tldr: Study literature if you enjoy reading fiction texts. The benefits – growing intellectually, emotionally and having career options for the future.

–

Someone asked me this on Formspring and I thought the answer was worthy of a longer reply.

Just to clarify, I’m using literature and language here generically unless I state otherwise, because I think what I have to say is applicable to any language e.g. French and consequently, the literature of that language i.e. French.

1. For the higher-order thinking skills of analysis and evaluation in a familiar setting.
   Here, I’m assuming that you like reading and you want to practice thinking critically as a means of personal development. If you don’t, this doesn’t apply to you.

   Now, you can derive these skills from studies in almost any discipline. The advantage of deriving these skills while doing literature is that you get to derive these skills in a domain you are comfortable with and enjoy i.e. fictional texts, drama and/or verse.

   Having said that, I must say that literature consists of a whole range of genres and periods. Not everyone is comfortable in learning higher-order skills in texts from ‘strange’ genres or older periods.

   For example, I only really started understanding what literature was about when I started doing contemporary texts in my last two years of university.

2. For the humanity!
   All aspects of literature deal with the study of human beings – the ways human beings think, the ways we interact with other people, and our motivations for doing these things.

   I think this is very important in anyone’s education – it provides perspective and (hopefully) reduces chances for conflict between human beings.

   If your question is: But how does it benefit me?, then this is my answer: life is not about you.

   Life is learning about other people which in turn helps you – you learn to reflect on your actions, you learn how to communicate to reduce miscommunication, etc.

   And that helps you be a better person so that you can be a better person to other people.

   Once more, most humanities/social science courses offer this perspective, so choose literature as the vehicle to help your growth only if you like reading fiction texts.

3. For the future, because that’s what we’re all working toward.
   Besides degrees or careers in education or the arts, the sensitivity to language and language use provides good training for degrees or careers in:
   • law,
   • the media,
   • public relations,
   • advertising and
   • marketing,

   to name a few industries that are not commonly associated with learning literature.

   Why?

   Success in these degrees/careers depend very heavily on communication skills, and one very important aspect of these skills – put simply – is knowing what word to use at a certain point in time and why you have to use that particular word at that point in time instead of another word.

   Again, you don’t have to do literature to gain these skills if you have a good command of the language, so it really boils down to personal preference.

Have a question for me? Head over to my Formspring page to post your query.

I found this especially funny, because it riffs on the chorus of one of my favourite songs – “500 Miles (I’m Gonna Be)” by The Proclaimers.

More Song Lyrics as Google Maps here.

(via)

Its face says it all.

SPOILER ALERT: However, you should go to the original thread and read this comment. It helped explain Inception for me.

“Even worse, however, is the conveyor belt effect. Precisely because, in the unquestioned name of meritocracy, a certain type is rewarded in our society, there is immense pressure to churn out more of the same. Parents shape their children with these goals and young adults remake themselves to fit into the straitjacket. Alternative types and outliers are left to wither, sometimes actively pruned away.”

Will this ever catch on in Singapore, given our penchant for ‘chope’-ing seats?

“Over the last 20 years, our societies have become much more attached to the idea of majority rule. The internet has contributed to this sense of empowerment… . However, we have not advanced as much in our respect for the rights of others to think and act differently from us. The internet is exposing us to difference without necessarily increasing our appreciation for difference.”

The title says it all. This is parody, BTW, in case you didn’t get it the first time round. ]]> http://laremy.sg/2010/08/14/stuff-you-must-read-today-sat-14-aug-2010/feed/ 0 http://laremy.sg/2010/08/07/youre-waiting-for-a-pre/ http://laremy.sg/2010/08/07/youre-waiting-for-a-pre/#comments Sat, 07 Aug 2010 15:40:21 +0000 Laremy http://laremy.sg/?p=2424

A Pre that will take you far away.

You know where you hope this Pre will take you, but you can’t be sure.

Yet it doesn’t matter – because we’ll be together.

Er, actually, no – it does matter. Where is the Palm Pre Plus?? I’ve been waiting for it to appear on Expansys for ages.

Which direction do you and your partner kiss in?

“Pigs feel optimistic or pessimistic about life depending on how pleasant their environment is, researchers at Newcastle University have found.”

– So do humans.

“A video outlining a broadly similar example predicament, as described in song by an ex-teacher, Mr. Gordon Matthew Thomas Sumner, Hon DMus, Commander of the Order of the British Empire, (a.k.a. ‘Sting’).”

“Why would a healthy normal man want to slice off his testicles?”

