Dear all,
In all honesty it's been a pretty hectic week and a bit and so I've unfortunately not been able to write a review on Shelley's Frankenstein, my most recent read, which I found to be a thrilling work with deep social repercussions, that really lived up to its hype. I have however copied the basis of a speech/presentation I have just finished on C P Snow's 'The Two Cultures', which I read about a month ago and found to be particularly relevant to myself, an individual currently studying sciences and humanities at a ratio of 1:1. So below you'll find that speech along with a Prezi presentation (which I have managed to sneak a Frankenstein quote into). Enjoy!
A summary and evaluation of C P Snow's 'The Two Cultures'
https://prezi.com/0grr6egnykxy/the-two-cultures-a-review/#
(Click)
The book I decided to read over the summer was ‘The Two Cultures’ by C P Snow. Snow was by training a scientist, but by vocation a writer of fiction and so was perhaps in one of the best positions to comment on the issue that I shall go on to describe. The book itself contains notes from his controversial 1959 Rede Lecture, a self-re-evaluation four years later and an overall analysis on the worth and relevance of Snow’s suggestions nowadays by critic Stefan Collini.
The work centres on the issue of the void between the world of literature and the humanities and the world of the sciences (click), something which Snow sees as spiking in the United Kingdom and instead of merely being a loss of contact, the void, in his opinion, has antagonistic traits. Snow sees this as being a massive drawback for societal advancement (click) , especially in a time of ‘scientific revolution’, and so sought out to use this lecture as a means to bring the issue to the forefront, suggest some means to fix the void and more importantly to leave the door open for the thoughts and considerations of others on this pressing issue.
The majority of Snow’s tirade appears as an attack on the ‘traditional’ literary culture, a group whom he terms ‘natural Luddites’ (click) after those who during the industrial revolution smashed up factories in opposition to industrial growth. He attacks literature from its sorest weak-points, namely outlining individuals such as Dostoevsky, who was a heavy reactionary, and T S Eliot, whose seemingly anti-Semitic manner remains as a blot on his otherwise sparkling career. He seems to suggest that individuals such as these, with their harshly reactionary views in fact represent the literary world as a whole. He also mocks the superiority the literary individuals often deign themselves with, noting how many believe that ‘[literature] swim[s] above the underswell of argument in a changing culture.’ Equally Snow undermines this reactionary view, quoting J H Plumb (click) to challenge those who wish for a reversion to the old times when science was a rarity. The main issue I had with this, which I will later outline, is that the parallel criticism for the sciences as being self-centred or too liberal even just was not there and there was a real hint of bias and antagonism against the literatures.
Snow emphasises throughout the lecture and his afterword that we are living in a time of scientific revolution (click) and equally how it is ‘anti-human’ to oppose it, noting the humanitarian ventures that development in the practical sciences can give rise to (increased aid, injections for horrific diseases, means to improve farming practises so as to feed this growing populace etc.) and how we should seek to encourage scientific revolutions in other countries, speeding up the process that he sees an being inevitable. We’re living in a time ‘when science is determining much of our destiny’ and thus the literary culture needs to adapt itself to the imminent society that will arise, one dominated by science and technology…but it just isn’t doing this, the void between the two worlds stymieing any sort of advancement. (click and leave for 5 secs).
This problem, this void, in Snow’s opinion, can principally be fixed by education (click). Education at Snow’s time was heavily specialised with one choosing to go to the literary club or the science club as young as fourteen. Through education this mutual ignorance between the two cultures, which constitutes much of their mutual antagonistic attitudes, can be fixed. Through understanding more about one another’s way of thinking, one can develop a greater sense of respect and acceptance of others interests.
Education also acts as a means for us to instate further the scientific direction in which society is going. Snow gives an example of how our failing to do so in England has led to our lagging in the global race, this is the example of Siemens and Mond (click), who took advantage of science being taught at German Unis at the time to set up mass economic empires, showcasing how our narrow educational mindset has let us down many a time before. Snow also heavily contrasts our education system with the then USSR, often unfavourably. At the time the relative abundance of engineers in the country far superseded that of the UK. Snow is clearly outlining how to get a firmer basis and advance as a state, one needs to adapt their education system and prioritise what is needed, in this case scientists. Education will also add to the humanitarian (click) venture Snow wishes us to follow. Thus the overall message seems to be a demand for us to turn away from disconnected thinking and whether we are a scientist or writer, whichever of the ‘cultures’ we belong to, to get stuck in with the practical side of things and make the world a better place than it is now. Snow is emphasising that although many literary persons would go on to say that the human condition is stuck and un-improvable, the social condition can be made better. This idea of using both cultures for a greater good will inevitably reduce the void. Equally this humanitarian cause nulls the question of whether the void doesn't need to be fixed, whether there’s usefulness in the contention.
Collini, in his afterword, furthers this suggestion emphasising the need for a ‘larger cultural whole’. This suggests the need for all of us, in political and social matters, adding our expertise in whatever field we belong to, in order to reach a well-rounded decision.
