A recent essay in The Wall Street Journal scoffed at those who bemoan the decline in the number of students majoring in the humanities.
Perhaps that writer was right. But you know, I think it would really help if some of those left-brain STEM types would take a couple of English classes.
Remember that story from yesterday’s VFP about experiments into whether warp-speed travel is possible?
Did you see this quote?
“Space has been expanding since the Big Bang 13.7 billion years ago,” said Dr. White, 43, who runs the research project. “And we know that when you look at some of the cosmology models, there were early periods of the universe where there was explosive inflation, where two points would’ve went receding away from each other at very rapid speeds.”…
Ow! He might be a heck of a rocket scientist, or whatever, but his abuse of the language is rather distressing.
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Hmmm.. which would I rather be? A physicist/engineer who mangles the English language a bit or a
waiter/English major who takes pleasure in finding grammar errors between shifts at Chili’s?
The subhead on the WSJ article says “Of course it’s important to read the great poets and novelists.”
Important to who (sic)? How have I led such a horrible existence without a daily dose of Shakespeare and Faulkner since 1981?
And just to make the cultural elite groan even more, in the past month I’ve read books by Stephen King, Carl Hiassen (Florida-based crime fiction),and John Irving. And I liked them all! Pass the pork rinds, Ethyl!
You don’t know whether your life would have been richer.
Yes, I do. Because I would have been miserable. I hated every moment wasted on Shakespeare and other “essential” literature where a teacher explains to you what you are reading “means”. I learned to read for myself long before high school.
You don’t know what things that make you miserable actually enrich you. In my case, travel….
Seriously? How about spending some of your spare time watching USC football or sitting at a baseball game? How many hours would you have to put in to feel enriched?
I have been exposed to enough literature to know I have no interest in it. To waste hours of my life on things I don’t enjoy would either be masochistic or stupid. I try to avoid painful experiences and I know I’m not stupid, so I will just have to settle for my lowbrow existence.
By the way, the only disparaging that exists in this topic is Brad’s attempt to criticize the grammar of a rocket scientist.
And really, the only disparaging that goes on is by those who feel they must justify the books they read or the culture they prefer as essential to being a well rounded individual.
We’ve all been exposed to the “classics”. Most of us leave it behind in high school and live our lives in a well rounded fashion without touching those books again.
The essay Brad linked to nails it:
“Such ruminations always come to the same conclusion: We are told that the lack of a formal education, mostly in literature, leads to numerous pernicious personal conditions, such as the inability to think critically, to write clearly, to empathize with other people, to be curious about other people and places, to engage with great literature after graduation, to recognize truth, beauty and goodness.
These solemn anxieties are grand, lofty, civic-minded, admirably virtuous and virtuously admirable. They are also a sentimental fantasy.”
and
“The notion that great literature can help you with reading and thinking clearly is also a chimera. One page of Henry James’s clotted involutions or D.H. Lawrence’s throbbing verbal repetitions will disabuse you of any conception of literature’s value as a rhetorical model. Rather, the literary masterworks of Western civilization demonstrate the limitations of so-called clear-thinking. They present their meanings in patchwork-clouds of associations, intuitions, impressions. There are sonnets by Shakespeare that no living person can understand. The capacity to transfix you with their language while hiding their meaning in folds of mind-altering imagery is their rare quality.”
I have spent quite a good deal of time sitting outside at USC baseball and football games that I wouldn’t otherwise have. It’s more my husband’s thing than mine – I don’t not enjoy it, I just get enough a lot sooner than he does, and then I pull out my nook or crossword puzzle, or walk around the stadium and take in the experience. Sir Big Spur is pretty cool up close. Those nuts with cinnamon on them are also really good.
All these experiences that are not innately pleasing to you personally help to build an understanding of the world and the way people work that lets you respect or try to understand other people’s points of view and know what they are talking about – if it is something that they get that you don’t particularly.
Maybe whether or not you value such experiences depends on whether or not you value other points of view.
@Scout – you forget that we all have been exposed to the classic literature. I’ve done my time with Shakespeare, Chaucer, D.H. Lawrence, Sinclair, ad infinitum. I did a couple semesters on Chekhov in Russian in college. And I haven’t read any since nor had the desire to. It was a means to an end – required classes for my degree,
At some point, it’s okay to to walk away from it (like strolling the stadium) or find other alternatives (crosswords, nooks) and never look back and just consider it a chore that was assigned by others. The difference is what is voluntarily chosen and what is forced upon you as “essential to a well rounded life”.
Many feel the need to justify their views as the proper ones and make them mandatory. Which of us wants the other to approve of our choices as essential?
Maybe that exposure has helped you in ways you don’t consciously realize. When I walk away from the game, at least I’m still in the stadium. Being there is still part of the experience that broadens my perspective.
I haven’t taken a position on what should be mandatory or not. My position is just that I see value in being exposed to a broad range of things as a means to understand a lot of different points of view in the world.
And I’ve had that experience. I’ve had a broad range of experiences and have had the advantage of travelling all over the country for the past twenty five years to see the world from a variety of perspectives. And not once, not one single time in that period, in all my interactions with people from a variety of cultures and backgrounds has the topic EVER covered literature that was taught in high school.
