[1] From: Mark Steinacher <steinach@chass.utoronto.ca> (17)
Subject: Re: 10.0060 the academy and the world
[2] From: Richard Giordano <rich@cs.man.ac.uk> (9)
Subject: Re: 10.0060 the academy and the world
--[1]------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Tue, 28 May 1996 01:15:29 -0400 (EDT)
From: Mark Steinacher <steinach@chass.utoronto.ca>
Subject: Re: 10.0060 the academy and the world
Friends,
Mark Engel's comments to the effect that the liberal arts
community's best survival strategy is to make like my children's
chameleons and blend into the background may well be the best advice
we get. As an historian, I often have people wondering while I don't
do something more "useful". One colleague even expressed surprise
when I went into church history, rather than New Testament, because,
and I quote: "You're SMART ENOUGH to do New Testament!"
Engel's comments also bring to mind a cartoon my brother clipped
for me years ago. In it were three men sitting at a bar. The little
man in the middle was explaining to the two burly, heavily-tattoed,
biker-gang-types parked either side of him that, "Well, actually, I
get paid to stare off into space and think." They looked ready to
beat him to a pulp. Is the average non-academic not feeling somewhat
the same urges toward the "non-productive" academic community (read:
the liberal arts)?
Mark Steinacher
steinach@chass.utoronto.ca
--[2]------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Tue, 28 May 96 10:42:43 BST
From: Richard Giordano <rich@cs.man.ac.uk>
Subject: Re: 10.0060 the academy and the world
Mark Engle's post implies that there are humanists, and there is 'the
public.' Last time I looked, we were the public.
As for the comment on mathematicians, an old roommate of mine from MIT,
once explained to me the research he was doing on the passage of
electrons across a cell membrane. It was one of the clearest
explanations I ever heard, and I was a history major. I told him so,
and his reply was that if you really *understand* your subject, you can
explain it to anyone. I found in my own experience that my former
roommate is right.
/rich