# 125: The Two Cultures Problem and the Rationality Axiom
Story behind the Passage
Today, I did not even have to take a picture of the page I am writing about because I had the passage in my own book — or at least, in the manuscript. I do not even remember if this particular passage made it into the final version. The most important reason why I looked for it today is because I cannot stop thinking about the “Two Cultures Problem.” The concept is mostly associated with the British scholar C. P. Snow. He started his career as a scientist and later turned towards literature. His observation or rather thesis was that there are two cultures in the university — the natural sciences and the humanities — which are radically opposed to each other. Snow was actually the reason why I wrote my last book. I was determined to find a solution to the Two Cultures clash. Building on Snow’s quite challenged and binary arguments, I saw the major reason why both worlds do not interact much in different value sets, i.e., the humanities have a different value system than the natural sciences. And when I say “value system,” I mean a normative framework that is very much connected to the core research interests of these disciplines and to the related methods.
To make an almost 500 page long story short: I did develop a model of how to bridge this normative and at times emotional conflict. It was one built on mutual benefits. In contrast to the original clash between the humanities and the natural sciences, I focused on the clash between the humanities and business studies. Nevertheless, the arguments in this debate were/are similar to the ones you read above and in Snow’s original argument. My solution focused on identifying value commonalities instead of insisting on differences to approach each other based on the prospect of win-win. To put it simply: The assumption was that both fields have an interest in maximizing their research output and quality which is why they would be interested in any additional resources (e.g., knowledge and methods from the humanities) that might promise to achieve this goal. And, of course, this axiom was the same for the humanities. So, in sum, I spent most of the book showing what exactly each field has to offer the other side. I spent less time on explaining why they would be interested in maximizing their use value.
And you know what?
I am just starting to realize that this axiom might be start of a new research journey.
What if my implicit rational choice paradigm does not apply to this constellation of actors?
What if the humanities for some reason do not behave ‘rationally’ in the way that the social and natural sciences define rationality?
What if economic theory, particularly behavioral economics, can explain the Two Cultures Clash a lot better?
My Learnings
“Unfortunately, there are people in the arts and humanities — conceivably, even some in the social sciences — who are proud of knowing very little about science and technology, or about mathematics.” This line in Brockman’s book really resonated with me when I started the research because I was driven by anger at the time. I had observed exactly this behavior in many of my colleagues, i.e., the explicit arrogance towards and ignorance of science and technology. After finishing my research about three years ago, I stopped getting further into the topic, at least in scholarly terms. Of course, in practice, I am trying to bridge these worlds every day. But I became sick of thinking about this in merely theoretical ways. For me personally, I was never proud of not knowing much about STEM. But I was not deeply into it either. For a long time, I did not realize the full potential of technology studies for human advancement. This has gradually changed up to the point where I am now very much into it because of being surrounded by tech innovators.
Still, the very fact that I am writing about all this today makes me wonder if I am becoming insane now, haunted by this Two Cultures Problem, or if I am really up to something new. The fact is, the problem itself and the urge to solve it has never left me. In practice, I do assume that the problem is going to be solved quite soon. My thesis is that, due to the enforced transformation of the university in digital times, universities will actually turn into media companies. I mean, not really, they will still be doing (foundational) research but the business model will be very similar. I very much believe that the high reliance on third-party funding from public sources is going to decrease further and will be replaced by a more business-sponsored model. Counter to old worries, I do not think that this will necessarily impede the “free spirit” of scholars. The funding will be more needs-oriented, highly responsive to social changes and geered towards interdisciplinary problem solving. In addition, there will most likely be more diversified sources of revenue for universities and the products are going to be media in one way or another, i.e., knowledge communicated in various on- and offline formats. The latter point is exactly why I think that the humanities will eventually become popular and valuable again because their communication and interpersonal expertise is crucial for producing and marketing these media products.
So, this much on my mini theory of the future of higher education. How does rationality and my increasing interest in economics come in here? Yes, I am very much dealing with hands-on business thinking these days but if you do not fall into the trap of downsizing your brain by avoiding any complex big-picture thinking, you do end up with economics. This is especially the case since all the rising tech methods, including Big Data, AI, machine learning, etc., cannot be understood without economics — at least, the value of these tools cannot be understood without economic thinking — I think. This also renewed my interest in the commons. Obviously, if you are thinking about how big data analysis is already fundamentally changing the way science is being done, you end up wondering again what the humanities will do with this. And this takes you back to the Two Cultures again and the argument that the lack of communication and understanding affects innovation potential.
For me, there can only be one conclusion today: I do need to think more about this. The crucial idea of challenging my own, maybe erroneous assumption, that all disciplines are interested in maximizing their value (grants, output, reputation, etc.) deserves more thinking. I do not know so far if there are economic approaches to studying interdisciplinary cultural conflicts. For sure, there are game theoretical approaches to (cultural) conflicts. But I do not know if these have been applied to studying the research output and advancement of different disciplines in the academy. Certainly, until very recently, such studies, if they were actually done, could not have used big data for the analysis. So, assuming that there is research to be done on this, the new methods might enable us to finally shed more light on why it is that humanists and STEM scholars are still divided. Again, as I stated above, I am assuming that the practical problem might resolve itself because of increasing economic pressure on the universities and on particular fields therein. Still, we are putting the social capital of the humanities at risk in a way that we cannot revive it efficiently. This is why, from my perspective, the Two Cultures Problem still deserves scholarly attention. And for this, we will need economics in conjunction with the new possibilities of Big Data analysis.
Reflection Questions
1) Do you sometimes run the risk of denigrading people in a different field? Why?
2) What are the potential risks but also benefits of interdisciplinary conflicts?
3) What could be the long-term consequences of the current pandemic for economic theory development?