Will the Humanities Save Us?

[Stone Island]

Stanley Fish writes in The New York Times (Jan. 6, 2008):

How does one justify funding the arts and humanities? It is clear which justifications are not available. You can’t argue that the arts and humanities are able to support themselves through grants and private donations. You can’t argue that a state’s economy will benefit by a new reading of “Hamlet.” You can’t argue – well you can, but it won’t fly – that a graduate who is well-versed in the history of Byzantine art will be attractive to employers (unless the employer is a museum). You can talk as Bethany does about “well rounded citizens,” but that ideal belongs to an earlier period, when the ability to refer knowledgeably to Shakespeare or Gibbon or the Thirty Years War had some cash value (the sociologists call it cultural capital). Nowadays, larding your conversations with small bits of erudition is more likely to irritate than to win friends and influence people.

At one time justification of the arts and humanities was unnecessary because, as Anthony Kronman puts it in a new book, “Education’s End: Why Our Colleges and Universities Have Given Up on the Meaning of Life,” it was assumed that “a college was above all a place for the training of character, for the nurturing of those intellectual and moral habits that together from the basis for living the best life one can.” It followed that the realization of this goal required an immersion in the great texts of literature, philosophy and history even to the extent of memorizing them, for “to acquire a text by memory is to fix in one’s mind the image and example of the author and his subject.”

It is to a version of this old ideal that Kronman would have us return, not because of a professional investment in the humanities (he is a professor of law and a former dean of the Yale Law School), but because he believes that only the humanities can address “the crisis of spirit we now confront” and “restore the wonder which those who have glimpsed the human condition have always felt, and which our scientific civilization, with its gadgets and discoveries, obscures.”

 

[technoextreme]

Stanley Fish writes in The New York Times (Jan. 6, 2008):

Heh... Bringing up higher education, the humanities, and New York in the same sentence makes me cringe. My brother is required to take so many humanity courses its not even funny.

 

[Tokenconservative]

Sorry...I would do this in state colleges: make any non-practical studies non-major studies, unless one is seeking a teaching degree along with it.

So virtually all of the Liberal Arts: English/Lit (any language) History, Philosophy, Film, Acting, non-specific "Music" or "Art" degrees (outside of schools specializing in those areas) all the "ism" studies (Feminism, Race, Ethicity, etc.) out the window, period. They have no practical application in our society today.

I would retain Psychology, Sociology, Archelolgy, Paleontology Poli Sci--any "science" that cannot lead to anything but a job in academia would be retained only as a directed MS plans. In short, no 4-yr degrees in these things would be awarded. as a BS/BA in these is spending tens or even hundreds of thousands to become a waiter.

Business, technology, hard sciences, math majors are the only degrees with any true career viability in today's world, whether we like it or not.

Tokie

 

[Jeff Corey]

...I

I would retain Psychology, Sociology, Archelolgy, Paleontology Poli Sci--any "science" that cannot lead to anything but a job in academia would be retained only as a directed MS plans. In short, no 4-yr degrees in these things would be awarded. as a BS/BA in these is spending tens or even hundreds of thousands to become a waiter.

Business, technology, hard sciences, math majors are the only degrees with any true career viability in today's world, whether we like it or not.

Tokie[/QUOTE
Siily goose. I have a degree in Psychology and I am smarter and richer than you.

 

[ImaginalDisc]

Sorry...I would do this in state colleges: make any non-practical studies non-major studies, unless one is seeking a teaching degree along with it.

So virtually all of the Liberal Arts: English/Lit (any language) History, Philosophy, Film, Acting, non-specific "Music" or "Art" degrees (outside of schools specializing in those areas) all the "ism" studies (Feminism, Race, Ethicity, etc.) out the window, period. They have no practical application in our society today.

I would retain Psychology, Sociology, Archelolgy, Paleontology Poli Sci--any "science" that cannot lead to anything but a job in academia would be retained only as a directed MS plans. In short, no 4-yr degrees in these things would be awarded. as a BS/BA in these is spending tens or even hundreds of thousands to become a waiter.

