
The Humanities Are in Crisis - nikbackm
https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2018/08/the-humanities-face-a-crisisof-confidence/567565/?single_page=true
======
rpiguy
The article sites the financial crisis and post-crisis job market as the
catalyst for students taking a more pragmatic approach to choosing a major;
however, it was a realignment that was probably overdue.

For decades in the US we have largely avoided the debate over whether college
should be primarily vocational (income securing) or educational. We avoided
the debate because for a long time having any degree served both purposes.
Just going to college set you apart and raised your income regardless of what
you studied (it still does statistically, but not as significantly as before).

The middle class was sold on college in the US largely on the promise of more
income. Even if students in the 60s and 70s said income wasn’t important to
them personally, certainly very few of their WWII generation parents would
have ponied up the money without the promise of more income or security for
their kids.

I don’t necessarily see this is as a crisis, kids really passionate about
humanities will always pursue the humanities. The net effect of this is those
classes will have fewer kids just there for their degree. This isn’t a bad
thing. Better to graduate 100 kids really interested their fields than 1000
just there in hopes of landing a higher paying job.

If you time traveled back to 1980, when nurses were underpaid, but
advertising, magazines, and newspapers were hot industries, and told them in
fifteen years you’d make more money as a nurse than you would with an English
degree they wouldn’t believe you. That’s not the world we live in anymore.

~~~
esfandia
> "I don’t necessarily see this is as a crisis, kids really passionate about
> humanities will always pursue the humanities. The net effect of this is
> those classes will have fewer kids just there for their degree. This isn’t a
> bad thing. Better to graduate 100 kids really interested their fields than
> 1000 just there in hopes of landing a higher paying job."

In principle I agree with this, but the economic reality of North American
universities is that programs that don't draw a large enough income will lose
to those that do. New programs are introduced based on how many people they
can attract (the Market), not based on how necessary they are for the
generation, preservation and transmission of knowledge.

~~~
eru
Universities aren't the only avenues for the generation, preservation and
transmission of knowledge. Especially the humanities stuff can mostly be done
from your armchair as a hobby.

~~~
tarboreus
This is generally not true. While you can consume classics from your couch,
putting together a critical edition of a book with provenance and, ideally,
accompanying research and commentary takes expertise and devotion. And if you
say, "I'll just read the great classics that everyone knows about," well, most
of those were rediscovered or brought to prominence in the first place by a
scholar who lovingly created a critical edition and made a case for why the
book was important. As the humanities is gutted, increasingly there will be no
one to do this work, and great pieces of literature will be lost at at a much
faster clip.

Also, the idea that you can preserve anything from your armchair is laughable.
If you knew the resources that go into preserving even one collection or
digitizing a small set of works, you would be shocked. There have been a few
people who have meaningfully preserved works outside of an institution of
higher learning or a library system, but they are far outliers.

~~~
rpiguy
I think this is untrue and perhaps alarmist. The people doing this work in the
humanities will continue to do this work, shrinking enrollment in humanities
is not a precursor to an age of ignorance. What percent of undergrads going
for their English or literature degree actually contribute to the greater body
of knowledge, to preservation, etc.? Likely very few, though I’d like to find
some actual statistics. The percent of students published is tiny at the
undergraduate level, for example. It is no loss to culture for someone not to
enroll in a major they were persuing just to get their degree in something.

Now if the number of programs drops to such a degree that those actually
excited and engaged in the humanities have nowhere to go, then it becomes a
problem.

~~~
tarboreus
Note that I wasn't responding to the issue in the article, but OP's statement
about armchair humanities work. I'd generally agree that the level of work
done by the average humanities grad could probably be done from an armchair by
someone not trained as a humanities major. I work in the humanities and
decreasing support for this kind of work is a reality, related to but not 100%
connected to the decline discussed in the article. Adjunctification is one
cause.

~~~
rpiguy
I agree self-learning/armchair is not the same, it’s not necessarily inferior,
but it is very different and you don’t engage in the kind of ancillary
activities you would in a program. And yes the TA/Adjunct professor situation
in the US is terrible.