Following the talk, once the issues discussed started gaining momentum, a massive backlash occurred. The most shocking, personal and hurtful opposition for Snow’s suggestions came from the literary critic F R Leavis (click). In his responding essay he noted things such as Snow’s ‘utter lack of intellectual distinction’ and ‘his embarrassing vulgarity of style’ and challenged his very position in delivering such a lecture, highlighting how he had failed as a scientist (despite originally believing to have found the means to produce vitamin A in the lab, he turned out to be wrong and gave up science from the embarrassment that ensued) and that his literature left much to be desired (Snow’s literary series ‘Strangers and Brothers’ (click) being of a similar status as 50 Shades of Grey (bit harsh) at its time). Collini, joining the many criticising this personal assault, has suggested that the criticism came more from Leavis’ disdain for Snow’s form of presentation rather than the actual content whilst others have criticised Leavis for this response, noting how emotions got in the way of reason.
This is indeed a very emotionally conflicting piece of debate (click), having deep roots in history. First originating as an issue debated in the 19th Century, the first public debate came between Huxley (father of Aldous Huxley) and Arnold, Huxley outlining the need for science for national well being and thus how it should not be overlooked as a subject and Arnold responding that a training in the natural sciences, although producing a useful worker did not, in his opinion, make an ‘educated man’. Equally there is the sense that this is not merely a battle of cultural interests or preference, but one that had deep social roots. Indeed Collini contrasts the ‘meritocracy’ of science, a relatively new way of thinking having been started by those slightly lower down the social ladder than the aristocratic literary critics who held ‘snobbish and nostalgic attitudes’. This was not just a matter of intellect, but also a matter of class…
In reading Snow’s Two Cultures the issue of bias became rather predominant, indeed Collini noting how ‘there can be no other interpretation of his lecture than that it takes towards literature a position of extreme antagonism’. However, despite originally being rather frustrated by this, an individual seemingly wishing to stop the antagonism between the two cultures is approaching one with antagonism himself!, I came to understand the reason for this bias. It is understandable seen in the context of the times. Literature as a force had far greater longevity and has stood for far longer than the sciences, thus literary antagonism for this new, threatening force was far more deep rooted than vice versa and so, in Snow’s eyes, was the overwhelming basis of the problem. Collini however helps to outline how even in a scientific world, we still need both scientific and literary mindsets but looking to the example of politics. Politics needs to be both pragmatic and ideological, the quantitative, pragmatic way of thinking being more scientific whilst the abstract, ideological manner being more literary. We need both!
There is a lot to criticise about Snow’s approach and form of presentation, his lecture being decidedly vague and withheld. Dividing the whole way of thinking into two is incredibly basic, there are many voids within the sciences and the literatures themselves, he suggests education is needed to fix the problem but makes little suggestions of exactly how. He uses extreme examples to illustrate the literary world as a whole and is deeply stereotypical in viewing each individual of each culture as holding such starkly similar views. He also seems to completely neglect the fact that people might not define themselves merely as scientists or literary critics but also see themselves through their gender, religion, nationality, sexuality etc. and that these other divisions might actually deem the ones he’s talking about as negligible. (This is also seen in Collini’s suggestion that this humanitarian aid Snow sees as being needed, inducing scientific revolutions in third world countries, pays no heed to cultural objections that might arise by such a seeming sense of colonialism). He’s also incredibly binary in his conclusion, he neglects the whole argument of this void not even being in existence, the sciences after all being heavily based on metaphors and the imagination (has anyone actually seen an action potential in action here?). However, although the work itself was deeply flawed, the fact that an afterword four years later was needed in order to clear up issues with the first work is deeply telling, it was successful in its ultimate aim…to spark discussion.
One does have to note how all of this was going on in the 1960s, now, over 50 years later, the question arises as whether 1) the issue is still relevant and if so 2) how far we have improved on fixing the void. It is certain that the hold of science on both intellectual and everyday life has increased multi-fold. We use technology every day, indeed many could not live without it (click). Equally science’s part on the national curriculum has increased substantially, it being required teaching up to the age of 16. Now with science’s hold increasing the number of science-based jobs is also multiplying, meaning that there’s been an even greater focus on the subject from the masses. Snow himself predicted that the arising of molecular biology as a force would significantly lessen this void, it being a part of science without any need of mathematical training for comprehension. Indeed Snow himself termed it ‘a study where painters and sculptors could be instantaneously at home’ and it is also important how biological life is not something so distant from this world as say the cosmos, thus biology is an important factor in linking the two separate voids.
The void has further been fixed through science being placed on the same a pedestal as an art, just as the literatures and many claiming it to be as politically swayed as its counterpart (the direction and aim of one’s experiments after all being heavily influenced by ones cultural context and surroundings). There has also been the arising of a new sub-culture of learning, ‘science and literature’. Indeed this was rather common in the various university courses I’ve looked over, indeed at one day I was treated to an impassioned plea by one English tutor, a scientist by training, of the need to combine the two cultures. Science fiction has also gone from strength to strength, the perfect combining of the two, moving on from its originators such as Shelley to recent films such as Interstellar and, of course, the Alien franchise. Furthermore there has been an upsurge in what Collini terms intellectual ‘bilingualism’, namely individuals portraying their studies and opinions on complex matters in a manner accessible to the masses, exemplified namely by the scientist Richard Dawkins and the philosopher Alain de Botton to name a few. However, he emphasises how we still need more of this. Essentially one shouldn’t be shut into the void of their own specialisation but, as a matter of necessity, must aim to contribute to the wider global discussion and so aide progression in social, political and economic matters.
As regards to whether the issue is still relevant, I would say certainly. Even though the specific void between the sciences and literatures has certainly lessened, the wider idea of divisions and antagonistic views slackening a society’s development is one that can be learned from and used in a whole variety of social and political contexts today. (click)
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