‘Two Cultures’ Revisited

Summary

Vanity of Science Knowledge of physical science will not console me for ignorance of morality in time of affliction, but knowledge of morality will always console me for ignorance of physical science.

(Pascal, Pensées, No. 23)

Pascal's pensée is calculated to irritate leader-writers, politicians and curriculum theorists, among whom there is almost universal agreement that knowledge of physical science is a key component of any suitably modern education. This consensus is routinely signalled by a reference to ‘the two cultures’, a phrase that has by now become the inevitable cliché whenever anyone wants to deplore ignorance of physical science either among humanists or among the population at large, or, more rarely, whenever someone wants to point to philistinism among scientists.

A first reaction to the second of these matters might be to observe that philistinism is not confined to scientists; if the experience of no-doubt jaundiced academics can be trusted, it is alive and well among young people. Even more striking, one might, in looking at university literature departments and the fine art world, point to rampant philistinism within the professional heart of the humanities. In any case, while Matthew Arnold might have raised discussion of some topics related to our theme in terms of philistinism, philistinism was certainly not a category used by Pascal to interpret the world. Nor, I think, would it have commended itself to Dr Leavis in his now infamous, but today largely misunderstood wrangle with C. P. Snow over the ‘two cultures’.