I really like Bill Brysons: short history of almost everything
Which does a great job in introducing science and the neverending about of repeated mistakes on its way. Even my mom read it—and this thing has 600 pages.
For the non-fact oriented part of eductaion there is a nice book in germany called ‘Was man alles wissen muß’ from Dietrich Schwanitz. (engl:‘what one should know’). He does a great job at explaining many of the areas counted as ‘education’ while also explaining the influence on status and how to fake it. I am sure similar books are widely available also for engl based cultures.
as for actually knowledge, I still learn new english words almost every day (which is to be expected, since its not my first language.) And i also learn about now tools for my field regularly.
It might make sense to read a good introduction book on the own field at times. But I also dont really expect anyone to know everything there is.
Fun fact: i used to think that one of the pronunciations of ‘issue’ is just plainly wrong.
For the non-fact oriented part of eductaion there is a nice book in germany called ‘Was man alles wissen muß’ from Dietrich Schwanitz. (engl:‘what one should know’).
I got interested when I read about this. The book doesn’t seem to have been translated into English and I can’t really read German, but turned out there was a Finnish translation, ‘Sivistyksen käsikirja’. I read that one, and it was nice enough overview though a bit idiosyncratic and obviously rather German-centric. People who actually know something about the stuff the author is writing about will probably have complaints though. The author carefully keeps most of the science bits vague and handwavy, but still managed to stumble occasionally when going for something more detailed.
The part about relating to other cultures had an amusing bit. The original book had apparently had a bunch of statements in the lines of “Unlike us Germans...”, and it looked like the translator had just replaced this with “Unlike us Finns...”. No idea if the rest of the statements had been translated verbatim, but I’m rather afraid they were.
I was also a bit surprised at Douglas Hofstadter being mentioned several times, as he’s pretty much completely unknown in Finland for example, and the reasonably positive attitude towards modern IQ research, which seems to be something of a taboo in western humanities academia.
I read that one, and it was nice enough overview though a bit idiosyncratic and obviously rather German-centric.
I would expect an english book to exist that serves a similar purpose.
One thing I got from the book was the concept of using ‘education’ as status signaling.
And the whole chapter on ‘what one shouldn’t know’ - makes me not talk about some of my favorite TV shows in the wrong place.
(side not: the pure version of Big Brother serves as a decent experiment for social interaction)
Maybe the next generation of scientists will have fewer trouble quoting Anime, or Mainstream movies in their work, than the one before.
People who actually know something about the stuff the author is writing about will probably have complaints though.
I’m guessing the second half of the text in the first quote block is a reply that should have been unquoted.
Movies have been cultural currency for around 50 years now, and some TV shows from the last decade like Sopranos and The Wire also seem to be considered reasonably respectable, unlike pretty almost all mainstream TV drama up until 2000.
Anime is still low status, and seems to be a bit worse now than it was in the 90s. The shows that aren’t mostly shallow and formulaic are obscure. There aren’t any similar widely recognized quality shows as there have been in TV recently, and the perception of anime has shifted from innovative and exotic popular culture into escapist entertainment for socially maladjusted shut-ins. The shows are quick to latch into exploitation patterns that reflect this.
Yes, i got the quote function wrong—already corrected.
According to Schwanitz there is a canon of art that is considered worth knowing. An educated person picks and can talk about some subset of it to show off his educational status.
Modern art forms are not yet part of that.
The canon is of course dependent on culture and subculture.
I suspect you mean “contemporary” or “current”, not “modern”. Unfortunately, “modern art” (at least for painting) got co-opted for Picasso and such, and it’s been a while since him.
I have a notion that canons aren’t an inevitable part of art, but appear if people happen to build them.
Part of this is that I lived through a transition (I’d put it sometimes in the 80s) when it was no longer possible to keep up with print science fiction. Before that, it was possible to have a shared knowledge base of both the second rate stuff and the first rate.
At least for the Western canon, part of what was going was the contradictory belief that there was universal art that people had to be educated to appreciate.
