Summer Art

Because he is infinitely cooler than me, I'm going to see if I can emulate my good buddy Holden who posts art he has made every day, sometimes new stuff, sometimes old stuff. You can check it out (and I strongly urge you to do so), here.

Today, we have some characters from the Ivory Tower.

The Ivory Tower was/is a concept I'm still mucking with, but as with most of my ideas, I enjoyed the conceptualizing and pretty utterly failed at the execution. The basic premise was the anthropomorphic personifications of academic subjects. The point was to explore the relationships between them. Humanities students don't identify with Math students who don't identify with Art students, and so on. And within the basic houses, there are huge differences.

I once walked in on a furious debate between a History student and an English student about who had to write more papers. The argument was silly to begin with because so much depends on what teachers you have. Some teachers assign 3 papers a quarter, which determine your whole grade (I HATE that, for the record). Others require a page long paper every week. And of course, the KIND of writing is different. While obviously, most English students can and do write research papers, and History students can and (though less often) do write creative works, the emphasis is still very different. But I didn't want to introduce a Quantity Versus Quality dynamic to what was already an asinine discussion.

Engineering students frequently don't relate to Physics students, even though there's so much overlap. Drama kids rarely get along with band kids. The point is, there is a culture to subjects, at least on the university level if not throughout academia, and I wanted to represent it with characters. Of course, all of this is through my perceptions of said subjects, and others have totally different ones, which was why I had wanted it to be a rather collaborative effort, and indeed, got a lot of tips and ideas from various individuals.

So the Ivory Tower itself is a giant...castle/private school. Rather like Hogwarts now that I think about it. It is presided over the rarely seen Polymath and broken into the 3 main houses mentioned above: Humanities, Sciences and Art. Of course, even here, there is some difficulty. The Physikies...Physics, Chemistry, Biology, etc...disdainfully look down on the Softies...Psychology, Anthropology, Sociology (triplets), Political Science and so on, which bounce between Science and Humanities as the Social Sciences. Mathematics and Physics don't get along because they are the two big guys in the little sandbox and they're just alike enough to hate each other and just different enough to not merge into a crazy amorphous blob. No one knows what to do with the art students. Or the philosophy students, but for the most part, they stay out of everyone's way.

So with that longwinded introduction over, here is the first couple Students I worked up.

Statistics is that girl everyone kind of hates, but also wants to be with. Sociology has a huge crush on her, but since they're so often in the same study group, he doesn't say anything because he doesn't want it to get 'weird.' She's the kind of girl who actually runs for the ASC. And wins. Her brother, Mathematics, particularly avoids her because she so often tries to one-up him and twists his words around in knots. She never goes steady with any one person for long and frequently makes rounds among the Softies. Her younger brother, Probabilities is always trying to tag along but he just mucks up her scene and she's always trying to distance herself from him.

Speaking of...



Meet Probabilities and his best friend Quantum Theory. Quantum Theory is Physics ginger-step-brother. Literally. But he doesn't let the weird stares or the nearly universal awkwardness and sidelong glances get him down. Probabilities and Quantum Theory hang out a lot, mostly because they get ignored or shunted by everyone else, and because they're a little young, they don't always relate the same way the others do. This, however, leads to lots of (truthfully, hilarious) pranks and shenanigans as they try to get everyone to just lighten up.

Materials: Pencil, .4 fine point pent, Photoshop.
Sketchbook: His Chthonic Majesty Dreams of English Summer Rain

Some Administrative Work

What? I can't come up with clever Titles all the time!

Okay, first, best laid plans of mice and men, eh? I'd really like to get back into blogging because besides enjoying writing, I feel it helps my academic work by encouraging me to explain what I'm learning to people outside my class. We all know we learn by teaching, right? It helps me focus and take really good notes, because I will be talking about it here later. So that's in the positive column. However, I'm also acutely aware that I have a lot of reading to do, a lot of studying, and not a ton of time. So there will undoubtedly be days I want to write where I'm simply unable to, and then will lose the drive. So here's hoping.

Secondly, while I always appreciate when people tell me in person or via some message that they enjoy something I wrote, or they give their opinion on it, I would really prefer if people posted in the comments section. It's what it's there for and it makes it look like I'm popular >.> Don't judge me for wanting to be internet famous.

Alright, I will probably be doing a mind vomit later today, after homeworking, but I wanted throw out some thoughts stemming from a conversation I had with a friend. He was lamenting the loss of the 'Renaissance Man.' The jack-of-all-trades, brilliant in many fields, not bound to a single discipline. Leonardo Da Vinci is, of course, considered the paragon of such individuals, but all the other Ninja Turtles could certainly be considered, as could Newton and Galileo, among others. Now, we are apparently without, as our society does not allow for them.

