As Interest Fades in the Humanities, Colleges Worry
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
Reminds me of the joke:
Rabbi Altmann and his secretary were sitting in a coffeehouse in Berlin in 1935. "Herr Altmann," said his secretary, "I notice you're reading Der Stürmer! I can't understand why. A Nazi libel sheet! Are you some kind of masochist, or, God forbid, a self-hating Jew?"
"On the contrary, Frau Epstein. When I used to read the Jewish papers, all I learned about were pogroms, riots in Palestine, and assimilation in America. But now that I read Der Stürmer, I see so much more: that the Jews control all the banks, that we dominate in the arts, and that we're on the verge of taking over the entire world. You know – it makes me feel a whole lot better!"
While in high school I gutted it out in English so I could make it to my next math class, as I grow older I've found myself increasingly drawn to reading and writing. The power and precision of the right word at the right moment can be intoxicating.
Perhaps if college and high school students were given the chance to peek into the whole world of opportunity in written expression, the humanities would see a resurgence.
1 - http://paulgraham.com/essay.html. "Moneyball" is one of my favorites and I've read an awful lot of thoughtful food-focused essays in the last few years, but does anyone have a good one on the role of color in fashion? The cerulean rant in "Devil Wears Prada?"
Not only intoxicating but immensely powerful - we live in an age where politics is dominated by form rather than content, "spin" and being "on message" are more important that policies. Orwell, Koestler and others who were directly familiar with the totalitarian regimes understood the power of language and idea to shape and control people.
Think of how important Goebbels was to the Nazis or how important the arts (or at least his control of the arts) were to Stalin - those are direct indicators of important these topics are.
I'm rather amused that Orwell's essay on Politics and the English Language is features on HN's front page at the same time as this discussion.
Edit: From 1984
'He who controls the past controls the future. He who controls the present controls the past.'
Also never before where there more people who were at least fundamentally capable of understanding politics. I often hear people say that the past was more democratic. Was it really?
Or is it just that the constraints of reality are only revealed gradually over time to the individual, as his understanding increases and his age progresses. Then the past was always easier and less complicated?
If the usefulness of single point of voting democracy is inversely related to the complexity of the problem space, then societies with fewer known concerns would - all else being equal - have been more democratic.
Not saying that's what things were like, mind, but it's one of the things that might give that impression.
And for that reason, it doesn't address the fundamental problem (as perceived by university administrators): "We have 11 humanities departments that are quite extraordinary, and we want to provide for that faculty..."
(The principal/agent problem is a common problem in non-profits, which are often merely schemes for funneling money to assorted insiders.)
Going from the literature-based native-language curriculum to one with Rhetoric and Literature separated out would be a big change, with much resistance - you're right about that. But such changes happen, and economic/political conditions may force such an evolution sooner or later.
I agree with the parent that the mixture of these areas is problematic. The pg quotation above is perceptive.
"Blue is in fashion this year" from The Language of Fashion[0] might fit the bill. It has been several years since I read the book, but I remember it being quite difficult to get through.
The rant in "The Devil Wears Prada" is fairly correct from a more practical standpoint. We're talking about things like trend development[1] and trickle-down theory[2] (in the fashion sense). If you only read one book on fashion it should probably be Fashion-ology[3].
"Perhaps if college and high school students were given the chance to peek into the whole world of opportunity in written expression, the humanities would see a resurgence."
To be fair I'm not sure these fairly traditional elite universities are representative for all schools.
[0] http://books.google.se/books/about/The_Language_of_Fashion.h...
[1] Chapter 9 and 10: http://www.prschool.ge/img/every_day/Fashion%20Marketing.pdf
[2] http://www.margaritabenitez.com/trends/lectures/TRENDS_CH03....
[3] http://books.google.se/books/about/Fashion_ology.html?id=LUW...
But the idea of cultural domination is anathema to most of the 'new generation' which relies, rather, depends on cultural assimilation and tolerance in this global economy for their bread and butter. And this change hasn't come due to humanities... it has come due to technological revolution. So, of course, the interest in humanities is fading.
The people with no interest in Humanities will not take humanities anyway. That the interest in humanities is decreasing points directly to the fact that people who actually _like_ humanities are disenchanted with it. That is who my comment is referring to. There is a whole literature in sociology dealing with relationship between humanities and colonialism[1].
But I suppose people downvoting me have really got no interest in humanities :) Apparently, anything that makes it look like it might have a value must be bad.
I'm not at all clear how especially something like studying ancient Chinese philosophers could fit into your generalizations, but regardless -- mastering communication and clear thinking on complex, diverse topics is hugely valuable in almost any endeavor, and I've encountered some shamefully poor communicators (and unclear thinkers) in the tech world.
