RE: The World According to Walter

Cecilia: It's like loving a cheeseburger so much you have to study it on an
atomic
level. Examining the beauty of the atoms doesn't stop you from taking a
bite.
  
Daniel: But some (not necessarily you) get so involved with the atoms that
the cheeseburger remains uneaten, forgotten on the table.

Cecilia: This doesn't work for me, either. The average civil engineer
won't bother
bending my ear with his "irrelevant arcane methods" if he (or she) doesn't
think I can fathom them.

Daniel: There's a difference, you can fathom them to whatever degree you
wish to invest in it, but if you don't care about it then you can most
certainly still enjoy your house. Truth be told most engineers would gladly
discuss engineering with any unsuspecting victim (just a warning), wear a
string of Literary criticism essays around your neck to keep them away.

Cecilia: However, if this selfsame engineer can see that my house has a
staircase
that's going to make it hell on laundry day, he's going to tell me in
terms I can understand, and I'm going to listen because I know he knows
more than I.

Daniel: Yes but it doesn't take an engineer, many builders and craftsman
can just as easily help you (with a house). Actually, the staircase thing
would be an architects balliwick.

Cecilia: In a similar vein, I'm not going to argue with someone with no
basis in
literary criticism about the finite details discussed somewhere therein,
but I am going to tell him that he needs to think about breaking up his
thoughts into smaller paragraphs so I don't perish from cross-eyed
disease.

The problem with the humanities is that they're accessible to everyone,
and so therefore, everyone feels that they should be able to take part in
all discussions of them. Not so. Such an attitude negates any need for
expertise. It may seem useless to the average layperson to deconstruct a
text, but to the people who enjoy it, great meaning can emerge.

Daniel: Sorry about the monolithic paragraphs, writing on the fly as I
work. Concerning what discussion I can participate in, Hey you can gladly
keep your inaccesible discussions on humanities and I'll read and write
anyway. When you need another Ivory tower let me know, I can help you design
it so it won't fall down, the loads should be light.

Like I said in previous bananafish posts, some great insight comes from the
non proffesional, even in engineering. I know several artists (in New
Mexico) with no formal art education who make a nice living on their work
and are asked to teach in formal schools. I have learned a hell of a lot
from the craftsman and technicians who I have worked with in my career. In
fact the best education I got was from an inspector who didn't even graduate
from high school. People can study engineering and build and have all kinds
of success without knowing the theory and all they need from is my stamp.

Hey, enjoy away. Just don't put any on my cheeseburger.

Cecilia: Or to put it into terms that an engineer can understand, a widget
is just
a piece of metal until you realize the whole damn operation rests upon it.

Daniel: What's a widget? I think I remember those from my Macro-econ class.
I'm sorry, I don't follow (no sarcasm).
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Received on Tue Oct 29 19:24:45 2002