In a recent post on the humanities, I wrote on a theme I’ve touched on several times since I first began blogging for Brainstorm—the declining interest in the liberal arts, and more particularly, the humanities. I noted the obvious—that the thrust of higher education is away from the study of the liberal arts toward study of the useful sciences. Students, parents, administrators, education consultants, legislators and business leaders are now loudly clamoring for a measurable return on the investment in a college degree—by which they mean, “Show us precisely how this college degree pays off in terms of a job and an income.” The liberal arts—and again, particularly the humanities part of them—are having trouble playing by these new rules.
This past year, Martha Nussbaum, the well-known philosopher and University of Chicago professor, striving to escape the pressure on the liberal arts to prove themselves in the economic realm, proposed an alternative idea. In her book Not for Profit (Princeton University Press, 2010), she argues that the liberal arts—and again, especially the humanities part of them—are necessary for making good citizens in a healthy, modern democracy.
Nussbaum’s democratic citizen carries three main traits: He or she is well informed and knows the facts, uses critical thinking by applying logic to detect bad reasoning, and possesses a “narrative imagination,” making it possible to imagine and feel compassion for another person’s situation. While not disputing that part of the purpose of education is to prepare students for employment, Nussbaum argues that an equal, if not more important, purpose is to prepare them to become the kind of citizen she describes. Otherwise, we’re headed for “nations of technically trained people who do not know how to criticize authority; useful profit-makers with obtuse imaginations.” To Nussbaum, then, the most dangerous threat to democracy lies in the tendency of people to defer to authority.
Nussbaum singles out the Socratic method for special praise. Socratic learning—at the heart of many of the humanities—encourages students to question traditional assumptions and authoritative voices, and teaches them rational argumentation. The Socratic method alone isn’t sufficient to the formation of good citizens, however. Nussbaum argues that such endeavors as dance are necessary to expose students to ways in which they can imagine and feel compassion for the plight of others—a prerequisite if democratic citizens are to tackle the injustices of the modern world.
While Nussbaum’s argument for the humanities never goes so far as to equate their study with moral goodness, it comes awfully close. All who love a liberal arts education, and especially the humanities part of it, find it hard to relinquish the idea that it helps make human beings better in a moral or ethical sense. Alas, morals and ethics—including the part involving empathy and compassion for others—depend more on habits and behaviors, nursed in the family and community from infancy onward, than on any particular kind of education. It can’t be repeated often enough that wicked people can be learned aesthetes, and ignorant people kind and virtuous. A moral education is not the same as education in the liberal arts.
Nussbaum is convinced that practice in Socratic thinking leads to good citizenship, and, surprisingly, for a classics scholar of her stature, she sees it as a benign exercise that comes without danger. She passes lightly over the fact that it was Athenian democracy, not aristocracy, that executed Socrates. Introduced too early in an education, or introduced to a student without the temperament to handle it, or used by professors intent on bludgeoning old beliefs to make way for new ones, Socratic thinking results not in wisdom about how to handle uncertainty, but in sloppy relativism, or worse, nihilism. Or simply an enervated intellectual stamina—a situation where young people lose confidence in the power of reason to resolve anything.
The capacity and willingness to criticize authority is good only conditionally—when the person who possesses it is capable of holding back from destroying worthwhile traditions that might not be able to withstand withering Socratic critiques.
The liberal-arts education will survive, but not because it can be justified on utilitarian grounds. It will survive because it is beautiful, and too many people love it to let it die.
11 Responses to The Humanities, Part 2
record - January 21, 2011 at 8:26 am
Laurie, your last three paragraphs are particularely good. Thanks for these two articles.
jeconnery - January 21, 2011 at 12:16 pm
For the educator, who can only be responsible for what happens in the classroom, it seems the key is to balance raw content and the methods with ethical habits. That is, a moral education is not defined solely by the outcome. It is also defined by the process, educating morally.
The family and community will often trump the classroom. But, at the very least, the classroom might be one venue in which habits and behaviors are modeled. The problem, as you rightly suggest, is ensuring that educators are aware of and in the habit of being thoughtful about the issues you raise.
Well done!
formerprof05 - January 22, 2011 at 12:20 pm
“The liberal-arts education will survive, but not because it can be justified on utilitarian grounds. It will survive because it is beautiful, and too many people love it to let it die.”
Really? I wish I could be as sanguine about the future as you. Just let nature take its course so as to automatically produce a sufficient number of “poetic” types, and all will be well. But as I learned in biology classes and from Nova, nature is not nice.
As Frank Donoghue has pointed out, it may already be too late to reverse or even retard current trends. A traditional liberal arts education is likely to survive at the most elite institutions, but where else? By taking your approach, how can we hope to inculcate and promote for most college students a knowledge of history that helps us to make sense of the present, an ability to understand and appreciate religious and philosophical worldviews other than our own, a willingness and skill in critiquing the arguments of others, or an empathetic understanding of human nature itself?
