a corollary to ne’er tarry
For a few years, I have been reading textbooks unrelated to my courses of study. Mainly philosophy textbooks, or psychology, a few history ones thrown in, too. And, to date, I still have a very difficult time grasping the usefulness of that which we term ‘theory‘, or, in the terms of wikipedia, “theory as model”.
I am currently taking one completely random course that goes over the education and scientific cultures of just about every vibrant society that has existed, and using “vibrant” in the western world’s view of technological progress and adaptation. While America has historically had a view of merit as something to be earned, France, historically, sees merit as something you are born with and is later discovered through formal education. I wonder if they ever have people climb the ladder in business culture, but this generality assumes that blue collar breeds blue collar and white collar breeds white collar and the elite breed only their own kind.
Jumping back to theory, what I was taught, those generalities, are theories about how French children are given access to their world. It assumes that every child’s mind is cultivated according to its birthright potential. But what about the exceptions? Theory as model suggests that exceptions are ok and natural. Then, what does the presence of exceptions say about the theory? Do we need a better theory? An all-encompassing, single theory to rule them all?
I suppose that string theory in physics is attempting to do just that. My biggest issue with such grand theorizing is a basic query that, surely, most people must pose: what’s the point? A theory generalizes a bigger picture, down-samples reality into a handful of consumable packets that university educators can feed to kids unwilling to search for a grander image. I am not brushing off the importance of education, but theories themselves seem flawed. I have a feeling that cultural and societal and historical theories only play the modern role of stimulating stereotypes, rather than providing legitimate foundation for greater research.
Theories need some work. At some point in humankind history, we lost interest in specialties and instead began looking for the general, as if we were trying to zoom out of the frame. I believe that cultural theories could improve rapidly if they reversed focus, swapped out the wide-angle and attached a macro lens, and got right up against the individual. Physics once tried to back further and further out, to try and encompass all of the universe - one, fantastic Newtonian theory. Then, atomic patterns and forces were discovered, fully throwing off-balance the prevailing idea that mass was the ultimate mover and shaker. The change of perspective shook the univerisity physics departments all over the world.
Cultural theory could use some earthquake of its own.