I disagree with this dichotomy for several reasons. First, there's the nostalgia that always comes with considering the past, especially that which is most removed. We love the idea of warrior-poets, trabadour-knights, those who were "classically" trained in a variety of arts. Of course, we can have these romantic conceptions because we're not there. We don't if they consider themselves the same way we consider them. So I posit that these well-rounded folk are not so different from us.
Which brings us to my second issue: the notion that they are exceptional. Don't mistake me, Da Vinci, Galileo, Newton, they were brilliant men. Fundamentally altered the world as we know it, no doubt. I do not, however, subscribe to the idea that our society systematically discourages us from being well-versed in a variety of fields.
It's easy to see where such an idea comes from. After all, economics is based on the concept of specialization. Jane can make 12 sweaters or 4 pairs of socks in the same amount of time while Jim can make 4 sweaters and 12 pairs of socks. Sure, both could do it, but society as a whole would benefit most if Jane made sweaters and Jim made socks. Trade, exchange, barter, all based on this idea. so yes, we are encouraged to focus on one field. That doesn't mean that people can't expend energy on other fields as well. Many people have hobbies, which are completely independent of their vocation, do they not? If we are separated from those men of the 16th and 17th century, it is more likely by how we fill our time. I'm not saying that leisurely activities are inherently bad. I play video games, watch movies, read books both deep and vapid. But if we were really interested in a variety of studies, we would pursue them. What they had and we (in general) lack, is drive, focus. That is an individual flaw, not the fault of society.
Furthermore, I don't think we do too badly. Think about our general education system. Yes, it is flawed, no argument. But students are exposed to a variety of sciences, right? They do chemistry, biology, physics...exposure let's them see what grabs their interest. It is unfortunate we do not teach philosophy until secondary-higher education as rhetoric and logic do not seem to be highly valued by the Powers-That-Be, but you ARE required to take a bit to get a college degree. We REQUIRE people to try different subjects, to study things that they may not think interest them, to make sure they get a wide range of exposure. Not as rigorous as Jesuit schools of the Counter/Catholic Reformation, but the effort is made.

After all, our idea of the Renaissance man as being free, not tied down to a career is already flawed. All of these people had day jobs. Da Vinci and Galileo both worked in ballistics. They helped their respective governments make war more effectively by working out the science of things like cannons. Newton was a professor. It seems we have the idea of the starving scientist, someone who rejects the materialistic/capitalist notions of work and salary to pursue internally-motivated studies. I don't think they would have conceived of themselves that way. After all, they had to pay the bills too. The only ones would would not need to maintain some sort of 'normal' vocation would be those sponsored by the government, such as Tycho Brahe, the first royal astronomer. They still had a job to do, however, and we tend to look down upon those paid by the government, as if the politics stains the science. And of course it does, but trying to separate politics from science would be like trying to disentangle a knot of yarn with your teeth.

These were great men. But nobody forces us to not emulate them. Nobody says we can't pursue lots of different studies, try to better ourselves academically, intellectually, artistically, martially...But if you don't think you can, don't blame society or capitalism or anything else for it, save your own lack of motivation.

~
PS: I'm well aware that circumstances do not always allow us to pursue what we'd like. Economic, political, social issues get in the way. I don't wish to say that it is solely the individual's fault. Things happen, go wrong. It is just that in my personal experience, people blame the system for things that it does not enforce. Okay, disclaimer over.

Secondary Note

Somewhat attached to my previous post.

In my economics class (which you'll notice I didn't go into a lot, mostly because I hate economics. It's an extremely important study, no doubt, it's also totally not how I think and...well, you get the idea), my teacher makes certain statements which could be considered either "positive" or "normative."

A positive statement is simply relaying some factual information. 2+2=4 is a positive statement.

Normative statements are made based on value judgments. "Lower taxes is the best way to improve the economy" is a normative statement. It is based on opinion and sets of values. That doesn't make it invalid, but the two should not be conflated.

Both kinds of statements can be WRONG. Correctness is irrelevant, although for normative statements, "correctness" is usually a matter of perspective.

Perhaps it is because in the Humanities, teachers have to walk on such eggshells, I am used to professors apologizing or putting disclaimers on what they say. Yet my economics teacher will just throw stuff out there, and the reason is this:
To him, it is NOT a normative statement. It is a mathematical equation. Now sure, if you wanted to argue the significance, or the consequences, I'm sure he'd probably say it depends, but for the most part, I don't think it occurs to him to question what he's saying.

In my experience, the Humanities (that is, anthropology, human services, history, philosophy, and to a lesser extent, sociology and psychology) place a much greater emphasis on questioning one's presuppositions than any other field. I'm not sure what it all means, but it's something I'm going to be watching for more now.

Also, math students scare me.