Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The Decline and Fall of the English Major

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 160 posts

Re: The Decline and Fall of the English Major

#81

Post by abraininavat »

gruseom wrote: post #46
jmduke wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we define 'purely technical training' as that which eschews any education that doesn't specifically further one's career or technical abilities, I think an accusation of anti-intellectualism is apt. That being said, 'Philistine' is a pretty broad term that means like fifty different things, and its one of the words where saying it or writing it out loud always provokes the same response as pronouncing 'mature' wit…

Does it mean fifty different things, though? I'd say its definition is pretty precise. I didn't realize that anyone still used the word, let alone that there was a category, "the kind of person who says 'philistine'". It reminds me of Louis CK's thing about people who say "People from Phoenix are called 'Phoenicians'". Not a category one would knowingly step into!

Such a category does indeed exist. It happens to intersect with the category of people who purposefully use words they think no one else uses.

Re: The Decline and Fall of the English Major

#82

Post by nooron »

abraininavat wrote: post #79
nooron wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He or she wrote a sincere and earnest comment. Please show yourself out.

Consider that maybe you missed pjbrunet's point.

Perhaps so. If pjbrunet was making a clever joke, I suppose I owe them an apology.

Re: The Decline and Fall of the English Major

#83

Post by mechanical_fish »

gruseom wrote: post #58
patio11 wrote: post #35

The first paragraph would be improved by the economic reality that dare not speak its name: adjunct . Most people who pursue the PhD in English will fail to join the one profession which actually needs English PhDs (training future English PhDs) and instead, if they want to continue putting to use the last 7+ years of their life dedicated to mastering the reification of privilege and construction of the other as demo…

But your comment already takes for granted that there's no purpose in studying literature other than a career in academia (presumably because education is only about careers to begin with). I'd say the battle for the things worth caring about here was lost long before that assumption became not-even-worth-bothering-to-make-explicit. And sure, the economics are pathetic and the profession is rife with horseshit. The r…

I also want to learn what literature can teach me. So: I read it. It's designed for that.

Literary critics can also be very enlightening. But, by a strange coincidence, most of their work is written down, and often collected by libraries and websites. To admire their ideas is just a matter of time and coffee.

If I were inclined I could even try to write some literature, and thereby connect with the noble tradition – one which dominates the canon and is far older than university literature programs – of "learning to write by practicing reading, writing, and publishing stuff instead of by jumping through expensive hoops to get a formal degree."

It is true that economics aren't everything. But when the fifty thousand dollars in student loans comes due one begins to realize that they are something.

Re: The Decline and Fall of the English Major

#84

Post by sk5t »

abraininavat wrote: post #47
sk5t wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd say the parent comment is right on target, given the understanding that "Philistine" is not a synonym for "ignorant." There is no essential smugness in observing that students who know little philosophy, art, history, or discourse tend to consider them so much hogwash.

A Philistine is an anti-intellectual or a non-intellectual -- a person with a materialistic frame of mind, lacking the education, intelligence, or will to focus on ideas rather than things. To suggest that a Philistine is a person who is ignorant strictly of "philosophy, art, history, or discourse" is to ignore that, when the term came about, those subjects were a huge part of every curriculum. We've moved on since t…

My intent was not to persuade you on the meaning of "Philistine," but rather to support the idea that a large proportion of STEM students become rather self-satisfied in their fields' relative importance, while more-or-less mocking the humanities as useless fluff. I've not observed the converse to be true--at least not up until the Ph.D. levels.

FWIW, I had a highly varied college experience, working and associating with students of engineering, music, CS, psychology, and English. The STEM tracks demanded a uniformly pretty high level of effort, whereas you get out of the humanities about what you choose to put in.

Re: The Decline and Fall of the English Major

#85

Post by krakensden »

gammarator wrote: post #67
krakensden wrote: post #16

> No one has found a way to put a dollar sign on this kind of literacy, and I doubt anyone ever will. But everyone who possesses it — no matter how or when it was acquired — knows that it is a rare and precious inheritance. This is a widespread sentiment. This is even a chic sentiment. This is maybe even a sentiment I once sympathized with. It is also the kind of romantic bullshit that hurts people. It doesn't really…

The "it" in the passage you quote is not an English degree, but the skill to write well: "the ability to distribute [your] thinking in the kinds of sentences that have a merit, even a literary merit, of their own." The author is not saying everyone should major in English; she is saying that the skills of rhetoric--careful reading, clear writing, tight argumentation--are powerful and shouldn't be lost in the rush to…

He[1] wrote a short piece decrying the decline of the English Major. That was the closing line. The klaxon call to action of the salesman would be gauche.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verlyn_Klinkenborg

Re: The Decline and Fall of the English Major

#86

Post by CamperBob2 »

petegrif wrote: post #66
bane wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's sad that the classical education is no more, but it's also true that the humanities rotted from within This really resonated with me. I find the concept of a classical education immensely important. I originally wanted to be a music major before diverting to CS. Even during my CS studies, I took extra liberal coursework to try and "round out" my education: history courses, literature, etc. I found it troubling…

I think there is a deep truth here. Most artists are acute observers of the human condition. They distill the products of such observation into artistic truths and evolve forms to freshly present their insights. The problem is that there is only so much an acute observer can learn about the human condition and share with us. Have we really experienced many people who have pushed the limits of such acuity materially f…

The problem is that there is only so much an acute observer can learn about the human condition and share with us.

