really? I mean do you really thing that people in the humanities are somehow more disconnected from reality and commercial pressure than engineers or scientists? I have no idea what exactly that would mean... it's a bad generalization. The humanities today are more like (US) reality than ever before, namely in the economic distribution of wealth, with a handful (less than 1%) making more than say, 100K per year, and whose names are known by the New York Times or the TLS, and the 99% living in near poverty (starting salaries for a tenure track job are still around 30-45K), our outright poverty (adjuncts teaching 4 classes per semester for $3000 or less per class). The same distribution applies to whose books are published widely... so why does this rich-poor gap exist? Who knows really, but I don't think it has anything to do with any metric of "connection to reality"...
ck On Mon, May 12, 2008 at 10:47:32AM +0200, Rishab Aiyer Ghosh wrote: > > On Thu, 2008-05-08 at 07:10 +0530, Udhay Shankar N wrote: > > Just tying this thread into a recursive loop: > > > > http://groups.yahoo.com/group/silk-list/message/12241 > > i liked chip morningstar's comment about the need for technical > scientists to ensure that their field is understood by non-specialists > (at some point) due to commercial pressures and constant interaction > with the real world; and how this is sorely lacking in parts of the > academic humanities. his description of the criteria used for judging > quality would appear to apply to _social text_ and sokal - and indeed, > matches casey's justification of why the journal published sokal. how > bout STS-S? > > -rishab > > > Looking at the field of contemporary literary criticism as a whole > > also yields some valuable insights. It is a cautionary lesson about > > the consequences of allowing a branch of academia that has been > > entrusted with the study of important problems to become isolated and > > inbred. [...] > > Engineering and the sciences have, to a greater degree, been spared > > this isolation and genetic drift because of crass commercial > > necessity. The constraints of the physical world and the actual needs > > and wants of the actual population have provided a grounding that is > > difficult to dodge. However, in academia the pressures for isolation > > are enormous. It is clear to me that the humanities are not going to > > emerge from the jungle on their own. I think that the task of outreach > > is left to those of us who retain some connection, however tenuous, to > > what we laughingly call reality. We have to go into the jungle after > > them and rescue what we can. Just remember to hang on to your sense of > > humor and don't let them intimidate you. > >
