Horizon

His summary of his university experience is not without application today, however:

"The schools of Oxford and Cambridge were founded in a dark age of false and barbarous science; and they are still tainted with the vices of their origin. Their primitive discipline was adapted to the education of priests and monks; and the government still remains in the hands of the clergy, an order of men whose manners are remote from the present world, and whose eyes are dazzled by the light of philosophy. The legal incorporation of these societies by the charters of popes and kings had given them a monopoly of the public instruction; and the spirit of monopolists is narrow, lazy, and oppressive; their work is more costly and less productive than that of independent artists; and the new improvements so eagerly grasped by the competition of freedom, are admitted with slow and sullen reluctance in those proud corporations, above the fear of a rival, and below the confession of an error. We may scarcely hope that any reformation will be a voluntary act; and so deeply are they rooted in law and prejudice, that even the omnipotence of parliament would shrink from an inquiry into the state and abuses of the two universities."

Ben, I take it you find the bold part of the passage shocking? I think I agree with him; I've seen the corrolation between scientific and "moral" rigidity (as Gibbon might have called it) often enough to think there's something to such a claim. There are plenty of problems humans have to face that don't allow the kind of "rigid demonstration" that hard sciences require.

Alan, your passage is probably going over my head, as I don't know much about the two universities. Do you favor the abolition of the tenure system? "The competition of freedom" is an interesting phrase, something free marketeers might want to pick up.

I take it you find the bold part of the passage shocking?

Yes, I do.

I have no argument with the notion that a scientific education is insufficient to make a moral character or a good citizen. And I've seen more than a few people who were neither, but whose mastery of a technical field led them to overestimate their abilities outside their realm.

Gibbon's not making this point, though -- he's actually arguing that the ability to do mathematical proofs would have been a detriment to his character. By that logic, his ignorance or inability is a positive good, which helps him make his way through life.

How is that not shocking?

Judging from how the passage is worded (I haven't read and probably won't read the book) I don't think he's saying that the ability to do proofs would be a detriment to his character, but that the "habit" of doing them would. Seems to me that's a big difference.

Alan, my comment was more of a comic throwaway than a considered one, but I do [in my crabbier moods anyway] think there's a whiff of similarity between Gibbon's false and barbarous clergy and some of the tenured po-mos of today.

Dude that is so why I quit physics. (^_^)

Anyway, I'm going go with Ben's interpretation insofar as it seems that the habit and the ability go hand in hand unless you're particularly brilliant. It implies a certain amount of hardwiring--which is why I have to disagree that his comment is disturbing. Aren't breakthroughs always discovered by the young anyway?

I know not of what I speak, lacking both brilliance and prolonged study, but...eh. My idea of enlightenment is a green chili cheese slide at a truck stop in New Mexico.

Alan, my comment was more of a comic throwaway than a considered one, but I do [in my crabbier moods anyway] think there's a whiff of similarity between Gibbon's false and barbarous clergy and some of the tenured po-mos of today.

Yeah, but then you get down to that old thing, don't you, where x is good, but only so long as people you agree with get it?

I don't know, I signed up for the "History-and-Theory" mailing list the other day, thinking that I'd either get, A) a bunch of total crap written in impenetrable faux-translated-from-German style, which would be amusing, or, B) some insights into modern historiography. Any bets on which I'll get? Ha.

Alan, if you haven't, you ought to check out Postmodern Pooh.

It implies a certain amount of hardwiring--which is why I have to disagree that his comment is disturbing.

Makes sense to me. Yeah, I think there may be something to it, though even if "moral rigidity" is more common in mathematicians and scientists there's still the question of whether the vocation makes people rigid or whether rigid people are more attracted to it.

Neal Ascherson, who I think had an old-fashioned Scottish education with all the austere erudition of the Kirk, said somewhere that Latin's pedantry makes a clerk out of you whether you realize it or not; I'm sure Orwell must have said something similar in one of asides about St. Cyprians or somesuch.

Ha, I love it. "Clerk" is just the right word for it.

I sort of unofficially dropped out of math with a little statistics and less trig (which I bitterly regret nowadays, but oh well), but I do remember thinking, when I was spending four hours a day trying to cram all the different ablatives into my head, that you don't really read Latin sentences, you solve them.

(The very word "ablative" makes me want to scream. And if anyone tries to tell me that Latin is more efficient or elegant than English, I will shout "ablative" at them until they come to their damn senses. Be warned.)

The very word "ablative" makes me want to scream.

Feh. Three words for you: locative, instrumental, and dual.

I remember how shocked I was that our Sanskrit text started with the 14th conjugation, thinking "I've got how many more of these to go?" No wonder I quit after one semester.

Hey, I think I'd rather have fourteen separate cases rather than about 18 cases that somehow morphed into a single case over time. Figuring out whether an ablative is an ablative of instrument, ablative of cause, ablative of sphere, ablative of manner, ablative absolute, etc. etc. drove me to distraction.

Speaking of math and languages, I think I told Ben about the 1st year prof who told me, "I'm sorry, but we don't teach to the lowest common denominator." This after the class had shrunk from 24 1st semester to 4 2nd.

But to heck with her. I dropped that class like a bad habit and took it up again the next year with a much better teacher. I think I am the only person in UT history who almost didn't graduate for lack of 6 hours of Sanskrit. Fortunately they made up a class for me over the summer and the prof with attitude ended up teaching religious studies in podunk Alabama.

So much for one overly rigid member of the false and barbarous clergy. (^-^)b

Not fourteen different cases, fourteen different declensions -- with eight cases times three numbers times three genders apiece!

Actually, I see that I wrote "conjugation" above -- I can't remember how many conjugations we learned, but it certainly wasn't fourteen. Sorry about that.

Ah. Well that does suck. Guess it's a good thing that languages tend to simplify over time.

Neal Ascherson, who I think had an old-fashioned Scottish education with all the austere erudition of the Kirk, said somewhere that Latin's pedantry makes a clerk out of you whether you realize it or not; I'm sure Orwell must have said something similar in one of asides about St. Cyprians or somesuch.

Not that I can remember, but the classics seemingly did teach Orwell and Ascherson both to speak concisely, trusting their readers not to need over-explanation. That's a nice trait.