The Two Cultures
The slow, steady march to top-down global governance took another step in 1959 at the University of Cambridge.
At that year’s annual Rede Lecture.
The speaker on the occasion was molecular physicist Charles Percy Snow1. And the speech delivered was titled ‘The Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution’2. And this speech was of great importance, because he identified a growing separation of the social and natural sciences, which presented a major hindrance to modern problem solving. Consequently, he urged efforts towards the integration of the two, especially in the context of education, hence preparing the future generations to be more adaptable across associated scientific fields.
Does any of that ring a bell? Well, it should. Because that alleged culture problem is pretty much exactly what Kenneth Boulding outlined in his 1956 paper, ‘General Systems Theory - The Skeleton of Science’.
The lecture isn’t particularly exciting, to be quite frank. He drones on and on rather a lot, but let’s just go through a few parts -
‘It was through living among these groups and much more, I think, through moving regularly from one to the other and back again that I got occupied with the problem of what, long before I put it on paper, I christened to myself as the 'two cultures'‘
Problem!
‘No, I intend something serious. I believe the intellectual life of the whole of western society is increasingly being split into two polar groups. When I say the intellectual life, I mean to include also a large part of our practical life, because I should be the last person to suggest the two can at the deepest level be distinguished. I shall come back to the practical life a little later. Two polar groups: at one pole we have the literary intellectuals, who incidentally while no one was looking took to referring to themselves as 'intellectuals' as though there were no others… Literary intellectuals at one pole—at the other scientists, and as the most representative, the physical scientists‘
And the problem is caused by literary intellectuals, and the ‘other’, natural scientists.
‘Their attitudes are so different that, even on the level of emotion, they can't find much common ground‘
… and it’s a predictable disaster. Of which few probably were even aware, never mind having considered back in 1959.
‘The non-scientists have a rooted impression that the scientists are shallowly optimistic, unaware of man's condition. On the other hand, the scientists believe that the literary intellectuals are totally lacking in foresight, peculiarly unconcerned with their brother men, in a deep sense anti-intellectual, anxious to restrict both art and thought to the existential moment. And so on. Anyone with a mild talent for invective could produce plenty of this kind of subterranean back-chat. On each side there is some of it which is not entirely baseless. It is all destructive. Much of it rests on misinterpretations which are dangerous. I should like to deal with two of the most profound of these now, one on each side.‘
Back in the day, there was this kid in my school — Jonas. He’d always set people up to fight. ‘That guy said this about you’ he’d claim, and then he’d run over to that other guy, twisting whatever you’d say. This is kind of the same thing. Except, with long-term global implications leading to tyranny. Fortunately, Jonas kept it somewhat more low-key, as he would, being only 9 at the time.
Oh, and misinterpretations. Dangerous ones. Can’t have that.
He carries on drumming up the schoolyard fight, before ultimately stating -
‘There seems then to be no place where the cultures meet. I am not going to waste time saying that this is a pity. It is much worse than that. Soon I shall come to some practical consequences. But at the heart of thought and creation we are letting some of our best chances go by default. The clashing point of two subjects, two disciplines, two cultures—of two galaxies, so far as that goes— ought to produce creative chances.‘
Mention of ‘consequences’ reminds me of rather the famous Churchill quote, and given this speech was delivered only 23 years later, I wouldn’t rule out intent -
But the problem, in fact, was far worse than anyone could even comprehend -
‘I said earlier that this cultural divide is not just an English phenomenon: it exists all over the western world. But it probably seems at its sharpest in England, for two reasons. One is our fanatical belief in educational specialisation, which is much more deeply ingrained in us than in any country in the world, west or east.‘
And there’s the first hint where he’s going with this. But before going all out, he needs to ensure the schoolyard fight definitely is on -
‘The two cultures were already dangerously separate sixty years ago… Thirty years ago the cultures had long ceased to speak to each other: but at least they managed a kind of frozen smile across the gulf. Now the politeness has gone, and they just make faces‘
See? It’s been a gradual thing, and already at dangerous level in 1899, at a time where… roughly 5% of the UK population had a college degree.