I suspect if the humanities could successfully focus on good outcomes in these categories, and demonstrate the value, they'd benefit from it... somehow blending in applied rationality with the standard paths would be awesome, and if that were available I'd go that route again, if I had the choice again.
English is another example. People in most of the world learn British English, simply because English was taught to them when British ruled them because they wanted to create a English speaking cheap workforce. Now that British are gone, their legacy remains. For example, Shakespeare is still mandatory to learn in India, and novels that are today confined to humanities in Britain, are most read in India - they don't read catcher in the rye, they read The Tempest and The Woman in White etc. You can see that firsthand - Indians use idioms that long ago fell out of use in Britain. "Please do the needful" anyone? "I was doing that only"? This is not just about Indians. Germans, as I have been told, learn UK English in school. But eventually all their clients are American, so they end up learning American vernacular and spellings. They can't be blamed, every default is American now.
Coming to Eastern philosophy, consider this: the earth is round, people are equal so how come there is something called East or West. It is arbitrary! It is THE example of grouping and stereotypes[1]. There is a large branch of sociology and history dealing with this idea.[2] I will leave it at that since this is closer to my heart and thus I am prone to be biased. Plus, I am still reading more about it.
The idea is not that Chinese philosophers would fit in my description or not, the idea is that the philosophers you call Chinese are just a sect of a philosophers in China. But when first non-Chinese went into China, their interest wasn't in philosophy but in the money Chinese had. Through that economical agent they measured everything that was there - the economically weak Chinese philosophers were neglected and forgotten into history and the official Chinese doctrine accepted as the one true 'Chinese'. "Because that is what makes them different." It is why when China dabbles into modernism we call them copycats and not just coming to equal terms. They HAVE to be different, right?
I went overboard, I suppose. I am not a good writer nor a native English speaker. Indian, actually. Regarding music, I think it should belong to science and mathematics :)
Eh?
The UK is a very large trading partner of Germany.
German exports to UK 2012:73 Billion euro
German exports to US 2012:87 Billion euro
German global exports: 1095 Billion
So, please. Who's the imperialist and marginaliser now? The US accounts for just 7.9% of german exports, so "most of their clients" abroad - rubbish.
It is deeply ironic that you're complaining about foreigners studying classics of British English, while contrasting with classics from American English as though that would be an obviously superior and more rational choice.
My examples don't show that the humanities have any role in exacerbating the reality of some cultures dominating others, though. How does it help cultural domination if American, Christian students learn that none of Jesus' ideas were actually original to him?
Certainly, East/West is arbitrary, as is whether "North" is on top of the globe or on the bottom (an inverted globe is just as valid). You can study things like this in the humanities, whereas you'll never even think about them if you take a technical track. You even mention above that there are large branches of sociology and history dealing with this -- so are the humanities enforcing Orientalism, or actually combating it?
Final point, though it's more minor - about this:
> Before the acceptance of French into humanities, it was just a language evolving with its speakers. After that it was given the status of "official", with official grammar to maintain purity. But who decided which vernacular was pure and which wasn't? The powers that be. The privileged noble who had time for it. While it resulted in better economic opportunities for everyone (while requiring no effort from those who already spoke the pure form), it also quashed the cultural diversity.
See the Académie française (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acad%C3%A9mie_fran%C3%A7aise) -- French has not been a language evolving naturally with its speakers since the 1630s. There certainly are external forces pushing the French to adopt more loanwords like "email" and so on, but what's cause would you point to for that? Surely not French literature and language programs in other countries...? If anything, me studying Camus and Voltaire introduces more French speakers who use classical French, rather than adopting to a naturally-evolving language (in spite of the Académie française...).
Honestly, this is part of what I mean about learning to support a reasonable argument. It's not effective to construct examples to "support" a point you've already committed to. You'll do better taking a reasonably representative set of specific examples of a phenomenon, discarding your earlier assumptions, and look for the best explanation. That's your new starting point.
As I said, I am still reading and since the subject is close to me I tend to run into my own biases.
<i> > so are the humanities enforcing Orientalism, or actually combating it?</i> I am not a Marxist who believes every odd thing is intentional. But I do believe that humanities aren't as critical to The System as they are portrayed to be. They are very well an integral part of The System. And The System is all about money which humanities don't bring any more - hence the decreasing interest. For example, science is about pursuit of pure knowledge, but then most of its funding comes from DARPA, isn't it? So, in a peaceful world, scientific pursuit WILL dwindle. That is just the fact. Whether intentional or consequential, or whether science wants to bring peace or not, those questions are beyond my understanding as of now. And I think they will remain conjectural even after my death.
I honestly don't see how studying Ancient Greek for example is supposed to encourage cultural domination. The term "humanities" denotes a vast array of subjects.
