
The Humanities Are in Crisis - ozdave
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/08/the-humanities-face-a-crisisof-confidence/567565/?single_page=true
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sctb
Previously:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17840090](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17840090).

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waynecochran
I received what is essentially a humanities degree -- a math degree from UW in
the College of Arts and Sciences -- in 1990. I loved reading Shakespeare,
studying Philosophy, etc... and became a member of Phi Beta Kappa. Later I got
a PhD in Computer Science, but I always cherished and recommended getting a
liberal arts degree. Most afternoons in UW's Red Square you would encounter a
myriad of street preachers, protestors, activists of all colors and stripes --
it was the kind of environment where your views would eventually be
challenged. Debates were often out in the open and you better leave your straw
men and ad hominem rants at home. It toughened me up and even altered some of
my views. That is the way it should be.

Things have changed a great deal since then. Much of the liberal arts and
related fields have been hijacked by the "social justice warrior" types. Free
Speech is almost dead on campuses. Classic liberal and thoughtful progressive
views have been overrun by those seeking to silence anyone who has an opinion
that deviates from PC culture. Students are now indoctrinated into becoming
"professional victims" and endorsing "identity politics" and its ilk.
Ironically, in the push for diversity (an important goal) there ends up being
very little intellectual diversity at all -- humanity professors think in
complete lockstep with one another. Outrage and offense is the new badge of
honor. Being "triggered" from "micro-aggression" is the new currency. Students
are sheltered and protected from anything that they may offend them -- in the
end the become intellectually weak.

I haven't visited Red Square in a long while -- but I doubt you see the same
crazy speakers that once frequented there. Why would would any thoughtful
young folks who thought "outside the lines" even bother anymore -- students
just keep their heads down and focus on getting a degree that has future
earning potential. If you fight it, you risk your degree. It is a sad
conclusion, the humanities are indeed in crisis.

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yters
The core problem is humanities have accepted materialism. This leaves two
options:

1\. Subjectivity to preserve the values of goodness, truth and beauty

2\. Deny such values exist

However, the humanities are predicated on the objective existence of these
values, which is denied by either option. Thus, the acceptance of materialism
necessarily kills the humanities.

~~~
GCA10
College-based humanities accepted materialism centuries ago, when they got
comfortable with the idea of training future clergy that could make a living
in nearby towns. Travel the back roads of the U.S., and you'll see that New
England, the Midwest and the South are rich with small liberal-arts colleges
that began as faith-funded schools backed by specific denominations.

Humanities departments continue to operate with a vocational tilt that made
sense in the 1950s (heyday of the GI Bill!) training students to earn Ph.D.s
and become professors of the humanities at other, rapidly expanding
institutions of higher learning themselves. In this model, which persists
today, students learn the current cadences of academic writing. That is its
own art form, which is fascinatingly different from all other types of writing
-- and generally pretty unsuited to everyday use.

This hasn't worked out so well lately, because faculty job openings in the
humanities are far scarcer than the supply of new graduates. So students
hoping to make it all the way to a professorship end up stuck. As Prof.
Schmidt notes in his piece, it's possible for humanities graduates to find
good careers in the mainstream economy, but there are a lot of jitters about
how to do so.

What's probably fueling this student anxiety (and a desire to avoid pursuing
humanities majors) is an apprehension that the faculty is unfamiliar with
career paths other than chasing a Ph.D. and trying to earn a faculty position
somewhere.

It's actually quite striking how many anthro majors find their way to UX;
English majors succeed in sales, etc. But there's no support from faculty to
get there. And while understaffed career-services departments do the best they
can, learning how to get here from there is much harder than it should be.

~~~
yters
By materialism I don't mean earning a living. What I mean is the belief the
material world is all that exists. We are seeing the belief work itself out in
the destruction of the humanities. However, the science and engineering fields
are not immune, since they all depend on the humanities for their credibility.
I.e. what sense does science make if there is no objective truth? Or, why
worry about engineering good quality products if goodness doesn't exist? Then
it's just a matter of what everyone can get away with to get the diploma and
the high paying job. Hence the high rates of cheating, plagiarism, faking
results, etc.

Humanities education made a lot more sense when the subject of the humanities
was believed to exist. Then there'd be reason to have many openings for
humanities professors, spin off education jobs in public education, private
education, etc.

~~~
whatshisface
> _Or, why worry about engineering good quality products if goodness doesn 't
> exist?_

Why bother reasoning from our intuitions about what we want when we could just
pursue our subconscious goals directly? Who needs to be convinced that they
want a product to be good-quality?

~~~
yters
> Who needs to be convinced that they want a product to be good-quality?

Many people, apparently.

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quxbar
I got my CS degree from a small liberal arts school, while also pursuing a
creative writing major. I also had the chance to perform music, act in plays,
study abroad, and do research with my favorite professors. I was never given
the tiniest guidance towards employable skills. I would say it was wholly an
education in the humanities, as long as you count math (and why wouldn't you?)

I won't try to argue that this education was superior other methods, but I
will say I think it's worked incredibly well for me.

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cryptozeus
“A best-selling volume in 1964 warned that a science-focused world left no
room for humane pursuits“ this basically sums it up. I think non STEM degrees
are what gave upper edge to the first world countries. If you observe
developing countries like india where everyone just wants to become engineer
or doctor, you will see very one minded direction of life. Everyone is
pursuing money.

~~~
lellotope
I think the issues go deeper than the degree program per se. Often the
humanities are part of a liberal arts degree, which differs from other degrees
not just in the major subject, but also in that it is broad in focus. Where I
went to school, for example, you could get a math major from a college of
science and engineering, or from the college of liberal arts and sciences. The
difference was largely in terms of how much of the coursework was in major
versus out of major.

I bring this up because often liberal arts degrees are predicated on an
assumption that a person will be seen as more than their degree, even in the
labor market. That is, someone who can complete a liberal arts degree in
philosophy with good grades and the right extracurricular experiences, who has
taken a lot of the right coursework, can go on to get a master's in computer
science, or biochemistry, or a law degree, or MD, or learn the right skills
from their employer.

What we have now is a problem where too much focus is put on certification.
Employers (or their HR departments?) see a degree as a certification to do a
particular skill. They don't want to try to surmise these skills from other
experiences, or to train new employees in those skills, they want a box
checked that says "this person can do A."

This I think is the source of this trend more than anything. It's an equating
of degree major with skillset, or ability, or whatnot.

When you live in a society where having X degree is required, either by
employer hiring practices or by law, as a certification of being able to do A,
B, or C task--even if you do not _actually_ need that particular degree to do
those tasks--you are inevitably going to see everyone want to have X degree.
When you create an economic environment driven by rent seeking and regulatory
capture of one sort or another, you're going to see people try to position
themselves accordingly.

I think the rise in interests in MOOCs, etc., and criticism of traditional
educational structures in part is a response to this overcredentialing. The
irony is that the liberal arts degree, which is supposed to be a kind of happy
medium, kind of has been squeezed out from both sides of that argument.

