I’m an ISTJ, and less than 39% of ISTJ respondents, the lowest percentage of the personality types, in a survey for the linked article agreed with the statement, “You prefer to study the humanities more than math or science.” Feeling types agreed more with that statement than thinkers, by a fairly significant margin.
I wonder if the campaign to push the humanities aside is some vast ISTJ plot…
"Can we preach the doctrine of excellence in an art; the doctrine of intellectual absorption in a single field of study; even the doctrine of unsociability; even the doctrine of indifference to money?"
I liked this bit and I'd personally love to witness a world where such doctrines in people are recognized or celebrated. I do wonder how one would be considered "worthier" of recognition over another just in the sciences. There's so much "feeling," stories and life in arts, history and culture and I think that's why I am moved and often bask in such beauty be it captured in a painting, poetry or an instrumental of a song.
I don’t relate to the jocks and natural-born leaders, nor do I relate to the artistic types, so I guess I don’t know just whom I relate to. I feel like a mediocrity who is competent in a few things, excelling in none, and fitting in nowhere. I just don’t know how the arts and humanities really fit into my life. I would like them to, but I don’t know how.
one of the things I loved about Vendler's perspective is that she writes about the arts and humanities not only from the POV of those who create them but also and especially of those who engage with them - which (since you're here) I daresay describes you.:)
My heavily STEM-centric intellect tends to push me toward STEM-related subjects and interests, thus I relate better to that world than to the world of the artist.
The strengths I do have are not humanities-related (my weakest subject area, actually), but STEM-related. For the arts, I gravitate more toward those that lend themselves to be reduced, in a way, to mathematical formulas.
Hi, Susan, thank you as always for the precious stimuli you bring to us and thus into the world! I have many associations with this … but the thing that moved me most is my recent visit to Kyiv and its people. The humanities and the arts play a central role especially now in dire times. One can say: They keep people psychically alive. My now friends invited me to a concert the second day - after I experienced my first ever night with bombings and air alerts and explosions around me.
I felt the atmosphere in the concert hall - where the musicians and the audience came together in spite of the danger. The musicians played with all their heart and soul, and the audience drank, inhaled the beauty of the music - I have never before experienced such a dense atmosphere, and I cried all through the concert.
Kater, on a stroll through the city, I came across a big wall which showed pictures drawn by people all across the country - to show what moves them. I add one iof the pictures here, the written words say: „by Olga Krest, 44 years old, from Odesa: The Light of the Future, 2022.“
(… hm can’t find the picture function here.) Maybe on Substack?
Love love these words. Exactly why I’ve been pushing for the “Next Golden Age” by performing concert tours around the world, organising and hosting music/arts/poetry festivals, editing poetry journals, organising and judging haiku competitions, and even recently started an online radio station so I can curate world literature, arts and music. These words really resonate with me, a self-appointed missionary who wants to make culture a new religion… and connect the world. https://zeno.fm/radio/next-golden-age (Listen here) https://www.artsinfinitypress.com/13point10 (programme schedule) I broadcast each Friday 10am/10pm, replay Sunday 9am NZ time. Performers and creators are important to the world, but audience who understand too — we need to foster a whole new generation of those who appreciate what we love!
This brought back memories of my daughter's journey through the admissions process, including with Harvard and Yale. She is also a gifted writer, loves learning languages (has studied French, Arabic, Italian, Spanish, and Russian), is a talented pianist, and an introvert (and autistic). She was interviewed by Yale. When she told me about how the interview went, it seemed to me her interviewer likely didn't ask the right questions. They sent a doctor to interview her. I thought how ridiculous it seemed to send someone who probably has no interest in the humanities, who likely would not bring out the best in her during that interview. She ended up being rejected, and I thought what a loss for Yale. Harvard rejected her without offering an interview. Reading the article made me wonder if things might have turned out differently if the person interviewing her shared the insights of Helen Vendler.
I really enjoyed the essay by Helen Vendler. The university my daughter did attend (an R1 research university) began cutting courses in liberal arts, and just after she graduated, they closed the art museum. It seems STEM is much more important to them, and I thought how sad that they care so little for the creators, the artists, the philosophers.
