This humanities kid has something to say
I’m a 20-year journalism veteran who didn’t go to journalism school. I got a degree in English literature after first majoring in environmental science because it became clear that an academic discipline that encourages thoughtful interpretation; understanding of themes, plot, characters and context; and emotional literacy is where I excel academically.
Having built up my journalism skills over two decades after an on-the-job baptism by fire, I can confidently say I’m a strong editor, as well as a proficient, sometimes inspired, writer. (I’ve had many great teachers.)
And I know, with absolute certainty, the reason I’m good at what I do in journalism is because I got a degree in English literature. My intelligence, my sensibility and my ability to connect with people’s stories and empathize were shaped and nurtured by the study of fiction, of literature and narrative art such as film.
During the virtual meeting this week of the record club I participate in, a friend who teaches creative writing at a university ruefully joked that he thinks the newly combined English-foreign languages department at his school in Indiana should be named the “post-humanities.” In the age of STEM-heavy university programs, Big Tech dominance and the AI revolution (that is coming for our originality and all our fresh water), the humanities are rapidly losing ground as majors that are considered worthy of pursuing. They are quixotic choices for young people who don’t care about getting a professional job and making a living wage, at least according to cynics and boomers who froth at the mouth about college grads, saddled with a crushing amount of crazy-high-interest-accruing student loan debt, who dare to hope for a forgiveness program.
(I paid my way through school and avoided loans, but that’s because I attended a satellite campus and classes were actually affordable back then. That isn’t the case now. So lucky me. Members of older generations willfully fail to see or acknowledge that conditions have dramatically changed since they went to college — the costs are much higher, the interest tacked on to loans is predatory and it’s very difficult for people to get ahead of the interest in their payments.)
Those who believe the humanities are a dead end for a worthy career are looking at the surface while ignoring the depths. Here is the fallout from the devaluing of the humanities: a dearth in critical thinking, poor ability to debate and communicate, and lack of engagement in civic life. It will get much worse unless we reclaim higher education for its intended purpose: to create citizens of the world. To create well-rounded human beings with an acuity of mind and heart, not just cog-in-the-wheel workers, not just professionals who think a six-figure salary is the best measure of whether you’ve truly arrived.
I’m not stupid or naive. I understand that people need to be able to survive in the shit storm that is our economy; they need to be able to afford food, housing and other basic expenses. My quarrel isn’t with private decision-making about college that is solely numbers-driven. My quarrel is with our societal value system and how we are sending the message to young people who would thrive in the humanities that they should fight that wonderful impulse and surrender to the cynic’s game.
There’s so much more to this conversation. Universities as profit machines, for one.
But my point is that I have become a professional and a human being I can be proud of because of the humanities. Please don’t sell them short. The consequences would be disastrous for our world and for our inner life.