It would be a far, far better thing to reverse the time spent on classic literature and personal finance.
I am sure you have seen plenty of points of view, Doug. Perhaps your literature education was for nought. Maybe you are immune to the benefits of the liberal arts and critical thinking beyond the “show me the data” type. Perhaps you are very far over on the systematizer scale and lack the neurotypical ability to appreciate literature.
None of this invalidates the value of a liberal arts education for most people.
I appreciate literature. I read all the time. I just don’t accept other people’s definition of what is “good” literature or what is “essential for a well rounded education”.
Again, read the essay Brad linked to. The writer echoes my point of view.
John Irving, Bill Bryson, Garrison Keillor, Robert Parker, Dennis Lehane, Christopher Buckley, Lee Child, Carl Hiassen, Ayn Rand, T.C. Boyle, Steig Larsson, Jeffrey Lent, Peter Gent,… there’s plenty of literature out there that is interesting. I just wouldn’t make my list of authors mandatory for anyone else.
” And not once, not one single time in that period, in all my interactions with people from a variety of cultures and backgrounds has the topic EVER covered literature that was taught in high school. ” -Doug
I’m not sure the point would be that you would have to explicitly discuss the literature by name to know that it had been useful to you. For me the point would be that you see the themes and motifs of life borne out in the world that you first experienced in literature – like an archetypal underpinning. Whether or not you consciously make the connection that literature was where you first encountered that idea doesn’t mean that foundation doesn’t help you process it when you encounter it in real life.
That’s what I mean when I say, you’re exposure to the classics may have helped you in ways you don’t realize.
Or not.
Although if I ever meet a Grendel, I should be able to slay it.
Argh!! “your exposure”….not “you’re exposure”. I hate I made that mistake.
Anyway – you are a quite literal thinker, Doug. Do you not think you might confront a figurative Grendel now and again in your life? It’s just a different thinking style and that’s fine. Could be that a more abstract, less literal thinking style lends itself more to benefiting from a liberal arts education.
@Scout
I know you’d feel better if I approached life as you do. I’m sorry to disappoint you. Do you see the difference between us? I don’t care how you approach life, what books you read, etc. as long as you are happy with it.
I am very happy with the choices I have made and I know there are others who share the same thoughts on “classic literature”. I’m not missing anything… I’m not sad that I didn’t spend more time on classic literature. If your life was enriched by it, great. Just don’t assume your path is the only path.
So much of what used to be standard cultural knowledge was based on a group of agreed upon “classics” which all educated people had read. It ensured that people shared a basic cultural background. We seem to have lost that. Furthermore, we’re getting to the point, long past “uh like” and double negatives, where college level people write so ungrammatically as to be indecipherable.
I’ve never read Carl Hiassen. Maybe I should, though, since he and I used to work for the same company. Or maybe not, since all that means we were in the same granfalloon (quick, students of 1960s cult lit, explain that reference!).
I have, however, read and enjoyed Elmore Leonard. Wow, is that guy prolific, and in more than one genre. And he’s been around forever. He’s a regular real-life Jubal Harshaw (for extra credit: Compare and contrast Leonard and Harshaw). I had thought of him a writer of clever crime fiction (“Get Shorty”), and then I saw that he was credited as the writer of the short story that inspired the movie “3:10 from Yuma.”
I figured that was impossible, because that was a remake of a Glenn Ford picture from the 1950s.
But sure enough, Leonard wrote it in the year that I was born. Wow.
I read the story in a collection of Elmore Western stories at Barnes & Noble one day while drinking coffee. As I recall, it was kind of different from the movie…
I’ve enjoyed reading a lot of Stephen King and Carl Hiassen (partial to the latter since he’s a University of Florida grad). As for Doug’s comments, I understand that he is the standard by which he judges all others, so I would guess his life has gone pretty well without a liberal arts education. Still, it does seem to add something to my students’ perceptions of the world when I tell them that they can profitably compare the Peloponnesian War to our Civil War if they want to understand that human behavior doesn’t change much over centuries.
Profitably?
I don’t judge all others, Steve. I judge facts. The fact is that anyone can have a productive life without being exposed to certain subjects. Can you dispute that?
I don’t dispute it. If that’s your position, I agree with it. But don’t disparage those who think otherwise or hint that they are unproductive leeches.
Yes
Hiassen is very good!
and if you like Elmore Leonard, Justified is must-see TV!
Perhaps the time for a well rounded education has passed. The idea of studying the classics, of being a “Renaissance man” is possibly something that was possible in a particular social strata and era, specifically an era of universities populated by wealthy elites from a high social strata. These were men (almost invariably they were male) who would go on to become men of leisure, or to manage a family’s holdings. Many would go on to become professionals, or to hold positions in government. Their education was funded by their familial wealth, or that of a benefactor.
In the grittier, current era, it might not behoove taxpayers to publicly finance the educations of English majors, artists, musicians, actors, political scientists, historians and the like. Let us leave those professions to those who can support themselves without the benefit of earned income, and let us instead publicly finance investments in engineering, medicine, hard sciences, and similar fields. Fields that provide us with a benefit commensurate with the cost incurred, and that provide a job to those who require one. One must ask, on whom do the benefits confer, and who pays the bill?
