A New Direction

I'm absolutely tired of Stanley Fish. As our class debates showed, Science is much loved and revered despite... well... pretty much any alternative. I think I would much rather talk about fixing ourselves.
When I say fix ourselves, I don't mean you or a neighbor, I mean we as Americans. We need to fix America and along the way, ourselves as citizens. I'm tired of trying to solve the world's problems, and appararently so are many other Americans. A recent editorial,Who Will Tell The People? by Thomas L. Friedman, explores the growing desire in America for nation-building. And not foreign nation-building.
Americans want to bring jobs back to the U.S. Unemployment is at a nearing a fifteen year high with nearly 8.1 million citizens registering as unemployed. We've seen such a huge concern for illegal immigration arise over the past few years as more and more Americans feel the need to blame someone for their own lack of ambition, capability, and political sensibility. When a southern Virginia farmer wanders into the USDA building in Washington D.C. to complain that he can't find any legal laborers despite his offered a wages that are $2 above minimum wage, it should become clear something is terribly wrong. Especially when the fact that he hails from a region of Virginia that has high percentages of inhabitants that live off government subsidies is taken into consideration.
America has lost it's focus amongst its grandeur. The generations following the Baby Boomers have been absorbed with the luxuries afforded to them by their parents, learning how to spend money, not conserve it. Baby Boomers felt the need to prove themselves, to be as frugal and ecclectic as their Great Depression and WWII surviving parents while improving the world around them (and in the process reaping the benefits of their diligence and innovation).
Subsequent generations have lost this focus. The 80's and 90's brought forth an extended version of the Roaring '20s. Computers, the Internet, cable television, cell phones, CD's, MP3's, laptops, handeld video games, globalization, outsourcing, cost-efficient cars, Bill Clinton,' don't ask, don't tell', Gulf War, online stock markets, human genome project, nanotechnology, and various other people, ideas, policies, schemes, breakthroughs, and innovations entered mainstream American life. Money was made as quickly as it was spent but that was okay because we had a national surplus.
Today, we are reaping the benefits. George Bush's son has decided to carry out his father's legacy and to complete the American conquest of Iraq. The environment is likely failing, the American economy is in the dumps (the Chinese have more American dollars than America does), science is dominating our way of life, everyone has ADD or ADHD, and more money is being spent on gas than on food (although with grain price increases this trend will not last long). Yet still, college campuses are plaster with signs begging you to see the 'invisible children' or to cure AIDS in Africa.
The time has come for Americans to save America. Feed people starving in Weiss, VA. Find a paying job, regardless of whether or not you are 'above' it. Get off welfare. Seek an education, become motivated, show an interest in overachievement over self-indulgence. Become doctors and scientists (they make money too). Make America great once more.

The Advanced Generation and Humanities

Are technology and science able to install the same personal values as humanities? What we take from playing with gadgets and then applying it to the real world, is it the same as applying the use/knowledge of humanities? My answer would be…uh no. In some shape or form, everyone experiences humanities. Whether it is reading a good book, listening to music, seeing a play, creating art, etc., the humanities will always influence a number of the people. Regardless of funding, humanities will ultimately fight to survive. There will be those who hope for the best and devote their careers to their passions. I fear however, that the power of technology will create complete laziness among other problems. This may likely diminish the source of humanities (those who produce them), and create a whole new sense of the world. Humanities do not work in a negative way, they only enrich and enable the individual. I don’t see how a dominating technological society will do the same. At least most all of us acquire some form of education in the arts, but can you imagine a world without them or just growing up on technology alone? It’s a scary thought. With or without humanities, do you think you would be a different person and/or society would be a place?

Appreciating the Humanities

John Updike has been recently awarded the highest honor in the humanities by the federal government, the Jefferson Lecture. The award is given to an individual who has made great contributions to the humanities and who is able to convey the knowledge and wisdom of the humanities. The National Endowment for the Humanities was established in 1965 as a federal agency to support the many areas of the humanities including literature, philosophy and history.
There has been a great amount of debate over the controversy in the humanities. Many argue that the humanities popularity and importance has declined to the point that it serves no purpose. By just reading about this award and convention is it not evident that the humanities still has not lost its influence? Is it not apparent that this country still believes that the guidance of the humanities is needed? The greatest authority in the country holds an annual meeting every year and has created this agency to demonstrate the humanities’ wisdom and importance.
The lecture is apart of the National Endowment’s campaign, Picturing America, to promote American art to help others understand the events, people, and ideas that has formed this nation. This is what the humanities does and this is why it should be funded. It has great influence on the history, culture and traditions of this country. The humanities can never be forgotten because it’s apart of our history and our culture. People ask why the humanities should be funded or they say that you don’t make enough money when you study this subject, but the study of this subject is far deeper than a few dollar bills. People still value the humanities for their knowledge because not everyone can understand Shakespeare or T.S. Eliot. If it wasn’t for Shakespeare we wouldn’t have theatre which later evolved to movies.
Just because some people stopped reading books and in stead started listening to their iPods doesn’t mean we should just give up on the humanities. Sure it doesn’t promise a luxurious lifestyle, but is that the reason why people study the humanities? Does it serve the purpose of giving you six digit salaries or to spread knowledge?

