Two perspectives on the liberal arts and the humanities
A Good Liberal Arts Education and the American Caste System
by Alan Beado, Emeritus Professor at Stanley Livingstone College
I am not sure I can see much that is "good" about a "good liberal arts education", to be honest. You do not find other countries in such a frenzy over a "liberal arts education" as people in the US seem to be. It was quite a shock for me to observe this when I moved to the US.
Where I was an undergraduate, in Canada, people engaged in these sorts of studies were called "artsy fartsies". It was well-known by everyone that they were wasting their time and destroying their lives to pursue a completely worthless futile curriculum. If they switched into law or business, they might be able to eventually support themselves. If not, they could expect to be waiters and baristas and janitors and bartenders for the rest of their lives. Everyone knew this. It was obvious to everyone.
A source of confusion in the US, it seems to me, is the existence of a sort of "class system", or a "caste system". The children of the elites head to certain schools like Harvard and Stanford to party away their undergraduate years. Most of them have trust funds so they never ever have to actually work for a living. Their families have connections so they can easily get a job in the family business or the business of a family friend, if they might perchance want one.
The undergraduate experience for these elites is like a finishing school. Kids get one semester of "rocks for jocks" with no calculus, and one semester of German, and one semester of psychology, and so on down the line. They never take anything very demanding or anything in depth. If they do not show up to class and never do any assignments or essays, they previously were rewarded with a "gentleman's C". With grade inflation, they now get a "gentleman's A-".
The average American observing this phenomenon, looks at the smorgasbord of aimless, pointless, disconnected classes these elites are taking, and call it a "good liberal arts education". All that it really is, is an attempt to polish some of the rough corners off the elite kids slightly so they will not embarrass their parents at cocktail parties later. But their success is guaranteed, basically.
The average American thinks there is something magical about the education these elite kids are receiving. After all, they are all wealthy and "successful", so the public believes this must be the inevitable result of this sort of education. Therefore, the average American just imitates these elites and demands the same sort of education for their children.
Of course, it does not work quite the same way for the non-elites. Sure, certain companies recruit from these elite institutions and there is a chance to rub shoulders with the elites and potentially make "contacts". But this has very little to do with the haphazard assortment of "Mickey Mouse" classes that people take as part of a "good liberal arts education" at these fancy elite schools.
Real Humanities as a Vaccine Against Wokeness
By Ivan Marinovic, Stanford University
“I am not sure I can see much that is `good’ about a `good liberal arts education.’”
There is a sense in which I agree with this sentiment. I did not go to college in the US but in Chile. Strictly speaking, I did not get a liberal arts education, I went straight into economics and philosophy. However, I sense that the "liberal arts" combo in the USA is often a waste of time where students who don’t have clearly defined interests pick a disjointed set of low-standard courses, without structure or depth. The low-standard issue is often exacerbated by the politicization of the humanities. So yes, a liberal arts education may sound good, but in practice is often a waste of time that under-exploits our students’ intellectual capacities.
However, a student's education remains incomplete if their knowledge is confined to, say, computer science or accounting, without exposure to the classics in philosophy or literature, or more broadly to the arts and humanities.
A humanities education is indispensable for a well-rounded education. It may be less useful than finance or accounting to make a living, but it is more important on a deeper level. Human beings don’t need the humanities in a utilitarian sense, but they would not be what they are without the humanities. The humanities fill the higher contemplative needs of the soul, they respond to the needs of a free intelligence.
The importance of the humanities is apparent to anyone who has received an education in the humanities, to anyone who has enjoyed reading classic works of literature, history or philosophy. The humanities penetrate reality at a deeper level than most scientific or technical disciplines.
It is in the humanities and the arts that we get a glimpse of Beauty and Truth. Literature is often ahead of its time, much more than the social sciences. We can probably understand our time by reading Nietzsche or Ortega y Gasset better than by reading the social sciences.
The humanities confront us with fundamental problems of existence. Who are we as human beings? Where are we going? What does it mean to live a good life? What is the nature of good and evil?
Literature in particular allows us to share in the existence of other people: Learn about different psychologies and cultures, travel in time. Be part of Socrates' trial, join Plato's academy, understand medieval Europe with Cervantes, or explore the human condition in 19th century Russia with Dostoevsky.
Our sensibility is transformed as we engage with the beauty and depth of the humanities. The humanities don’t necessarily humanize, wrote the late George Steiner, but they do refine our sensibility, and shape our personalities. Someone wrote that culture is what remains when one has forgotten everything. Culture, in that deep sense, is what the humanities offer.
I have a conjecture: the probability of being “woke” is almost zero for someone who has read the classics. Part of this might be selection. However, if you read classic literature you will feel tremendously grateful for the beauty and wisdom of those works. The last thing you will worry about is the race and sex of the authors.
"I have a conjecture: the probability of being “woke” is almost zero for someone who has read the classics."
This seems almost self-evident to me. After all, the reason thinking people reject the repugnant postmodernist ideology is that it runs counter the entire great Western philosophical and artistic tradition from the times of Homer and the Milesians. Sophocles, Epicurus, Marcus Aurelius are exactly the targets of the mob led by Derrida, Butler, di Angelo, Žižek et al.
In previous times, say in 1930s, even those intellectuals who were open communists, but had classical education stood out as more normal than the rest of the mob. JBS Haldane got his diploma in classical studies, was a commie for a long time, but still argued that human behavior is essentially driven by biology and rejected the notion of "equality" as nonsense. He even wrote a collection of essays doubly politically incorrectly titled "The Inequality of Men".
The truth is somewhere in the middle and more nuanced. Yes, liberal arts is a luxury good from a pure economics perspective but life is long and the >50th percentiles who go to four-year colleges are all very rich in global terms.
More prosaically, even at the Ivy I attended a few decades ago, for the prep school kids it was review, whereas for others it would be the only time they would consume the Great Books. For me, reading philosophy has been an important part of life since I was 16 years old.
The Western tradition attracted the immigrants like me, and helps the multicultural societies we all live in cohere, just as English provides a lingua franca. The alternative is tribalism under bloated regional bureaucratic empires (i.e., USA, EU, Greater China) or corrupt petro-states (e.g., Saudi Arabia, Nigeria).