Why the Humanities Matter
When we study the liberal arts, we experience human nature, society and the moral implications of human actions.
I was getting my nails done the other day and scrolling (admittedly rather awkwardly) through my phone when I came across the following:
Recent guidance issued by the education secretary, Gillian Keegan, to the Office for Students reveals conflicting priorities in government and pours fuel on fires burning in an already troubled higher education sector.
The focus on science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) — “strategically important high-cost subjects” — is met by a freeze on funding for arts subjects such as music, fashion and drama at undergraduate level.
This amounts to a cut in real terms in the face of inflation, and there are cuts in grants for postgraduate provision — as well as the programme for widening participation to support access to higher education for students from disadvantaged backgrounds.’
I sighed. Anyone who has studied a humanities subject will likely have had the experience of being asked (in a particular tone of voice) what she will ‘do’ with that subject, as if education were a means to an end and not an end in itself. But with the increasing mechanisation of everything, these critics of the humanities have grown bolder. Making matters worse is the less-than-ideal state of the economy, and the rapid growth of of the technology sectors, where there are stubborn skills shortages. From the standpoint of the government, getting more people into STEM jobs amounts to getting the economy back on track.
Now as I have written elsewhere, a government has to concern itself with the economic benefits of education. It is the pragmatic thing to do. We need skills, or we will not be of much practical use to each other. Well, fine. But we need the humanities, too. In fact, I would argue that we need the humanities and those who study and have studied them very much at this particular point in our history. So indulge me.
Anyone who has studied a humanities subject will likely have had the experience of being asked (in a particular tone of voice) what she will ‘do’ with that subject.
The question ‘What are you gonna do with that, then?’ betrays a very simplistic understanding of knowledge. It suggests that to know is only to know what — to have what Gilbert Ryle called ‘propositional knowledge’. This is to know that the sum of the angles in a triangle is 180 degrees, that World War II ended in 1945, or that Lord Mountbatten, the former head of the Royal Navy, was nicknamed ‘Lord Mountbottom’ due to his fondness for younger seamen.
But there is another form of knowing, which is knowing how, and this a practical form of knowledge that comes chiefly through experience. It is to know, for example, how to keep the conversation going at a dinner party, how to tie your shoelaces, or how to make the perfect cup of mahogany-brown tea. And it is this kind of knowledge that we mostly develop when we study the humanities.
When we study drama, music, art or literature, we experience human nature, society and the moral implications of human actions. We learn about the messiness of human life and the sundry dilemmas that inevitably arise within it. And we learn this through an encounter with the characters: by bringing ourselves to bear on what we hear, see or read. To a great degree we become part of the events ourselves, acting as both player and spectator, object and subject; and it is by adopting this dual point of view that we experience riches of human feeling. Here is Roger Scruton on the subject:
‘We teach the humanities not because they will produce shrewder entrepreneurs or kinder CEOs but because they help us to enjoy life more and to endure it better. The knowledge they offer is not instrumental but existential — belonging to the inner life of the person who acquires it.’
When we study drama, music, art or literature, we experience human nature, society and the moral implications of human actions. We learn about the messiness of human life.
The humanities, then, also provide an emotional education. When we see Lady Macbeth staggering through the darkness, attempting to wash imaginary blood off her hands, we are encountering the grave impact of guilt and remorse on the human mind. Then, as the drama proceeds towards its climax, we are invited to stand back and see where the untempered pursuit of power inexorably leads. (It might be interesting to learn, by the way, that one theory about dreaming is that it lets us ‘practice’ certain difficult emotions in a safe way and so become more skilled at dealing with the situations life throws at us.)
Roger Scruton, as a traditionalist conservative, was not just interested in how the humanities enrich the inner life, but in the way they transmits the stuff that makes up a heritage and identity, and so the way it fosters a sense of continuity and belonging. You may agree with this or find it quaint (or both); but it is surely true that the humanities pass on norms, beliefs and values and allow us to connect with those that came before us. I am quite sympathetic to what Roger says insofar as he is pointing to the importance of connecting to something bigger than ourselves. But this need not be so parochial. We all arise out of a culture and tradition with which we may or may not choose to engage, but we all, to a greater or lesser extent, are part of self-chosen traditions, especially in those matters we know best. We have intellectual or musical or political heroes, for example. We ‘identify’, as we like to say, with historical people whom we perceive as having had a similar character to ourselves. We can choose the river, but we always stand in the current of time and allow its waters to wash over our ankles.
In the end, the humanities are chiefly about nourishing our empathy, widening our worldview, and opening us up to possibility, rather than closing us down to certainty. Many of the great scientists and mathematicians, from Einstein to Poincaré, spoke of the importance of music, literature and drama to thinking deeply, broadly and creatively—showing that, at least for some of history’s most celebrated ‘STEM’ figures, there was no competition between the technical subjects and the liberal arts. For them, a thoroughgoing training in the humanities improves our approach to technical pursuits, making sure that we look at problems from all sides, ‘in the round’, and through a humane lens. In our present age, it might help us avoid making humans more like machines, and instead, make machines more like humans. Michael Oakeshott perhaps put it best, however, when he wrote of the humanities: ‘to be educated is not to have arrived at a destination, but to travel with a different view’.
