The Rise Of The Artist
This talk of "right-brain" revolution has become so popular that no one even realizes the fundamental irony of it all. The fallacy that the "creative" arts have been under appreciated in society is the largest piece of bollocks I've ever heard. I voluntarily teach math at a school here in MN, so i get some insight into what's going on at the schools and the fact is, while the politicians and corporations are sounding off about STEM, at schools people are still talking more about funding "the arts". Before the rise of the "geek billionaires" guess the largest form of cultural philanthropy: "the arts" (probably still is). We have more people who graduate with degrees in dance than we do people who graduate with degrees in mathematics. Hollywood probably has more failed actors than the valley has failed entrepreneurs. We have more art and history museums than we have science and engineering museums. Unless you've made a lot of money and you've been on the cover of Forbes, or you put an autonomous vehicle on Mars while wearing a Mohawk, telling people you're a programmer/mathematician/scientist is more likely to get them to presumptuously assume you're some mechanistic robot than for them to say "wow, interesting stuff". This new wave of complaining about the lack of attention to "the creative arts" reminds me of that good old cultural phenomenon known as mansplaining. But these are "the arts" so I guess they're artsplaining (badum-bam)<p>That "left brain/right brain" business is the stupidest, most egregious display of a lack of understanding of basic neuroscience. It is a metaphor. You know, that thing the "creatives" love so much. it is a metaphor used to explain different psychological states. There is no physical hemispheric dominance (edit: with regard to how one thinks about things, not with regard to physical processes.), there are just ways of thinking. Those who examine things more deeply are said to be "left brained" and those who make connections at the high-level are said to be "right brained". It is not an excuse for why people suck at math or programming. It is not some genetic gift/curse only placed on a few people. As a matter of fact nobody is ever always right-brained/left-brained. People go with the mode of thinking they feel is appropriate for the situation. Besides STEM, analytical thinking is necessary in philosophy, literature, economics, sociology, and all other forms of the humanities, because they're not just a bunch of people sitting down, looking for the best way to jerk off their egos by saying the "deepest" thing (at least they're not supposed to be).<p>Second, this resurgence of math envy is merely a reflection of the fact that the importance of science and math are finally being recognized in society. So the author shouldn't get his panties in a bunch; no one is dragging the humanities down from it's privileged societal prestige. We simply don't have to scramble for answers to give to kids when they ask why all this algebra stuff is important. In reality, it's important in the same way history, literature, and civics is important: it's not. None of them are. Are you telling me high school history and civics left you with the propensity to be a more informed voter? Are you telling me you really genuinely explored the theme of revenge in Hamlet? Or did you just read the spark notes? Henry Ford couldn't read well and famously didn't know the date of the American Revolution, he still rose from a farm boy to becoming one of the richest men in this country (he was also a good engineer). STEM is important to know in the same way humanities and "creative arts" are important in that they are ways to help you understand the world. Simple as. The only difference is it's a lot harder to convince them that "physics is what powers your car" than it is to BS them about how history makes us a more informed society (seriously, have to taken a look out there? it's a freakin' jungle!)<p>Third, and most important. He's right. Don't learn to code, learn to draw. Fuck it, learn to ride a bicycle. Next week, I'm going to start swimming lessons - in my twenties! Our senseless push to get kids to learn to code is like this senseless hyper-aggrandizing of the "creatives". We should be teaching kids to learn to think. It's easy to do stuff. It's easy to train kids to learn some task for some as-at-yet determined future purpose. It's easy to code. It's easy to draw. What's hard is thinking, and that's where the creativity is. As a matter of fact, not only is the cultural perception of coding and math as more mechanistic in contrast with humanities and the "creative arts" wrong, the opposite is , in fact, the case. Anyone who has every learned a musical instrument and doesn't look back on it with rose-colored glasses can attest to the mechanistic heartlessness of the piano or the guitar. Drawing is merely the act of building a motor skill. So is dancing. But guess what, once you're done with the hours of torture to get good, then you realize the fun. When you come back from school and drop your bags and you bang out a perfect rendition of Chopin's Prelude No 4, then you truly understand the magnificence of the piano. Much in the same way, when you've crammed the ifs and elses, the fors and whiles, the variables and constants, the pointers and pointers to pointers, and pointers to functions, and pointers to pointers to pointers to functions, and then you go on to build that thingamabob or model that gene sequence or understand that earthquake, then you realize the true power of what you've been working with. So this false dichotomy of "creatives" and mechanistic science robots propped up by people who simply don't want to learn math and are mad that not knowing math and science is less of a badge of honor in society anymore misses the point. And while it reads nice (hey, it has nice fonts, man) and could be a nice rallying cry for people like him, what he should understand is that he is not defending creativity, he is defending ignorance. He is defending a one-seided traditional view of creativity - which is where the irony of his essay lies. And at the end of the day, the only true creativity is the one that comes out of understanding. That is a creativity a series of pretty pictures can never embody, only the artist, geneticist, programmer, linguist, or even the swimmer (did I mention I'm learning to swim? :) ) So to anyone else who feels a divide between their "creative arts" and "cold logical science" my advice: learn some science, then you can have an opinion of science. But hopefully after actually peeking in to see what it's about rather than making flawed generalizations based on traditional views of an emerging way of seeing the world, you would have learned a new way of looking at the world.