the "third culture" is - John Brockman posits that modern-day scientists are this third group, while our own Professor Vesna suggests that it is instead digital artists who open up communication between the scientists and the literary intellectuals. I personally find the efforts to identify one particular group or another as this bridge to be too limiting. I think that rather than being able to point to one group, we should instead focus on attaining the breadth of knowledge and understanding of the two sides necessary to be a part of the bridge, and regardless of which side we align to, strive to always be open to the other. By taking this class, especially, I hope to gain a better understanding of how both sides contribute to the development of human society and how I can play a role in advancing that in the future.


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Sources

Snow, C. P. “Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution.” Reading. 1959. New York: Cambridge UP, 1961. Print.

Brockman, John. The Third Culture. N.p.: n.p., 1995. Print.

Snow, C.P. The Two Cultures: And a Second Look. N.p.: n.p., 1963. Print.

Vesna, Victoria. "Toward a Third Culture: Being In Between." Leonardo. 34 (2001): 121-125. Print.

 "An Update on C. P. Snow's "Two Cultures"" Scientific American. Web. 04 Apr. 2016.