Bonfire of the Humanities

They are not called the “Humanities” for nothing.

The latest debate on college campuses, perhaps rivaled only by the corrosive tension around anti-Semitism, is the dismal state of the humanities.  A recent New York Times piece reported the nationwide assault on the humanities, affecting even such esteemed and unimaginably wealthy schools as Harvard.  (Schools like Harvard could, of course, offer “impractical” courses to individual students for zero tuition.)  The anti-humanities rhetoric has been further fueled by general antipathy, including among so-called liberals, toward courses in social justice, women’s studies, gender studies, critical race theory, and anything else that pisses off the self-satisfied guardians of the social and political status quo.

The “arguments” against the humanities include declining enrollment in liberal arts courses, the supposed impracticality of such education, and the constant drone about return on investment, especially as the cost of the “investment” skyrockets.  It has been a generation-long phenomenon, beginning with the insidious trend toward higher education leadership, both trustees and administrators, coming from the business world.

College and university ranking systems include analyses of the earning power of graduates, an absurd measurement in that the students at the most selective schools have countless advantages before they ever step on campus.  And students, many anticipating the burden of student loan payments, opt for the majors and courses that seem to promise the greatest earning power.

All of this invites the question, which I’ve been asking for decades, “Do we live in a society or an economy?”  The answer seems clear enough in that everything, including the very survival of the planet, is subjected to economic analysis.

Advocates for the humanities are too often drawn into the argument on the enemy’s terms. “But, but, the humanities develop critical thinking and facility with language, skills that will be of great value in investment banking and software design.”  That these counter-claims may be true is beside the point – at least beside my point.  It is like the constant justification of environmental polices by “proving” how beneficial they will be for the bottom line.  This may also be true, but sets up the inevitable logic that such policies may be reasonably abandoned if they prove to be unprofitable or less profitable than the rapacious alternative.  This very dynamic played out recently in the abandonment of major wind power projects.

The humanities are thus named because they are the pathway to understanding, perpetuating, and advancing our humanity.  In this era of artificial intelligence, social isolation, and raging conflict, such human understanding is arguably more important than ever.

The enlightenment of humankind has never been represented in spreadsheets, marketing, or statistical analysis.  Economic activity is not de facto corrupt, but it is ethically and spiritually neutral – or worse.  And even if a new generation of pragmatic business majors has a vague impulse toward decency and justice, what preparation will they have had to actualize or deeply understand the human complexity of decisions they will make?

It is not an intractable problem, if leaders in educational institutions have courage and conviction.   The requirement of a core humanities requirement has largely fallen by the wayside.  When students and parents are seen as “consumers” and higher education is just another “market,” colleges will continue giving them what they want – whether a new student union, a big-time football program or the (often false) promise of a better-paying job.

Of the greatest importance is the centrality of the humanities in living a rich life.  Especially at a time when elementary and secondary education have abandoned the arts for fiscal or misguided policy reasons, colleges and universities have a profound obligation to invite their students into beauty, wonder, and examination of the past in order to forge a more humane future.  A single Bach Cantata or a Billy Collins poem contains more wisdom than four years of an undergraduate business curriculum.

At a time when inhumanity is rampant, whether in the Israel-Hamas tragedy, unmitigated gun violence in America, environmental destruction of species and habitat, and global drift toward authoritarianism, we need everything possible to restore our humanity.  And that means restoring, not eviscerating, the humanities.

Our lives depend on it.