The debate about the roles of the humanities seems to be one of those perennial arguments which are never really settled. The same debate raged when I attended college almost forty years ago, and if anything, the voices have grown louder with time.
Perhaps one reason the question never seems to get settled is that most apologists for the humanities couch their argument in terms foreign to the disciplines they are defending. The humanities, they assure us, provide skills that help workers adapt to an ever changing job market, promote the kind of intellectual flexibility demanded by modern occupations, and open the floodgates of the creativity a modern economy demands. What is noticeably lacking in their arguments is discussion of the value of the humanities in and of themselves, that is, apart from their ability to yield economic rewards.
Of course, to defend the humanities from an economic standpoint makes sense. After all, we live in an age of efficiency. Ours is not just an age that demands such efficiency, but celebrates it. And the goal of this efficiency is to built a smoothly functioning ever expanding economic machine. Our culture is intent upon drawing every aspect of our lives into that economic dynamic. The justification for virtually every decision we make is economic and increasingly the bent of our educational efforts is to produce ever more efficient tools for the pursuit those economic goals. We have been reduced to creators of value, whether we create value directly by becoming effective means of production or indirectly by being compliant consumers of what others produce. Whether we are more than this seems beyond the scope of the debate.
But stop for a moment and look at our lives. As Americans we work more hours a week than any other nation on earth. We also work more days of the year than any other people on earth. When we’re not at work, increasing numbers of us continue to work from home. Even our free time is devoted to creating wealth through consumption. We are seduced by ‘necessities’ our ancestors would have hardly recognized, all of which are designed to kidnap our imagination and direct our desires, and all in order to enrich others. Yet in the midst of this pursuit we are unhappy. A recent study revealed that a larger percentage of Americans suffers from depression than in any other region on earth.
Against this stands the humanities.
The humanities affirm those things in life that are not about production or consumption. They affirm the wonder of a well-devised novel, a poem’s ability to touch the soul, a work of art’s strength to move us, philosophy’s power challenge and inform us.
More importantly, the study of the humanities allows us to carve out islands in our lives that have nothing to do with productivity or consumption; islands we explore for the pure joy of the adventure. We can write a short story or act in a community play, sculpt or paint for our own pleasure, listen to a symphony or play in a local dive. The goal is to have some part of our life where we engage in a activity because we love it, not because we might grow rich from it or because we have been enticed by another to enrich them.
The humanities also caress and nurture the higher aspects of our being by inviting us to reflect long and hard on life and not just be passive receptacles for the constant media stream that endlessly cries for our attention.
If the humanities vanish, whether from our colleges or public schools, where will our children discover the joy of painting a picture or playing a fine piece of music? Where will they wrestle with life’s meaning or learn to hear the cry of a poet? Where will they struggle to understand a tragedy and in the process perhaps confront their own demons? And where will they discover what it means to be human, not just units of production or the hapless targets of marketers?
I won’t argue that reserving a place for the humanities in our schools and colleges will have some great economic benefit nor do I care to do so. But I will argue that the humanities humanize us and offer us a place of refuge in a culture that threatens to devour our souls.