Remembering "Science Fiction and the Two Cultures"

I remember how back when writing for The Fix I penned a piece titled "Science Fiction and the Two Cultures." As the title implies, it drew on C.P. Snow's famous lecture about the division of intellectual life in the modern Western world between "letters," and "sciences," and the disconnects, misunderstandings and other consequences of that division.

As I learned then (the forums at The Fix were rather lively in those days), and have never had much chance to forget when going anywhere near Snow's work, a great many people not only disagree with Snow, but even seem to bitterly resent his argument, vehemently contesting even what seem to me his most indisputable observations about the matter. This seemed to me to especially be the case with what Snow said about the differences in valuation and status between those intellectuals who work in letters, and those who work in the sciences, and specifically his observations about the latter being more remunerated and more highly esteemed.

After all, we hear endlessly about the importance of STEM--not the importance of the humanities, which are more likely to be the target of political attack (not least, for being "soft" and "useless" subjects, especially from those quarters which regard anything not obviously, directly, indisputably maximizing short-term corporate profits as a complete waste of time). Certainly the data on the earnings that a four year degree brings confirms that, in spite of the pious remarks of businessmen that they would like to have more "well-rounded employees" of the kind the humanities help make (an old game--William Whyte was writing about it back in the '50s), and even here and there the suggestion that the STEM workers would be more productive if they had a bit more of such subjects (if, for example, the people conducting and overseeing scientific research actually understood the philosophical underpinnings of, you know, science), their real hiring choices make it clear that the salary-minded (and who can afford not to be?) would be far better off majoring in engineering than in, for example, philosophy (so much such that while the right is more notorious for bashing the liberal arts a Democratic President not ordinarily regarded as a lowbrow was not above publicly deriding the value of an art history degree). And of course when people today speak (glibly, but they do it all the same) of the most intellectually demanding activities, and (foolishly) of the "icons" of intelligence at its most outstanding, they do not, as Thomas Malthus did in his day, even think of a Shakespeare or a Locke, but only a Newton--of the hardest of hard sciences, nothing else worthy.

Naturally, all those contesting this point had to say on behalf of their position was that stupid "Nuh-uh!" that I regard as a sadly unavoidable abuse of freedom of speech--while since that time the hard facts of austerity have made the conclusion far more difficult to escape. As Boris Johnson, Gavin Williamson and the rest of their vulgarian company mount the latest round in the longstanding Thatcherite assault on British higher education, they remind all and sundry that where unworthiness of the state's educational resources are concerned they regard the humanities as Public Enemy Number One.