Business, technology, hard sciences, math majors are the only degrees with any true career viability in today's world, whether we like it or not.

Tokie

I shall notify every journalist, writer, musician, artist, anthropologist, historian, lawyer, judge and economist that the great token has declared their fields verbotten.

 

[Hokulele]

Career viablity is the criteria for which studies to keep? In that case heck, throw away everything other than the basketball and football programs.

 

[Francesca R]

Also, let's not conduct any more unprofitable experiments. They're a waste of cash.

 

[Tokenconservative]

I shall notify every journalist, writer, musician, artist, anthropologist, historian, lawyer, judge and economist that the great token has declared their fields verbotten.

You'd do better to contact some sort of reading tutor....

Tokie

 

[timhau]

So virtually all of the Liberal Arts: English/Lit (any language) History, Philosophy, Film, Acting, non-specific "Music" or "Art" degrees (outside of schools specializing in those areas) all the "ism" studies (Feminism, Race, Ethicity, etc.) out the window, period. They have no practical application in our society today.

I would retain Psychology, Sociology, Archelolgy, Paleontology Poli Sci--any "science" that cannot lead to anything but a job in academia would be retained only as a directed MS plans. In short, no 4-yr degrees in these things would be awarded. as a BS/BA in these is spending tens or even hundreds of thousands to become a waiter.

So, foreign languages are out (as is apparently spelling), but Paleontolgy is allowed to remain? And Sociology? Do you have any idea of the that goes on in Sociology departments?

 

[Tokenconservative]

Career viablity is the criteria for which studies to keep? In that case heck, throw away everything other than the basketball and football programs.

Hmm...how many high school basketball/football players make a career out of it? College?

I always marvel at something like this in these forums: you dislike me already (that's fine, I'm not whining....I'd rather be known by my enemies...) for my political perspective, and so rather than reading what I wrote, you read what it is you WANT me to have written, to play into your perceptions of me and to allow you to dismiss what I've said that much more easily.

You can't address what I've said fairly, and I understand that...it'd be tough. So instead you try this tack.

Tokie

 

[Tokenconservative]

So, foreign languages are out (as is apparently spelling), but Paleontolgy is allowed to remain? And Sociology? Do you have any idea of the that goes on in Sociology departments?

I'm quite cognizant of what goes on in Sociology....that's not the point. As long as cities, counties, states and some federal and even private orgs. hire people with this otherwise useless degrees, the study remains viable.

I said that ONLY directed (toward a career in academia) palontology, archeology, etc., etc. should be permitted in public unis and colleges.

Do you people ever read what I say, or do you just see that it's a post from that eeehhhvvvviiiillll stoopid consarvative redneck Tokie and just go ahead and put in whatever nonsense it is you BELIEVE I will say, based on your own ignorance and bigoted perceptions?

Tokie

 

[Tokenconservative]

Also, let's not conduct any more unprofitable experiments. They're a waste of cash.

Hmm....I'd have to think this one through.

Do you mean Bio 101 students can't dissect frogs because it's "unprofitable" or do you mean...well, what DO you mean?

How do you know something is "unprofitable" until after you've done the experimentation?

If you are talking about the host of nonsense-"experiments" studies, etc. various psych, sociology, anthro and other such uni depts do (we discovered that people, when burned, tend to avoid that in the future, and the study only cost $1million!) then yeah, they should be nixed, and the saving put back into making college cheaper.

Or do you disagree...we should do everything we can to make college MORE expensive?

Tokie

 

[ImaginalDisc]

You'd do better to contact some sort of reading tutor....

Tokie

****ing ******* you can't have more laywers, judges, athrolopologists, etc. unless you have people who study those fields as their majors. Perhaps it has never occured to you but those fields actually require schooling and a lot of preparation before they get higher degrees.

 

[Francesca R]

Do you people ever read what I say, or do you just see that it's a post from that eeehhhvvvviiiillll stoopid consarvative redneck Tokie and just go ahead and put in whatever nonsense it is you BELIEVE I will say, based on your own ignorance and bigoted perceptions?

