In Victoria Vesna’s Toward a Third Culture: Being
in between, Vesna claims the rift between
the two cultures are due to the increasing isolation between the two
groups. “Perhaps the source of
these communication problems can be traced to the fact that most of the
philosophers under attack in the scientific community do not work closely with
scientists and that scientists are equally isolated from the movements of
philosophical thought and con- temporary artistic expression”. Similarly in
C.P. Snow’s novel The Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution, he claims that the
separation between the two cultures of science and humanities are causing
problems between the two. Both cultures
have a tendency to misjudge the other. Mainly
Snow blames the foundation of our education system and can actually be seen
right in UCLA’s campus.
I definitely notice this idea of
two cultures at UCLA’s campus. Its
easily observed in geographic terms by the effect of bruin walk on the campus,
north campus dedicated to the humanities and south campus dedicated to the
sciences. Even the students recognize
this separation and often criticize the other campus in similar ways that Snow
describes.
Even though I noticed this separation, I never really gave
it much more thought or comprehension to the same degree as Snow. Vesna claims that the bridge between literary
communities and scientific communities are the artists utilizing new
technologies to express themselves. The
emergence of a third culture may be the key to bridge the gap between the two
cultures, however, Vesna states: “The
challenge, then, is to do this without losing the intuitive, "wild"
aspect of artistic practice, which taps into the silent, the unknown, the
mysterious.” I agree with her opinion,
but as an engineer, I also think that science tries to into the silent, unknown
and mysterious. We are always thinking
of new possibilities to make our lives easier, discovering new methods to
replace the less efficient old ones and to do this, we must venture into the
silent, unknown and mysterious.
One of the greatest minds in history.
The bridge between the two cultures.
Digital Photography effect is another good example of the combination of technology and art.
Works cited:
"Albert Einstein." Iz
Quotes. N.p., n.d. Web. 29 June 2014.
"An Update on C. P. Snow's
"Two Cultures"" Scientific American Global RSS. N.p.,
n.d. Web. 29 June 2014.
Sara Kiesling. Flickr. Yahoo!, 9 Oct.
2011. Web. 4 Oct. 2012. <http://www.flickr.com/photos/xosara/3926969822/sizes/s/in/photostream/>
Vesna, Victoria. Toward a Third Culture: Being in Between. JSTOR,
2007. Print.
Snow, C.P. The Two Cultures and the Scientific
Revolution. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1961. Print.