Wow! Helen Vendler’s essay is brilliant. I would like to add more of a comment but feel a bit under the weather right now. We could have a whole candlelight chat on this post:)
For me this raises thoughts of beauty and art everywhere. The importance of murals, tiny art galleries, big museums, little books, big books, blogs(!) and more. As a game designer (and introvert), I see myself as a researcher, writer, artist, creative experience maker- and yet I don't see the world seeing games as art, but it would mean so much to me if they did. Either way, I'm going to keep making what I love and find massive delight when other people love it too.
Thank you for sharing this interview. For me, it raises questions about how success is measured. The education system rewards high grades, the sports industry rewards wins, industry rewards business market share, and there are many other examples in this vein. It seems that external validation of performance rather than effort is considered success. Life is not a zero-sum game. The arts allow us to challenge the world's and society's thinking and our own thoughts, perceptions, and attitudes. The arts invite us to question, reflect, and seek reward from within rather than from others.
I love this quote: “To have great poets,” as Whitman said, “there must be great audiences too.”
Lindsey Andrews is building this idea in my area of North Carolina. She opened a novel arts & humanities, college-level program in a bar (Night School Bar). It’s one of the most interesting ideas I’ve seen for bolstering humanities. Really dynamic offerings, also online. Here’s a link to my interview with her:
Mexican poet and academic, Cesar A. Cruz said "Art should comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable" and it does. From cave paintings to street art, from Greek tragedies to stand up comedy we have always expressed ourselves through the various arts. Art and humanities are fundamental to human existence..
Yup, I have a daughter (now thirty-eight) who is a tenured professor at Connecticut College, teaching Political Science. Her PhD dissertation was on voting rights. She's been published in so many place I've lost track. Going on a year long sabbatical for more research with a 200,000.00 grant. She always had a brain 'the size of Brazil'. And she is my most profound child (of three - she is a twin to a brother who is a VP with AirBnB, used to be a VP at apple until last year). The only thing I told her about what she writes is that once you write something down and give it to another even through publishing, it ceases to be yours and become the readers to do with as they wish. Love your 'Substack'. Thank you so much for doing what you do!
Yes, yes, yes to this quote from the essay: "The truth is that many future poets, novelists, and screenwriters are not likely to be straight-A students, either in high school or in college. The arts through which they will discover themselves prize creativity, originality, and intensity above academic performance; they value introspection above extroversion, insight above rote learning. Such unusual students may be, in the long run, the graduates of whom we will be most proud." Most every world-changer in history had some kind of rub with school!
Academic performance, introspection, and rote learning was my way to go, with varied results. My academic performance in high school was a B-grade mediocrity, buried deep in the middle of the class, just below the top 40%. I had no special artisitc or creative talents, and public schools had no way of helping heavily STEM-centric minds live up to their full potential, at least the way I really needed to avoid winding up the grade-B mediocrity I did become.
That’s cool that you had artistic talents to fall back on. I only wish I had some talent like that, something I could turn into a career or passion or whatever, but all my talents are STEM-centric, and it really hurts me deep inside that that’s all I’ve got.
John, I hope you can find or develop a passion and a talent for something. It's a worthwhile pursuit! It can often be a lonely road, especially if you wre an introvert, but the rewards are, and can be, life-giving.
Number crunching is my main talent, apparently. Not exactly artistic or humanities-related, but it’s something. Neither my wife or kids have that talent to anywhere near the same extent I do.
I found this post on 16personalities.com, which might have some bearing on thiis post here.
https://www.16personalities.com/articles/humanities-vs-stem-personality-types-weigh-in-on-an-age-old-debate
I’m an ISTJ, and less than 39% of ISTJ respondents, the lowest percentage of the personality types, in a survey for the linked article agreed with the statement, “You prefer to study the humanities more than math or science.” Feeling types agreed more with that statement than thinkers, by a fairly significant margin.
