Friday, March 29, 2013

Leather elbows on a tweed coat, oh is that the best you can do?

Or: girls go to college to get more knowledge. Or: varsity blues. Or something. What is college or university for? Perhaps to provide students with certain knowledge, skills, and character traits. Perhaps to provide employers with suitable employees, society with suitable citizens, and students with suitable abilities to live a happy life. Perhaps to allow young people to have a good time for a few years before settling down. Perhaps we don't really know what it's for, but it's what we've done for hundreds of years (in various forms) and changing that might spell disaster.

Wanting to blog about this but knowing that I should prepare for class I picked up my notes for today's class in Poverty & Human Development course only to find myself reading this:
It is widely accepted that more education leads to better jobs and bigger paychecks. But more education also correlates to better, happier, and longer lives for individuals and pays big dividends for all of us in the form of increased civic engagement, greater neighborhood safety, more tolerance, and a more competitive economy. Globalization and technological change have made it extraordinarily difficult for poorly educated Americans to achieve economic self-sufficiency, self-respect, and resilience in the face of adversity. 
I can't escape it! So, what is the point of higher education? To some extent it is a rite of passage, more about football games and keg parties, and about proving that you belong to a certain class and can jump through the required hoops, than it is about learning anything. (Of course this applies primarily to the American college experience. Football played no part in my college experience, although there was rowing, i.e. getting drunk in the afternoon while other people rowed. Anyway, I am talking mostly about the United States, and the rest of the world has a tendency to copy what they do, so it has broader relevance too.) But there has to be an academic curriculum too, so what should it be?

In comments here j. writes:
i took the 'third mode' to be envisioned as a successor ('one and two must combine') meant to organize the split humanities traditions, rather than replacing them, necessarily. and to organize by trying to select and emphasize developments that have already taken place within existing traditions. of course, that is a bit of a power move.

i'm not sure what in the description given would make us think that rigor or depth would necessarily be lacking. are rigor and depth to be found in the humanities now?
And:
don't the disciplines mentioned under the third mode suggest a plurality of contested points, which is basically the same as the humanities now? and there is evidently some focusing of the political point intended (necessarily, since environmental questions seem to have been elevated compared to their non-institutionalized place during the twentieth century?), but i'm not sure how it's any more propagandistic than the presumptions favoring liberal individualism (as in liberal-arts-ism) throughout existing or older configurations of the humanities. and those older configurations did find room for -some- alternatives that questioned the prevailing arrangement and the point of it.
He's responding to things I said about things Scott McLemee said about Toby Miller's argument for “a blend of political economy, textual analysis, ethnography, and environmental studies such that students learn the materiality of how meaning is made, conveyed, and discarded,” a blend that would merge literature, philosophy, and history with media and communications studies. 

My concern about depth and rigor has to do with specialization. If students specialize in philosophy, say, or political economy, then they can learn more about it, get better at it, and go from being able to take introductory courses to being able to take more demanding, higher-level courses. Perhaps that is what Miller has in mind, but I would worry if someone wanted to replace a major in, for instance, history (or any other specialized discipline) with a blend of different subjects within the humanities. I fear that no one would learn much about anything in that case. If media studies, etc. are simply being added to philosophy, etc. then I have no great objection, as long as resources are not diverted from the more worthwhile to the less worthwhile. For instance, by all means let's study mass media, but let's not have a whole degree program in it if there isn't that much to be said (I don't know whether there is or not), or if it means no longer studying Shakespeare. 

