{"id":31954,"date":"2018-03-06T14:59:52","date_gmt":"2018-03-06T19:59:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/?p=31954"},"modified":"2018-03-06T14:59:52","modified_gmt":"2018-03-06T19:59:52","slug":"maybe-neil-degrasse-tyson-should-embrace-the-humanities-more","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/2018\/03\/06\/maybe-neil-degrasse-tyson-should-embrace-the-humanities-more\/","title":{"rendered":"Maybe Neil DeGrasse Tyson Should Embrace The Humanities More"},"content":{"rendered":"<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\" style=\"text-align: left;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/rczJSBr.jpg\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-attachment-id=\"31960\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/2018\/03\/06\/maybe-neil-degrasse-tyson-should-embrace-the-humanities-more\/rczjsbr\/\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/rczJSBr.jpg?fit=1280%2C1707&amp;ssl=1\" data-orig-size=\"1280,1707\" data-comments-opened=\"1\" data-image-meta=\"{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;0&quot;}\" data-image-title=\"rczJSBr\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"\" data-medium-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/rczJSBr.jpg?fit=225%2C300&amp;ssl=1\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/rczJSBr.jpg?fit=700%2C934&amp;ssl=1\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-31960\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/rczJSBr.jpg?resize=700%2C934\" alt=\"\" width=\"700\" height=\"934\" \/><\/a>test<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-lang=\"en\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\" style=\"text-align: center;\">Bears repeating: Creativity that satisfies &amp; affirms your world view is Entertainment. Creativity that challenges &amp; disrupts your world view is Art.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">\u2014 Neil deGrasse Tyson (@neiltyson) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/neiltyson\/status\/970815875635929088?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">March 6, 2018<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><br \/>\nOh no, Neil DeGrasse Tyson.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">Oh no.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">No no no no no.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">*pinches brow of nose*<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">*exhales slowly*<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">Listen, I appreciate Neil these days more than I perhaps like him &#8212; I know he&#8217;s backed away from his POP CULTURE PEDANTRY (&#8220;A TIE fighter is not made of TIES and so therefore it cannot exist, ho ho! Star Trek? You cannot literally trek upon the stars, you could burn up your feet! My my! Harry Potter is neither hairy nor a maker of pots! I got you again, pop culture! Magic is not real and lightsabers are utter nonsense!&#8221;), but I still find that piled around his feet are the corpses of all the\u00a0<em>fun\u00a0<\/em>he has killed, and now, here he is again.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">Making proclamations about art.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">Let&#8217;s rewind a little to <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/neiltyson\/status\/904861739329708034?lang=en\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><strong>this tweet<\/strong><\/span><\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-lang=\"en\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">In school, rarely do we learn how data become facts, how facts become knowledge, and how knowledge becomes wisdom.<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Neil deGrasse Tyson (@neiltyson) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/neiltyson\/status\/904861739329708034?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">September 5, 2017<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Which, you know, is literally why we have the humanities.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s why a liberal arts degree isn&#8217;t actually human poison and why STEM is nice but STEAM is much, much nicer, because it\u00a0helps to generate people who not only <em>understand<\/em> information, but who can also <em>contextualize<\/em> it against all the other information that pushes and pulls upon it.<\/p>\n<p>He&#8217;s also <a href=\"https:\/\/scientiasalon.wordpress.com\/2014\/05\/12\/neil-degrasse-tyson-and-the-value-of-philosophy\/\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><strong>disregarded philosophy in the past<\/strong><\/span><\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>And now, he&#8217;s offering comments on what exactly counts as &#8220;art.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>So, unsurprisingly, it&#8217;s not a good take.<\/p>\n<p>Because, really, most takes attempting to find and thereby sequester the\u00a0<em>proper territory<\/em> of art and its margins adds up to a bad take. Because art is not a thing. I mean, art exists, but it&#8217;s a squirmy, wiggly target on the best of days, and on the worst of days, the definition of art is often one that attempts to create a kind of hierarchy, where Good Art is put into Nice Boxes and all that other stuff is kicked into the trash bin. And that leads us down some troublesome roads &#8212; we pit genre fiction versus literary fiction, let&#8217;s say. Or we pit hard sci-fi (grr) against space opera (whee). High fantasy versus low fantasy. Romance versus, well, everything not romance. Marginalized creators versus non-marginalized creators. It is, simply put, a good way to make\u00a0<em>some<\/em> art subterranean while other art gets to remain above ground, breathing the fresh air and staring up at the stars.<\/p>\n<p>Perhaps even worse, if you take it to its natural conclusion, it often puts us into the territory of that most dangerous of myths for us creators: the myth of the Starving Artist. And it does this in a handful of ways &#8212; it suggests first that entertainment is some crass and common thing, which ends up being where the money is. Then, because we&#8217;ve all internalized the myth that\u00a0<em>art<\/em> and\u00a0<em>money<\/em> do not dare travel together, we put something artistic into a such rarified air that it&#8217;s balanced at the pinnacle of a tower where no one can reach it &#8212; it ascends so high, it is truly inaccessible. But but\u00a0<em>but<\/em>, at the same time, by denigrating entertainment, it also gives an excuse for the peddlers of entertainment to pay the creators of entertainment\u00a0<em>less<\/em> &#8212; oh, that&#8217;s just pulp, that&#8217;s just bunkum, that&#8217;s just clownpants, you&#8217;re basically a clown, so dance for us, <em>clown<\/em>, DANCE FOR US *shoots pistols at artist&#8217;s feet*<\/p>\n<p>Ahem.