by Right after the Second World War, people started to realize the importance of science and technology. Under such circumstance, the evocation of science and declination of humanism make C.P. Snow gave the famous presentation named “Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution”.
In his presentation, he mainly argued about these several points. Firstly, there’s no longer a common culture in Britain Society, instead, there are two cultures: scientific culture and humanistic culture (literary culture). These two cultures both hold a slight sense of hostility toward each other. Secondly, Snow thought scientists cares a lot about the future, while literary intellectuals are “Luddites” who obstruct scientist from using technology to solve problems human beings are facing. In addition, he believed in the faith that scientific revolution can help improving living standard and solving social problems, and among all the countries, Britain has, and should take the responsibility to promote third scientific revolution by changing educational system.
Though C.P. Snow’s point attracted a lot of fans and were found evolutionary, many people still critiqued his idea by stating that he unscrupulously considered science knowledge as the essence of science culture. However, some critiques argued, science knowledge can’t be compared with literary culture or art experiences, as they are not on the same dimension. In this journal entry, I’d like to illustrate my understanding on whether science can be considered as a culture, as well as the possibility of eliminating the gap between these two cultures Snow mentioned.
As mentioned in the previous lectures, science can be understood as a collective knowledge of people in certain period of time. It’s a certain paradigm. As a result, the essence of science is actually the KNOWLEDGE. As we know, knowledge is constructed based on BELIEF. It’s because of these believes, knowledge appeared to be what we’ve seen and understood today. From these, we can draw a clear relation between belief, knowledge and science: belief generates knowledge, and knowledge is the essence of science.
After talking about “science”, let’s then take a look at the term “culture”. It’s extraordinary difficult to define this term. From my understanding, it’s both historical phenomena and products (physically and mentally) of human beings over a long period of time. The belief, which is socially and culturally shaped, is a part of culture. Thus, I think the product of believe, which is knowledge, also belongs to culture. Because knowledge, as science’s essence, can be regarded as culture, science should thus also be a part of culture. Just like other culture, the concept of science would influence by other aspects of culture.
Though I agree that science is a part of culture, I’m not saying that science knowledge is equal to science culture in C.P. Snow’s content. As I’ve mentioned, science knowledge we accept nowadays is originated from our believes. However, being a part of culture doesn’t mean by belief itself is equal to a culture. Something more is required to be considered a “culture”. When talking about science culture, I think it’s not simply the knowledge, but also the ways and forms of live developed by men of science when they were practicing scientific practices. “Science Culture” actually includes not only scientific knowledge, but also scientific thoughts, as well as methodologies. From one perspective, it has already become an inalienable characteristic of men of science. In this way, it becomes comparable between the culture of science and the culture of humanism (literature).
However, does it really have a strong contradiction between these two cultures, just like what C.P. Snow argued? My answer is NO. In my opinion, Snow was simply exerting a dichotomy. There are many cultures and knowledges in the world. Some of them are more private and subjective than the others. For example, disciplines like science and mathematics is usually “stricter” than arts or literature. It’s completely natural for people to choose a side they need correspond to the characteristic of century and period. In the period of Renaissance, the more “subjective” side definitely won, as people at that time need to find subsidies for their loss of belief in religion. However, when people realized they need improvements in their living standard, they will tend to switch to those more “objective” fields. It’s just like a spectrum containing light with different wavelength, there’s also a “cultrum” containing different culture. On one end of it, probably positioned “science”. On the other end, probably is the “humanism” or “literature”. Once we accept this explanation, there’s not only the “third culture”, but also the “forth”, “fifth” even “sixth” one. In this case, the contradiction of “the two cultures” no longer exist.
Though it’s easy to say, it’s hard to do in real day lives. Many people nowadays still belief in the contradiction between the two cultures. How could we construct the bridge, or reach for the balance between these two? On one hand, education is definitely a good solution. Liberal Arts education that many people pursuing seems to be feasible in this case. Avoiding being “specified” too early can prevent individuals from falling into certain narrow culture. On the other hand, our society now is constructing a bridge by it self spontaneously. There are more and more “slash youth” nowadays. This is because only master in one certain area can’t satisfy the complicated requirement of society now. People are forced to command more skills in order to survive better. We sometimes see a data scientist also good at photography or poster designing. The society is adjusting itself, just like it switched between “the two cultures” throughout the history.