I’m surprised that you don’t mention the humanities as a really bad case where there is little low-hanging fruit and high ideological content.
Well, I have mentioned history. Other humanities can be anywhere from artsy fields where there isn’t even a pretense of any sort of objective insight (not that this necessarily makes them worthless for other purposes), to areas that feature very well researched and thought-out scholarship if ideological issues aren’t in the way, and if it’s an area that hasn’t been already done to death for generations (which is basically my first heuristic).
I wonder if “empirical testability” is a should be included with the low-hanging fruit heuristic.
Perhaps surprisingly, it doesn’t seem to me that empirical testability is so important. Lousy work can easily be presented with plenty of empirical data carefully arranged and cherry-picked to support it. To recognize the problem in such cases and sort out correct empirical validation from spin and propaganda is often a problem as difficult as sorting out valid from invalid reasoning in less empirically-oriented work.
Other humanities can be anywhere from artsy fields where there isn’t even a
pretense of any sort of objective insight (not that this necessarily makes them
worthless for other purposes),
It does make them, if not worthless, at least worth less for other purposes.
I spent a lot of time in college in the humanities, art (Bachelor of Fine Art degree, eventually), Philosophy, English (beyond the basic Comp and Rhetoric classes) etc.
The less objective the standards applied, the worse the product, the less effort put into it, the less the artist/author (and yes, I’m generalizing here) put into his work.
I had one class at a very anti-objective school where the teacher (and I almost never use that term, especially for instructors at that school) was fairly strict about meeting her standards, and the final critiques were amusing. Kids who skated by in other classes on a modicum of effort, little talent and a tractor load of post-modernist bullshit (mostly regurgitated and badly understood) got hammered for not working to the fairly loose requirements.
Art is not some special case of human effort where intellect and informed taste have bearing. It currently (since the ~50s) a place where intellect and informed taste have been told they aren’t welcome so the children could keep playing with their mud. And I don’t say this out of bitterness—I have very little talent for the “high” arts, and merely wish the people producing it these days were better at thinking than they are.
I disagree on the “artsy” fields. I feel like art history has reached a dead end because of the structure of the art market. As the area considered “art” for academic purposes has become more concentrated and expensive, scholarship has been undermined and I think we’ve seen a general unwillingness to engage new topics simply because they don’t lend themselves very well to museums or gallery sales.
AShepard:
Well, I have mentioned history. Other humanities can be anywhere from artsy fields where there isn’t even a pretense of any sort of objective insight (not that this necessarily makes them worthless for other purposes), to areas that feature very well researched and thought-out scholarship if ideological issues aren’t in the way, and if it’s an area that hasn’t been already done to death for generations (which is basically my first heuristic).
Perhaps surprisingly, it doesn’t seem to me that empirical testability is so important. Lousy work can easily be presented with plenty of empirical data carefully arranged and cherry-picked to support it. To recognize the problem in such cases and sort out correct empirical validation from spin and propaganda is often a problem as difficult as sorting out valid from invalid reasoning in less empirically-oriented work.
It does make them, if not worthless, at least worth less for other purposes.
I spent a lot of time in college in the humanities, art (Bachelor of Fine Art degree, eventually), Philosophy, English (beyond the basic Comp and Rhetoric classes) etc.
The less objective the standards applied, the worse the product, the less effort put into it, the less the artist/author (and yes, I’m generalizing here) put into his work.
I had one class at a very anti-objective school where the teacher (and I almost never use that term, especially for instructors at that school) was fairly strict about meeting her standards, and the final critiques were amusing. Kids who skated by in other classes on a modicum of effort, little talent and a tractor load of post-modernist bullshit (mostly regurgitated and badly understood) got hammered for not working to the fairly loose requirements.
Art is not some special case of human effort where intellect and informed taste have bearing. It currently (since the ~50s) a place where intellect and informed taste have been told they aren’t welcome so the children could keep playing with their mud. And I don’t say this out of bitterness—I have very little talent for the “high” arts, and merely wish the people producing it these days were better at thinking than they are.
I disagree on the “artsy” fields. I feel like art history has reached a dead end because of the structure of the art market. As the area considered “art” for academic purposes has become more concentrated and expensive, scholarship has been undermined and I think we’ve seen a general unwillingness to engage new topics simply because they don’t lend themselves very well to museums or gallery sales.