Week1 - TwoCultures

Tattoo Artist who created a word readable as "Art & Science" right-side up
and "Philosophy" upside-down to express his love for both fields of study.

In Snow's The Two Cultures and The Scientific Revolution, he brings up the polarizing fields of science and literature. He asserts that these two disparaging cultures lead to a "practical and intellectual and creative loss" for society (Snow 12). I acknowledge that fundamental differences exist between these two fields of study; but that doesn't necessarily mean that we lose out when learning about two polar opposite cultures.

I've been raised in two different ethnic cultures, and I've appreciated the disparity that I've been exposed to. It has shaped my mind to acknowledge multiple perspectives of similar issues, and look at "importance" as a relative and malleable term. On top of that, I know that there are always ideals that bridge the gap between any seemingly varied notions.

On one side of my parental family, there stands a classic white, republican, midwestern patriarch with strong ideals and an even firmer domestic presence. He was a part of a small, strict family and believes in traditional national ideals with overall looser family ties. Growing up in the mid-west he was never really exposed to multiple cultures, until coming to California for work after college.

Woman protests the active and often violent actions that
stem from immigration from Mexico into Arizona.

On the other side, I have my gentle migrant mother, one of seven, who didn't even know English until she was a pre-teen. She has always held family above all else, thinks with her heart, and keeps close ties to everyone who stayed behind in Mexico. She was picked on and discriminated against in her family's early years in California, and as she went through school, but grew from those experiences into a well-established member of society.

The crazy part of having parents from such different walks of life isn't having two Christmases or Easters, it's thinking about how impossible it is that these two completely opposing parties were able to come together and not only love each other, but choose to start a family and spend the rest of their lives together. They bonded on their strong dedication, work ethic, morals, religious ideals, love of children, and desire to start their own lives with someone who held common values.

Image signifying how two different shaped, different colored "pieces" can come together.

As we progress in this class, I look forward to picking up on the subtle, but well established, commonalities between art and science that somehow hold these two very different fields in proximity to one another.



Sources

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

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

NBC Chicago. Chicago Protestors: Don't Deport Our Economy, Photograph Accessed April 3, 2016. <http://www.nbcchicago.com/news/local/chicago-immigration-protest-94894974.html>

Cooter, Margaret. Scientist vs. artist?, Photograph, March 4, 2011. http://margaret-cooter.blogspot.com/2011/03/scientist-vs-artist.html

Offshore Racing Association. Offshore Racing Association and US Sailing working together for handicap racing, Photograph, July 3, 2015. http://www.sailingscuttlebutt.com/2015/07/03/offshore-racing-association-and-us-sailing-working-together-for-handicap-racing/