Those useless humanities

January 8, 2008

In his New York Times blog posting for Jan. 7, Stanley Fish considers and dismisses some common justifications for teaching the humanities. He reaches this conclusion: "It is not the business of the humanities to save us, no more than it is their business to bring revenue to a state or a university. What then do they do? They don’t do anything, if by 'do' is meant bring about effects in the world. And if they don’t bring about effects in the world they cannot be justified except in relation to the pleasure they give to those who enjoy them. To the question 'of what use are the humanities?', the only honest answer is none whatsoever. And it is an answer that brings honor to its subject."

Fish is mistaken on at least two grounds.

First, as a matter of historical fact, the humanities do "bring about effects in the world," and those effects are large. Intellectual and cultural movements of the past -- the Reformation, the Enlightenment, Romanticism, and so on, all rooted in humanistic studies at their origins and subjects of humanistic study in the present -- continue to affect values, beliefs and, thus, political action to this day. People's beliefs about the good, the true and the beautiful; their beliefs about justice, freedom and equality; their beliefs about what it means to be human -- these make a difference in how they act, how they vote, how they spend money.

Second, although one can gain pleasure from study of the humanities, deep study is also likely to produce the discomforts of doubt and uncertainty, a recognition of the complexity of life and of the elusiveness of reliable answers.

Indeed, the utility of the humanities lies in their propensity to broaden the range of questions we ask and consider to be worth asking. In that regard, studying the humanities is not very different from studying any (other) useful trade or discipline.

A student of architecture, for example, learns over the course of years to integrate more and more questions into the design process. Steadily, the student learns that big questions must be broken down into many component questions: Not just "Is this building beautiful?" but "How can this particular connection be made more elegant?" Not just, "Will the building stand up?" but "How much will this particular material, in this particular application, deflect? Is that too much? How can it be made more rigid?" Some questions are mundane: "How will the garbage be collected?" Some are profound: "How can this space for assembly be given civic meaning?" Some questions seek a balance among conflicting goals: "How can this public building be secure against terrorist attacks and at the same time be welcoming and delightful to its legitimate users?"

Some architects do not bother to ask all of the kinds of questions they learned to ask when they were students, some do not answer the questions well, and some conflicting goals cannot be resolved. But that does not mean the questions are not worth asking , or worth teaching. Moreover, they are worth asking not only for the intellectual pleasure to be derived from the inquiry, but because they make a palpable difference in the finished product. They have cash value.

For every human being capable of action and choice, every conscious moment raises a question: "What should I do?" A study of history, literature and philosophy cannot supply the answer to that question; the right answers aren't printed in the back of the book. The humanities can, however, enable us to ask that big question in more ways, deeper and more specific to our circumstances. Too, the humanities can acquaint us with a wider range of possible answers than those presented to us by a parochial tradition.

Of course there is no guarantee that a study of the humanities will make us better, nicer or more ethical. Having learned how to ask questions, we can decide not to, or we can answer them badly. But the questioning is not useless, nor does its value lie solely in the intellectual pleasure of inquiry. The questions that we learn to ask through a study of the humanities materially affect the architecture of our lives and our cultures. They affect what we do. They have cash value.

Mike Greenberg