Very good point. We'll ultimately have to ask ourselves if -- paraphrasing Borges -- art and literature can exhaust their own possibilities.

I think they can. We need to ask new questions, because the old ones have all been addressed adequately by now.

Like you, I seem to spend a lot more time reading scientific and technical material nowadays, and almost none reading novels or fiction of any kind. I'm only moderately well-read, but even so, every bit of fiction that I read seems redundant with something I've already read.

A disturbing line of thought.

Re: The Decline and Fall of the English Major

#87

Post by jmenn »

patio11 wrote: post #35

The first paragraph would be improved by the economic reality that dare not speak its name: adjunct . Most people who pursue the PhD in English will fail to join the one profession which actually needs English PhDs (training future English PhDs) and instead, if they want to continue putting to use the last 7+ years of their life dedicated to mastering the reification of privilege and construction of the other as demo…

Disclaimer: I'm in an English PhD program.

Regarding the parent's comment about adjuncting, no one who goes into an English PhD program expects they'll get a tenure track job out of it, and if they do believe such a thing, they likely shouldn't be in the program in the first place. Professors and the Modern Language Association remind us of the awful working conditions we can expect. No one goes into this field thinking we've found the next big lucrative market to exploit. Most of us would be ecstatic if we landed an R1 gig, but except for those at the top universities, we realize it's highly unlikely.

Learning to write and communicate should be emphasized more in English programs, but I fear the turn to a strictly compositional program will detract from what English majors actually do: read and interpret really well. My limited understanding of Computer Science undergraduate courses suggests that you don't actually learn "to program," you learn to solve problems in algorithmic ways with code; the code itself is merely a means to an end.

As a side note (and I don't do much work in this particular subfield), the work being done with code in English departments seems to be breathing new life into the field. The work on automated genre detection, and, more generally, the move from 200-some canonical texts to 'large datasets,' is bringing us unexpected funding while encouraging students to learn enough code to squeak by at an entry-level job.

Re: The Decline and Fall of the English Major

#88

Post by lemmsjid »

nooron wrote: post #82
abraininavat wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Consider that maybe you missed pjbrunet's point.

Perhaps so. If pjbrunet was making a clever joke, I suppose I owe them an apology.

I dunno, I missed it too. Maybe something to do with the economic use of a personal epiphany? Either way I appreciate your response, and your openness to be wrong.

Re: The Decline and Fall of the English Major

#89

Post by krakensden »

sk5t wrote: post #41
krakensden wrote: post #16

> No one has found a way to put a dollar sign on this kind of literacy, and I doubt anyone ever will. But everyone who possesses it — no matter how or when it was acquired — knows that it is a rare and precious inheritance. This is a widespread sentiment. This is even a chic sentiment. This is maybe even a sentiment I once sympathized with. It is also the kind of romantic bullshit that hurts people. It doesn't really…

Are you arguing that there exists a class of people smart enough to gain admission into and pay for college, yet too simpleminded to assess the hazy job prospects based around a degree in English, psychology, art history, and the like? As far as I know, every major world culture produces writers, poets, sculptors, and musicians, and in no case is an education in those fields a guaranteed ticket to economic prosperity…

I am saying that there are lots and lots of well meaning authority figures who will look 17 year-olds in the eye and tell them they should just get a degree, and worry about money later.

I believe that they do this because high minded nostalgic nonsense like the linked article is published on a regular basis, every year, forever, drumming that idea home.

Re: The Decline and Fall of the English Major

#90

Post by InclinedPlane »

gruseom wrote: post #58
patio11 wrote: post #35

The first paragraph would be improved by the economic reality that dare not speak its name: adjunct . Most people who pursue the PhD in English will fail to join the one profession which actually needs English PhDs (training future English PhDs) and instead, if they want to continue putting to use the last 7+ years of their life dedicated to mastering the reification of privilege and construction of the other as demo…

But your comment already takes for granted that there's no purpose in studying literature other than a career in academia (presumably because education is only about careers to begin with). I'd say the battle for the things worth caring about here was lost long before that assumption became not-even-worth-bothering-to-make-explicit. And sure, the economics are pathetic and the profession is rife with horseshit. The r…

If getting a degree were the only way to acquire knowledge in humanities or literature then the world would be a sad place indeed.

Fortunately that's not the case.

It's easy to appreciate literature. Cheap even. And I would argue that colleges actually do more to harm the practice than to help it.

Post reply on HN