Better Thinking and Incentives: Lessons from Shakespeare | Hacker News Reader

Better Thinking and Incentives: Lessons from Shakespeare

fs.blog

40 pointsfeross7 comments

> When Shakespeare was born there wasn’t yet a professional theater in London. His ‘useless’ Latin drills prepared him for a job that didn’t yet exist.…Why are we wasting precious classroom hours on fleeting technical skills—skills that will become obsolete before graduates enter the workforce?

I don't understand what this is supposed to mean? Latin was certainly not obsolete at the time and would remain relevant for several centuries after. Shakespeare did not write in Latin, but several of his plays are directly based on Latin sources, and so are his narrative poems. So I don't see who would consider Latin "useless"?

I may be misreading but I'm inferring from the text that Latin drills weren't useless, hence the quote marks. Is it not implying that he was getting taught something that would later become relevant?

Yes but it was already relevant, since it was the lingua franca of higher education. It wansn't like Latin only became relevant later.

I'm just confused about who would even suggest Latin was "useless" in the first place. But maybe something is missing in the quote.

There are suggestions in Shakespeare’s work that he resented the repetition and discipline that characterized his Renaissance education. This is relatable, as learning Latin in a rigid and laborious way must have felt less than practical and not especially useful to students then, as it often does to students now.

The author is pointing out that there was no audience or need for the type of linguistic creativity that Shakespeare was only able to achieve as a result of his intimate knowledge of Latin, until the professional theater emerged during Shakespeare’s very lifetime. The drilling and study in Latin proved, in the event, to be practical and useful in a new and unexpected way.

Shakespeare didn't write in Latin, but he did write Latin. His plays are full of Latin references -- and often jokes that are only funny to other people who took Latin in school. The Merry Wives of Windsor has an entire scene devoted to it, and even today it can be very funny. Monty Python didn't invent that joke -- and they sure knew their Shakespeare.

Shakespeare was less of a Latin showoff than Marlowe or Kyd. In fact he was mocked for his lack of a university education[1]. But he definitely considered Latin useful, throughout his career, and playwrights continued to reference it for many years.

[1] https://artsci.wustl.edu/ampersand/upstart-crow-shakespeares...

This very much echoes Dr. Edward Deming's thoughts on incentives and measurements. Deming emphasized unlocking peoples intrinsic desire to do a good job rather than fixating on extrinsic motivators such as bonuses and salaries. He also encouraged an environment of education and self improvement, and removing barriers to pride of workmanship.

The challenge today would appear to be our need or desire to chase higher salaries. It's not immediately clear to me what brought about this transformation in our prevalent motivation because I'm quite confident it's ubiquity is a recent phenomenon. Maybe it's consumerism and social competitiveness (envy) or maybe it's rampant inflation and subconscious existential dread on our ability to provide for ourselves and our families, or probably something else.

I never knew that angle of his work, do you have any references where these ideas were expressed, were they essays or some chapter in a book. I'm more familiar with this name regarding statistics, quality, and manufacturing sorts of details.

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