The original purpose of adjuncts were to evaluate academics for future
positions, find the right fit for your department. Today those future
positions aren’t there in most cases they are just cheap labor.

------
gizmo686
Not really the point of the article, but I want to address this:

>The only bright spot is linguistics, the rare field that directly bridges the
humanities and the sciences directly.

In my experience, the fact that linguistics is a humanity is just a historical
quirk, and the fact that it does not pattern with the other humanities just
shows that students are not blindly following the collages org. charts.

When I was in college, I added a linguistics minor because I wanted to have a
science in addition to my math and computer science majors. I (and most of my
class) was surprised when we learned that the linguistics was part of the
College of Arts and Humanities. The linguistics classes I took in college were
the clearest examples of what science looks like that I have had in my
academic career.

~~~
c3534l
Yeah, people think linguistics is the study of language in the same way that a
Spanish class is the study of Spanish. It's just people not really knowing
what the field is, but assuming they do because they speak a language of some
sort.

------
ur-whale
The article seems to want to reduce the root cause of the phenomenon to
economic incentives.

I believe that's only a part of the equation: a number of students are
starting to realize that the quality of what is being taught in US college
humanities department is so bad and so politicized to the left that they're
better off picking other subjects.

In other words, it's not just about bad economic value, it's about bad value
overall.

~~~
puranjay
Humanities major here. I studied in both India and the US.

There was a strong socialist strain across all my professors, more so in India
than in the US. There was almost a disdain for regular employment. There was
zero talk of how to actually go about finding work, or how the education could
be applied to a regular job.

I was pretty entrepreneurial and managed to build a small business. But most
of my classmates are still struggling, either eking out a living in poorly
paid writing gigs, or working in academia in the hopes of landing a tenured
position someday.

Humanities education is vital, but it really needs a long hard look at itself
if it wants to remain viable.

Edit: As an aside, the positive part about my humanities education in India
was that it was effectively free (tuition was $100/year). And my professors
mostly had PhDs from top colleges like Oxbridge, Berkeley, etc.

The fact that I graduated debt free is one reason why I would still recommend
people to go through with it if they have an interest in the humanities

~~~
ur-whale
>There was a strong socialist _strain_ across all my professors,

Thank you for picking this word, made my day :)

------
dangjc
Learn to be a well rounded informed citizen in high school when it’s free. If
you’re going to go $100k into debt, it had better help you get a job.

~~~
gone35
> _[student] debt_

I think _this_ (more than even perhaps the Great Recession itself) is the
determining factor in the 'crisis'... And probably a socioeconomic time-bomb
to boot (from [1, _caveat lector_ ]):

> _[...] Both "solutions" to the higher education crisis from the
> conservatives and the mainstream liberal consensus are in fact not solutions
> at all. The right wants to give up on educating the working and poor classes
> after high school, whereas the liberal position has become increasingly
> dangerous to the economic future of the younger generation via student
> debt._

I'm betting the next global recession will be student-loan driven. And with
serious, non-trivial sociopolitical consequences (at least in the US).

\--

[1] Creston Davis, "The Education Impasse in the USA". _Counterpunch_. August
21, 2018.

[https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/08/21/the-education-
impass...](https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/08/21/the-education-impasse-in-
the-usa/)

------
happywage
I have a hard time thinking this is a bad thing. While people should be free
to study whatever entertains them, I think most of these majors contribute
little to making the world a better place or making us better people.

Two exceptions, in theory, are History and Philosophy, because knowledge in
these areas has the potential to improve the quality of thought and discourse.
However, the views of most people on these subjects seem to be so guided by
partisan identities that it's not clear that mere education can overcome that.
People refuse to reason well because they want to fit in with their friends
and family.

~~~
brbrodude
We shall drop any concept of middle-class and lets get back to slave-master
society already then. I'm almost sure we'll have more people contributing to
making the world a better a place then.