I wonder if the campaign to push the humanities aside is some vast ISTJ plot…
"Can we preach the doctrine of excellence in an art; the doctrine of intellectual absorption in a single field of study; even the doctrine of unsociability; even the doctrine of indifference to money?"
I liked this bit and I'd personally love to witness a world where such doctrines in people are recognized or celebrated. I do wonder how one would be considered "worthier" of recognition over another just in the sciences. There's so much "feeling," stories and life in arts, history and culture and I think that's why I am moved and often bask in such beauty be it captured in a painting, poetry or an instrumental of a song.
I don’t relate to the jocks and natural-born leaders, nor do I relate to the artistic types, so I guess I don’t know just whom I relate to. I feel like a mediocrity who is competent in a few things, excelling in none, and fitting in nowhere. I just don’t know how the arts and humanities really fit into my life. I would like them to, but I don’t know how.
one of the things I loved about Vendler's perspective is that she writes about the arts and humanities not only from the POV of those who create them but also and especially of those who engage with them - which (since you're here) I daresay describes you.:)
My heavily STEM-centric intellect tends to push me toward STEM-related subjects and interests, thus I relate better to that world than to the world of the artist.
This makes sense to me!
The strengths I do have are not humanities-related (my weakest subject area, actually), but STEM-related. For the arts, I gravitate more toward those that lend themselves to be reduced, in a way, to mathematical formulas.
Hi, Susan, thank you as always for the precious stimuli you bring to us and thus into the world! I have many associations with this … but the thing that moved me most is my recent visit to Kyiv and its people. The humanities and the arts play a central role especially now in dire times. One can say: They keep people psychically alive. My now friends invited me to a concert the second day - after I experienced my first ever night with bombings and air alerts and explosions around me.
I felt the atmosphere in the concert hall - where the musicians and the audience came together in spite of the danger. The musicians played with all their heart and soul, and the audience drank, inhaled the beauty of the music - I have never before experienced such a dense atmosphere, and I cried all through the concert.
Kater, on a stroll through the city, I came across a big wall which showed pictures drawn by people all across the country - to show what moves them. I add one iof the pictures here, the written words say: „by Olga Krest, 44 years old, from Odesa: The Light of the Future, 2022.“
(… hm can’t find the picture function here.) Maybe on Substack?
Love love these words. Exactly why I’ve been pushing for the “Next Golden Age” by performing concert tours around the world, organising and hosting music/arts/poetry festivals, editing poetry journals, organising and judging haiku competitions, and even recently started an online radio station so I can curate world literature, arts and music. These words really resonate with me, a self-appointed missionary who wants to make culture a new religion… and connect the world. https://zeno.fm/radio/next-golden-age (Listen here) https://www.artsinfinitypress.com/13point10 (programme schedule) I broadcast each Friday 10am/10pm, replay Sunday 9am NZ time. Performers and creators are important to the world, but audience who understand too — we need to foster a whole new generation of those who appreciate what we love!
PS How to listen to the episodes?
At the moment only broadcasting live with 2 replays a week, after 20 episodes I probably will start putting the past shows as podcast on my website :)
your episodes look INCREDIBLE, Sherry!
This brought back memories of my daughter's journey through the admissions process, including with Harvard and Yale. She is also a gifted writer, loves learning languages (has studied French, Arabic, Italian, Spanish, and Russian), is a talented pianist, and an introvert (and autistic). She was interviewed by Yale. When she told me about how the interview went, it seemed to me her interviewer likely didn't ask the right questions. They sent a doctor to interview her. I thought how ridiculous it seemed to send someone who probably has no interest in the humanities, who likely would not bring out the best in her during that interview. She ended up being rejected, and I thought what a loss for Yale. Harvard rejected her without offering an interview. Reading the article made me wonder if things might have turned out differently if the person interviewing her shared the insights of Helen Vendler.
I really enjoyed the essay by Helen Vendler. The university my daughter did attend (an R1 research university) began cutting courses in liberal arts, and just after she graduated, they closed the art museum. It seems STEM is much more important to them, and I thought how sad that they care so little for the creators, the artists, the philosophers.
ahhhh I feel this.
