The Debate between Humanities and Sciences, Kepler's Law, and Spiritual Struggles#
Date: October 30, 2022
Slug: 7
Status: Published
Tags: Weekly Report
Type: Post
1. The Romance of Humanities and Sciences#
While surfing, I came across a quote:
"Our journey is among the stars and the sea," this is the romance of the sciences;
"The path that has not been imagined," this should be the pursuit of us humanities students!
According to the division of our education system, humanities students and science students are generally responsible for the cultural and technical aspects of society, respectively. From practical experience, this division system is gradually becoming unsuitable for the trend of integration between humanities and sciences in modern society, thus education reform has been put on the agenda.
As the world's largest industrial country, China needs a large number of continuous supply of technical talents on its path of industrial upgrading. The lack of high-end skilled workers has become a consensus within the industry. However, our vocational school system in the past has been quite backward, with students mainly coming from the worst-performing group in the region where the school is located. With poor quality of students, the training results are naturally unsatisfactory. The lack of vocational school graduates and the oversupply of university graduates have gradually proletarianized the intellectual class.
Of course, the proletarianization of the intellectual class is the trend that should be expected in a socialist country. However, due to the lack of emphasis on practical skills in our country's universities and the great employment pressure caused by the inflation of academic qualifications, there is a lack of high-level technical talents while the number of ordinary university graduates is excessive, resulting in an awkward situation.
Looking at the surface data, there is not much difference in the number of humanities and science students, but the admission rate for science students is an order of magnitude higher, making it much more difficult for humanities students to find employment. In our society, there has always been a view that "humanities students are useless" and "one of the reasons why Southeast Asian countries fall into the middle-income trap is that there are too many humanities students".
The binary division between humanities and sciences actually originated from the introduction of Soviet-style education in 1958, with its high output ratio and specialized talent structure and training model. This division has continued for a long time in high school, limiting the understanding of humanities and sciences to the basic knowledge taught in high school (another common bias is that many people think that those who study humanities are unable to continue studying sciences). However, in today's universities, this division is not necessarily reliable. The disciplines now have a tendency to intersect, and the integration of humanities and sciences is already common. For example, psychology, psychotherapy, and social psychology belong to the social sciences, but experimental psychology, psychological statistics, and physiological psychology belong to the natural sciences. Similarly, economics and finance involve a lot of data analysis and computation. Even history has become quantified, and even philosophy, which is considered useless by the public, requires studying functional analysis, advanced algebra, partial differential equations, and so on. Although the three major systems of human knowledge (natural sciences, social sciences, and humanities) do not have a hierarchy, they jointly construct the light of human civilization. However, in a materialistic world, we have a consensus that the economic growth of modern industrial society is mainly contributed by science and technology, and in terms of intuitive division, it is purely in the field of science and technology. When the top talents in this field make breakthroughs, they can release economic benefits the next day, expand the cake, and even change the mode of production. At this time, we need some disciplines to study the rules of the existing fields, focus on how to divide the cake, or delve into the civilization structure, so that the development of people's spiritual world is in harmony with the development of the material society.
- Science and technology talents can expand the boundaries of the incremental market, but talents themselves are nurtured within the existing market in society. Humanities students should study the rules of the existing fields to make the whole society run more smoothly.
- Another function of humanities students is to "delve into the civilization structure, so that the development of people's spiritual world is in harmony with the development of the material society." Taking our country as an example, the essential function of humanities students in China should be to "tell the Chinese story and do cultural work." Essentially, it is to do ideological work. Unfortunately, since the reform and opening up forty years ago, it seems that humanities students in our country have largely followed Western theories in the field of ideology, gradually retreating and even inviting wolves into the house. It was not until recent years, when China's hard power came up, that they reluctantly gained an advantage in internal propaganda.
Doing ideological work is not lower than teaching humanities students mathematics, statistics, and programming:
During the university stage, it requires reading more books and gaining insights into the social structure, such as studying philosophy to enhance one's ability to think critically. This is an internal skill. Then, learn other "external skills" and you will feel much more comfortable. Of course, it is not about being superficial, but about responding to and inspiring the people's imagination of a better life. At this time, you need to put aside the sense of superiority in your mind and focus on cultural work.
In summary, what humanities students rely on are people's hearts and the chaos and governance of society. When the country is poor and weak, studying medicine cannot save the Chinese people. First, a group of young intellectuals need to call for a new culture and a new life, transform the spiritual outlook of the nation, and then explore the path of industrialization. In today's normalized nation-state, we have many deficiencies in both the existing fields and the ideological field. A major reason for this is that China's humanities and social sciences still lack their own methodology. Even those mainstream social and economic scholars have difficulty making progress without relying on the Western neoliberalism or Keynesianism. The monopoly of Western capitalism on the humanities knowledge system is similar to that of photolithography machines.
So in the end, we still lack a kind of confidence and precedent to build an unimaginable path, to achieve fair distribution internally, to stand up against capitalism externally, and to create a completely new system. Perhaps this is the urgent task for humanities to make a breakthrough.
2. Kepler's Law#
If a social problem affects a large population, exists for a long time, and spans multiple countries or regions, it can be almost certain that the solution cannot be found in the superstructure and can only be solved through the development of productive forces. The degree of "certainty" is directly proportional to the population affected, the duration of existence, and the breadth of coverage of the social phenomenon. The larger these three variables are, the greater the possibility that this social problem cannot be solved under the current conditions of productive forces.
In simple terms, don't think, "Oh, how come no one thought of this solution in the past thousands of years, but I thought of it, I'm really a genius." It's like discovering a principle of plane geometry that is not written in textbooks, the most likely reason is that you have read too few reference books or papers. If you find yourself smarter than the ancients in solving a social problem, either the method is not feasible, or the change in productive forces has made the previously infeasible method feasible.
At the same time, we must also dialectically see that some past difficult problems have become solvable with the development of productive forces and society. At this time, we should also keep up with the times and seize the opportunity. This is the interaction between social consciousness and social existence. We must not use the theory of productive forces as an excuse for inaction. That is also incorrect. We need to analyze specific problems from a materialistic perspective.
3. My Spiritual Struggles#
Since partially disconnecting from the internet, my spiritual struggles have decreased by more than half.
The factors currently continuing to trouble me are:
- Phonophobia; specific sounds trigger fear
- Unhealthy sleep patterns
Among them, phonophobia causes the most severe internal struggles.
Possible solutions that come to mind:
- Wear noise-canceling headphones and a hood
- Desensitization therapy
- Rationalize behavior and increase tolerance