As for propaganda, I think some propaganda is OK. Part of teaching physics is encouraging students to care about physics, to see its value and to see it as valuable. And the same goes for philosophy, media studies, and every other subject. Propaganda on behalf of academic disciplines is fine. As is propaganda on behalf of facts, e.g. facts about evolution, climate change, the state of the economy, and so on. Maybe that isn't really propaganda, but I mean that there are subjects on which students are likely to have false beliefs because of propaganda, and I think it is perfectly OK (if not better than that) for academics to make a point of teaching their students the truth about these things. But it should not, I believe, be any professor's mission to make students more left-wing or more right-wing on any particular issue or in general. Perhaps everyone would agree with that, but Miller's website says that he sees the goal of the humanities as being to produce "an aware and concerned citizenry." Actually that is OK with me, but it sounds like something that could easily fall into fairly naked propaganda of the bad kind. If the awareness and concern is all of the right-wing kind then I don't want it. If it's all of the left-wing kind then I think it could be counter-productive. Students might resist it (or not need it), and politicians are even more likely to want to scrap the humanities completely if they are taught as more-or-less openly left-wing propaganda. Taking Miller at his word I don't disagree, but I have concerns about what lies behind (or before) those words.

Now for Philip Cartwright's concerns:
if you claim the ultimate value of humanities is the by-product of rigorous thinking then you are tacitly admitting that the subject matter has no intrinsic value. You might as well study chess problems or old episodes of Are You Being Served?
Yes, and unfortunately this is what some people do. Hence McLemee's reference to Angry Birds studies. Things of that general kind might be very good, but they seem to me to be less likely to be good than, say, Shakespeare studies, and they seem to politicians, parents, and voters like a very bad idea. So I don't (completely) deny their value, but I have doubts about it and I certainly think it is a bad move politically to allow the humanities to be seen to be encouraging this kind of thing.

Philip continues:
Now, it is by no means easy to demonstrate that studying literature (or, indeed, history) has any intrinsic value. Does it make you a "better person" (whatever the hell THAT means)? Does it turn callous oafs into caring, sensitive individuals? No, or certainly not often enough to justify its existence - assuming, of course, that the production of caring, sensitive individuals is itself a good thing (and that's not at all obviously true).
I'm reluctant to agree with this, but I probably do. That is, I don't think that studying literature or history will turn a callous oaf into a caring, sensitive individual. Nor do I think that it makes you into a better person. But I do think that it can make you into a better person, that it does so with some people. Me, for instance. Is that enough to justify its existence? Yes. But 'it' here can't be anything mass and compulsory. You don't make sensitive flowers even more sensitive by forcing things down their throats.

Having abandoned the intrinsic value argument, he goes on to describe two alternatives:
The first will cut little ice in today's market-driven world but it at least has the merit of honesty. It runs as follows: "Studying literature (and/or history) helps promote values that I believe in, and if you don't support those values then you can fuck off". I think we could label this "The Kulturkampf Defense".
The second defence is more pragmatic (ie, consequentialist). It says that a lot of employers actually don't want graduates who've spent three years learning a load of theory concerning their area of business - they'd rather teach that stuff to recruits themselves. In fact, they have to "un-teach" their vocationally-trained recruits, which is annoying and costly. They would rather have people who've proved that they're intelligent and hard-working but who haven't learnt a load of theoretical clap-trap that'll have to be jettisoned before they can become useful employees. Subjects like literature and history fit the bill very nicely - especially as many bright people show a marked inclination to study in those areas. So why not give them what they want and thereby give the employers what they want too? It's win/win. 
I have a lot of sympathy with the bracingly-expressed first point, and think the second is very important. I have nothing to add to it. On the first point, though, I would want to add (though perhaps I can't) that it isn't just a matter of what I believe in. If we have a common culture (and what other kind of culture could there be?) then there must be some sort of canon, some points of cultural significance. These might be studied just because they are good, but they might also be studied as elements of cultural literacy. Knowing them will help you understand and communicate with others, and keep the culture together. Giving up on this idea seems to involve a kind of cultural Thatcherism ("there is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families"). Perhaps Shakespeare should not be central in American studies of literature, but someone should be: Emily Dickinson or Emerson or Toni Morrison or Walt Whitman or all of the above (or someone else). There's plenty of good stuff there, and I'm not sure how much one can separate seeing intrinsic value in these writings and valuing American culture. What does it mean to care about or value (the United States of) America but not to care about American history or literature? (And what would it mean to value American literature but not think that any of it was any good?) 