I don’t agree with many of Nussbaum’s political assumptions that you rightly criticize. Humanities courses will not guarantee that students become better or more ethical persons. But they can awaken empathy in some and promote broader understanding of human expression and culture. And I submit that such results can be of practical use in many different careers and, moreover, can promote a sense of the common good.
I’ve tried to make this case more fully in a series of blog posts, beginning with “Why Market the Humanities” (http://bit.ly/amu5Je). If we can’t justify study of the humanities or a liberal arts education to some extent on practical grounds, the philistines among us will surely win.
pocvecem - January 22, 2011 at 5:09 pm
Fendrich wrote:
“The capacity and willingness to criticize authority is good only conditionally—when the person who possesses it is capable of holding back from destroying worthwhile traditions that might not be able to withstand withering Socratic critiques.”
Is our columnist defending things like evangelical Christianity or does she only mean the traditions that she personally considers “worthwhile?” I wonder where she draws the line.
goxewu - January 22, 2011 at 9:59 pm
Re formerprof05:
“If we can’t justify study of the humanities or a liberal arts education to some extent on practical grounds, the philistines among us will surely win.”
At bottom, this is a plea to jigger the evidence to fit a desired result. This philosopher, seeking truth, won’t do it; the strategist, seeking an effect, will. This is the difference between Socrates and, oh, David Axelrod or Roger Ailes.
Re pocvecem:
“…does she only mean the traditions that she personally considers “worthwhile?” I wonder where she draws the line.”
We all draw the line somewhere as to which traditions are worthwhile and to what degree. If we don’t, we’re left with, the tradition of, oh, loyalty to country followed absolutely, and we know where that ends up. And some traditions, e.g., evangelical Christianity (which isn’t really a “tradition,” strictly speaking, but never mind…) are the result of severe break with previous tradition (e.g., the Protestant Reformation). To ask Prof. Fendrich for a laundry list of traditions of which she approves (yes, she seems to be a liberal overall and would probably favor traditions which favor liberalism; so?) is to distract from a pretty justifiable observation: that intellectual doubt induced in young people at the wrong time, in the wrong does, can have unintended adverse consequences.
goxewu - January 22, 2011 at 10:00 pm
Sorry: “breaks with previous tradition” and “in the wrong dose.”
goxewu - January 22, 2011 at 10:16 pm
Addendum, re pocvecem:
Pocvecem might want to take a look at a nice essay and an intelligent thread, on student skepticism, in another part of the CHE online: http://chronicle.com/article/The-Perils-of-Unleashing/125926/
pocvecem - January 23, 2011 at 3:02 am
@ goxewu
Welcome back.
There are two things for me to point out:
- There’s a very important difference between the article you recommended (which was, as advertised, very nice) and this one. Fendrich is talking about things that won’t stand up to Socratic thinking. The other discusses science, which will stand up to that rigor, but the other author names postmodern theory as the source of skepticism that we need to be careful of.
- I asked the question about drawing a line because Fendrich’s formulation begs for misuse. It looks like implied consent for a lot of things we’d never agree to because the philosophical prescription fits things such as evangelical Christianity. The article you recommended does not seem to fall into that trap.
formerprof05 - January 24, 2011 at 4:25 pm
@goxewu
I’m not trying “to jigger the evidence to fit a desired result.” Recall that the liberal arts have traditionally been regarded as proper preparation for professional careers. We seem to have lost sight of that.
Still, you’re welcome to reject my approach in the interest of “truth” (what is that?). If you are a professor of philosophy, you’re also welcome to starve as a result.
goxewu - January 24, 2011 at 10:40 pm
Practical justifications for the humanities may be the non-existent WMDs of higher ed. It’s not good philosophy to try to cook the intelligence so that it looks like they exist just because, to keep humanities departments going, we need them to exist. That’s what I mean by jiggering the evidence.
And speaking of welcomes, formerprof05 is welcome to come up with something a tad better in the way of practical justification other than the commencement-address bromides he offers in his initial comment.
archavers - January 28, 2011 at 12:32 pm
I have the ablity to understand the Socratic method but in a universal authoritarian society one wonders if the fate of Socraties would be waiting for them. I feel a great crush on like minded indiviuals creating a word conversation with meaning being the ultimate understanding, but can we really upsurp the vision of authority? What constitutes a humanistic approach has a value of belief that one can see, but the will to accept, keeps the conversation of questioning, in a box . This box has moved thru the years as uncomplicated, but the complication has a number one , this number one is always challenge but never replaced. It really dosen’t matter who asassinated Socraties the question is are we going to question the question??