Astral: (Theosophy) Consisting of, belonging to, or designating, a kind of supersensible substance alleged to be next above the tangible world in refinement; as, astral spirits; astral bodies of persons; astral current.
Stuff and Bother
29 September 2012,
Once again, we have made it through the month of September, when lots of issues come up as schools stagger into a new academic year. While we did endure recent issues with replacement sanitation workers and referees, last year’s teacher contract issues didn’t remerge to cause further disruptions. Of course, when we heard on the news that the drivers of the recycling trucks had rejected the contract offer that would have paid them $98,000 by the end of the six-year extension, my thirteen-year-old son was thinking it might be better to focus on a career as a garbage truck driver rather than the more glamorous but lower paying career on a SWAT team. Fortunately, being more realistic and mature, I wasn’t swayed by such child-like thoughts, however, …..
In the background of the educational scenery, vibrations around “merit” pay and adequate compensation have been an issue for some time. We’ve heard about the problems of attracting energetic young teachers in fields such as science and technology when they can look forward to several years of service before hitting the top of the salary scale at less than $60,000 per year, while the private sector jobs have them starting at $75,000 and higher fresh out of school. As they say, “you don’t have to be a rocket scientist ….” Thus, the discussion around merit pay has delved into the area of perhaps having different pay scales for educators (and support staff) depending on the relative value of the disciplines of their expertise.
This is when those of us in the “Humanities Sciences” feel the attention toward the lack of attention in our direction. In many ways, we are viewed as a stumbling block for the other disciplines, where their access to a variety of learning opportunities becomes constricted by required coursework in the Humanities Sciences. As someone in another discipline once mentioned (perhaps it was on another campus where I used to teach), “My students can learn all they need to know about the Humanities through reading stuff on their own.”
Since I heard that reference several years ago, I’ve reflected on the stuff I've been reading on my own, and I’m wondering if perhaps the statement is quite accurate. When I’m reading stuff on my own, I don’t run into many opportunities to consider the chemistry of protein digestion, the math principles allowing me to stream live video on my smart phone (if I could afford one), the configuration of support necessary to keep the concrete bridge floating when I cross Lake Washington, etc.
This brings to mind an experience attending a basketball game as a senior at the UW in Hec Edmundson Pavilion (now the Alaska Airlines Arena and previously the Bank of America Arena). During halftime Jim Griffin, one of my friends sitting next to me (majoring in one of those other disciplines), pointed at the steel beams on the ceiling and commented that he could figure how much stress was being placed on each of them. That was over 40 years ago, and in spite of all the stuff I have read on my own, I still don’t have a clue how to come up with that answer myself.
This brings to mind an experience attending a basketball game as a senior at the UW in Hec Edmundson Pavilion (now the Alaska Airlines Arena and previously the Bank of America Arena). During halftime Jim Griffin, one of my friends sitting next to me (majoring in one of those other disciplines), pointed at the steel beams on the ceiling and commented that he could figure how much stress was being placed on each of them. That was over 40 years ago, and in spite of all the stuff I have read on my own, I still don’t have a clue how to come up with that answer myself.
Further, the character asks, “If you do buy something, is it a bargain if you don’t need it?” The female character concludes by stating, “I’m not sure I can answer that question! It shakes the very foundation of the meaning of life for me!” Of course, someone could take a philosophy class and discuss the deeper implications of these questions and statements, but since the questions are already raised in the “stuff” we can all read on our own, maybe it wouldn’t be such an important class after all. At any rate, probably the teacher wouldn’t deserve to be paid as much as someone teaching one of the more important classes where salaries are much higher in the private sector. After all, how much does an ethicist earn in the private sector?
Certainly if the discussion had been about some proton that had dropped an electron and was acting positive, I wouldn’t have a clue because that kind of information is not in the stuff I would read on my own. Likewise, I wouldn’t react if someone told me the gas chromatograph went to the psychologist because of his separation anxiety. Again, that’s not the kind of stuff I usually read about. (Who does?)
On the other hand, since various components of Humanities “stuff” show up on a regular basis not only in the funny papers, but in references in campaign speeches, television sitcoms, video games, popular music, Disney movies, and even scientific journals, perhaps maybe this “stuff” might be quite important after all. For example, Barry Mazur, Professor of Mathematics at Harvard, recently spoke at a conference on “Number Theory as Gadfly,” where
Mazur describes number theory as a field which produces, without effort, innumerable problems which have a sweet, innocent air about them, tempting flowers; and yet... number theory swarms with bugs, waiting to bite the tempted flower-lovers who, once bitten, are inspired to excesses of effort! (http://www.scienceandliterature.org/speakers)
Forty years ago, when Jim Griffin and I were at that basketball game contemplating the earthly forces pressing on the ceiling above us, he noted that, even though he could easily compute the amount of pressure on each of the beams, he wondered about any importance in knowing those numbers.
Since the Humanities content shows up so regularly in the stuff around us that we read on our own, I guess we can also wonder about the value of the answers to the questions asked and discussed in the areas of the Humanities Sciences - including the reference implied by the title of this entry!
Walter Lowe
Astral Facts is a somewhat regular presentation of Humanities Science, produced in the bowels of the Humanities Science offices during the academic year.
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