<\/p>\n<p>The tweet is so simplistic, it fails to appreciate a nuanced view of art.<\/p>\n<p>If the definition of art is hung on the peg of our worldview, that&#8217;s already fucked up, because we have no single, permanent world-view. We&#8217;re not a hive-mind. We don&#8217;t all share our opinions through pheromones and antennae-rubs. It is entirely possible that he is suggesting, somewhat cheekily, that all art is subjective, but a) there are better ways to say that and b) it\u00a0<em>still<\/em> pushes past the idea that something affirming our worldview cannot be art to us. Which is nonsense. I&#8217;ve read challenging books that either challenged my worldview and brought me around to that perspective\u00a0<em>or<\/em> that helped me\u00a0strengthen\u00a0my already-existing point-of-view, and are those things less artful because of that? By his definition, yes. (By mine? Nope.)<\/p>\n<p>There is an art to creating entertainment, too &#8212; the act of creating fiction, or an image, or a sound, that is beautiful and peaceful and does nothing to challenge us but does everything to make us\u00a0<em>feel<\/em> something, that&#8217;s art. That&#8217;s really, seriously, definitely art. The ability for someone to create a scene (or a painting, or a song) that\u00a0aims to make me sad and then\u00a0<em>makes me sad<\/em>, yeah, no, that&#8217;s art. If it aims to make me happy, and I&#8217;m happy after? Art. If it&#8217;s just pretty to look at? Art. If it&#8217;s willfully ugly? Art.<\/p>\n<p>Art can be about feelings, not about thoughts.<\/p>\n<p>Art can also be about thoughts, and not about feelings.<\/p>\n<p>Put differently:<\/p>\n<p>Van Gogh\u00a0does nothing to challenge my worldview.<\/p>\n<p>He\u00a0fails to disrupt it.<\/p>\n<p>He\u00a0doesn&#8217;t particularly affirm anything, either, except that the things he paints look like the things as they exist, except through the erm, &#8220;lens&#8221; of his eye and the tool of his brush.<\/p>\n<p>So,\u00a0is Van Gogh not an artist?<\/p>\n<p>Shakespeare?<\/p>\n<p>Spielberg?<\/p>\n<p>Is\u00a0<strong>Get Out<\/strong> art?\u00a0<strong>Shape of Water<\/strong>?<\/p>\n<p>If they both entertain and challenge, does that invalidate them? Does it put those films in some elusive third category?<\/p>\n<p>Or maybe, just maybe, are there no categories?<\/p>\n<p>Hell, maybe NDT should just settle down, stick to science, and maybe in the meantime go back to college to get his humanities degree. That&#8217;d be okay, Neil. Go learn to write some poetry. Paint a painting. Read some philosophy. Liberal arts, Neil. It&#8217;s right there in the name &#8212;\u00a0<em>arts<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>P.S. I DON&#8217;T THINK BEARS REALLY REPEATED THAT, NEIL, I DON&#8217;T THINK YOU KNOW ANY BEARS AT ALL, STOP DRAGGING BEARS INTO THIS WHAT DID THEY EVER DO TO YOU<\/p>\n<p>P.P.S. ALSO SHOW ME ON THE DOLL WHERE POP CULTURE HURT YOU<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">* * *<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/DAMN_FINE_STORY-700px.jpg\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-attachment-id=\"31199\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/2017\/07\/10\/macro-monday-has-a-book-cover-to-show-you-deer-reader\/damn_fine_story-700px\/\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/DAMN_FINE_STORY-700px.jpg?fit=700%2C1074&amp;ssl=1\" data-orig-size=\"700,1074\" data-comments-opened=\"1\" data-image-meta=\"{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;0&quot;}\" data-image-title=\"DAMN_FINE_STORY-700px\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"\" data-medium-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/DAMN_FINE_STORY-700px.jpg?fit=196%2C300&amp;ssl=1\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/DAMN_FINE_STORY-700px.jpg?fit=667%2C1024&amp;ssl=1\" class=\"wp-image-31199 alignleft\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/DAMN_FINE_STORY-700px.jpg?resize=350%2C537\" alt=\"\" width=\"350\" height=\"537\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>DAMN FINE STORY: Mastering the Tools of a Powerful Narrative<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>What do Luke Skywalker, John McClane, and a lonely dog on Ho&#8217;okipa Beach have in common? Simply put, <em>we care about them<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>Great storytelling is making readers care about your characters, the choices they make, and what happens to them. It&#8217;s making your audience feel the tension and emotion of a situation right alongside your protagonist. And to tell a damn fine story, you need to understand why and how that caring happens.<\/p>\n<p>Whether you&#8217;re writing a novel, screenplay, video game, or comic, this funny and informative guide is chock-full of examples about the art and craft of storytelling&#8211;and how to write a damn fine story of your own.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Out now!<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.indiebound.org\/book\/9781440348389\">Indiebound<\/a><\/strong><\/span><strong>\u00a0|\u00a0<\/strong><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/amzn.to\/2vf6hNJ\">Amazon<\/a><\/strong><\/span><strong>\u00a0|\u00a0<\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.barnesandnoble.com\/w\/damn-fine-story-chuck-wendig\/1126583462\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><strong>B&amp;N<\/strong><\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>test Bears repeating: Creativity that satisfies &amp; affirms your world view is Entertainment. Creativity that challenges &amp; disrupts your world view is Art. \u2014 Neil deGrasse Tyson (@neiltyson) March 6, 2018 Oh no, Neil DeGrasse Tyson. Oh no. No no no no no. *pinches brow of nose* *exhales slowly* Listen, I appreciate Neil these days [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-31954","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"hentry","6":"category-theramble","8":"no-featured-image"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pv7MR-8jo","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31954","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31954"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31954\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31968,"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31954\/revisions\/31968"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31954"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31954"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31954"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}