~~~
umanwizard
You miss the mark completely. Humanities have traditionally been studied by
the leisure classes who didn't need to work for a living.

~~~
TelmoMenezes
I think you make his point. In feudal societies, the majority of the people
were stuck in devoting their lives to survival-oriented tasks, while only a
privileged few could dedicate themselves to higher pursuits. And let's not
forget that traditionally "STEM" was also reserved to the leisure classes.

Now, in 2018, we have unthinkable prosperity compared to the feudal era. And
yet, there is now this constant political pressure to get rid of the middle-
class and have most people dedicate their lives to survival (a.k.a.
"employability"). Don't take a year off work or it will look weird on your CV!
Don't let the kids play freely, they must prepare for their Ivy League
admissions! Etc, etc.

Isn't it the main purpose of technology to free humanity of labor, so that we
can pursue higher interests? And yet, technology seems to demand that
_everyone_ works for technology now. Must have a fucking STEM degree! (I do,
btw). Weird, no?

------
throwawayjava
I'm not sure I agree with the article's main warrant for its core argument
(i.e., the "but they're wrong" part):

 _> But there’s an extremely important caveat: Students aren’t fleeing degrees
with poor job prospects. They’re fleeing humanities and related fields
specifically because they think they have poor job prospects. If the whole
story were a market response to student debt and the Great Recession, students
would have read the 2011 census report numbering psychology and communications
among the fields with the lowest median earnings and fled from them._

IME Psychology and Communications attract students who are looking for an easy
degree. Humanities majors are typically more rigorous than the Psych or Comm
majors.

Psych/Comm attracts a lot of students who hate reading/writing and math
equally.

 _> Or they would have noticed that biology majors make less than the average
college graduate, and favored the physical sciences._

Again, IME, most of those bio majors are planning on med school, nursing, grad
school, or teaching.

------
narrator
The politicization of the humanities means there is one right answer and the
humanities are just figuring out how to work backwards through the material
selectively to create a matching narrative.

------
gumby
I suspect it will regress to the mean as people realize that those "tech"
majors were not long term winners. You have to skate to where the puck will
be, not where it is.

By the way the snobbery can run both ways: when I decided to go to MIT several
of my high school classmates sneered that I'd chosen a "trade school" instead
of a "real school". And indeed I got a degree in...humanities, like most of my
HS classmates.

~~~
Firebrand
>when I decided to go to MIT several of my high school classmates sneered that
I'd chosen a "trade school" instead of a "real school".

What? Did you attend high school in the fifties?

~~~
anothergoogler
It's just a humblebrag.

~~~
gumby
I had to upvote this!

Not the 50s the 80s in Boston when it was pretty common to go to schools close
by (New England/New York). And MIT didn't have the rep it has now (except
among SF readers like I was) -- because engineering wasn't as worshipped.

~~~
sk5t
+1; MIT (and CMU, and Berkeley) have somehow shot above the reputation of
schools such as Rensselaer, Worcester Polytechnic, UIUC, Rochester, etc., all
of which are solid.

~~~
lotsofpulp
Because they were and are more selective.

~~~
gumby
Well this is slightly true in part — but I don’t remember the US news ratings
being that high profile. I fact, at that time (at least) MIT was _not_
particularly selective compared to other schools in the area because a lot of
people didn’t even apply. IIRC they accepted more than 15% of applicants
(presumably why I got in).

Nowadays with the common app and common essay it’s easy to apply to lot s of
schools. In those days every school had a unique application and needed
different essays.

A friend of mine who works in the Harvard admissions office said to me once
that things haven’t really changed: lots of people now apply just in case as
it’s so easy, so once they toss the egregiously unqualified they end up
picking through around the same number of applicants as they used to in the
80s. This was a convo at a bar so take it with whatever sized grain of salt
you think appropriate.

------
b1daly
As someone with a degree in Economics (from long ago) if I could do it over, I
would definitely pick a STEM field. (Way more useful).

I haven’t really bought the propaganda that the humanities provides unique
value, beyond a general education.

I have to admit now though, when I observe the appalling lack of reasoning and
critical thinking skills in the general public, that perhaps there is more
value than I thought in having members of society educated in these apparently
impractical areas of knowledge.

Just anecdotally speaking.

As a simple example of the kind of perspective I think we need more of, in the
field of politics, having more citizens with backgrounds in sociology,
history, psychology, government, philosophy might provide more sophisticated
populace, who could bring helpful perspective to everyday political discourse.

Just a thought.

------
chiefalchemist
> "But since then, I’ve been watching the numbers from the Department of
> Education, and every year, things look worse. Almost every humanities field
> has seen a rapid drop in majors: History is down about 45 percent from its
> 2007 peak, while the number of English majors has fallen by nearly half
> since the late 1990s."

Less people with a strong sense of history?

Less people with a strong sense of words / communication?

While I hate to feel like I'm parroting MSM hyperbole, it's not the humanities
that are in crisis. It's the culture's socio-political foundation that's
faultering. Perhaps this is why (faux) outrage has replaced discourse?

