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naraburns  nihil supernum  2yr ago (text post)   33194 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 10, 2022

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I think artist is being use as a stand in for an much larger social clan that see the works of "Techies" or STEM people as at best lacking soul and more often just evil. I don't have a great word for it but it intuitively feels like there are two very different hierarchies in at least the united states. There is the "Physical" Hierarchy where people get status because of the things they make. There is also the "Social" hierarchy where one gets status by who holds them in high regard, who they are in particular. One interesting way these two hierarchies interact is in debates around things like socialism/communism, a system that totally collapses the way that the "Physical" hierarchy gets status and purports to level the playing field, but many people on the "physical" side correctly intuit that when you go to only one hierarchy there will still be rich people but they'll be the people rich in "social" status. Artists, journalists, politicians and many other professions are coded as "social" and techies intuit a strike against them as a win against the entire "social" hierarchy that increasingly seems to disdain them and call for their status to be revoked.

In all actual communist countries it was the physicals who controlled things like heavy industries or the military who had power. Artists were kept on a tight leash and only allowed to do things in a style that would uplift the status of the leaders of the physical hierarchy. It was the USA where the CIA pushed abstract expressionism as a way to undermine the Soviets.

To these types communist doesn't refer to historical communist regimes but idealized ones.

Isn't the relevant split just humanities vs STEM? As an aside, it's strange that there was no standard way to say STEM until the clunky acronym was invented. In Hungary it's common knowledge that there are "humán" and "reál" subjects and kids get categorized by parents and teachers into one or the other quite early. I don't think this is very good by the way (historically science and math was very connected to philosophy and humanities).

I also wonder where a pure math prof would fall in the dichotomy. They are certainly "reál" but not a "physical" maker. And a lot of artists are hands on makers, craftsmen, sculptors and painters (digital or not), they don't just talk. Maybe your split is just bullshitters/talkers vs doers/makers.

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