Where Are the Humanities Going?

The eternal question.  Perhaps a better one is “where are they in the first place?”  You will most likely not find them in colleges or universities. 

From The University of Chicago Magazine, July-August issue, a note on a new book by an alumna, which I quote in full: “Learning to skate in her 40s, Erica Rand—a professor of art and visual culture and of women and gender studies at Bates College—found that the sport, which offered her a lot of pleasure, could also be exclusionary.  Self-identifying as a queer femme, Rand had mixed feelings about participating in a sport that made such strong statements about gender, down to the proper skate colors: black for men, white for women.  The series of essays tell Rand’s stories of competing in the Gay Games and at the annual US Adult National Figure Skating Championship, mixed with critiques of the sport’s fixed gender, race, and class roles” (The University of Chicago Magazine, July-August 2012, p. 55).

I am obviously way behind the times because I don’t even know what “queer femme” means.  Apart from all the obvious cultural denotations that may come to my mind, I think I will settle on a very simple translation: “a strange woman.”

Ideological and cultural nonsense, which has been going on for quite some time at the colleges and universities is not a “breaking news” story.  But every time I come across something like the above quoted paragraph, I roll my eyes, sigh, groan—generally, I let out gurgling-like “noises” rather than articulated arguments against such claims. 

First, the problem, which most of us are familiar with.  The supposedly intellectual issues that are discussed in the humanities departments across this great country of ours are in reality quite boring.  They are so boring that I actually have no patience to even discuss them in this little article that I am writing (you may go back to the above quoted paragraph in case you need a reference). 

Discussions in the classrooms can be described as “dialectical games.”  And as such, they are not interested in dialogue.  And as such, they prize the in-humanity of the dialectical games.  And as such they de-humanize the humanities, students and professors.  And as such, they engage in a Master-Slave dialectic, whereby the student is meant to endure an existential and psychological suffering inflicted upon him (or her) by the professor, and come out of it stronger.  Hardly.  There is an increased chance of a nervous breakdown during the time as a graduate student, and if you’re not too careful, you will become a certified nihilist. 

Dialectical games do not know what love is.

This is not the kind of challenge graduate students need.  They should not be taught to rely on one theory or other in order to speak about the realities of our world.  But denying the realities of our world is part of the problem, of course.  The pedagogical approach of dialectical games is not concerned with realities of man: truth, justice, freedom, equality, beauty, good, evil, God, just to name a few.  Mortimer Adler is known for having pioneered the Great Ideas/Great Books program.  Of course, he focused on the Western tradition but I do not think that he would have stopped there.  In fact, in a 1970 interview with WFB, on Firing Line, he does mention that he would like to extend such a thing into different traditions, or at least comparatively with the Western ideas of what it means to be human.

The reason I mention this is because I do not think that we have to stop at Western ideas.  However, to eliminate the great questions of man is a mistake indeed, a mistake which affects the development of a civilization.  So, then, perhaps, the “program” (and I use this quite loosely) that I propose is not necessarily linked with particular works, a canon.  Rather, let us call it, Great Questions (and I am sure that Adler had this in mind as well).  Then, we shall not be limited in textual evidence but we shall still be compelled to ask and partially perhaps, answer some of the questions which have puzzled humanity throughout centuries.  Let the texts speak for themselves and let the students speak for themselves as well. 

A seminar I took when I was a graduate student at the University of Chicago, was on the Book of Exodus, taught by Leon Kass (I am sure I have mentioned this before many times but it is certainly relevant, especially in this instance).  By far, the best seminar I have ever taken.  On one occasion, a student began to analyze Moses from a perspective of theory that was no doubt developed in the halls of the “comp lit” department.  Kass immediately stopped him.  No theories, he said.  What do you think?  Student was silent.  In the seminar, Kass knew how to challenge a student, really challenge his thinking, and yet he always remained charitable as well.  Why don’t you think about this, and then we can come back to you, said Mr. Kass (as we called him), and continued the discussion.

To be sure, education does not make you happy.  Nor does it make you into a good, moral human being.  But, if done properly, it can cultivate an appreciation of who we are, and of what our human spirit is capable of.  The finite is capable of the infinite. If done properly, education can also make us aware of cruel realities of human condition, of evil acts we inflict upon one another.  Education, if done properly, can invite us to participate in an individual effort of collective memory.

All of this inevitably brings me to the question of what is philosophy.  Is there a need for that eternal tension between Jerusalem and Athens?  Before I can even begin to explore this, I confess that it is time for dinner.  Surely, the body needs to be nourished in order for mind to delve into further explorations of the “great questions.”