‘There is only one way out of all this: it is, of course, by rethinking our education… Nearly everyone will agree that our school education is too specialised... Other countries are as dissatisfied with their education as we are, but are not so resigned.‘
Oh, and this problem has totally been fixed… elsewhere.
‘It may well be that this process has gone too far to be reversible. I have given reasons why I think it is a disastrous process, for the purpose of a living culture. I am going on to give reasons why I think it is fatal, if we're to perform our practical tasks in the world‘
A really, really long-winded version of the contemporary cry of something being ‘critical’. It always is, dealing with the likes of the UN.
I won’t bother with the rest of the paper, because while he dances around the issue, he doesn’t outline a solution. No - that was to come in 1963, when he released an updated version; The Two Cultures and a Second Look3.
The guy literally drones on and on, so we’ll skip 12 pages and instead arrive at -
‘It was equally plain that this immensely powerful technological weapon would soon be used in the purest of scientific researches, from astronomy to cybernetics.‘
Cybernetics. Perhaps it’s nothing. It’s just a very, very oddly specific example, and one which meshes explicitly in with Kenneth Boulding, before somewhat backing down on his initial premise -
‘So the phrase “the two cultures” still seems appropriate for the purpose I had in mind. I now think, however, that I should have stressed more heavily that I was speaking as an Englishman, from experience‘
Yeah, the problem now only exists in the UK, in spite of it applying to the ‘western world’ just a few years prior. He fabricated a premise of a problem which undoubtedly didn’t really exist in the UK at the time either -
‘But nevertheless I was slow to observe the development of what, in the terms of our formulae, is becoming something like a third culture. I might have been quicker if I had not been the prisoner of my English upbringing, conditioned to be suspicious of any but the established intellectual disciplines, unreservedly at home only with the “hard” subjects. For this I am sorry. It is probably too early to speak of a third culture already in existence. But I am now convinced that this is coming.‘
But the solution - that’s on its way, alright.
‘Concepts such as the “organic community” or the nature of preindustrial society or the scientific revolution are being dealt with, under the illumination of the knowledge of the last ten years. These new examinations are of great importance for our intellectual and moral health.‘
And now it’s a ‘moral’ call. That’s when you know you’re dealing with a collectivist in hiding. I would say ‘marxist’, except I always get comments on Twitter about my ‘exaggerations’, when calling raging marxists out for marxist behaviour. But strangely, this principle appears to rarely apply when calling them ‘fascists’. Either way - once your rights are gone, the difference between the two is entirely academic, so it really does not matter in the slightest. But it’ll no doubt make for an exciting debate while you await your fate in the gulag.
Anyway, CP Snow also tried his luck as a literary writer. I cannot imagine anyone willingly sitting through any of those efforts, as this document is one, tedious document, chock full of irrelevancies, and personal anecdotes. So we can essentially skip all the remaining pages, apart from the final four. Truth is, they’re not really particularly interesting either, apart from one message… continuously repeated -
‘This leads me to the major theme of what I set out to say. Let me try again to make myself clear. It is dangerous to have two cultures which can’t or don’t communicate. In a time when science is determining much of our destiny, that is whether we live or die, it is dangerous in the most practical terms. Scientists can give bad advice, and decision-makers can’t know whether it is good or bad.’
In contemporary eyes, that is one hell of an admission. Infallible… scientists?? NOOO, surely you’re kidding me.
‘Sometimes, and perhaps often, the logic of applied science is modifying or shaping the political process itself.’
One.
’This has happened over nuclear tests, where we have been lucky enough to see what hasn’t been common in our time: a triumph for human sense. The triumph might have come sooner, if the logic of applied science had been as much at educated persons’ disposal as the logic of language.’
Two.
’Escaping the dangers of applied science is one thing.’
Three.
’Doing the simple and manifest good which applied science has put in our power is another, more difficult, more demanding of human qualities...‘
Four.
‘… both in the arts and in science, nor ignorant either of the endowments of applied science, of the remediable suffering of most of their fellow humans and of the responsibilities which, once they are seen, cannot be denied.‘
Five.