It is not neccessary that our baristas have read Chaucer, for our waiters to comprehend Schopenhauer, for our secretaries to quote Marx, or for our bus drivers to play Beethoven. The liberal arts education is a scheme that has outlasted the prosperity that financed and enabled it.
My philosophy is “to each his own”. I won’t try to sell you on the value of reading Mad Magazine if you don’t try to convince me that without Shakespeare, my life is somehow limited.
What, me worry?
But that’s the problem, Alfred.
I DO worry. I worry because this is not a monarchy; it’s a representative democracy. That makes it critical that voters be fully-informed citizens who truly understand the society in which they live — its history, its political system both in theory and practice, its cultural matrix. Voters should understand their society inside and out, and understand how all the varied elements of it interact and shape each other.
I believe that goal falls into the right brained fantasy world. We don’t have that and we’ve never had it.
How would you feel about public financing of business majors? After all, those who major in business can expect fairly well-paying careers.
Stratum….
I want a society where as many people as possible have the critical analytical skills a liberal arts education teaches!
Common Core standards are *supposed* to do better producing critical thinkers. We’ll see.
All the humanities related topics have been taught and re-taught for as long as we’ve had public education. How has it failed to sink in for most people? Perhaps because it doesn’t real mean much to most people? It’s a self fulfilling feedback loop – I was taught Shakespeare thus I must teach Shakespeare.
As many of our citizens as possible need to hold an informed, expansive and nuanced view of the world – the ones we inhabit daily and the ones inhabited by others.
I would catagorically reject the idea that liberal arts are less critical than STEM subjects. At the same time, you may be right that too many people seek degrees that offer them little in the way of a future. That’s their short-sighted ness; not the failings of the degree. Of course, the institution granting the decree is really what is of importance with any degree.
It still amuses me that USC can have one of the best business schools, and yet have such a miserably terrible (not mediocre, terrible) law school. So many people should be on the warpath about that. They don’t because the law school gives all that people imagine it should, local service and local political influence. It’s as much of a problem as the legislature or the city government. Or maybe more fairly, our problems our homegrown and our own. These failings are deeply ingrained in the entire fabric of our region’s life. The failing institutions are only, really, a manifestation of larger societal ills.
I want a society that is informed, but I don’t think that adherence to a literary/historical canon established by a single strand of our cultural tapestry serves us well in that regard. Instead, I want each thread to contribute something to the never-quite-finished picture. I like the idea of Arachne beating Athena at her own game.
I want a society that has people schooled in the classics, but I also want a society that has a segment which has schooled itself with a non-standard canon–a disruptive element in society. I want a society that has members so focused on the sciences that they can’t help but mangle the language once in a while. I want a society of pragmatists and idealists. Those who have pursued a liberal arts degree have not wasted their time, and those who choose not to spend time with the classics are not wasting their lives.
The real danger to a society is the element that rejects formal or informal education–liberal arts or STEM or vocational–as unimportant or a waste of time. Those with a narrow world view (like the idiots who jumped all over Marc Anthony at the All-Star game last week) will be the death of our society, not voters who don’t know where With a Hey, and a Ho, and a Hey Nonny No comes from.
“(like the idiots who jumped all over Marc Anthony ”
Norm – I hate to break it to you but I would bet a large sum of money that all those idiots have been exposed to the classics in high school. You can’t make someone into what they are not simply by having them read a book that is then explained to them.
People will do what they want to do, what they like to do, and what rewards them. We should try to maximize each person’s talents.
I don’t mean to suggest that those people are idiots because they didn’t pay attention during lit class. I’m suggesting people like those idiots are more of a threat to our society (whether through accidental or willful ignorance) than somebody who never studied the classics.
I doubt they studied engineering or physics either.
My mother was primarily an English teacher for her nearly 40 year career in South Carolina public schools. Growing up, having an English teacher as a mom, was nearly as bad as being the son of a preacher. I would tease her with the use of the word “ain’t”.
But she instilled in me, a sense of grammar and English. In my profession as a computer programmer, I frequently refer to technical articles on the web and blogs. When I encounter a misspelling or a grammatical error, I will glance back at the author’s name to make a biased decision if English is their first or second language.
I saw this great Dennis The Menace cartoon from April 13, 2008 that I had to use when the time came.
Dennis: “Can I have a bottle of pop?”
Mom: “MAY I have a bottle of pop?”
Dennis: “You want a bottle of pop, too?”
Mom: “No… you said CAN.”
Dennis: “Oh, you want a CAN of pop”
Mom: “No! I do not want a can of pop”
Mom: “You should have said MAY”
Dennis: “Then you MAY want a can of pop.”
Mom: “Dennis! I’m just trying to help you with your grammar!
Dennis: “Oh, I get it now.”
Dennis: “So can I have a bottle of pop?”
Mom passed away last month and, in closing, I read the comic strip at her service and closed with a quote from Christa McAuliffe, a member of the ill-fated crew of Challenger: “I touch the future. I teach.”