In its broadest sense, both "science" and "literature" are terms that cover almost everything related to knowledge, and therefore would come to mean practically the same. Etymologically, science (from the Latin scientia: to know) is synonymous with knowledge, and literature (from Latin littera: letter) includes everything written, which is almost everything we know. However, in their common sense, they have become little more than antithetical, and this divorce between "sciences" and "letters" harms both cultural hemispheres. Our unconnected culture is like a brain with a corroded corpus callosum.

The disinterest of people of letters for science is usually much greater than that of people of science for literature

But it should be noted that the situation is not as symmetrical as the image of the two hemispheres suggests. On the one hand, the lack of interest of the people of letters for science is usually much greater than that of people of science for literature (I know many writers who have no idea of physics or mathematics, but I do not know any scientist who shows the same disdain for literature). On the other hand, science advances more and more rapidly, while conventional literature is increasingly stagnant, to the point that for several decades it has been talking about the death of the novel or the exhaustion of poetry.

In any case, it is necessary to ask to what is due the lamentable divorce between sciences and letters (divorce, yes, because in their origins they were so united as the philosophy and the geometry in the Academy of Plato). And although the reasons are surely many and complex, the ultimate cause must be sought in the type of relations of production and exchange that govern our society.

In a society based on exploitation, exacerbated competition and waste, education and the cultural industry do not tend to train wise and thoughtful people

In a society based on exploitation, exacerbated competition and waste, education and the cultural industry do not tend to train wise and reflective people, but to become profitable producers and docile consumers of trinkets (including cultural trinkets, as in a world-market culture is just another commodity). Excessive specialization in work entails a parallel specialization in knowledge, and hence the cultural fragmentation typical of our society, a fragmentation whose most evident expression is the deep gap that opens up between science and literature. Therefore, the scientific disseminators and, in general, those who fight against cultural schizophrenia, we must be clear that our battle is, ultimately, a political battle, which is part of the struggle for the radical transformation of a society deranged and unfair.

TECNODEDSEC

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