Week 1: Two Cultures

C.P. Snow in his article The Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution, addresses the divide between literary and scientific intellectuals; a divide which he claims to be deeply rooted and a societal trait which is prominent and involved in aspects of daily life and not just academia. According to Snow, "the intellectual life of the whole of western society is increasingly being split into two polarizing groups."

In Victoria Vesna's article Toward a Third Culture: Being in Between, she highlights this relatively new phenomenon and calls upon C.P. Snow's Rede lecture and the way in which he sparked a long and continuous discussion on the cultures of literary and natural science intellectuals. Interestingly, C.P. Snow argued that the structure and curriculum of schools is to blame for the polarizing divide, and this topic does in fact spark numerous topics and issues that are rooted within western society, much of which I have personally experienced.

http://www.academia.org/standardized-test-time-suck/

The existing academic structure which is largely based on categorization and standardized testing has influenced cultural divisions between increasingly polarizing academic subjects. I am considered within the literary intellectual world, as I am a Political Science major and I have personally experienced the tension that exists between the two academic realms. Throughout my junior and senior years I have felt a strong pressure against "switching my trajectory" to something that is too different from what I have been studying thus far; even though I have been hoping to change majors or perhaps pursue a post baccalaureate in order to pursue a career in medicine. Since I am not already at the level of my peers who hope to pursue such a career, I often receive critical responses in regards to delving into the sciences from the arts. I have noticed, through this experience, a deep tension that exists between the two cultures, which is continuously reinforced both consciously and subconsciously by people regardless of their academic field.

http://asucla.ucla.edu/restaurants/

There are similar cultural divides throughout many aspects of society and life, as well as within the physical campus of UCLA, as the sciences and the arts are geographically distinct from one another, with the arts in North campus and the sciences in South Campus. Cultural divides exist in many other areas of the University including within and outside of Greek life, as well as throughout the professional world. There is often a pressure from a very young age to stick to what you know and stay within whatever realm you have been categorized into, and as this continues on into adulthood with university majors and later on career paths, it may in fact start with an outdated academic structure of categorization and standardization. 

Citations:

https://neglectedauthors.wordpress.com/the-authors/c-p-snow/

Snow, C.P. The two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution. print. Cambridge U Press, 1961

(lecture at Cambridge on May 7, 1959)

Vesna, Victoria. Toward a Third Culture: Being in between  (http://classes.dma.ucla.edu/Winter09/9-1/_pdf/1_TowardThirdCulture.pdf)

http://asucla.ucla.edu/restaurants/

http://www.academia.org/standardized-test-time-suck/

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