Comment by mingus88 9 days ago
It’s obvious that many people in this industry believe themselves to be supremely intelligent and curious hacker types, yet they obviously never taken a humanities course.
They have a huge blind spot that they aren’t even aware of, or worse just devalue the entire history of human thought and creation that doesn’t involve hard science.
We're also the only species that can use abstraction to assign meaning to and relations between symbols in any way we choose. The humanities and the sciences are both extremely important to what makes us human, and saying that only one is 'what makes us us' will alienate those who are different from you.
That you are primarily driven by music and aesthetics, and others are primarily driven by science and technological creation, and most of us are driven by both in varying degrees - that is what makes us human.
I'm driven by all four. That's why I'm here! My point is that current culture as a whole allows for a large deficit in individuals' understanding the humanities. Especially around here, you will see comments suggesting that the humanities are not necessary, or are not viable career paths, etc.
It's not that one drive is more important than the other. It is that we as a contemporary society often treat arts that way. Your drive is vital too!
Indeed!
I am a strong tech person. Always have been.
That said, early in my life I took a chance on music and really enjoyed the performing arts. Through an unfortunate set of circumstances, I ended up doing Music education for my peers.
A beloved teacher had a health issue that left them unable to teach and the substitute did not have the same manner and appreciation for the music and after a few conflicts, they called me out and I (foolishly) accepted!
Now I just had to back it up with actions.
Short story, "my" class was a success. Students reached their goals, we placed well in competition and that teacher and I developed a great friendship.
You are dead on with your comment. And having had the chance to take music education, then turn right around and deliver it seriously was at once crazy and ultra enlightening!
I had the realization my chest thumping got me placed into a position where I had an obligation to educate my peers and rid them of that blind spot you wrote of the same as was done for me.
And that was the H in "hard." Running the class, prepping pieces for performance, debugging the choir all were what I thought was hard.
Nope.
Getting them to internalize the humanity of it, language of emotion and all that, is hard. Respect for the art, whatever it may be, is hard. Cultivating the culture of learning, shared vulnerability (in the case of group performing arts) and the intensely personal nature of it all is hard.
I grew half a decade doing that as a high schooler, who had no clue at all what they said yes to...
In the end, a walk through the humanities is both empowering and enlightening on a level many technical people fail to appreciate.
No fault of theirs. They just did not get what I and many others did or gave as the case may be.
I can put a notch sharper point on all this for passersby (assuming you and I talking is preaching to the choir):
The ones who do not take the trip through the humanities are often told what to do by the ones who did.
Thanks for doing the hard work you do. It is often underappreciated.
barbrook wrote an essay about this 30 years ago. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Californian_Ideology
Still on the nose.
Incredibly prescient. This quote from 2011 really sums it up:
> The original promise of the Californian Ideology, was that the computers would liberate us from all the old forms of political control, and we would become Randian heroes, in control of our own destiny. Instead, today, we feel the opposite—that we are helpless components in a global system—a system that is controlled by a rigid logic that we are powerless to challenge or to change.
You don’t. It’s a great way to get an introduction to a field outside of your typical realm of expertise though.
It’s one of those things that really lets you know how much you don’t know. Then when you comment about such things on the internet you might be open to learning more, as opposed to what many folk in this thread are doing.
I can appreciate art, and play music at a pretty damn good level myself, but still think that John Cage is totally wack.
I don't dislike all strange music - Satie and Poulenc are some of my favorites. But a lot of John Cage's stuff is... no longer music.
Like I'm sorry, but 4'33" is not music.
I draw a line somewhere, and a lot of John Cage's stuff is wayyyyyyyyy the fuck over the line.
Sure maybe it's some kind of art, but it's not music.
Your comment will rattle a few cages here but I honestly think about this all the time, as one of the minority of music educators around HN. The blind spots (or perhaps a STEM vs STEAM upbringing) are unfortunate. We are possibly the only — or one of an incredibly small number of — species that even makes sounds solely for enjoyment and aesthetics. The humanities are what make us us.