(and btw: Yale was my first choice school, and my interview wasn't great either, and I didn't get in!)
❤️🩹❤️🩹❤️🩹
Along the hill a flower grows away from the rest, blooming introspection into being, souls rebel love ...
Wow! Helen Vendler’s essay is brilliant. I would like to add more of a comment but feel a bit under the weather right now. We could have a whole candlelight chat on this post:)
so true.
Hope you feel better, Ashley!
For me this raises thoughts of beauty and art everywhere. The importance of murals, tiny art galleries, big museums, little books, big books, blogs(!) and more. As a game designer (and introvert), I see myself as a researcher, writer, artist, creative experience maker- and yet I don't see the world seeing games as art, but it would mean so much to me if they did. Either way, I'm going to keep making what I love and find massive delight when other people love it too.
Thank you for sharing this interview. For me, it raises questions about how success is measured. The education system rewards high grades, the sports industry rewards wins, industry rewards business market share, and there are many other examples in this vein. It seems that external validation of performance rather than effort is considered success. Life is not a zero-sum game. The arts allow us to challenge the world's and society's thinking and our own thoughts, perceptions, and attitudes. The arts invite us to question, reflect, and seek reward from within rather than from others.
I love this quote: “To have great poets,” as Whitman said, “there must be great audiences too.”
Lindsey Andrews is building this idea in my area of North Carolina. She opened a novel arts & humanities, college-level program in a bar (Night School Bar). It’s one of the most interesting ideas I’ve seen for bolstering humanities. Really dynamic offerings, also online. Here’s a link to my interview with her:
https://open.substack.com/pub/bethmcnichol/p/raising-the-bar?utm_source=app-post-stats-page&r=10jeef&utm_medium=ios
I hope all the 16-year-old writers out there keep going. We need them now more than ever.
Mexican poet and academic, Cesar A. Cruz said "Art should comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable" and it does. From cave paintings to street art, from Greek tragedies to stand up comedy we have always expressed ourselves through the various arts. Art and humanities are fundamental to human existence..
Yup, I have a daughter (now thirty-eight) who is a tenured professor at Connecticut College, teaching Political Science. Her PhD dissertation was on voting rights. She's been published in so many place I've lost track. Going on a year long sabbatical for more research with a 200,000.00 grant. She always had a brain 'the size of Brazil'. And she is my most profound child (of three - she is a twin to a brother who is a VP with AirBnB, used to be a VP at apple until last year). The only thing I told her about what she writes is that once you write something down and give it to another even through publishing, it ceases to be yours and become the readers to do with as they wish. Love your 'Substack'. Thank you so much for doing what you do!
Yes, yes, yes to this quote from the essay: "The truth is that many future poets, novelists, and screenwriters are not likely to be straight-A students, either in high school or in college. The arts through which they will discover themselves prize creativity, originality, and intensity above academic performance; they value introspection above extroversion, insight above rote learning. Such unusual students may be, in the long run, the graduates of whom we will be most proud." Most every world-changer in history had some kind of rub with school!
Academic performance, introspection, and rote learning was my way to go, with varied results. My academic performance in high school was a B-grade mediocrity, buried deep in the middle of the class, just below the top 40%. I had no special artisitc or creative talents, and public schools had no way of helping heavily STEM-centric minds live up to their full potential, at least the way I really needed to avoid winding up the grade-B mediocrity I did become.
I can so relate to this. I was a poor student but found my way through photography and my love of plants.
That’s cool that you had artistic talents to fall back on. I only wish I had some talent like that, something I could turn into a career or passion or whatever, but all my talents are STEM-centric, and it really hurts me deep inside that that’s all I’ve got.
John, I hope you can find or develop a passion and a talent for something. It's a worthwhile pursuit! It can often be a lonely road, especially if you wre an introvert, but the rewards are, and can be, life-giving.
Number crunching is my main talent, apparently. Not exactly artistic or humanities-related, but it’s something. Neither my wife or kids have that talent to anywhere near the same extent I do.