One thing that young people who are trained in the scientific disciplines learn early on is the distinction between precision and accuracy. I think that the distinction is something that might be important to introduce more widely into non-scientific discourse, especially when it comes to verbal communication.
From where I stand, our society tends to give an appropriate focus on accuracy, that is, whether the person who is trying to communicate facts & concepts is actually transmitting facts & concepts that are in line with the “truth.” This is important in debates that revolve around topics that are heavily grounded in empiricism. On the other hand, I do not believe that people give great attention to precision. When the topic is less empirical, and more based on idealistic conceptions of ends and norms, this is an enormous problem, as, roughly speaking, “people often talk past one another” because of the lack of precision in terminology (how many arguments end in, “oh, that’s what you meant!”).
This is why a “canon” is important. Canons of texts, especially in areas like literature, express rather fuzzy “truths” that are not easy to establish empirically (let me be frank and say that I don’t understand deep down what “insights on human nature” literature can give that biology, psychology and economics can’t). Nevertheless, a common lexicon of references and values can evolve that allow the formation of a class of individuals that communicate with each other at a high level of precision.
I believe that our own culture is moving away from this precision, and this is partly due to the “opening of the canon.” With gays studying gay literature, women studying feminist authors, minorities studying their own ethnic literature, cross-communication becomes labored because of a lack of common references to establish precise communication of intent and context. As something of a literary philistine I don’t particularly care much what books we read, as long as the educated classes digest a common core of texts that can form the basis of a common world view of values and references.
The European elites had the classical authors and the Bible, the Chinese had the texts of the Spring & Autumn periods (and later commentaries), the Muslims had the Koran and Hadiths while Hindus had the Ramayana, Mahabharata and the Upanishads. Ultimately, I think the differences between these texts in detail is less salient than the human universals they express, and the common lexicon that they fostered among the elites of these societies.
Posted by razib at 01:02 PM