Making the personal universal

In all my dealings with the arts, the goal of any artist is to make the personal universal, to take a personal inspiration, fulfill that for your self and at the same time make it so that everyone can somehow relate their personal self to it. This is why people can appreciate art, because there is room for interpretation and what you take away from it (consciously or not) is based on who you are as a person. Two people can look at the same painting or listen to the same piece of music and know that they may take away two very different ideas about it, but that’s okay, people can accept that fact (although they may not like it). In fact one artist may look at another artists work and see or hear something that inspires them to create a piece of art for others to view or listen to, and another, and another, and so on and so forth. This is the beauty of studying the arts; you learn that whatever you take away from that piece of art is something that is important to you, something that matters to you, because if it didn’t, you would get something entirely different and that will be very different for everyone because no two people are the same.

So my question is, what makes studying humanities and humanistic texts any different? What if we looked at it as a piece of art that will help us find out what is important to us and what we care about? Studying humanities and humanistic texts can be seen as just one more venue of getting to these conclusions so that we can act upon our thoughts and be inspired. It may take more time to do so because we may actually have to read something, instead of just observing it, but as the saying goes…Rome wasn’t built in a day!

If the Humanities Can't Save Us ... Then Who Will Save the Humanities?

Stanley Fish contends that while the production of humanistic texts may have some relevance to the world at large, the academic study of those texts has nothing useful to offer aside from personal enjoyment. And it seems he may have a point. In the 21st Century where technology is king, do you really want to be stuck in an ivory tower for the rest of your life reading King Lear for half the salary of your former roommate who became a successful computer programmer and drives a Porsche?

Unfortunately, if you plan to head out into the rumored post-collegiate "real world" armed with nothing but a humanities degree and a healthy dose of naiveté, your job opportunities will be severely limited. Many humanities majors either have to find a job outside of their field of study or else head to graduate school, which means incurring even more costs (and debt!) for a smaller salary when you finally obtain your dream job as a criminally underpaid associate-assistant professor of socio-literary interdisciplinary history at State U. Congrats on the dream job! But wow--it sure took a lot of money to get there. According to CNNMoney.com, the average tuition at a four-year private institution is $23,712 in 2007-2008. And even public schools aren't that cheap--$6,185 on average, and that's just for the in-staters!

I think I'm starting to see Stanley Fish's point. With costs like these, it's not a question of how the university can justify the costs, but how can we, the humanities students? According to Stan Katz in the blog Brainstorm, "Salaries in the social sciences are on average 7.5 percent higher than in history." Ouch. And don't forget that history professors' salaries are still higher than the other humanities'! Things are looking grim for us humanities majors. First we have to incur all this debt, and then we're paid too poorly to get out of it? Even if we decide to jump ship and abandon this sinking humanities boat, our other options are pretty slim as well. The blog Study Hacks presents the findings of a study done by CollegeGrad.com (complete with this nifty pie chart to put things into terrifying perspective) that has some (not so) shocking results: When hiring college grads, 42% of potential employers say that the grad's major is the most important criteria. And I'll hazard a guess that a resume with just about any humanities major plastered on it isn't quite dressed to impress. Not only is our boat sinking, but we don't even have a life raft. Yikes!

So what is there to do? The already tough job market keeps getting tougher, and we humanities majors have the worst of it. Sure, we may have skills in writing and critical thinking, but can we program computers or manage a business? How can we use our precious humanities skills to our advantage? In her comment to the first blog post, Lauren provides a perfect example of how to make the most out of a humanities degree. Even though it is a humanity, a degree in dance can be parlayed into a viable career in dance therapy, which not only pays the bills but also helps others. So it seems that humanities do have uses, after all! Especially when combined with another discipline, the things that we learn during our course of studies in the humanities department aren't as useless in the "real world" as Dr. Fish suggests.

But then again ... aren't universities supposed to be places of learning and education? Why then are we so concerned with what our degrees can do for us? Is learning for learning's sake no longer enough? College has become almost a requirement in this modern age. As recently as a hundred years ago universities were still bastions of the elite, yet nowadays just about anyone can go to college--and most of us have to in order to remain competitive in the workplace. And that's what it all boils down to: The workplace. The issue at the heart of this debate isn't the humanities themselves; the issue is that college is now merely a stepping-stone to a high-paying career. In terms of high-paying career potential, the humanities are at the bottom of the university food chain.

What do you think? Can a humanities degree land you a good job--or is that even the point? Is it worth the ever-increasing cost--both to the students and to the universities--to keep supporting the humanities departments? Are we students of the humanities solely for the sake of our futures, or for some other reason? Can the humanities really save us? If they can't ... then who (or what) can save the humanities?

The Uses of the Humanities

Stanley Fish, an academic humanist, makes a bold claim about the utility of the humanities. He argues that their main purpose is to provide individual pleasure. They don’t reform, they don’t humanize, and they don’t help us understand the meaning of life, Fish asserts, because if they did, your English, philosophy, music, and history professors would be among the best people on earth (and you already know that they aren’t!).

Is Fish right? Scholars of history make war, writers of novels commit crimes, and gifted creative artists lose their lives to drugs and alcohol. And yet, it was a pamphlet that helped launch the American Revolution, it was music that helped empower a generation to oppose the Vietnam War, and a painting like Picasso’s Guernica is considered a national treasure in Spain.

What do you think? Can training in the humanistic disciplines do anything more than give us individual pleasure?

J.