BROAD SUBJECTS HELP KEEP
US FREE FROM NARROW MINDS
Vancouver
Sun,
08 April 1998,
p. A15
by
Andrew
Irvine
“What
distinguishes classical literature, history, music, art and
philosophy from other subjects is their intrinsic value. These subjects
are
important and universal simply because they have the potential to speak
to all
people and all generations. They teach us, as much as anything can,
about our
shared humanity.”
[Discourses, Bk II]“Only
the
educated are free”, says the Stoic philosopher Epictetus. By this he
means
that education has the potential to free us from the constraints of
class,
culture, and nation. Education is what gives us the ability to go
beyond our
own experience, to see unexpected alternatives, to think outside the
box.
By
reading Anne Frank’s Diary, for example, we are transported
across time
and space to experience what it was like to live in hiding during the
Nazi
purges. By learning about discoveries such as those of Gregor Mendel or
Isaac
Newton, we find it easier to face new scientific and medical challenges
with
optimism.
Another
famous Greek philosopher had a different view. “If you ask what is the
good of
education in general,” wrote Plato, “the answer is easy; that
education makes
good men, and that good men act nobly.”
[Plato, Laws, Bk I, 641c.]
On
this view, choosing the right action and leading a good life require
learning
all we can about the world, human nature and ethics. Just as becoming a
good
carpenter requires that we learn about the practice of carpentry,
becoming a
good person requires that we learn about the nature of the good.
In
the modern period there is yet a third value attached to education.
This is
that in order for democracy to prevail, we must all be able to read and
think
about a wide variety of topics. Since all laws and institutions
ultimately find
their foundation in the sovereign will of citizens, it is only through
an
educated population that democracy can flourish.
These
three suggestions about the value of education are no doubt
inter-connected.
But if we accept them, we must also acknowledge that they require that
we be
exposed to something more than narrow, technical training. All three
suggestions rely crucially upon the so-called “impractical” disciplines
of the
humanities. They emphasize what is often called a liberal education.
Yet
far from being the centre of the modern university, as these arguments
envisage, humanities departments might rightly be characterized as the
ghettos
of today’s university. Like a once prosperous city centre that has been
abandoned in the rush to the suburbs, humanities departments are among
the
least prosperous sectors of the university.
The
gap between federal funding for the humanities and for the pure
sciences serves
as an example. Although the Social Sciences and Humanities Research
Council
(SSHRC) represents 55% of all students and researchers in Canada,
it funds just 5% of these students and 15% of
these researchers.
In
contrast, although the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research
Council
(NSERC) represents only 30% of all students and researchers, it has a
budget
four times larger than that of SSHRC. As a result, it is able to fund
20% of
the students and 60% of the researchers it represents.
Collectively,
it appears that we have decided that the task of maintaining the
humanities is
simply not worth the money.
As if
to emphasize this point, Ontario Premier Mike Harris recently suggested
that Ontario
universities might consider abandoning degrees in
the humanities. In this, he was suggesting yet another view about
education
which has a long tradition. This is the view that unlike the sciences,
the humanities
fail to help us improve the human condition.
Through
science we are able to harness the elements, conquer disease and master
nature.
It is through science that we are able to learn about everything from
earthquakes to penicillin. In doing so, we improve our quality of life.
In the
words of the 18th-century enlightenment thinker Paul-Henri Holbach,
“Man is
unhappy because he is ignorant of nature.”
However,
we do ourselves and our children a disservice when we abandon the goals
of a
liberal education solely in favour of those of science or the
professions. Not
only is the current decline in funding to humanities departments across
Canada
likely to effect adversely the goals of Epictetus
and Plato, it will surely diminish our understanding of nature as well.
Science
and the humanities are too closely linked in practice for this not to
occur.
The same connections also hold between the humanities and professional
faculties such as business, law and medicine.
Essential
to the development of such practical disciplines are so-called
transferable
skills—basic reading and writing skills, critical thinking skills, and
general
knowledge. Yet all of these skills come primarily from the humanities.
So for
the practical-minded, like Premier Harris, it is worth emphasizing that
it is
these skills that help distinguish Canada’s highly educated employees
from many
other competing labour markets, including that of Mexico.
In an
economically integrated, yet culturally plural world, such skills are
also
essential if we are to understand and communicate with people whose
backgrounds
and views are different from our own. Living successfully together in
the
global village requires an informed understanding of different ways of
life. A
liberal education helps us meet these challenges.
Epictetus,
a Roman slave, clearly understood this. For him, education was a
precondition
of responsible world citizenship, an idea that he and his followers
introduced.
Even
so, there is one further view regarding the humanities that is worth
emphasizing. This is the view that the humanities should be studied,
not for
any instrumental reason, but simply for their own sake. Enjoying good
literature, understanding history, studying philosophy, and
appreciating music
and art are all activities that serve as ends in themselves.
At a
time when so many people find their lives unfulfilling, it is odd that,
as a
society, we have decided to devalue those very pursuits that are of
value
purely for their own sake.
What
distinguishes classical literature, history, music, art and philosophy
from
other subjects is their intrinsic value. These subjects are important
and
universal simply because they have the potential to speak to all people
and all
generations. They teach us, as much as anything can, about our shared
humanity.
Today
there is wide agreement that each generation has a duty to preserve our
natural
environment for the next generation to come. It is a pity that there is
not
equally wide agreement about our duty to preserve those intellectual
achievements
that make up our non-physical environment. As humanities departments
face
greater and greater pressures to prove their relevance to specific
vocational
outcomes, it is worth emphasizing that, here too, we have an obligation
to
study and teach those disciplines that have formed the backbone of our
common
culture for over two thousand years, regardless of their short-term
consequences.
Today
we are able to read the works of Epictetus and Plato only because prior
generations over the centuries, despite every hardship, have had the
foresight
to preserve them for us. What will future generations say of us if,
given our
unquestioned prosperity, we fail to do the same?
Andrew
Irvine teaches in
the Department
of Philosophy at the University of British
Columbia.
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