{"id":11183,"date":"2018-06-19T14:09:20","date_gmt":"2018-06-19T21:09:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ideasandsociety.ucr.edu\/?p=11183"},"modified":"2018-06-19T14:10:31","modified_gmt":"2018-06-19T21:10:31","slug":"stop-trying-to-sell-the-humanities","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ideasandsociety.ucr.edu\/directors-corner\/stop-trying-to-sell-the-humanities\/","title":{"rendered":"Stop Trying to Sell the Humanities"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"fusion-fullwidth fullwidth-box fusion-builder-row-1 nonhundred-percent-fullwidth non-hundred-percent-height-scrolling\" style=\"--awb-border-radius-top-left:0px;--awb-border-radius-top-right:0px;--awb-border-radius-bottom-right:0px;--awb-border-radius-bottom-left:0px;--awb-flex-wrap:wrap;\" ><div class=\"fusion-builder-row fusion-row\"><div class=\"fusion-layout-column fusion_builder_column fusion-builder-column-0 fusion_builder_column_1_1 1_1 fusion-one-full fusion-column-first fusion-column-last\" style=\"--awb-bg-size:cover;\"><div class=\"fusion-column-wrapper fusion-flex-column-wrapper-legacy\"><div class=\"fusion-text fusion-text-1\"><p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/www.chronicle.com\/\/img\/photos\/biz\/photo_87724_landscape_650x433.jpg\" alt=\"\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong><em>Arguments that they\u2019re useful are wrong, anti-humanistic, and sure to backfire<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"dropcap\">T<\/span>he humanities are taking it on the chin. If there were any doubts about this proposition, they have been dispelled by the University of Wisconsin at Stevens Point\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.chronicle.com\/article\/Can-Closing-a-Humanities\/243113\">proposal to eliminate 13 majors<\/a>, including history, art, English, philosophy, sociology, political science, French, German, and Spanish. The administration cited large deficits, programs with a low enrollment, and a desire to play to its strengths \u2014 STEM subjects and training in technology. One professor of physics and astronomy (Ken Menningen) approved, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.chronicle.com\/article\/Can-Closing-a-Humanities\/243113\">declaring that<\/a> the university was right to &#8220;pivot away from the liberal arts&#8221; and toward programs that students, concerned with career prospects, find attractive. That reasoning might make sense if Stevens Point were a trade school, but it is, at least by title and claim, a university, and there is an argument to be made that because the claim is now without support at Stevens Point, the title should be removed.<\/p>\n<p>The philosopher and political theorist Michael Oakeshott would have thought so. Here is his <a href=\"https:\/\/yalebooks.yale.edu\/book\/9780300047530\/voice-liberal-learning\">account <\/a>of the university: &#8220;It is a place where [the student] \u2026 is not encouraged to confuse education with training for a profession, with learning the tricks of a trade, with preparation for future particular service in society, or with the acquisition of a kind of moral and intellectual outfit to see him through life.&#8221; Note that Oakeshott lists in rapid succession the most often invoked defenses and justifications of liberal education, and note too that he immediately dismisses them as barely worth thinking about: &#8220;Whenever an ulterior purpose of this sort makes its appearance, education \u2026 steals out of the back door with noiseless steps.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.chronicle.com\/article\/Stop-Trying-to-Sell-the\/243643?key=m1JvRRyygNd0EHj5AaFoO0ti00iCHCUA2K5ZxC8dMYxDxHtupVA2vVdwCkhaYR63dmtqcHlDbzFCVllkSGhIczZsMXBNMGRlUVpJWFdFUjRSR1cxNS01VnN2SQ\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong>Read Full Article<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<\/div><div class=\"fusion-clearfix\"><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_price":"","_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_header":"","_tribe_default_ticket_provider":"","_tribe_ticket_capacity":"0","_ticket_start_date":"","_ticket_end_date":"","_tribe_ticket_show_description":"","_tribe_ticket_show_not_going":false,"_tribe_ticket_use_global_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_global_stock_level":"","_global_stock_mode":"","_global_stock_cap":"","_tribe_rsvp_for_event":"","_tribe_ticket_going_count":"","_tribe_ticket_not_going_count":"","_tribe_tickets_list":"[]","_tribe_ticket_has_attendee_info_fields":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[100],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11183","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-directors-corner"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ideasandsociety.ucr.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11183"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ideasandsociety.ucr.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ideasandsociety.ucr.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ideasandsociety.ucr.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ideasandsociety.ucr.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11183"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/ideasandsociety.ucr.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11183\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11186,"href":"https:\/\/ideasandsociety.ucr.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11183\/revisions\/11186"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ideasandsociety.ucr.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11183"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ideasandsociety.ucr.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11183"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ideasandsociety.ucr.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11183"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}