~~~
annamargot
> Less people with a strong sense of words / communication?

Fewer.

Sorry, too easy. :)

~~~
everybodyknows
Yet right. And sets me to wondering again why pointing up weak exposition has
proven itself a sure path to down-votes here on HN.

~~~
chiefalchemist
Too often down votes on HN - for which I'm sure this will be down voted - I
find to be false flags. Something that some use more than up votes. So once
there's a trend others pile on.

------
int_19h
What I took away from the article is that the number of people enrolled in
humanities appears to be a proxy for how healthy the workforce (both current
and future) perceives the economy to be. And that by that metric, we're not
doing well at all.

~~~
ur-whale
Yeah, and what predictive power that metric has is basically unknown.

------
DoreenMichele
So very many things have changed in the world, it seems a little silly to try
to pin this shift on any one thing. And if you want do that, why not pin it on
the rise of tablets and smart phones?

We get just enormous access to so many things, all in the palm of our hand
from almost anywhere. We can read, engage in meaty debate, watch movies, etc.
all on a smart phone. Even a super cheap one.

Online forums allow for rigorous debate that previously was only found in
colloquium at extremely elite colleges, like the tiny humanities school I
wanted to attend but never applied because I didn't have enough foreign
language to qualify.

On Hacker News, people routinely demand that you cite your sources. There are
other forums with similar practices.

Meanwhile, that mostly doesn't seem to suffice for STEM subjects. I was one of
the top three math students in my graduating high school class. I don't bother
to identify as one of the mathy people on HN. Math discussions seem to be
harder to have here than other subjects.

I don't know why that is. That's just my impression and I can't prove it.

Some subjects seem easier to soak up via online resources than others. And the
STEM subjects are increasingly critical to making our internet infrastructure
function and that infrastructure is increasingly part and parcel of other
infrastructure. Department stores are dying as we increasingly shop online.
You can't ignore the internet for most businesses these days.

~~~
FranzFerdiNaN
Academic discourse is more than citing sources. Hacker news is no replacement
for university.

Math discussion is harder because people cannot penetrate the language, while
discussions in history or sociology is done in English, so people think they
can participate by reading wikipedia or recalling some anecdotes from their
high school teacher.

