The definition of a museum is still ideologically oriented

Complex World – NRC

Lesje Schroders explodes in her opinion essay (22/11) against the idea of ​​Minister Robbert Dijkgraaf (OCW, D66) to bring science closer to the people through communication. It constantly refers to “communication,” as if there is a unique interpretation of the concept. Communication is a diverse field that can be studied and described from many angles, sometimes resulting in irreconcilable linguistic and cultural differences. I am afraid that her argument is a good example of this and that she does not realize that today, after a long evolutionary process, we mainly live in a complex symbolic world, a world of letters and numbers, a world of images and gossip. All partnerships owe their existence to the possibility of communication, and a large part of the population makes their money with it in the first place: writers, of course, but also postmen and ministers. We do indeed learn useful communication skills in school, but in light of the enormous importance of communication to individuals and society, remarkably little time is spent on the basic mechanisms as we learn it in physics or biology. So much goes wrong in our society because we know so little about the process of human communication. It is not about trendy words like “transparency,” “openness,” or “transformation,” but above all about a sound and coherent scientific framework so that students not only learn to communicate about communication, but also learn to think about communication.

Utrecht

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