George Steiner on Science and the Humanities

the exponential is no other word the explosion of science and technology has transformed not only our universities but after they got enlightened it's the very status of knowledge and of truth the exact and Applied Sciences with the inbuilt axiom of progress isn't it fantastic we will know something tomorrow which we did not know today think of that for a moment even a mediocre science a a keep will know something next Monday which they did not know today the escalator of science is always moving upward they have created new universities within the university they are budget I don't need to say that directors and Dean's but their budget he's a hundred fold what was the budget of the humanities in a ranking American Ivy League university the cost of controlling the temperature of the high energy laboratory is now greater than the cost of the entire university budget ten years ago in ten short years in science faculties salaries and prestige far in excess of those who current in non scientific departments I love to point out Berkeley in California has a faculty parking space and one part of it is reserved for Nobel laureates part of the parking space they have that many at Berkeley just think of it biogenetic seeks access - the mechanism of life itself advances in medicine are virtually incommensurable and yet and yet met that little French word met well the German word Abba ABBA and yet our wars are as barbaric as ever famine and enslavement forced migration abound forty million children are now near the hunger line forty million children economics neither foresaw nor is helping us in the present crisis of late capitalism the mental stress the sadness in the psyche the criminality which characterized so much of our urban and familial existence the hysterical fright into narcotics and hypnosis of the mass media have proved proved resistant to scientific triumphs and their cradle of enlightened rationality in the age in the greatest age science has ever known there is more misery on our streets there is more mental collapse than ever before there is a stubborn enigma here a partial answer may lie in the gap of understanding which now separates scientific knowledge and methods from general and public routes you a Tilburg are trying to handle this deep gap not only as Galileo proclaimed does nature speak mathematics but the evolution of that language has excluded common sense comprehension you and I still speak of sunset and sunrise in a Ptolemaic use of language sense after Copernicus in Newton its of course total nonsense but we still use it continually we dwell amid our take fictions of solid objects this table we are told is a vortex of electrons in quantum motion but the causes may lie deeper science has since Euclid prided itself on its ideological and political abstentions on its neutrality in respect of social and political conflicts it has cultivated what comes calls wonderfully disinterestedness Noli Me Tangere I am doing science don't interfere with political or social concerns no limit on glory its involvement in warfare or Stalinist madness have been contingent and self-destructive Heidegger god help us put it with majestic insolence I quote science does not think the person shaft technique you had to be Heidegger to be able to say that but it is it is a very deep piece of idiocy the piece of idiocy but it's very deep this is one of the hardest things to handle deep agencies do the humanities think the proud phrase litter I human URIs the Humane Letters mentor each guide humanity who money does their condition forgive me and I don't want to cause any offence but their condition is not resplendent a fair number of undergraduates in self entitled universe cities which are actually vocational or trade schools promoted to a fake rank verge on sub literacy I'm sorry

Channel: TheNexusInstitute

Views: 8,313

Rating: 4.8873239 out of 5

Keywords: Nexus Instituut, Nexus Institute, George Steiner, Education, Universitas, Steiner, Universities, Humanities

Id: Wod5NYGitG8

Length: 6min 58sec (418 seconds)

Published: Fri Feb 22 2013