Practical by any other name

For about 40 years, the humanities’ status in higher education has been plummeting.

At last count, they accounted for about 8 percent of college degrees. This shouldn’t come as a surprise – the rise of the American industrialist in the 20th century, our nation increasingly became one of workers and producers, rather than poets and philosophers.

Besides, with the economy in shambles, and as American universities scramble to churn out scientists and engineers at the rate of countries like China and Japan, incoming freshmen will find it harder than ever to convince their parents that a degree in American studies or art history is really worth that fat tuition check.  

The most common accusation against the humanities is that they are inherently impractical.

Now if by “practical” one means that the underlying goal of any educational endeavor should be to stimulate the economy or produce a tangible good, then, yes, the humanities have little value.

But universities were founded to create thoughtful individuals who could consider the world’s complex and nuanced dilemmas, rather than simply process statistics or memorize formulas.

As Winston Churchill once noted, “The first duty of a university is to teach wisdom, not a trade; character, not technicalities.”   

In another sense, though, the humanities do possess a practicality of their own. Although thought is not a commodity we can measure like gross domestic product or manufactured goods, it remains the most lasting and intrinsically valuable commodity man has ever produced.

Ideas have shaped the course of history, and even the most powerful, economically efficient country whose citizens abandon the examination of humanity is doomed to perish.  

However, thinking about history or government or society, like physics or accounting, is a discipline that must be taught and cultivated. And we must never fall into the trap of mistaking mental stimulation for thought.

For although calculus and chemistry can stretch our minds in wonderful and mysterious ways, neither of these subjects develops the sort of intellectual self-reliance that is imperative for statesmen, philosophers and other agents of political and social transformation.

The moment at which we collectively repudiate the humanities is the moment at which we reject the most foundational preparation for leaders and social pioneers.

Of course, academic immersion in the humanities is not for everyone. But for those who want to understand the ideas and events that have shaped the world in which we now live and which we hope to improve, one has little choice.  

In fact, in a New York Times article in February, Anthony Kronman of Yale argued that “the need for ... the humanities is, if anything, more urgent today,” alluding to the vast cultivation of greed and selfishness that fueled the economic tailspin.

Though the economic crisis has left many recent graduates floundering in a brutal job market, it is precisely in times like these that we need more, not less, of the humanities.  

Now is the time to determine “what we care about and what we value,” a commission which the humanities, as Kronman observed, “are extremely well equipped to address.”