If you stream the A’s students too Science and “second-grade students” to liberal arts – and the first category of people become doctors, dentists, engineers, scientists, technicians, whilst the second category becomes accountants, lawyers, businessmen, politicians filling by preponderance the positions in government and corporations what kind of society would we get?

The top 10% of the intelligence distribution especially at the helm of power – political or corporate – has a huge influence on whether our economy is vital or stagnant, our politics and culture healthy or sick, our institutions secure or endangered. Of the simple truths about intelligence and its relationship to education, this is the most important and least acknowledged.

Arguably the progress of a society depends crucially on where we distribute the top ten per cent of gifted persons with high intelligence specially whether at places where they have control and influence on the lives and happiness of the rest of society.

If you put your “second rate students” in the Arts, are you preparing an elite adequately for duty?

(Here I am equating “second rate or grade” students with second rate or grade intelligence for purposes of simplifying illustration of argument, which is of course not necessarily true all cases : second rate or grade students may be of superior intelligence uninspired by the particular nature of academic challenge thrusted upon them).

No wonder the political elites are half past six if the lesser brains are channeled to leadership position in politics through the arts!
In Malaysia more than ever the emphasis on science is the leadership’s priority to supply manpower to form the industrial base.

But what is good for that particular vision – some would say vain pretension – is not necessarily beneficial for the individual’s development having regard to his unique talents.

Students should be streamed according to their natural talents and inclinations depending on which stream – science or arts – they display from their academic work relative strength and superiority.

The development of a person’s innate and unique talent and interest in a field (whether Arts or Sciences) should be our first priority for without talent and interest, one cannot develop excellence.

The priority to put the best brains in Sciences over arts is therefore a wrong and misconceived priority. We have to acknowledge the existence and importance of high intellectual ability in the top 10%, and think about how best to nurture the children or students who possess it – whether in Science or Arts – without partiality in relation to which field, except to the extent as dictated by their unique and particular interest, inclination and innate strengths as evinced in their schoolwork.

In Malaysia we need not even ponder on these priorities. We should go back to basiscs and get English proficiency back on track and restore Meritocracy, the lack of which is the mother of all evils.

Just to amplify a bit on what I posted earlier on May 23rd, 2007 at 5:31 pm.

I assume logic is a methodology of the principles of correct reasoning.

But what is valid reasoning may not be true: for example:
Major premise: Dogs are brown.
Minor premise: Rover is a dog.
The conclusion in logic is Rover is brown.

This is not the truth because the major premise “Dogs are brown” is untrue.

I assume Literature, though dwelling on feelings, sensations, the intuitive and subjective and often introspective perceptions, can help me in getting the major premise right – that some dogs are brown, some black, some white, some mixed etc.

The methodology of correct reasoning is but a tool but for the shaping of the product of truth we also need the correct ingredients and raw materials, which Literature helps abundantly to provide.

And why the Irrational may discern the Truth?

Take another example:

Major premise: Dogs are brown.
Minor premise: Rover is brown.
Conclusion: Rover is a dog.

The methodology of reasoning here is flawed : the fact that Dogs are brown, Rover is brown, does not logically mean Rover is a dog because cats and bears may also be brown though they are not dogs!

Yet though methodology/logic is invalid and irrational, yet the conclusion – that Rover is a dog – may be true.

“Maths and Science– their brains and mind-sets need to be of a certain “configuration” eg. discipline and willingness to slog and sweat over solution of technical problems” – K1980.

Lets more the moment assume that is right. What kind of “configuration” of mindset is suited for those in Arts and Humanity stream? If discipline and willingness to slog and sweat over solution of technical problems are demandedin maths and science, can the comparatively lesser “discipline and willingness to slog and sweat over solution of technical problems” for the Arts inclined be adequately compensated by greater imagination and creativity in configuration of mindset? Do you agree that in Arts, imagination and creativity play a greater role?

Assuming you do, would imagination and creativity be of greater importance for success in life? Lee Wang Yen said above “The common feature of all ‘real’ academic subjects is the effort to reach the truth – i.e. to find out what really is the case…” Do you think or not think imagination and creativity will equally if not help more the effort to reach the truth – i.e. to find out what really is the case…”?

