Two Cultures

I’m a TCK, otherwise known as a “third-culture-kid.” I was born into a Korean family, grew up in China, and attended American international schools since the age of 8. I grew up building an ambiguously assembled identity of my own through multiple intersecting worlds. When I started my college career, I naturally gravitated to pursuing cognitive science, a field that could provide me with a similar interdisciplinary experience.

https://www.madisonzeller.com/cultureclub

Discussing philosophical and artistic implications of human thinking requires the application of computer science and statistics to model the way our minds work, evolutionary psychology to uncover human behavior, and behavioral neuroscience to understand what happens in our brains at a molecular level. The beauty of the field lies in the ability to examine phenomena from different perspectives without the dissociation of sciences and humanities. 

https://www.carleton.edu/cognitive-science/

This isn’t to say that such dichotomies don’t exist on UCLA’s campus. Despite there not being a physical divide, the separation of South Campus (STEM) and North Campus (humanities) is more apparent than not. Implicit biases and over-generalizations toward a specific half of campus contributes to the perpetuation of out-group stereotypes and the crystallization of groups, where “the feelings of one pole become the anti-feelings of the other” (Snow 12).

 

This week’s content has taught me that, in truly becoming the third culture, active communication and collaboration between the two cultures play an integral role. As C.P. Snow states, “closing the gap between our cultures is a necessity in the most abstract intellectual sense, as well as in the most practical” (53). The rapid growth of technology has provided us with a promising third culture with a wide array of new opportunities (Brockman), ways of expression, and communication (Kelly). Technology is artistic and scientific: its development requires a network of professionals from different fields, and each pillar is cannot stand on its own (Vaage 9).

 

This isn’t merely about understanding differences in methodologies, but more importantly about sharing perspectives and world views. As Victoria Vesna explains, a “working relationship needs to be based on mutual respect and dialogue” (3). Rather than surrounding oneself with only like-minded people, finding ways to expand and diversify one’s bubble by meeting people of different backgrounds and disciplines can help us bridge the two cultures in the communities we’re part of without reinforcing the very binaries we’re trying to overcome. 

https://lattice.com/library/how-to-create-a-culture-that-encourages-communicati

References

Brockman, John. “The Third Culture.” Introduction | Edge.org, 1 Jan. 1996. Web.

Kelly, Kevin. "The Third Culture" Science 13 February 1998: Vol. 279 no. 5353 pp. 992-993. Web.

Snow, C. P. “Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution.” Reading. 1959. New York: Cambridge UP, 1961. Print.

Vaage, Nora Sørensen. "On Cultures And Artscience: Interdisciplinarity And Discourses Of “Twos” And “Threes” After Snow’s Two Cultures". Nordic Journal Of Science And Technology Studies, 2016. Web.

Vesna, Victoria. “Toward a Third Culture: Being in Between.” Leonardo 34.2 (2001): 121-25. Web.