I studied at one of the best engineering schools in the US but I confess I had to look up those terms.Geodesy is the branch of geology that studies the shape of the earth and the determination of the exact position of geographical points, and photogrammetry is the science of using photographs to do so. I wondered whether the fellow couldn’t find a job in his field or if he realized that he didn’t like making maps. Maybe he got an engineering degree to satisfy his father.
I thought about that man again when I watched an interview with financier Wilbur Ross, who said that the US might be a second-rate power in five or 10 years because the country is graduating too few engineers. Ross also said that the federal government hinders the development of the country by having no industrial policy and by having cut R&D spending over the past decade. For example, he said the government subsidizes tobacco farming when that money would be much better spent on basic research, and that it spends billions on highways when railroads carry intercity cargo with 25 percent less fuel. However, his main argument was that education tops all other investments for long-term development.
In mentioning this subject to a friend, I closed the e-mail with “xxx ooo,” meaning kisses and hugs. Looking at the symbols prompted me to ask which was which…for the “o” looks like a little mouth, but then it also could represent the idea of embracing. The consensus opinion holds that the “x” is the kiss, originating from the times when illiterate people would sign their names with an “x” and then kiss the sign to seal the contract.
That little foray into symbol research reminded me of the time a Turkish man complained that he had spent some $200,000 so that his daughter could get a degree in semiotics from Georgetown University, a degree that he thought worthless. I assured him that it was a legitimate field of study, that the great writer Umberto Eco taught the same subject in Bologna, that he should be happy that the girl completed her university studies. I said she might make a living in brand management -- you never know. He felt relieved, and in any case the money was spent.
As a word addict I cannot stop with only one Google result, so a few more clicks took me to “Metaphors We Live By,” a 1980 linguistics paper by G. Lakoff and M. Johnson. They wrote of a young man from Iran who came to study chemistry at UC Berkeley and heard another student talk about “a solution of my problems” -- a phrase that “he took to be a large volume of liquid, bubbling and smoking, containing all of your problems, either dissolved in the form of precipitates, with catalysts constantly dissolving some problems (for the time being) and precipitating out others.”
They also posited “argument is war” and proved it by saying how we “defend” our position and “attack” our opponent’s: “Though there is no physical battle, there is a verbal battle, and the structure of an argument -- attack, defense, counterattack, etc. -- reflects this.”
Naturally this brought to mind William James and his argument for the moral equivalent of war, his 1906 proposal for the conscription of all able-bodied young men for national service in addition to those needed in the military. “It would be simply preposterous if the only force that could work ideals of honor and standards of efficiency into English or American natures should be the fear of being killed by the Germans or the Japanese,” wrote James.
The idea of a moral equivalent of war has new resonance now that we talk of an all-volunteer army in Turkey. Let us continue training engineers and semanticists, architects and filmmakers, but let the country benefit from its young people and their geodesic dreams.