On the question whether in reading literature one could try to find out what is the fact of matter in the world (in its mathematical, logical, physical, sociological etc realms), let me if I may cite a few examples:

Shakespeare plays teach values (I don’t know if one would consider values a “fact of matter in the world” though I know values are important in Life).

On example : “The quality of mercy is not strain’d,
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath: it is twice blest;
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes” – Portia in Merchant of Venice.

John Keat’s poem “Ode on a Grecian Urn” begins with “Thou still unravish’d bride of quietness, Thou foster-child of Silence and slow Time, and ends with the famous lines: “Beauty is truth, truth beauty, – that is all Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.’
The equivalence of beauty and truth is found in the philosophy of Friedrich Schiller: that beauty is when the subject’s true inner nature (its “truth”) is truly expressed. We do not know who the figures are on the urn, what they are doing or where they are going. They are transfixed – forever reaching for something they cannot grasp or attain. Is that Appearance versus Reality? In a letter to his brothers Keats himself said he tried to express his theory of “Negative Capability” through the poem. He said (I quote) “what quality went to form a Man of Achievement especially in literature & which Shakespeare possessed so enormously – I mean Negative Capability, that is when man is capable of being in uncertainties, Mysteries, doubts without any irritable reaching after fact & reason”…

Albert Camu’s books (eg Kaffir) and Catcher of Rye novel by J. D. Salinger explore the boundaries of Jean-Paul Sartre’s Existentialism.

Another example – the plays of George Bernard Shaw . Androceles & the Lion seeks to find out “what the world is like in its…..religious realms” in relation to questions like what religion means to different people and why there is religious persecution in a setting of Roman persecution of Christians thrown to the wild beasts in the Coliseum. His play “Man & Superman” deals extensively with the institution of marriage and will enlighten those who seek to find out “what the world is like in its…..sociological realms.

American author Ernest Hemingway, for example, uses metaphors to reflect his life experiences and opinions. The ocean in The Old Man and the Sea is a metaphor, which represents Hemingway’s personal view of life. Hemingway believes that in life everyone must find their own niche and uses the metaphor of the ocean and the boats on it to demonstrate this.

Even our own Hikayat Hang Tuah expound the virtues of the values (feudalistic) of blind loyalty to the Sultan…..

It may not be all the time literature seeks in matters of “truth” about the physical world but it does seek the truth in the metaphysical and ethical world.

Thanks for the response and elucidation Wang Yen.

Thus far I agree with your following points:

· ‘As what Plato argued (and continued to be defended by many current epistemologists), what we are after in our pursuit for knowledge are not simply true beliefs, but justified or warranted true beliefs’.

· ‘Logic (both deductive and inducitve) and scientific methodology are not fool-proof. Yes, they are imperfect. They will not lead to infalliable truths. But insofar as we are happy with approximate truths and mostly reliable scientific knowledge that grows and accumulates, logic and scientific methodology are the best tool we have in the pursuit of truth’.

Whilst I also agree that creativity and imagination may be cultivated by “playing chess, puzzles, and bricks, and through solving mathematical problems and computer programming”, I am however for the moment not convinced that this “epistemically proper way” is the preferred way for the development of a all rounded human being in lieu of literature and fine art.

Then you said “..//…. I think a kind of literature where the aesthetic element is constrained within the bounds of good epistemic practice of clear, objective, precise, and logical thinking would be ideal. But even such a kind of literature will still have no academic value..//”

There is truth in SOME but not all literature “promoting bad epistemic practice: it encourages the use of exaggerated language and emphasise rhetorical aesthetic at the expense of objective, fair, and reasonable perspective and the clarity of thought”.

You have said, “I think a kind of literature where the aesthetic element is constrained within the bounds of good epistemic practice of clear, objective, precise, and logical thinking would be ideal.”

I think there are some good literatures (novels & plays) with straightfoward language with minimum aesthetic element. One example I cited earlier is the George Bernard Shaw’s plays.

The other statement “But even such a kind of literature will still have no academic value” is however not agreed – the expression academic value meaning (I take it to be) the value of getting at truths (in your words) “ to find out what is the fact of matter in the world (in its mathematical, logical, physical, sociological etc realms)” .

Dear Wang Yen,

I see where you are coming from based on your last posting at May 24th, 2007 at 12:13 am.