There are 15 references to ‘applied science’, 7 of which existed in the first edition from 1959. And 5 of the 8 mentions in the extension occour on the final 2 pages - not forgetting that the final page of said extension is only 4 lines long.
Definitely appears noteworthy - in fact, it’s almost as though it’s the final push to imprint the message, because statistically, these appear… rather lengthy odds.
So we have Applied Science. And we have the Two Cultures. And we also have Cybernetics, related to General Systems Theory. And we have a paper, released a few years prior to CP Snow outlining this very same ‘problem’ of two allegedly separate cultures, authored by notable General Systems Theorist, Kenneth Boulding.
Incidentally, this isn’t just my take on it. It’s also that of Wikipedia4… which goes on to identify that the 1959 lecture in fact is a later iteration itself, of a 1956 article in the New Statesman.
Now, I have not been able to locate the original edition, but it doesn’t really matter. Because it’s indirectly included in a different version of the original text, which can be located over on the ‘Intelligent Agent’ website5. And boy oh boy, does this document strengthen my belief that there was a hidden agenda.
‘… the first public airing of his idea about the 'two cultures' was in a short article with that title in the New Statesman in October 1956 (a good many sentences from this article were to re-appear essentially unchanged in the Rede lecture). It is even clearer in this early piece than in the later extended version just how far the whole conception was animated by a hostility to a particular conception of 'literary intellectuals'.
In other words, the 1956 edition was deliberately provocative, but wait - it gets better!
‘Other aspects of Snow's hostility emerge only through innuendo: the tone of scientific culture, he observes, is 'steadily heterosexual'; unlike in the literary culture‘
This is absolutely fantastic - this is a supposed molecular physicist calling out the social scientists for ‘being gay’!!!
‘This early version of the 'two cultures' thesis is also revealing in two further ways. First, and in sharp contrast to the context in which the topic has mostly been discussed subsequenrly, it is noticeable that Snow is not here concerned with the structure and content of educational arrangements’
His primary drive in the 1959 edition was requesting educational reform. The 1956 edition was clearly a call for a high profile fight, to be exploited down the road.
‘The central message of this first sketch of 'the two cultures' is that 'the greatest enrichment the scientific culture could give us is ... a moral one'.‘
And… et voila. There it is. I have stated this on so, so, so many occasions -
It always starts with a moral call.
This… alleged ‘fight’ then supposedly escalated in 1962, through F.R. Leavis attacking Snow ferociously. But that’s not really what catches my eye in that regard -
‘One episode, in particular, stands out: the furore surrounding F.R. Leavis’s ferocious attack on Snow and his lecture in 1962. This involved the clash of fundamentally opposed conceptions on how to think about human well-being…’
Oh golly - human well-being? Another narrative coincidence.
-
A few years down the line, Anatol Rapoport took the baton, through his 1976 lecture, ‘General Systems Theory: A Bridge between Two Cultures. Third Annual Ludwig von Bertalanffy Memorial Lecture‘6. Do try to act all surprised that the solution here comes through General Systems Theory, as suggested by Rapoport -
… even if that isn’t much of a surprise, given that Rapoport was a founding member of the Society for the Advancement of General Systems Theory7, as it so happens8. Oh yeah, and he was also a member of the American Communist Party.
So in other words, in 1956, CP Snow manufactured a crisis at the same time as the solution to said crisis was delivered through Kenneth Boulding. Of course, the manufactured crisis was gradually revised, at first public appearance in 1959 demanding educational change to fix the non-existing issue of ‘Two Cultures’, eventually leading to the continuous mention of ‘Applied Systems’ in the second iteration from 1963, released a year following a high-profile, public spat with a literary intellectual, captivating the attention of many, and subversively included mention of ‘human well-being’ - a concept supposedly revived around the same time, per Britannica9.
So where do we go from here? On one hand, we have the concept of the ‘Two Cultures’ - how did that develop? On the other, we have the ‘Applied Science’.
As it happens, they would both eventually end up in the same place.
But that’s the topic of the next article.