on academics, esp. of the past

[tsukikage]

Whatever one may say about modern academics, I definitely prefer them to 19th century academics. It might be mainly because I'm not used to 19th century language, but there's also an arrogance to them that I find really annoying, such as their ideas of the "cultivated" vs. "uncultivated" mind.
The great difference, in this respect, between the cultivated and the uncultivated mind is this-that the cultivated mind will be found to recall the past by certain regular trains of cause and effect; whereas, with the uncultivated mind, the past is recalled wholly by coincident images or facts which happened at the same time.
Absolutist much?
Of course, I know from myself that there is a such thing as cultivating one's mind, and I, for one, have much work to do in this regard, but... I don't know.

[EDIT: Now I'm reading a commentary written in 1948 which is much more readable and that I'm getting a lot out of, until this bit (akaneko, you might find this amusing):

There were a few bits of foreign language text earlier in the essay that weren't directly translated, but that had enough context to lead me to believe that the author felt that the point of the text was made well enough that those who didn't understand the actual quote weren't missing much, but this is ridiculous. Here, let me put some Japanese words in kanji/kana in the middle critical sentences in my essay on the history of Japan and not translate it. You can't even evaluate cognates! WTF are these people thinking?

On a different note, in looking at images from the new HachiKuro dorama, I feel like Takemoto (in the anime, and in the dorama - the one in the sweatshirt) is a bit too... Masculine. I mean, it's not horrible, and I know Takemoto isn't exactly a bishounen, but... I can't put my finger on it.]

Comments

[akibare.livejournal.com]

Hehehe. Brings back memories... in college I had to read various things for humanities classes, and in them often they would just assume that all educated readers should of COURSE know at least French. (Me? I don't know word one.)

Usually we would be provided a translation for those parts if they were really important, or we could really skip them and still get the main part of the article. But I always wondered just how it would fly for me to just drop a big ol' chunk of Japanese in my papers, with some similar lead in.

[tsukikage85.livejournal.com]

I suppose part of the problem was that in their time this was true... But I didn't know "their time" extended to the late 1940s.

[carve037.livejournal.com]

Yeah, even in my dad's time they kind of expected you to know your Latin and Greek.

[nyghtewynd.livejournal.com]

It's part of the deal of being a "true" academic. For instance, for me to get my Ph.D., I had to pass exams in written French and German in order to be able to go on with my research. It's expected that you can either read those things or know enough of it to be able to figure it out with a bit of work. If you can't, you're not in the club. :P

[tsukikage85.livejournal.com]

What is your area of research?

[nyghtewynd.livejournal.com]

Biblical studies. In order to start my Ph.D., I had to show varying levels of competence in Greek, Hebrew, Aramaic, French, and German. Yes, I'm insane. :P

[tsukikage85.livejournal.com]

Sounds fun to me. :)

[akaneko.livejournal.com]

In a special usage of "insane" that means "rockin'".

[akaneko.livejournal.com]

I'm all for attaining reading competencies in other languages for academic purposes - I read Spanish, Italian, Japanese, and Classical Chinese quite well, and can hack my way through German, Old Icelandic, and Classical Japanese to a certain extent. But what I know of Latin, Greek, and French is limited to what I can extrapolate about them from my knowledge of English, Spanish, and Italian. I would love to take the time to improve my Latin and French, since it would be relatively quick and easy in comparison with some of the others, but there's already some Chinese dialects higher up in the queue... and I really could use some Sanskrit...

All and all, I consider it the very basics of authorial courtesy that scholars ought to provide translations of passages that are of any real length or importance in any language other than the primary one their articles are written in. It's terribly rude to force one's readers to hack their way through forests of foreign signs on page after page, even when one's readers do happen to be able to do so.