by This week, we talked about the article “The Two Cultures”. In this article, the author explores the issues of multiple cultures in the academic area. The word “culture” in this case means the area of study, and people who happen to study similar subjects will be more likely to gather around and do things together. These “concentrations” would create unhealthy barriers that prevent people from other culture to interact, which would induce potential problems. After reading the article, I realized that the existence of double culture is rather a bad thing to the academic development; there are various causes for this phenomenon; and there may be some solutions or progresses we made to solve this issue.
First, the double culture that the author mentioned is indicating the split between natural scientists and literary humanist in Cambridge, Massachusetts. In Cambridge, we have two of the world most famous universities: Harvard and MIT, and students usually study literary subjects in Harvard and scientific subjects in MIT. Normally, people from different areas cooperate with each other to make better products; however, this is not the case between students from Harvard and from MIT—students who study natural science and who study literary humanism don’t cooperate. As an old saying goes: “When everybody adds fuel the flames rise high.”, this non-cooperation will cause problem. As the author suggests on page 11, this is a sheer loss—a “practical and intellectual and creative loss”. Possible losses may include negative academic atmosphere and waste of resource, which is caused by the fragmentation in academic “ecosystem” and lack of efficiency from the possible cooperation. There are already numerous researches related to how understanding literary subjects, like philosophy, can help scientists to advance further in their course works or their careers.
Second, the issues didn’t just come from nowhere, and as the author mentions, there’re actually some traceable causes behind this issue. On page 4-5, we can discover that there are some misunderstandings between scientists and literary humanists-“Non-scientists tend to think of scientists as brash and boastful ; the scientists believe that the literary intellectuals are totally lacking in foresight”. Rather than calling ideas like these as misunderstandings, I would call them as stereotypes. While it’s normal for two groups of people to hold stereotypical ideas towards each other, especially for two groups who never really talk to each other that much, it doesn’t mean this is ok. As long as these untruthful ideas are present, sincere cooperation will not happen.
Third, after talking about the issue, it’s time to think about if there are any possible solutions. The first solution I can think of is to create more bridges. By bridges, I mean more connections between people from these two cultures. This can be done through activities like cross-cultural meetings, which is to place students from different cultures in the same table and assign them some tasks that allow them to know each other better. Another solution would be “forcing” students to take class from different fields. For example, in Coby, every student has a distribution requirement to complete, and this requires them to take classes from fields like art, literature, history, language, science and etc. despite their actual majors. Even though some students may be reluctant to do so as they may not be previously interested in some of these fields, but making students to broaden their experience is exactly what a college should do. In this case, students will have a chance to feel different cultures, and this will not only eliminate their stereotypes towards other cultures, but also it will let them find their potential interests. When students realize that they have an interest other than their current major, they can choose to switch major or engage in a “double major” program. The concept of “double major” might be fairly new for students as it isn’t widely used among all the universities. This is a program for students to choose two majors and complete all of the major requirements for these two majors within their undergraduate time. This is a very time-consuming task, but in return, students can learn both fields they are interested in at the same time, and I view “double major” as a special solution to “The Two Culture” issue. For this solution, two cultures are able to collide and merge within one entity, which also has a potential to remove the understandings.
The fact that people are different is one reason why our world is an exciting place to live in. Within this world, we can constantly be surprised by a lot of interesting things and people. However, being different is also one reason why there’re misunderstandings and conflicts between one another. In my opinion, getting to know each other better is the primary way to solve the gaps between people of different identities. This is why increasing communication between students taking different majors is my recommended way to solve “The Two Culture” issue within the academic realm. When it comes to other realms, the solution might not be exactly the same, but the core belief will be the same—less suspicion and more communication.