Humanistic VS Science

First posted: 15 december 2009

“Once upon a time”, classical and scientific studies (that is to say, humanistics and experimental/research theories taught in science-oriented colleges and universities) were a single “entity”, interrelated and feeding one another in a mutual need and support, and they completed one another.
Today I was speaking to some university students involved in a scientific “branch” and I’ve, sadly, learned, instead, that they think as scientific and classical studies being two differents “worlds” without connections.

In my opinion, studying the most significant authors (that could be considered as paradigms and models of wisdom and knowledge) of the past and of our present, I think that writers and scientists, who represent humanistic and scientific fields, are more than “workers” in a specific context and with a particular background, both sharing the same creative view and “artistic” frame of mind that sustain their inclinations to develop their skills, intellectual and professional. So art itself is the invisible common source they take inspiration from: without this little spark of imagination or irrationality/rationality it wouldn’t be possible any progress, discovery, research (generally speaking).
Now, instead, people who study the “the objective, material substance of nature” desperately need to separate (“a priori”) themselves from who is interested in classical studies, usually asserting (as a logical kind of excuse and explanation) their “truth” by referring to conventions and rules (or so called “dogmatic principles”, that couldn’t be subverted or criticized) that other thinkers (the philosophers and humanistics experts being their primary target to “defeat”) are unable to understand or to keep in their behaviours, methods, theories.

To offer a summary of the speech (that i heard from those students i met): “Scientists are the only one to be able to seize the deep hidden meaning of nature, earth, universe, human mind etc. owning the “key” to unlock the mysteries of human knowledge, on the contrary, people who prefer classical studies live in their own world created by themselves, that is not considered to be true or important by science addicted and fanatics (not the skilled, expert, professional scientists)”. Others say: “Your studies are «hollow» meaningless, you’re bound to statements that tomorrow could change and, so, everything you’re perceiving as real will crumble”. So, at the end, the “scientist” students (as they define themselves, clinging to a definition – science experts or researchers – that doesn’t suit them, that will never be their hand in glove or cup of tea, being something they won’t ever reach) accuse humanists to be “anarchicals” and to live their life in a bad way because they ask too many questions without an answer, while the other ones accuse them to be dull.

The most absurd thing I heard was that mathematics cannot be considered a sciences, I mean that, in their opinion, the mother of science today isn’t considered like that because it’s too much involved with philosophy.

Because of this type of mentality we’ll disconnect this two branches of knowledge in suck a strong way to cause an hole: we’ll create “workers” (I mean, brainless operators of automated, mechanical acts, such as robots, rings of an endless chain of programmed actions they have to perform, complete) of science that apply rules without creating or seeking new ones and artists without creativity because they’re too fond of their non-existent existential problems in order to become famous without hard work or efforts (because, let’s confess it, the majority of students of classic studies, in Italy, don’t like studying or they use only their memory without comprehension of the text to get good marks from the teachers).

In the italian society, the classic studies are perceived as unnecessary and they tend to diguise themselves as science. We don’t understand, in this way, how many both “branches” of studies, although looking as opposite poles, are necessary to the human being: otherwise why do novels, videogames, movies (and so on) exist? How could we cope with (trying to stand it) the stress of our society if humanistics subjects and studies were considered to be just pointless hobbies or void occupations (for lazy, “timekiller” persons), failing to understand their therapeutical benefit in restoring our inner mental balance and emotional structure?
Is relaxing (by enjoying humanistics and art) forbidden in our society? Should we give up feeding our brains with the powerful combination and alchemy of humanistics and science tasted together?

Dedicated to the humanistics lovers. In memory. R.I.P