“Before The Fence, before the 14th Amendment, before Arizona, there were the First Illegal Immigrants…”

Finally! A meatless alternative to the Turducken. ]]> http://laremy.sg/2010/08/07/stuff-you-must-read-today-sat-7-aug-2010/feed/ 0 http://laremy.sg/2010/08/06/on-culture/ http://laremy.sg/2010/08/06/on-culture/#comments Thu, 05 Aug 2010 16:05:27 +0000 Laremy http://laremy.sg/?p=2430

Found the bit that I like the most:

It angers me when after hundred years of importing aspects of other people’s culture some politician in a 4,000-ringgit Italian suit complains about Western values and such-and-such a thing is not from our culture. Our culture is everybody else’s culture. We’ve never had our own. You can’t arbitrarily draw a line to freeze its change and growth. And it angers me when people like Thomas Thomas expect me to be original, when in fact to be Malaysian is to be derivative. Deal with it and grow up. Would you like some coffee? No? It’s Colombian.

– Huzir Sulaiman. “Notes on Life and Love and Painting.” Eight Plays. Kuala Lumpur: Silverfish Books, 2002. 135.

You’ll like this if you watched Inception and liked Inception like how you like this.

“Managers looking to strengthen their authority are wise not to hire overqualified workers … An overqualified person may be difficult to maintain authority over. They can have a bad attitude that’s infectious.”

I never knew they cared so much.

“I think that the manicured walks mirror our schooling system. We have a centrally planned curriculum that … relies largely on the model of decontextualized delivery. It is efficient and predictable. But it is so embedded in our culture that most teachers, parents and students know no other way.”

The dangers of posting TMI on the Web.

Now if only Malaysia could loan us Johor for a bit… ]]> http://laremy.sg/2010/07/31/stuff-you-must-read-today-sat-31-jul-2010/feed/ 0 http://laremy.sg/2010/07/27/stuff-you-must-read-today-tue-27-jul-2010/ http://laremy.sg/2010/07/27/stuff-you-must-read-today-tue-27-jul-2010/#comments Tue, 27 Jul 2010 06:56:10 +0000 Laremy http://laremy.sg/2010/07/27/stuff-you-must-read-today-tue-27-jul-2010/

I feel very strongly about this issue because I am someone who has been excluded from the public housing market because of the astronomical prices.

To hell with Inception… This is THE must-watch movie of the year!

A paper which suggests that it’s good for universities to hire PhD graduates who have not been trained by the same university so as to encourage diversity in thought, cross-fertilisation of ideas, etc.

Am posting this up because I remember having this conversation with someone back in NUS about this policy – NUS seldom (or never) hires faculty who have NUS graduate degrees.

How is this distorted or misleading?

BYU produces a stunningly good parody of the recent Old Spice ad.

Why the future won’t the same – or as scary – with the advent of technology. ]]> http://laremy.sg/2010/07/27/stuff-you-must-read-today-tue-27-jul-2010/feed/ 0 http://laremy.sg/2010/07/25/der-wanderer-uber-dem-nebelmeer/ http://laremy.sg/2010/07/25/der-wanderer-uber-dem-nebelmeer/#comments Sun, 25 Jul 2010 13:49:42 +0000 Laremy http://laremy.sg/?p=2372

3:44:21 PM Laremy: hey
3:44:26 PM Laremy: wanted to ask you
3:44:31 PM Laremy: what is the ***[redacted: number of days]*** call-up for?
3:44:36 PM Melvin: lol
3:44:38 PM Melvin: ***[redacted: military activity]***
3:44:40 PM Laremy: oh
3:44:43 PM Laremy: i must go too?
3:44:58 PM Melvin: yah
3:44:59 PM Laremy: oh
3:45:07 PM Laremy: so even the ***[redacted: sub-unit]*** does ***[redacted: military activity]*** ?
3:45:13 PM Laremy: i thought we should be doing ***[redacted: more appropriate military activity IMHO]***
3:45:18 PM Melvin: yah so they say
3:45:32 PM Melvin: if nothing is done for us i will express disappointment
3:45:37 PM Laremy: how?
3:45:43 PM Laremy: shake your head and tsk very loudly ah?
3:45:44 PM Laremy: hahaha
3:45:52 PM Melvin: hahaha perhaps

A Subnormality Comic.

The 48-year-old volunteer, who claimed to have caught 1,200 couples on the beaches since signing up as a volunteer in 2004, said he had had enough.

“I cannot take it any longer and am thinking of giving up this work. I have decided that enough is enough after six years as a volunteer,” he said.

“[Collective intelligence] holds out hope that the human race will prosper mightily in the years ahead—because ideas are having sex with each other as never before”.

– LOL. (via)

What Bastian Schweinsteiger’s surname actually means!

Win.

Oh, God – Yes! ]]> http://laremy.sg/2010/07/17/stuff-you-must-read-today-sat-17-jul-2010/feed/ 0