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Discussion Groups / English Usage / July 2009I don't understand the short paragraph
"The fixed person for the fixed duties, who in older societies was such a godsend, in the future will be a public danger. In the second place, the modern professionalism in knowledge works in the opposite direction so far as the intellectual sphere is concerned. The modern chemist is likely to be weak in zoology, weaker still in general knowledge of the Elizabethan drama,..." My first question is that what "godsend" exactly means here? The guy is lucky or the society could benefit from the guy? I don't grasp the sentence. The other questions, isn't here "professionalism in knowledge" meaning specializing in one area? If so, how come the author criticizes the chemist for knowing nothing else other than his specialization? And how come professionalism in knowledge "works in the opposite way"? Thanks for you reply. The following is the original full text: Another great fact confronting the modern world is the discovery of the method of training professionals, who specialise in particular regions of thought and thereby progressively add to the sum of knowledge with their respective limitations of subject. In consequence of the success of this professionalising of knowledge, there are two points to be kept in mind, which differentiate our present age from the past. In the first place, the rate of progress is such that an individual human being, of ordinary length of life, will be called upon to face novel situations which find no parallel in his past. The fixed person for the fixed duties, who in older societies was such a godsend, in the future will be a public danger. In the second place, the modern professionalism in knowledge works in the opposite direction so far as the intellectual sphere is concerned. The modern chemist is likely to be weak in zoology, weaker still in his general knowledge of the Elizabethan drama, and completely ignorant of the principles of rhythm in English versification. It is probably safe to ignore his knowledge of ancient history. Of course I am speaking of general tendencies; for chemists are no worse than engineers, or mathematicians, or classical scholars. Effective knowledge is professionalized knowledge, supported by a restricted acquaintance with useful subjects subservient to it. —Alfred North Whitehead (1861-1947) > "The fixed person for the fixed duties, who in older societies was > such a godsend, in the future will be a public danger. In the second [quoted text clipped - 6 lines] > is lucky or the society could benefit from the guy? I don't grasp the > sentence. A "godsend" is anything or (anybody) bringing so many benefits that it/he/she might have been sent as a gift from God. In the above example, society benefits. > The other questions, isn't here "professionalism in knowledge" meaning > specializing in one area? If so, how come the author criticizes the > chemist for knowing nothing else other than his specialization? Knowledge applied without awareness of possible side-effects can lead to future problems. The enthusiastic (over)use of pesticides, seen originally as the answer to world hunger, not only led to wafer-thin eggshells but also to chemists being regarded by many as pariahs involved in a world-wide conspiracy to poison mankind. Perhaps a subconscious reaction to being ostracised is one reason why so many chemists end up doing something completely different--such as making a nuisance of themselves on Usenet. > And > how come professionalism in knowledge "works in the opposite way"? This is not quite clear to me, either. I suppose it means that whereas, in the past, knowledge gained in one sphere was normally accompanied by knowledge gained in many others, today's over-specialisation means that specialists know virtually nothing about spheres other than their own. The outcome of this process is negative rather than positive. [...]  SignatureLes (BrE) Yilaner wrote: > "The fixed person for the fixed duties, who in older societies was > such a godsend, in the future will be a public danger. In the second [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > > My first question is that what "godsend" exactly means here? .... As it looks as if you're going to be sending lots of questions of this type, could I suggest that you'll get answers from a broader range of people if you stop using meaningless subject lines? "I don't understand the short paragraph" tells us absolutely nothing about what it is you want to know. I wouldn't myself have looked at your query if I hadn't noticed that Leslie Danks had answered it. In this instance "Godsend" would be a big improvement, or "Fixed person for fixed duties". Incidentally, who wrote the text you are quoting? It doesn't look to me like something written by a native speaker. There are at least two places where "the" appears but doesn't belong. Also I query whether the writer knows what [s]he is talking about. There is nothing specially modern about chemists' ignorance of zoology -- I doubt if William Perkin Jr. knew much zoology. Signatureathel Athel Cornish-Bowden wrote... > Incidentally, who wrote the text you are quoting? It doesn't look > to me like something written by a native speaker. There are at > least two places where "the" appears but doesn't belong. Also I > query whether the writer knows what [s]he is talking about... Yilaner mentioned a few threads ago that this was A N Whitehead at work: http://www.uefap.com/reading/exercise/tewufs/tewufsep.htm JFYI SignatureNoel > Athel Cornish-Bowden wrote... > [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > Yilaner mentioned a few threads ago that this was A N Whitehead at work: > http://www.uefap.com/reading/exercise/tewufs/tewufsep.htm OK, you are right. So I'm wrong about the "native speaker" bit, though I suspect that Whitehead inhabited a region so far above the heads of ordinary mortals that his writing might bear little relation to ordinary English. I doubt whether he knew much about chemists. Signatureathel >> Athel Cornish-Bowden wrote... >> [quoted text clipped - 11 lines] > heads of ordinary mortals that his writing might bear little relation > to ordinary English. I doubt whether he knew much about chemists. Agreed. But there it is. The "fixed person", and language so stultifying from the start that my mind refuses to let me read more than the bit of a quick scan that I did to find the quotation from Yilaner. He and a few others are the reason I am not now the world's greatest living philosopher. >On 2009-07-19 19:30:02 +0200, "Ildhund" <jnllb@removemsn.com> said: > [quoted text clipped - 12 lines] >ordinary mortals that his writing might bear little relation to >ordinary English. I doubt whether he knew much about chemists. But he did have some interesting ideas about processes. Anyone interested in getting a handle on the nature of reality might do worse than take a look here: <http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/process-philosophy/> SignaturePaul "The fixed person for the fixed duties, who in older societies was such a godsend, in the future will be a public danger. In the second place, the modern professionalism in knowledge works in the opposite direction so far as the intellectual sphere is concerned. The modern chemist is likely to be weak in zoology, weaker still in general knowledge of the Elizabethan drama,..." This is bad English. The first sentence says the opposite of what it means. (It says the "fixed person . . . will be a public danger:" what is meant is that the shortage of free help will be harmful.) We do not know in the second sentence to what "professionalism" is opposite. (Author A.N. Whitehead was notorious for the difficulty of his prose. He had truly valuable philosophical insights, and social ones too, but began as a mathematician and always had difficulty communicating in non-mathematical terms.) SignatureDon Phillipson Carlsbad Springs (Ottawa, Canada) |
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