Week 1: Two Cultures

My sister and I at my great grandfather's name on Ellis Island

The presence of two cultures is something I experienced within my personal life growing up. As a halfie or hapa – terms colloquially used to describe a person of mixed ethnic heritage – I grew up in a household of mixed culture and traditions. My mother, who is Taiwanese, pushed for me to learn Mandarin, go to temple, and embrace Chinese culture. My father is German and pushed for me to go out for soccer, attend church, and recognize the his grandfather’s struggles as a refugee. This cultural split was very stark in my early years, but as I aged, the two cultures became less immiscible, and I created my own culture that I feel like accurately defines who I am.

A drawing by Leonardo Da Vinci in his study
of human proportions

I chose to pursue bioengineering as my major, which I prefer to view as the unification of life and machine. This is why I want to be part of the transhumanism movement. After this week, I think using technology to augment human life is no longer purely an engineering feat, but a movement that can readily embrace artists and literary intellectuals as participants as well.

Vesna describes the separation of science from the humanities, implying that the two cultures did, at some point, coexist. Many famous scientists/literary intellectuals, or to use a more encompassing term: polymaths, like Leonardo Da Vinci, who embodied this coexistence.

My personal experiences and this past coexistence is why I have mixed feelings about C.P. Snow’s “The Two Cultures: A Second Look.” I would argue that instead of a third culture to incorporate aspects of both cultures, we should seek a reunification of the current two cultures. Misunderstandings between the scientific community and humanities cannot be explained directly from one party to the other. The third culture must be the emergence of polymaths who have an in depth understanding of both cultures. They shall guide the unification of the two cultures. A unification of the arts and sciences that comes to mind is the depiction of the black hole in Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar.

Sir Ken Robinson cites a study where all children are capable of divergent thinking and explains how the education system robs us of this intrinsic ability. A new culture of divergent thinkers must be born, but for now, society is now a mix of linear and lateral thinkers, and we must collaborate to see a better future for all of us.

References

Snow, C. P. “Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution.” Reading. 1959. New York: Cambridge UP, 1961. Print.

theRSAorg. “RSA ANIMATE: Changing Education Paradigms.” YouTube, YouTube, 14 Oct. 2010, www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDZFcDGpL4U.

Vesna, Victoria. “Toward a Third Culture: Being in Between.” Leonardo 34.2 (2001): 121-25. Web.

“Vitruvian Man.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 4 Apr. 2018, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitruvian_Man.

warnerbrosuktrailers. “Interstellar – Building A Black Hole – Official Warner Bros.” YouTube, YouTube, 24 Oct. 2014, www.youtube.com/watch?v=MfGfZwQ_qaY.