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The problem is, people in the humanities are often intelligent, and as a result know how insignificant their impact on humanity is compared to the sciences (bar
by atleastoptimal 3y ago
The problem is, people in the humanities are often intelligent, and as a result know how insignificant their impact on humanity is compared to the sciences (barring the top 0.001% of those in the arts), thus these modern essentialist narratives are about raising the stakes, casting humanities and arts purists as more important, and constructing a "hero narrative" around now commodified intellectual pursuits.
- kbenson 3y agoI wouldn't say they are insignificant, just that as a pure informational discipline the cost to actually implementing the discovery (in this case, spreading the information) is close to zero (and much less than even the spreading of software or even pure algorithms in some cases, which in our current environment is so often encumbered in some way), the low hanging fruit is gone. Especially in history, where until new methods of looking in the past are discovered most things are already well trod, the effort to contribute something actually new and noteworthy seems very high, leading to shortcuts such as this.