Are the Humanities a Luxury?
by Emily Waldorf
If you are a college student in today’s economic climate is it smart to study the humanities? Wouldn’t it be wiser to stick to the sciences, math, and business in order to embark on a secure pre-professional track? Not necessarily. The humanities is an umbrella term for the disciplines of language, literature, the arts, history, cultural studies, philosophy and religion. The study of the humanities is crucial to a well-balanced society because they explore, as one scholar put it, “what it means to be a human being.”
Patricia Cohen wrote an alarming article in The New York Times, “In Tough Times the Humanities Must Justify Their Worth,” citing numerous colleges and universities that are being forced to trim humanities course offerings because of lean economic times. Humanities majors make up a mere 8% of total majors and numbers have been declining steeply since the turn of the last century. The biggest drop so far in numbers was during the recession of the early 1980’s which is worrisome given our current economic situation.
How can job seekers with degrees in the humanities survive? There needs to be a more substantial public dialogue about the necessity of the humanities and how they enrich the cultural fabric of the broader economy and intellectual health of a nation. Industry and the sciences need to be tempered by the humanities in order to make true progress. Now more than ever, we need the humanities.
According to Columbia’s Director of American Studies, Andrew Delbanco, President Obama is the best spokesperson for the humanities since he regularly references Shakespeare, Faulkner, Lincoln, and W.E.B. Du Bois in his riveting public addresses:
(President Obama) does something academic humanists have not been doing well in recent years…He makes people feel there is some kind of a common enterprise, that history, with its tragedies and travesties, belongs to all of us, that we have something in common as Americans.”
The humanities are not luxury. They are a human necessity.
Click here to read over 200 passionate comments on the article, “In Tough Times the Humanities Must Justify Their Worth”
Filed under: education | 25 Comments
Tags: academics, Andrew Delbanco, Columbia, Faulkner, higher education, humanities, In Tough Times the Humanities Must Justify Their Worth, liberal arts, Lincoln, Patricia Cohen, President Obama, Shakespeare, W.E.B. DuBois
With my music degree in hand, I set out for a career in education… and now 11 years later I have to look far and wide in my demographic area for a family that goes to the library weekly, has a l substantial ibrary in the home on all subjects and various others, attends concerts and plays, prepares meals and eats as a family, takes family trips, attends museums, encourage eachother’s hobbies, and continues thier education.
The typical mainstreamed family rents DVDs, plays video games, orders pizza or eats frozen meals, and takes thier weekly trip to Walmart.
Sound depressing? In many U.S. rural and urban areas, this is reality.
Are we a nation becoming too stupid to realize the beauty in what humans were really meant to do? CREATE BEAUTY. Has the media destroyed thier minds and ability to realize their full potential. I guess for many it’s easier to press 5 minutes on the microwave and go to Walmart.
I agree with you, but would take it even a step further: Studying the Humanities is an exceptional qualification for business leadership. What are the three things business hiring managers hope to find in employees? 1 – The ability to write well; 2 – People who can analyze, deal with abstraction, have clarity of thought about things like, oh say, ethics; and 3 – For leadership esepcially, the ability to understand “where people are coming from,” motivation, to help employees engage with work, to realize purpose and apply enthusiasm. They don’t teach that in the School of Business. They teach that in the School of Humanities.
While the ultra-specialized technical skills that often appear in job ads will create an army of qualified niche-filling followers, students of the Humanities have genuine leadership potential. I wish schools understood this, to help Humanities students and prospective students see the “relevance” of their education.
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