I sound more conservative (and more American) than I am, but anyone who has read the books in question knows that they are not essentially conservative. I do see value in American society supporting (yes, paying for) the study of its own culture and heritage, its history, literature, and philosophy, not as museum pieces but as the organs of a living body. By all means study other things too--European philosophy, East Asian religion, African history, contemporary mass media, etc., etc.--but the idea that the humanities should be discarded as old-fashioned or no longer relevant, an idea that comes from the (politically-minded) left and the (business-minded) right, seems like a form of despair, even suicide, to me. Almost no one says that we should discard them, but any move to scale them back (and Miller's book is called Blow Up the Humanities, after all) worries and depresses me. And if you don't support those values then you can fuck off. (I'm just kidding, of course. Comments welcome, etc. etc.)

  

16 comments:

  1. I don't think you need to say you are kidding at the end. After all, at the end of the day, you aren't (right?).

    ReplyDelete
  2. Right. I added that later thinking that I might have got carried away. I don't usually swear at people I disagree with, so that sort of is a joke. But the rest is meant seriously.

    ReplyDelete
  3. well if you don't really support telling people to fuck off, then i tell you what, you can fuck off. for real!!

    duncan, who can say for sure, but i took the emphasis on environmental studies to be partly prompted by things like lawrence buell's work

    http://cla.calpoly.edu/~smarx/Nature/Buell.html

    which to the extent that it's been effective at doing what he sets out to do - reorient ways that they have in literary studies, american studies, etc. of thinking about verbal representations of human relationships to nature - could count as an argument that english for example needn't be replaced.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks. (Now that's how you tell someone to fuck off. I should take lessons.)

      Buell's work sounds good. It's partly trendiness that I fear, but all sorts of things that sound trendy can be done well. Relinquishment of the individual ego is good, preservation and conservation are good. Reverence, humility, responsibility, and care are all good. So I have no quarrel with this kind of thing. It's the apparently attention-seeking spirit in which these good things are sometimes promoted that bothers me. That can fuck off. (OK, that's probably my swearing limit reached for the year. Online anyway.)

      Delete
  4. "I don't usually swear at people I disagree with, so that sort of is a joke."

    Is there a better term for this than "sort of a joke"? (Or: "If I were the sort of person who did usually swear at people I disagree with, I would at this point tell you to fuck off.")

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Almost certainly. I was jokily exaggerating my hostility towards people who hold a view that I really do dislike. I meant something like: Well, then we'll just have to agree to disagree. But instead of saying that, I quoted Philip Cartwright's memorable "Kulturkampf Defense" of the humanities.

      Delete
  5. A couple of quick points.

    First, re the Kulturkampf Defence: I was actually paraphrasing (of all people) Richard Dawkins, who was himself quoting someone else. You can see Dawkins' comment here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ysxG5jFeTME

    A less abrasive way of putting it would be to say I was using a "bedrock" argument. Justification comes to an end somewhere and it is a mistake (I believe) to think that humanities courses have to defend themselves in terms borrowed (knowingly or unknowingly) from science. At the end of the day we find history/literature/philosophy etc interesting and important. And that's that.

    Despite being a lit/phil graduate, I have some (limited) sympathy with calls to focus more on the study of mass communication in humanities courses. It is amazing how ignorant many people are of the techniques behind (eg) news reporting and advertising, and how vulnerable this makes them to manipulation. And even those of us who consider ourselves "informed" about these areas are probably manipulated more often than we'd care to admit. Understanding this phenomenon is probably an important part of living in the modern world.

    Of course "meeja studies" lacks the respectability of Eng Lit, but it's worth pointing out that Eng Lit was itself once the Media Studies of its day - ie, a course looked down on as being for duffers who weren't bright enough to study Classics or law.

    Finally, I share your concern about the way merging subjects entails a lack of depth. If it's any comfort, these things tend to go in cycles, especially regarding philosophy. So at some stage administrators decide it's useful to have philosophy attached to other subjects, then other administrators come along and say "why don't we gather all these philosophers together in one department?" and the whole thing starts again.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Thanks, Philip. I agree completely. A big part of what I would like to see in some sort of critical thinking course, or series of courses, is something about the media and advertising. I just don't know if there's enough there to fill more than one course (if that). But, since I don't know, I can't confidently proclaim that there isn't enough.

