Humanism and society

The inconvenient (and for many recent Ph.D.s, absolutely terrifying) truth is that the job market in the humanities for coveted tenure-track jobs is evaporating. Already in dismal shape before the economic downturn — as Professor Grafton noted in a recent ‘Prince’ column, as far back as 1972, thousands of historians would compete for just a few hundred jobs — the current crisis is decimating the ranks of instructors in fields like history, literature, philosophy and religion. Budget cuts, combined with diminished enrollment in humanities majors across the board (a recent New York Times article reported that the total percentage of humanities majors in the United States hovers around 8 percent), mean less funding and more pressure to streamline departments, merging and eliminating where “necessary.”

The economic crisis is destroying jobs and livelihoods across the board, but the persistent lack of interest in the humanities among students and institutions calls for a different explanation: If a people’s hierarchy of values is reflected in its institutional investments, it is clear that Americans struggle to apprehend the value of being trained in fields which do not seem to offer job prospects beyond teaching and research in these same fields.

More ominously, as scholars like Richard Hofstadter and Susan Jacoby have documented, a strand of anti-intellectualism runs deep in the fabric of American culture. This is not seen as a cause for concern but is rather celebrated and affirmed in our major economic and civic institutions. Americans fancy themselves very “practical” people, adhering to the values of prudence, self-discipline and material productivity (at least ideally). Scientists are often dismissed as elitists, but they are tolerated as long as their research leads to new drugs and new toys. As for the humanities, their only discernible “practical” function is to keep grades up in high school since lessons like English and history are mandatory, and then in college to impress one’s professors.

Clearly the problem is not just a lack of interest in the humanities, but in humanistic education in general, which stresses the cultivation of critical habits of thought, research and writing skills through the study of great literature and instruction in several key disciplines, including the natural sciences. A humanistic education is one which instills in students a healthy suspicion of the status quo, a tolerance of diverse opinions and worldviews and an ability to think critically about all sorts of problems, not just those one encounters in one particular line of work. Done right, it produces citizens with a broad knowledge of many important fields of study as well as the ability to find and exploit reliable sources of knowledge they do not possess, instead of relying on the mass media for sound-bites (no doubt soon to be replaced by ‘tweets’) and corporate think-tanks for crucial policy information.

The humanities in particular expose students to wider vistas of human experience and inculcate empathy with those not in one’s immediate social and economic class. They inspire a love of learning for its own sake and not necessarily for its contribution to future earning power (though, ironically, a broad humanistic education may make a job candidate more competitive in a world where skill sets rapidly become outdated and flexibility in retraining and continuing education is vital). They encourage the development of students’ innate creativity, cultivating the disciplined imagination which we need to find fresh new solutions to currently intractable problems.

In short, cultivation and protection of the humanities is crucial to a functioning participatory democracy. And a big part of that endeavor is the cultivation and protection of the jobs and institutions devoted to preserving and perpetuating their legacy: professorships and liberal arts colleges. Though simply stating the problem will not be of much immediate use to those looking for a job in these fields, as Professor Grafton said, the most important next step is to start a national conversation about these issues, in true democratic, humanistic fashion.

John David Walters is a religion major from Thessaloniki, Greece. He can be reached at jdwalter@princeton.edu.