Also, STEM should really pay more attention to the humanities not only for
ethical considerations of the science and technology they're working on, but
also to learn how to communicate clearly. And to get them to understand that
no, you do not understand history and what historians do simply because you
can solve differential equations.

~~~
DoreenMichele
From what I gather, most people who get an undergrad degree in history do not
become professional historians.

I did not declare a major my first year in college. My second year, the
college was pressuring me to declare a major and I went with History because I
had taken a bunch of history classes out of interest and it just so happened
that my advisor was in the history department. I liked her and didn't want to
change advisors. Declaring a history major was the easy answer.

I won some kind of award as, I guess, one of the top three sophomore history
majors at the college. Then I dropped out of school. I later wrapped up an AA
in Humanities because that was the easy answer for trying to lock in my old
credits so I could go back to school some day without starting over completely
from scratch. If you don't have any kind of degree, credits that are from too
many years ago will not be accepted as transfer credit.

If you have a certain level of interest in the humanities, but no real desire
to make a career of it, it is possible to slake that thirst these days without
enrolling in an undergrad program to do it. This wasn't really possible a few
decades back.

These days, you can "go down the rabbit hole" on the internet. You read an
article and you find it interesting and you click on the links it contains to
read more related material or you google up related info. Pretty soon, you can
have 30 tabs open in your browser.

When I was a kid, the only way to do something akin to that was to spend hours
and hours at a good library. (And you probably only had access to a good
library and a good excuse to hang there all day if you were a college
student.) The additional background info was not just a click away, with the
author having handily provided you the link so you are absolutely sure he
meant _this_ use of the term and not some other use of it.

All I'm saying is that maybe the financial crisis alone is not the driving
factor here. Maybe people feel freed up to prioritize getting an education
that leads to well-paid work (or that they think will do so) because it is
possible to get their hunger for other types of information met without
pursuing a formal degree in it.

I want to be an urban planner or do similar work. Most Urban Planning degrees
are Masters degrees. There are relatively few of them available at the
undergrad level. So most professional planners have an undergrad degree in
something else and humanities is fairly popular.

I'm a fan of the humanities and I currently pay my bills in part by doing
freelance writing. I really enjoy writing and I do a lot of blogging. I am
probably not the next J.K. Rowling. That's probably not the direction I will
go.

But the reality is that if you have a certain level of interest, yes, you
absolutely can get your need met by doing things like hanging out on Hacker
News. For my purposes, Hacker News is better than going to a university. Most
college classes do not provide the opportunity for vigorous debate.

I wanted to attend St. Johns in New Mexico.* It does a Great Books curriculum
and has colloquiums. Most colleges don't have colloquiums. I have about six
years of college education and have never taken part in one. But I can debate
people on Hacker News and learn lots of valuable things from people who are
well-read and knowledgeable on any number of subjects.

If I didn't have the internet, I would have to keep taking college classes to
try to get my intellectual needs met. Given my medical handicap and other life
details, that would be a problem. I would basically be losing my marbles from
lack of ability to meet my intellectual needs.

I have good reason to believe this is true for a lot of people. For one thing,
I was involved for a time in the online gifted community and it was a pretty
common story.

If you have two needs -- one for a job that pays your bills and another more
intrinsic need, such as intellectual hunger -- and a single path to meet
either of them, the intellectual hunger may win out over the job aspirations.
This is part of why we have the expression "starving artist." Never mind
Maslow's Hierarchy, some people have a tremendous need to pursue certain
things, and to hell with things deemed to be basic material needs.

If things change where a new path opens up to meet that intrinsic need, then
it becomes easier to say "Oh, well, yeah, given the high cost of college and
yadda, it only makes sense to pursue a degree that supports my desire to make
an income that will allow me to live comfortably and I can pursue this other
interest as more like a hobby."

* [https://www.sjc.edu/](https://www.sjc.edu/)

------
skookumchuck
I doubt that things will end well for people who choose STEM for the money,
rather than for the love of it. Me, I love doing engineering, and would do it
even if it was a low pay major. It paying well is just a nice bonus.

I've known too many engineers who did just enough to get buy. They're always
the first to get laid off, outsourced, etc.

~~~
bernardino
I think it's okay for people to go into certain fields primarily for money. I
also think they will end up as well as everyone else. I have friends who
majored in a field they were eager about but ended up realizing there was no
high demand in that field. Some went on to do technological (data science, web
development, etc) bootcamps and most of them like what they are doing now.
Most of them, on their free time, even still partake in that thing they
majored in.

------
throw2016
Without humanities you just presume you are. We see in discussion people talk
about social and political issues without any context of history, as if our
lives and societies just are, without any context of the processes and how
things came to be.

Look at the perspectives and quality of discussion on the other. These are
complex human societies with a rich history and context for their current
reality just like any other country or region. And without a study of history,
philosophy, sociology, a lot of the humanizing factors and a huge chunk of
human societies and their evolution gets lost.

Things like the the change from feudalism to capitalism, the experiments with
communism all have massive historical context and without at least a slight
familiarity with that context its nearly impossible to have informed
discussion.