If there is cultural domination going on, it's mostly with the mass media output of whichever country happens to be in a position of power at the time. For instance, the US have been flooding the market for a long while with their audio, video and written content thanks to their dominant economic position. Local production simply cannot compete with billion-dollar budgets. This leads to cultural intoxication in millions of minds around the world as they are exposed every day to the American way of viewing the world and American cultural norms. A humanities course, no matter how active in its propaganda, cannot possibly rival this kind of utter cultural domination.
For you, anyway. For me (a theoretical computer scientist/mathematician), more advanced technology is its own reward. I don't really care what the results are applied to.
I also find it highly doubtful that you do not care about the results of technology. Technology pretty much shapes our lives so you cannot plausibly pretend to be so blasé about it all. Our continued existence depends on the responsible use of powerful inventions so not caring about the results is a pretty unscientific and downright dangerous attitude anyway.
I'm in media studies and use cultural studies, gender studies, and anthropology (which likes to claim it is a "science" but I don't really consider it one). Those fields along with things like post-colonial studies are all about examining and tearing down the systems of cultural domination.
As someone who got my BA in English, I find it difficult to understand why some humanities departments are as large as they are at large research universities. Literacy and literature are very important but I don't know that we should be churning out very many people with phds in English.
Hard to justify the price tag.
I'm not against humanities per se, but at what's being charged by the top Universities, well...
"I'm going to get another loan for a Masters in English" jeez The younger me would have answered that with "but you already speak English" (yes, there are several sub-branches, and things to be researched, etc)
But get this, people are probably not going to be less interested in humanities, but they're not going for a formal education in it. You can study languages, literature, history, without needing to pay an arm and a leg for it.
And guess what, Computer Science started that trend.
Although, another way of looking at the situation is that the difficult economic situation combined with large expected debt load post-graduation acts winnows out humanities students who just aren't serious about their studies. Hopefully this translates into more passionate and eager students for professors to teach amongst the diminished ranks.
This was this nice previous generation dream that productivity would create a Star Trek society where people can spend their time in non-profit occupations.
Did not turn out that way. Every minute you study must have a ROI in dollar because the world is a harsh place if you do not have the right set of skills.
For my business degree I had nearly 2 whole years of humanities courses...
Even where they are required to, I think it can be useful to go deep on a subject (say History or Psychology) as long as it's paired with something practical (say Economics).
Why not go all the way on the 2nd degree?
I'm against philosophy degrees on their own, but it does go good supporting others. You can never get too much economics either.
Anyway, this one seems like a recent game that proves me wrong: http://www.stanleyparable.com/
Games like Half Life 2 and Call of Duty try to mimic films in a very theme-park ride way, something many gamers have pointed out. The gaming community hasn't exactly figured this one out yet, so I'll let college humanities departments get a pass on this one.
Films are pretty new too, and academia has more or less embraced it.
This is, in part, what the Digital Humanities doing, engaging with digital modes of cultural expression [2].
A large group of kids learn to pass the test and move on. There's very little unstructured exploration or debate, on the whole. I had some excellent teachers and classes in high school, and I had some awful ones, but I damn sure never had freedom to mentally explore interesting topics in-class. High school was a means to an end; just a way to leave home and go to college. Personally I didn't take that approach but I know a lot of people who did.
At that point, a student's approach is "do academia to get to next stage". It doesn't make you care at all about Shakespeare.
And for families that are monetarily burdened by college (read: every family, save a handful), you're not going to go waste $40k/year for something with no prospects.
The author keeps making this point over and over again, so sure, I'll bite.
First, I'm a huge fan of a classic liberal education. It truly enriches life, and so much of that kind of an education is literally priceless.
Having said that, colleges are only ending up exactly where they wanted to go: at the bank. If colleges keep charging more and more money, it's perfectly reasonable for the people paying for and loaning the money (not to mention the poor saps going into debt for most of their life) to ask themselves "Am I getting something for this money where I know the money will be replaced one day?" Because money, you know, doesn't grow on trees.
It's one thing to be independently wealthy or a trust fund kid and take ten years of ancient Greek pottery. It's another to have mom and dad mortgage the house for it. And while a classic liberal education can't be replaced and is priceless to have, lots of things in life can't be replaced and are priceless to have. Life is full of things that we don't put price tags on. But that doesn't mean they don't cost anything.
Colleges are pricing themselves out of the market. Humanities are the first to go. Our system of higher education needs rethinking and refactoring. There's a huge pivot coming, whether these institutions are ready for it or not. And while that might not be such a good thing for overstaffed humanities departments, that's a great thing for people wanting to make their lives better.
Moreover there is large evidence that Art (and humanities) can set you in the mindset of hacking. PG himself says that painting can teach many things about hacking [1] and I am living proof that Art can definitively teach you how to hack (and also be an entrepreneur): I received my first computer only when I was 19, but I had been hacking since I was 3 years old, through the art of Berrocal whose sculptures can be taken apart, transformed and combined, they are like 3d puzzles, tactile problems that need to be solved [2]. It has taught me practical tools, methodologies and ways of creatively find solutions that can be applied to both programming and to the day to day challenges of entrepreneurship.
