
The cure proposed for the crisis of the humanities is worse than the disease - nz
https://www.chronicle.com/article/There-Is-No-Case-for-the/242724/
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DoreenMichele
It is long and rambling and I took to skimming after a while.

The _liberal arts_ are called such because they are _liberating._ They are
freeing and empowering. They teach you how to get things done.

As a homeschooling parent, I gave my sons a humanities education defined
thusly:

 _An education in the art of dealing with the inconvenient, inescapable fact
of your own humanity and that of the people you are surrounded by._

Language, poetry, expressing yourself, dealing with your feelings and that of
other people, knowing the wisdom contained in classical stories, having some
background information on the foundations of the society you live in. These
are some of the pieces and purpose of a humanities education aka liberal arts.

If you don't really understand what the humanities are about, reading up on
The Clemente Course in Humanities is eye opening. They set out to teach
humanities to poor people and found that it allowed many of them to escape
poverty.

Here is their website, though I read a book about the origin story years ago:

[https://clementecourse.org](https://clementecourse.org)

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drb91
While this is an interesting definition of humanities, how does it tie into
the university programs discussed in the article? Do you think these programs
have value, both on research and teaching fronts? Do you think their structure
makes sense? Do you think your definition of humanities is reflected in the
university and are you arguing for them to reflect your view of the humanities
more?

Glancing at the website you linked, I can agree with some of the things
they're aiming for (reasoning is a useful skill that isn't always
straightforward to learn), but that's much different than figuring out how to
education a populace in a rational and economic way AND balancing this with
doing work worth studying in the first place.... much of which is addressed in
the article.

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DoreenMichele
It isn't "my" definition. It is the original definition of liberal arts:

 _But the liberal in liberal arts and liberal education does not stand in
contrast to conservative. Rather, it derives from the Latin liberalis,
associated with the meaning of freedom. Liberal, not as opposed to
conservative, but as free, in contrast to imprisoned, subjugated, or
incarcerated. Free citizens studied the trivium and quadrivium as part of
their liberal education, as these skills were considered the ones that would
enable them to function successfully as free citizens in society._

[https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-
sheet/wp/2015/04/...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-
sheet/wp/2015/04/02/what-the-liberal-in-liberal-arts-actually-
means/?utm_term=.80025148cc39)

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Karrot_Kream
A summary of the article's thesis (in my view), since it seems most lost the
patience to read it:

The humanities is a culture based around the activities of reading works,
thinking deeply about these works, then constructing criticisms of these
works. The humanities should not have to justify their existence. They do not
exist as some wish they did to further activist ideologies or to further
traditional church views. The humanities should not have to justify its
existence for its secondary or tertiary qualities (cognitive benefits,
discipline). The humanities have created a class of people with similar tastes
and ideas, and expulsion from universities won't make the humanities go away.
Humanities exist because historically people have found value in this form of
inquiry and these tastes, and people will continue to find value in these
activities, so the humanities will continue whether universities accept them
or not.

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jagthebeetle
As a sometime English major, I’m biased, but the main objective (or perhaps
side-effect) of the humanities, in my experience, was to teach one how to
write. Regardless of “truth,” “values,” pottery, or poetry, modular, well-
structured arguments were the main thing I got from that degree. Attempts to
justify the actual content of humanities studies seem futile, if valiant, and
nobody has been good at articulating deeper aims for English, at least. (I
found anyway that I was able to write A papers without reading the material.)

(At any rate, this author might have taken a more Orwellian pen to their
monograph.)

~~~
barce
I would think a dystopian bent on the humanities would be much worse. They
only exist to hide the real sins of the sciences' use (death, destruction,
greed). Yeah, there is no justification... there is no science way to prop up
the humanities. But if humanities teaches you to see in new ways, then you
have to acknowledge that there's a hermeneutically useful set of tools on
which science got based.

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manyoso
An insufferable read. Just reading this makes me want to abolish the
humanities...

~~~
barce
Why was it insufferable?

~~~
mywittyname
The article has 50+ paragraphs, and so few of them actually direct the reader
towards the main point.

~~~
barce
What was the articles main point?

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purplezooey
Life isn't just about doing what puts food on the table. Though, Paul Ryan and
Newt Gingrich would like us to think that.