To use a homespun analogy, you’re saying Literature is but a mirror of so called reality (whether history, philosophy, ethics etc) – so, the argument proceeds, why if one’s objective is to grasp (or have a snapshot) of that reality, wouldn’t it be good epistemic practice to look direct at the reality than the look at the mirror to reflect it, when the mirror itself does not purport to be a reality but a mere reflector and what more a mirror is subject to distortion of blemish on surface or distendment of surface due to heat or cracks?

How do I find the words to answer you? Though you may think it absurd but the nearest I can express it is for some of us, we actually think or feel we see clearer the object as reflected by such a mirror than if we were to gaze at the object itself direct. That is the value added that Literature provides (for us). I grant you it could be value judgment.

And Wan Yen

I have had some exposure (albeit not in depth) to Continental Philosophy if you mean the philosophical traditions of certain 19th and 20th century philosophers from mainland Europe – works from Plato, Søren Kierkegaard, Friedrich Nietzscheof all the way to Baron de Montesquieu, Stuart Mill to more contemporary Karl Popper. .and I agree with you that the potpurri of literature you find there (especially when Theology come into the picture in studies on Thomas Aquinas and Milton’s Paradise Lost), you can really hate literature. However, I venture to think that you may and could possibly take a different view had you really studied and majored in literature and had a run of it not from that ancillary kind mentioned – but really the great works of literal figures, as those majoring in Literature do and can testify to what I say.

It happens. In my experience, 75% of time, posting of comments instantaneous, 25% deferred, sometimes more than 1/2 a day or more! The uploading of comments doesn’t seem consistent all the time for this platform Word Press. This disrupts, in running exchanges, the sequence/thread of comments and counter response and sometimes creates confusion in the engagements.

Financial reward shouldn’t be the main motivating factor especially when one has no particularly liking for the work he does…..

One works (say) 7 hours a day, imagine not liking what one does, and in many cases hating and being stressed by what one does, just to earn the extra money to provide substitute satisfactions that money could buy, appears to me to be a roundabout arduous way of trying to be happy but end up having poor health instead due to stress.

On the other hand if one has a liking and passion for one’s calling, one can put in the extra hours at home after work (when it is m music instead of drudgery), meet deadlines of work commitments to employers’ or customers’ satisfaction without the stress but the sense of pride and challenge of a work well done, where the hours spent in working (after working hours) are themselves a pleasure.

In my personal opinion, it is best to prioritize passion and interest in one’s chosen career (with financial reward per se, taking second position) because it holds the maximum prospects of excellence.

It matters not if one’s chosen career is business, academic research, doctor, lawyer, cobbler, hawker, travel writer…It is so not only because it maximizes chances of being able to make significant contribution to ‘pushing back the frontiers of human knowledge’ or the difference of abstract benefit to society, nation, the world or humanity or one’s own personal development and growth.

It is also (ironically) relevant from financial reward point of view over longer run.

The world does not owe anyone a living : it pays you what you give back in terms of provision of services or goods. If owing to passion you always give back to the world services and goods superior to one it pays you, what do you think will happen?

You become dependable and sometimes even indispensable. The world will always look for you, reward you for being there. You would have a niche. For your work has come to stand for excellence and a badge of your personal integrity for not taking others for granted and giving back more than what you take from others.

When you don’t think of riches as main priority, ironically wealth will look for you, and even if the nature of work is such that there is not much money can be made from it, no matter how successful one is in the chosen field, the chances are remote that one would ever be destitute or in want of money.

On the other hand it is the singular obsession with money (without pride and integrity in or liking of one’s work) that causes downfall of many a wealthy man who gives shoddy and substandard product or service, breaks the law, commits crimes (corporate crimes) as a result of the mud raking pursuit of money.

True, the economic environment as it impacts on one’s work may change but given passion chances are there that one could innovate, take a different track of how things are done to overcome the challenge and triumph in the end.

Again there may be a ‘lucky few’ to whom making money as in business is also an interest and passion (where the desire for making money and passion of his work to make money appear to intersect).

For these, whether they remain financially successful depends on whether they overreach or exceed prudent level of risks in what they do. Whether they are an all rounded person and acquire other forms of wealth (in terms of development of personality, wisdom, relationship) is however another question.