There is actually a necessity and a current trend to connect Arts+Design+Humanities in the STEM education. it's called "from STEM to STEAM" [3] and it's backed by great figures in both art and computer science such as John Maeda
Don't despise arts+humanities, you'll be only limiting yourself. A good old poem can hack your brain! give it root! ;)
[1] http://www.paulgraham.com/hp.html [2] http://berrocal.net [3] http://stemtosteam.org/
It was an obvious decision to study computer science, and I guess I am not the only one.
BTW, I envy those toys you had.
some of the "toys"/sculptures can be purchased. check the catalogue on link nº2 Since we know the educational value we are looking into making cheaper plastic versions for kids to handle. The artist himself wanted to them in plastic but didn't have the resources when he designed them in the 60-70's
From the article:
>But with the recession having helped turn college, in the popular view, into largely a tool for job preparation, administrators are concerned.
And I am concerned for the administrators. Who has the money to go to Stanford to get a degree that offers very limited career opportunities at pay levels that will never recoup your college costs? Only the most foolhardy or the richest will do this. I am concerned that the administrators apparently do not realize this.
Just for fun, here's a link to the tuition and fees page of Stanford:
http://studentaffairs.stanford.edu/registrar/students/tuitio...
Now, who wants to pay upwards of 20k a semester after housing, books, tuition and expenses to get a degree in "Renaissance French literature and the philosophy of language", "German", "philosophy", or "world languages and culture"? How long will it take to pay back your student loans? 40+ years on a philosopher's salary. Will your crippling debt hinder any other aspects of your life, like getting married or buying a house? Hopefully, not.
College tuition is so high, that the decision to pursue a degree that does not virtually guarantee a decent paying job is financially and almost morally untenable, unless you already have substantial liquidity.
But the academics, as smart as they are, just don't seem to make the connection:
>“Both inside the humanities and outside, people feel that the intellectual firepower in the universities is in the sciences, that the important issues that people of all sorts care about, like inequality and climate change, are being addressed not in the English departments,” said Andrew Delbanco, a Columbia University professor who writes about higher education.
Only a very small subset of people go to college to 'change the world' or 'tackle pressing issues', most go to make a better life for themselves somewhere down the line. It's really hard to correlate study in Renaissance French literature and hundreds of thousands of dollars in student loan debt with a better life.
This article really paints the picture that people who handle administration for colleges, and professors who study college trends, really don't see the cost benefit analysis aspect of it at all. Or maybe they just value degrees far more than they are actually worth.
---
Sorry, that was too long and I think I've got to cut myself off there.
A LOT of people. How many applications do they turn down? They can just keep jacking up the prices and people will still keep going. The name is worth far more than the job prospects available. I'm just not sure that they only want to be a club for the super rich (or maybe they do and just admit enough poor people to try to appear otherwise.)
Similarly, I can't see employment being a problem for someone graduating from Stanford. They'll get paid.
A lot of people. If your family makes under $60k/year, Stanford waives tuition and room and board. If your family makes more than that but under $100k, they waive tuition.
> The power and precision of the right word at the right moment can be intoxicating.
@arethuza (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6645940) replied:
> Not only intoxicating but immensely powerful - we live in an age where politics is dominated by form rather than content, "spin" and being "on message" are more important that policies.
Both of them are indeed right. Except it has always been like that, and not necessarily a new phenomena as we sometimes think. Here's a quick excerpt to an interesting essay in imperial villain making....
By the end of the 90s, the hardliners calling for regime change in the east found that they had a powerful ally in government. This new president was not prepared to wait to be attacked: he was a new sort of conservative, aggressive in foreign policy, bitterly anti-French, and intent on turning his country into the unrivalled global power. It was best, he believed, simply to remove any hostile Muslim regime that presumed to resist the west.
There was no doubt who would be the first to be targeted: a Muslim dictator whose family had usurped power in a military coup. According to British sources, this chief of state was an "intolerant bigot", a "furious fanatic" with a "rooted and inveterate hatred of Europeans", who had "perpetually on his tongue the projects of jihad". He was also deemed to be "oppressive and unjust ... [a] sanguinary tyrant, [and a] perfidious negotiator".
It was, in short, time to take out Tipu Sultan of Mysore. The president of the board of control, Henry Dundas, the minister who oversaw the East India Company, had just the man for the job. Richard Wellesley was sent out to India in 1798 as governor general with specific instructions to effect regime change in Mysore and replace Tipu with a western-backed puppet. First, however, Wellesley and Dundas had to justify to the British public a policy whose outcome had long been decided in private.
Read the rest here: http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2005/may/24/foreignpolic...