Fantastic piece as always Sarah, leaving me with so much to think about. Sometimes I think that being an artist/writer is not just about having a life in the humanities, but being an advocate for the humanities. It really does feel like it is our responsibility to push against the status quo and to raise these questions. And while that feels like extra work, it also feels like essential work. Your students are lucky to have you!
Yes! It is essential work. Especially now when the given just seems to be, why waste your time on the humanities, while at the same time people seem so hungry for something else. Thanks, Anna.
This is really important and your students are lucky to have you. Your essay touches on what “success” means. We need economic stability but also meaning - one of many challenges is how to connect those two. I am a former humanities major (comparative religion and the history of science) who is grateful I had professors passionate about the value of religion to get at meaning and as you say deep love for something beyond ourselves. And parents who believed that being about to communicate and empathize was a critical part of education. I am now a doctor and I draw on my humanities background every day in working with patients and others caring for them. This essay raised a lot of ideas that I am struggling to respond to in a brief comment but I subscribed for more of this!
Wow! I love this comment. Thank you for sharing. I am fascinated by the transition from comparative religion to medicine! Sometimes I feel like, particularly post-COVID, medicine can feel so deeply alienated from any type of questioning...like with all the discussion of believe/don't believe science, we've developed two very firm camps (as in pretty much all areas of our society nowadays) and there's no room to talk about all the ambiguity in medicine and science, all the ways it's socially constructed...there is so much the humanities has to offer medicine in particular. I too was a History of Science major, and interestingly in Heller's article, if you read it, he notes this is one of the few areas of the humanities that is growing. I would love to know how that background informs your day-to-day thinking/relationships as a doctor. Thanks for subscribing. ❤️
Here goes my turn. I have a PhD in literature and psychology, gotten long ago now. It is the basis of everything I went on and did. Not so much the content of what I learned, but the way of approaching topics. It forced me to own my ideas and not to lean on those of others, which can be scary but is also freeing. I have written 4 books, all of which I am proud and none of which were commercially 'up there'. My kids, now in their 20s and brought up being read to by their father every night, have chosen not to follow their parent's footsteps into the humanities. They read books now and then, but they don't search for meaning in them (as far as I can tell). And I think it's fair to say that they consider my work as a yoga teacher more real than my endless scribblings. They are, what shall I say, circumspect about the value of culture. I don't beat my breast to them about this, perhaps they will find their own way back to it. Though to be honest, given the state of the world, I can't say I blame them for being wary.
Sounds like you gave those students a run for their money, Sarah. Keep it up!
"They are, what shall I say, circumspect about the value of culture." Fascinating, Helen! I would love to read something about this. I feel the same way myself.
First of all, how can you say you are not a success? Hopefully you have not bought in to the single metric of financial wealth as a measure of your worth even you’re write about the vacuousness of that myth. From my limited perspective, it seems as if you have lived your life exactly as you chose, followed your daemon. That seems a more ballad measure of your success.
This myth is not questioned by your students. So the first thing humanities education would awaken in them is the ability to question. ‘ Is this true, and how do you know?’ ‘ Just because something can be done does that mean it’s worth doing?’ ‘ As you leave the university and look for work what does the term human resources say about your value?’ ‘ Are there things of value that are beyond measurement ?’ ‘ As humans become more like technology in their behavior, what is lost?’’ What is the good life?’ ‘ Is the natural world only a resource to be consumed?’ ‘What are the ramifications of viewing everything, including people as objects?’
Physics showed more than 100 years ago that there is more to the reality Then we think, and now biology is catching up, revealing the intelligence and consciousness of the natural world. I think there are alternative ways of living and thinking that are growing beneath the gaze of main stream media. Together, these will become the new worldview, the new myth, as older people die off. hope it’s in time.
If You haven’t been introduced to Iain McGilchrist, look him up.
I love this, Kevin, and thank you for the comments about success. That is true – it's very much about the framing. And yet at the same time financial stability would be great, ha!
About 10 years after I graduated, my alma mater asked me to speak at their banquet for English majors. My talk was about how everyone wants to make sure English majors have a "backup plan" (Are you going to teach? being a common refrain.) My talk encouraged them not to abandon plan A immediately for the more job-secure plan B. They owed it to themselves to at least explore their dreams. Against my dad's advice, I took an unpaid internship after college that set me up for every paid job I had thereafter. I've never been a teacher, but I've worked in libraries and in journalism as well as done freelance work, and I will never be rich but I also have never despised my jobs.
I'm also a proponent of creatives being happy with a "job" (as opposed to a career) that pays the bills but doesn't sap too much from the creative reserves. Money is forever a thorn in the side of creatives, but thinking and creating and expanding your mind is, to me, what makes life worth living.
I realize I'm writing from a place of extreme privilege as I gain financial security from my marriage to someone who has skills capitalism values more highly. But I still think the humanities do matter, and I'll bet some of your students will remember your impassioned argument for years to come.
Thank you for this, Lacey. And yes – I have had many of these "jobs" that sustain the larger work of writing. I'll bet so many of those English majors got a great deal of encouragement and inspiration from your speech.
