The Debate between Humanities and Sciences, Kaisen's Law, and Internal Struggles#
日期：2022 年 10 月 30 日
标签：周报
类型：文章
1. The Romance of Humanities and Sciences#
While surfing, I came across a quote:
"Our journey is among the stars and the sea," this is the romance of the sciences;
"The path never imagined," this should be the pursuit of us humanities students!"
According to the educational system in our country, humanities students and science students are generally responsible for the cultural and technical aspects of society, respectively. However, in practical terms, this division is gradually becoming unsuitable for the trend of integration between humanities and sciences in modern society, leading to the need for educational reforms.
As the world's largest industrial country, China needs a large number of continuous and abundant technical talents for industrial upgrading. The lack of high-end skilled workers has become a consensus within the industry. However, our vocational school system, which is quite outdated, mainly admits students from the lowest-performing group in the region where the school is located. With poor quality students, the training results are naturally unsatisfactory. The lack of vocational school students and the surplus of university graduates have led to the gradual proletarianization of the intellectual class.
Of course, the proletarianization of the intellectual class is the trend in socialist countries. However, due to the lack of emphasis on practical skills in our country's universities and the high employment pressure caused by the inflation of academic qualifications, there is a shortage of high-level technical talents while the number of ordinary university graduates is excessive, resulting in an awkward situation.
At first glance, the number of humanities students and science students does not differ much, but the admission rate for science students is an order of magnitude higher than that of humanities students. In our society, there has always been a view that "humanities students are useless," and "one of the reasons why Southeast Asian countries have fallen into the middle-income trap is that there are too many humanities students."
The binary division between humanities and sciences actually originated from the introduction of Soviet-style education in 1958, which emphasized high output and a specialized talent structure and training model. This division has persisted for a long time in high school, and many people's understanding of humanities and sciences is limited to the basic knowledge taught in high school (another common bias is that many people think that those who study humanities couldn't handle science subjects). However, in today's universities, this division is no longer reliable. The disciplines now have a tendency to intersect, and the integration of humanities and sciences is already common. For example, psychology, psychotherapy, and social psychology belong to the social sciences, but experimental psychology, psychological statistics, and physiological psychology belong to the natural sciences. Similarly, economics and finance involve a lot of data analysis and computation. Even history has become quantified. Even philosophy, which is considered useless by the general public, requires some schools to study functional analysis, advanced algebra, and partial differential equations. Although the three major systems of human knowledge (natural sciences, social sciences, and humanities) do not have a hierarchy, they collectively contribute to the enlightenment of human civilization. However, in a materialistic world, we have a consensus that the economic growth of modern industrial society is mainly contributed by science and technology, and in terms of intuition, that is purely in the field of science and technology. When top talents in this field make breakthroughs, they can release economic benefits the next day, expand the cake, and even change the mode of production. At this time, we need some disciplines to study the rules of the existing fields, focusing on how to divide the cake, or delve into the civilization structure, aligning the development of the human spirit with the material society.
==The economic growth of modern industrial society is mainly contributed by science and technology, and in terms of intuition, that is purely in the field of science and technology. When top talents in this field make breakthroughs, they can release economic benefits the next day, expand the cake, and even change the mode of production. At this time, we need some disciplines to study the rules of the existing fields, focusing on how to divide the cake, or delve into the civilization structure, aligning the development of the human spirit with the material society.==
- Science and technology talents can expand the boundaries of the incremental market, but talents themselves are cultivated within the existing market in society. Humanities students should study the rules of the existing fields to make the whole society operate more smoothly.
- Another function of humanities students is to "delve into the civilization structure, aligning the development of the human spirit with the material society." Taking our country as an example, the essential function of humanities students should be to "tell the story of China and do cultural work." Essentially, it is about doing ideological work. Unfortunately, since the reform and opening up forty years ago, it seems that humanities students in our country have largely followed Western theories in the field of ideology, gradually retreating and even inviting trouble into the house. It was not until recent years, when China's hard power has risen, that they reluctantly gained an advantage in internal propaganda.
Doing ideological work is not lower than teaching humanities students mathematics, statistics, and programming:
During university, it is necessary to read more books and gain insights into the structure of society. For example, studying philosophy to enhance one's ability to think critically and analytically. This is an internal skill. Then, learn other "external skills," and you will feel much more comfortable. Of course, it is not about being superficial, but about echoing and inspiring the people's imagination of a better life. At this time, you need to put aside your sense of superiority and focus on cultural work.
In summary, humanities students rely on two things: people's hearts and the chaos and order of society. When the country is impoverished and weak, studying medicine cannot save the Chinese people. First, a group of young intellectuals need to call for a new culture and a new way of life, transforming the spiritual outlook of the nation, and then explore the path of industrialization. However, in the current normalized nation-state, there are still many deficiencies in both the existing field and the ideological field. One of the main reasons is that China's humanities and social sciences lack their own methodology. Even those mainstream social and economic experts have difficulty making progress without relying on Western neoliberalism or Keynesianism. The monopoly of Western capitalism on the humanities knowledge system is similar to that of lithography machines.
Therefore, in the end, we lack confidence and precedents to build an unimaginable path, to achieve fair distribution internally, to stand up against capitalism externally, and to create a completely new system. This may be the urgent task for humanities to make a breakthrough.
2. Kaisen's Law#
If a social problem affects a large population, exists for a long time, and spans multiple countries or regions, it is almost certain that a solution cannot be found at the level of the superstructure and can only be resolved through the development of productive forces. The degree of "certainty" is directly proportional to the population affected, the duration of the phenomenon, and the breadth of its scope. The larger these three variables are, the greater the possibility that this social problem cannot be solved under the current conditions of productive forces.
In simple terms, don't think, "Oh, how come no one thought of this solution in the past thousands of years, but I thought of it, I'm a genius!" It's like discovering a principle of plane geometry that is not written in textbooks. The most likely reason is that you have read too few reference books or papers. If you find yourself smarter than the ancients in solving a social problem, either the method doesn't work, or the change in productive forces has made the previously ineffective method effective.
At the same time, we must also dialectically recognize that some past difficult problems have become solvable with the development of productive forces and society. At this time, we should also keep up and seize the opportunity. This is the interaction between social consciousness and social existence. We must not use the theory of productive forces as an excuse for inaction. We need to analyze specific problems from a materialistic perspective.
3. My Internal Struggles#
Since partially disconnecting from the internet, my internal struggles have decreased by more than half.
The factors that continue to bother me are:
- Phonophobia; specific sounds trigger anxiety
- Unhealthy sleep patterns
Among them, phonophobia causes the most severe internal struggles.
Possible solutions that come to mind:
- Wear noise-canceling headphones and a hood
- Desensitization therapy
- Rationalize behavior and increase tolerance