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!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
5 comments:
While I do agree that if people see the study of humanistic texts the way they see art they can learn to appreciate it more, the general public's approach toward these text results in indifference because of the lack of understanding and impatience. With our vernacular LOLs and OMGs it’s difficult for many to comprehend the symbols and metaphors in literature and in art. Also time is money in this world and to be honest most people don't have the time to read Shakespeare. For many it’s easy to look at a painting, admire it, interpret it and then move on because it doesn’t take too much time. But with books you have to find the time to read it first. On the other hand the benefit of having scholars who study the humanities is that they can provide the rest of us with their insight so that we can learn from them and then interpret it on our own. Another method can be to integrate the humanities in to our lives to help us understand and be grateful of it. For example, its combination with technology, such as making it available online can be more convenient and less time-consuming.
One of the problems with literature and the humanities these days is that we are living in an era of sound bites, short attention spans, and instant gratification. When the iphone came out, the benefits and impact were immediate. You could buy one and start using it immediately to change your everyday life. But when a humanistic text comes out, it could take months, years, even decades for its impact to be realized. Many artists in the past became famous only posthumously--in this day and age, everyone wants to get something NOW, not in ten or fifteen years. This kind of mindset is part of what affects the attitude towards the arts and the humanities--new technology can produce improved results very quickly, while advances in the humanities take much longer. So while I agree that the individual appreciation of art is important, and that it would be great if humanistic texts could be treated similarly, these days people are (seemingly) busier than ever, with cell phones glued to their ears and the world at their fingertips via the internet. With everything so easily accessible, it seems unlikely that anyone would want to stop and truly give the time it would take to appreciate a piece of art or work of literature.
The best thing about humanities is that you are free to your own interpretation. Yes, there are some things that are probably closer to what the artist themselves were trying to portray, however most times there is no right or wrong. I remember in high school when we would have to analyze a poem, as long as you could back your interpretation with a justifiable answer, that was okay. History although is not as fluid as literature, it is more concrete than other humanistic texts so I'm not sure if that could be left wide open to interpretation. Humanities are broad and open to discussion on several levels, that is the beauty of them. They give a personal meaning to each and everyone of us, and no one can ever take that away.
I agree. I agree that in the end the humanities might boil down to being no more useful than helping someone define their life or even some small aspect of it. That is the beaut of the humanities. They provide clutter for the mental attic. They prevent dangerously linear thinking by providing mental obstacles (ideas, thoughts, philosophies) that cause a person to slow down and truly consider life. It is great and for that reason alone they are worth studying. It is hard to imagine a student studying Descartes and not considering the essence of being or a historian studying Howard Zinn's "A People's History of the United States" and not questioning the facts of history they know. This is the point of the study of the humanities, to provide scholars with paradigms, arguments, and insights with which to approach the world.
Addendum: We are increasingly becoming a society that embraces linear thought processes. And I believe that is born from our increasing facilitation of linear access. To do research it is no longer necessary to go to the library or interact with a person thanks to google, lexis-nexis, JSTOR, etc. If you have a defective tool or want to know how to build a birdhouse, Yahoo! Search it for a solution. We embrace science because it gives us 'unquestionable' answers that rest on linear and 'tested' methodology. We want all the thought done for us so that everything simply becomes a process with very clear instructions.
Post a Comment