Fantastic piece as always Sarah, leaving me with so much to think about. Sometimes I think that being an artist/writer is not just about having a life in the humanities, but being an advocate for the humanities. It really does feel like it is our responsibility to push against the status quo and to raise these questions. And while that feels like extra work, it also feels like essential work. Your students are lucky to have you!
Yes! It is essential work. Especially now when the given just seems to be, why waste your time on the humanities, while at the same time people seem so hungry for something else. Thanks, Anna.
This is really important and your students are lucky to have you. Your essay touches on what “success” means. We need economic stability but also meaning - one of many challenges is how to connect those two. I am a former humanities major (comparative religion and the history of science) who is grateful I had professors passionate about the value of religion to get at meaning and as you say deep love for something beyond ourselves. And parents who believed that being about to communicate and empathize was a critical part of education. I am now a doctor and I draw on my humanities background every day in working with patients and others caring for them. This essay raised a lot of ideas that I am struggling to respond to in a brief comment but I subscribed for more of this!
Wow! I love this comment. Thank you for sharing. I am fascinated by the transition from comparative religion to medicine! Sometimes I feel like, particularly post-COVID, medicine can feel so deeply alienated from any type of questioning...like with all the discussion of believe/don't believe science, we've developed two very firm camps (as in pretty much all areas of our society nowadays) and there's no room to talk about all the ambiguity in medicine and science, all the ways it's socially constructed...there is so much the humanities has to offer medicine in particular. I too was a History of Science major, and interestingly in Heller's article, if you read it, he notes this is one of the few areas of the humanities that is growing. I would love to know how that background informs your day-to-day thinking/relationships as a doctor. Thanks for subscribing. ❤️
Here goes my turn. I have a PhD in literature and psychology, gotten long ago now. It is the basis of everything I went on and did. Not so much the content of what I learned, but the way of approaching topics. It forced me to own my ideas and not to lean on those of others, which can be scary but is also freeing. I have written 4 books, all of which I am proud and none of which were commercially 'up there'. My kids, now in their 20s and brought up being read to by their father every night, have chosen not to follow their parent's footsteps into the humanities. They read books now and then, but they don't search for meaning in them (as far as I can tell). And I think it's fair to say that they consider my work as a yoga teacher more real than my endless scribblings. They are, what shall I say, circumspect about the value of culture. I don't beat my breast to them about this, perhaps they will find their own way back to it. Though to be honest, given the state of the world, I can't say I blame them for being wary.
Sounds like you gave those students a run for their money, Sarah. Keep it up!
"They are, what shall I say, circumspect about the value of culture." Fascinating, Helen! I would love to read something about this. I feel the same way myself.
First of all, how can you say you are not a success? Hopefully you have not bought in to the single metric of financial wealth as a measure of your worth even you’re write about the vacuousness of that myth. From my limited perspective, it seems as if you have lived your life exactly as you chose, followed your daemon. That seems a more ballad measure of your success.
This myth is not questioned by your students. So the first thing humanities education would awaken in them is the ability to question. ‘ Is this true, and how do you know?’ ‘ Just because something can be done does that mean it’s worth doing?’ ‘ As you leave the university and look for work what does the term human resources say about your value?’ ‘ Are there things of value that are beyond measurement ?’ ‘ As humans become more like technology in their behavior, what is lost?’’ What is the good life?’ ‘ Is the natural world only a resource to be consumed?’ ‘What are the ramifications of viewing everything, including people as objects?’
Physics showed more than 100 years ago that there is more to the reality Then we think, and now biology is catching up, revealing the intelligence and consciousness of the natural world. I think there are alternative ways of living and thinking that are growing beneath the gaze of main stream media. Together, these will become the new worldview, the new myth, as older people die off. hope it’s in time.
If You haven’t been introduced to Iain McGilchrist, look him up.
Excuse the typos from voice text😉
I love this, Kevin, and thank you for the comments about success. That is true – it's very much about the framing. And yet at the same time financial stability would be great, ha!
About 10 years after I graduated, my alma mater asked me to speak at their banquet for English majors. My talk was about how everyone wants to make sure English majors have a "backup plan" (Are you going to teach? being a common refrain.) My talk encouraged them not to abandon plan A immediately for the more job-secure plan B. They owed it to themselves to at least explore their dreams. Against my dad's advice, I took an unpaid internship after college that set me up for every paid job I had thereafter. I've never been a teacher, but I've worked in libraries and in journalism as well as done freelance work, and I will never be rich but I also have never despised my jobs.
I'm also a proponent of creatives being happy with a "job" (as opposed to a career) that pays the bills but doesn't sap too much from the creative reserves. Money is forever a thorn in the side of creatives, but thinking and creating and expanding your mind is, to me, what makes life worth living.
I realize I'm writing from a place of extreme privilege as I gain financial security from my marriage to someone who has skills capitalism values more highly. But I still think the humanities do matter, and I'll bet some of your students will remember your impassioned argument for years to come.
Thank you for this, Lacey. And yes – I have had many of these "jobs" that sustain the larger work of writing. I'll bet so many of those English majors got a great deal of encouragement and inspiration from your speech.