    ReplyDelete
  7. having grown up a university brat (father dept. chair, mother a researcher turned dean) and having spent much of my adult life either directly in higher-ed and or in the company of college grads (many with grad degrees) I can honestly say that I see little to no evidence for people acting out anything like "critical" thinking in areas outside of their own limited technical fields (and even in them rarely do they venture out of their disciplined procedures) so when it comes to general ed for undergrads I think we need a new defense/justification, and certainly a more transparent sales-pitch to job-seekers&their parents, for higher ed that is tied into actual benefits/skills for post grad life. that said given the current market/political trends it may be too late for faculty led reform outside of a few well endowed strongholds and even there faculty influence is slipping and without better organizing by teachers we may be well into the move into tech-schooling/worker-payed-job-training for all....
    -dmf

    ReplyDelete
  8. Yes, I think you're right. There is work being done on what improves critical thinking, but people mean different things by "critical thinking," and I doubt there would be much agreement about the value of any one conception over others. Faculty influence on the curriculum is roughly zero, as far as I can tell. And if people don't already see it as obvious that culture has value then perhaps that battle has already been lost. But a college degree still has monetary value, and general ed is not going to just disappear. At least not right away. So I think it's potentially useful to keep thinking about what it (along with the humanities) is for and how it should be done.

    ReplyDelete
  9. I think for people who have an 'ear' for such things literature, poetry, history and such can certainly offer a variety of riches to add to our daily to and fro, and should be offered as such, but this won't be a primary concern/interest for most people. Folks like Donald Schon have pointed to the possibility of offering ways of fostering "reflective" practitioners of the various professions that are certainly worth further exploration/development but again won't likely be of direct use in training most people. As for the monetary value of higher ed. and general ed offerings I think that the trends for both of these are not very positive given the decline of many professions and the rise of focus on STEMS but time will tell. I don't think that we should throw away the whole project of the humanities but I do think we should reconsider whether a whole 4yr undergrad degree along such line is still the way to go or if something like conservatories for the gifted and continuing/adult ed for those who are just looking for enrichment aren't better paths, I think the more experimentation the better.
    -dmf

    ReplyDelete
  10. I'm fine with experimentation, as long as it doesn't come at the cost of permanently abandoning the better for the worse. I.e. it's risky, and should be done cautiously. Part of the problem might be that so many people are going into higher education who really would be better off doing something else. That something else might what non-elite schools end up becoming.

    ReplyDelete
  11. very good, I hope that tenured faculty at the many non-elite schools will do something other than continue to wax nostalgic and write more sermons about the evils of neo-liberalism, it would be a shame on them if they leave the education process for the masses to the forces of the market.
    -dmf

    ReplyDelete
  12. That would be a shame, yes, but I don't know how much tenured professors at non-elite schools can do. At least at my school we don't set the curriculum. The general political climate at non-elite schools is suggested by this story. There Jeff Bell says: "The only way I see this changing is when the academic "stars" - who, along with state of the art gyms and dormitories, are still something administrators are dependent on and *may* listen to - join the struggle with adjuncts against university administrators." But there aren't a whole lot of academic stars at non-elite schools, and I would not assume that administrators would care very much what they thought.

    ReplyDelete
  13. two thoughts the first is that many of those same faculty have been justifying their work since at least the 80's as being a tool/methodology that their students can employ against various kinds of systemic pressure (even tyranny)on behalf of various humanist/democratic interests/causes and while they are likely wrong about the power/effectiveness of their teachings this seems to be put up or shut up times and second some fights are worth losing and than building upon over the long haul.
    -dmf

    ReplyDelete
  14. Yes, there are battles worth fighting even if we lose, and with luck the good side will win in the end. I am always hopeful that right will win, especially in these matters where what is right actually is (as far as I can see) in everyone's self-interest.

    ReplyDelete