I feel very bad that you are receiving an unfair hearing all over this forum, particularly if it is nonsense born of the ignorance and bigotry of the other members and nothing to do with you.

What can we do to stop this terrible thing from happening?

 

[Nogbad]

You can talk as Bethany does about “well rounded citizens,” but that ideal belongs to an earlier period, when the ability to refer knowledgeably to Shakespeare or Gibbon or the Thirty Years War had some cash value (the sociologists call it cultural capital). Nowadays, larding your conversations with small bits of erudition is more likely to irritate than to win friends and influence people.

I can't think of a more erudite and beautifully compact justification for retaining the Arts - particularly the bit about irritating those who "hate anybody who knows more than they do" Desolation Row I believe.

Of course practical courses in the sciences, medicine, business etc., are useful and should be encouraged but one does not cut arms off to better encourage the legs.

 

[timhau]

Do you people ever read what I say, or do you just see that it's a post from that eeehhhvvvviiiillll stoopid consarvative redneck Tokie and just go ahead and put in whatever nonsense it is you BELIEVE I will say, based on your own ignorance and bigoted perceptions?

Well, I assumed that when you said "So virtually all of the Liberal Arts: English/Lit (any language) ... [a list of other disciplines deleted] ... out the window, period. They have no practical application in our society today" you meant you'd toss English and other languages out the window. I still can't see what else it could mean, but English isn't my first language.

 

[Tokenconservative]

I feel very bad that you are receiving an unfair hearing all over this forum, particularly if it is nonsense born of the ignorance and bigotry of the other members and nothing to do with you.

What can we do to stop this terrible thing from happening?

I love this sort of libbie conflation.

I never said it was a "terrible" thing...at least not from my perspective.

It's an UNFORTUNATE thing, but then I really don't expect libs to engage in any sort of rational, logical, reasoned or fair discourse, anyway.

Tokie

 

[Tokenconservative]

****ing ******* you can't have more laywers, judges, athrolopologists, etc. unless you have people who study those fields as their majors. Perhaps it has never occured to you but those fields actually require schooling and a lot of preparation before they get higher degrees.

First, I never said anything about lawyers and judges (um...I believe in most cases today, the latter is the former).

As for fields like anthro. I believe I addressed this, too. Those entering those such disciplines need to do so on a DIRECTED course of study, aimed at teaching at the university (mostly--others in the typical disciplines would be trained for teaching k-12).

Can you think of any need for anthropologists in modern business outside the lucrative food and beverage services industry?

Yeah...me neither!

I have no problem with anyone taking anything they want, I just want to be sure that the limited funding available to public universities and colleges is better spent, and funneling much into anthro, or archeo, or palentology or Feminist or Ethnic studies is waste. Or do you disagree and believe that we do not graduate enough Feminist Studies majors for those industries just clamoring for people with these valuable degrees?

Tokie

 

[Hokulele]

Hmm...how many high school basketball/football players make a career out of it? College?

I always marvel at something like this in these forums: you dislike me already (that's fine, I'm not whining....I'd rather be known by my enemies...) for my political perspective, and so rather than reading what I wrote, you read what it is you WANT me to have written, to play into your perceptions of me and to allow you to dismiss what I've said that much more easily.

You can't address what I've said fairly, and I understand that...it'd be tough. So instead you try this tack.

Tokie

My post was a social commentary rather than a personal attack. But if you prefer to make it personal, your choice.

 

[Tokenconservative]

Well, I assumed that when you said "So virtually all of the Liberal Arts: English/Lit (any language) ... [a list of other disciplines deleted] ... out the window, period. They have no practical application in our society today" you meant you'd toss English and other languages out the window. I still can't see what else it could mean, but English isn't my first language.

Of course you can't. You are blinded by pedantry, your leftist ideology and of course the hoary desire to "get" Tokie that so many are equally saddled with in here. I'm surprised you can see to shave in the morning.

Tokie