At the point, the quantity and availability of art has gone so high (and both are likely to increase), that I think it’s going to be harder and harder for any group to act as gatekeepers to say that liking some art is proof of worthiness.
I really like Bill Brysons: short history of almost everything Which does a great job in introducing science and the neverending about of repeated mistakes on its way. Even my mom read it—and this thing has 600 pages.
For the non-fact oriented part of eductaion there is a nice book in germany called ‘Was man alles wissen muß’ from Dietrich Schwanitz. (engl:‘what one should know’). He does a great job at explaining many of the areas counted as ‘education’ while also explaining the influence on status and how to fake it. I am sure similar books are widely available also for engl based cultures. as for actually knowledge, I still learn new english words almost every day (which is to be expected, since its not my first language.) And i also learn about now tools for my field regularly. It might make sense to read a good introduction book on the own field at times. But I also dont really expect anyone to know everything there is.
Fun fact: i used to think that one of the pronunciations of ‘issue’ is just plainly wrong.
I got interested when I read about this. The book doesn’t seem to have been translated into English and I can’t really read German, but turned out there was a Finnish translation, ‘Sivistyksen käsikirja’. I read that one, and it was nice enough overview though a bit idiosyncratic and obviously rather German-centric. People who actually know something about the stuff the author is writing about will probably have complaints though. The author carefully keeps most of the science bits vague and handwavy, but still managed to stumble occasionally when going for something more detailed.
The part about relating to other cultures had an amusing bit. The original book had apparently had a bunch of statements in the lines of “Unlike us Germans...”, and it looked like the translator had just replaced this with “Unlike us Finns...”. No idea if the rest of the statements had been translated verbatim, but I’m rather afraid they were.
I was also a bit surprised at Douglas Hofstadter being mentioned several times, as he’s pretty much completely unknown in Finland for example, and the reasonably positive attitude towards modern IQ research, which seems to be something of a taboo in western humanities academia.
I would expect an english book to exist that serves a similar purpose. One thing I got from the book was the concept of using ‘education’ as status signaling. And the whole chapter on ‘what one shouldn’t know’ - makes me not talk about some of my favorite TV shows in the wrong place. (side not: the pure version of Big Brother serves as a decent experiment for social interaction)
Maybe the next generation of scientists will have fewer trouble quoting Anime, or Mainstream movies in their work, than the one before.
They do.
I’m guessing the second half of the text in the first quote block is a reply that should have been unquoted.
Movies have been cultural currency for around 50 years now, and some TV shows from the last decade like Sopranos and The Wire also seem to be considered reasonably respectable, unlike pretty almost all mainstream TV drama up until 2000.
Anime is still low status, and seems to be a bit worse now than it was in the 90s. The shows that aren’t mostly shallow and formulaic are obscure. There aren’t any similar widely recognized quality shows as there have been in TV recently, and the perception of anime has shifted from innovative and exotic popular culture into escapist entertainment for socially maladjusted shut-ins. The shows are quick to latch into exploitation patterns that reflect this.
Yes, i got the quote function wrong—already corrected.
According to Schwanitz there is a canon of art that is considered worth knowing. An educated person picks and can talk about some subset of it to show off his educational status. Modern art forms are not yet part of that.
The canon is of course dependent on culture and subculture.
I suspect you mean “contemporary” or “current”, not “modern”. Unfortunately, “modern art” (at least for painting) got co-opted for Picasso and such, and it’s been a while since him.
I have a notion that canons aren’t an inevitable part of art, but appear if people happen to build them.
Part of this is that I lived through a transition (I’d put it sometimes in the 80s) when it was no longer possible to keep up with print science fiction. Before that, it was possible to have a shared knowledge base of both the second rate stuff and the first rate.
At least for the Western canon, part of what was going was the contradictory belief that there was universal art that people had to be educated to appreciate.
At the point, the quantity and availability of art has gone so high (and both are likely to increase), that I think it’s going to be harder and harder for any group to act as gatekeepers to say that liking some art is proof of worthiness.
These people are trying to build a new one.