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A practical case on why we need the humanities

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Re: A practical case on why we need the humanities

#41

Post by mc32 »

remexre wrote: post #40
noch wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> An issue with these things is that institutions and government make major decisions based on the output from these fields. Indeed, the mere proliferation of x-studies (where x is arbitrary) in universities is a ringing indictment. The classic/liberal humanities (e.g. history) should be taught but it shouldn't be the case that one must go to a university, and get into debt, to learn them, and within a university whe…

RIP computer science, materials science

I think it’s more about subjects that yesteryear were “studies”. Social studies, etc.

Re: A practical case on why we need the humanities

#42

Post by throwaway2048 »

aaron695 wrote: post #20

Some people have always hated the humanities, nothing to new there. But what seems new is the humanities coming into politics in what seems like a big way. It's gone from what you should think, to what you have to think. That's why I think it should be smashed.

It should be smashed, because what you think its obviously correct yes?

Re: A practical case on why we need the humanities

#43

Post by maemre »

noch wrote: post #38
mc32 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>” the humanities study things which are not (entirely) subject to scientific rigor, but which are still worth studying.” An issue with these things is that institutions and government make major decisions based on the output from these fields. It’s not that we discount them completely but we should also consider opposing data from alternate studies, but what you get is agenda driven decision making (on all sides, th…

> An issue with these things is that institutions and government make major decisions based on the output from these fields. Indeed, the mere proliferation of x-studies (where x is arbitrary) in universities is a ringing indictment. The classic/liberal humanities (e.g. history) should be taught but it shouldn't be the case that one must go to a university, and get into debt, to learn them, and within a university whe…

> Any field that has to append "science" to its name usually isn't scientific e.g. political science, social science.

Although it's a bit of a side-track and you're quoting, what are your thoughts on applying this logic to "computer _science_" or "material science"?

I think it's more about the age of the field:

1. pretty old fields like physics (which just comes from the Greek word for nature), chemistry (comes from the art of making alloys) just have names describing what is studied without adding something that says "study of".

2. a lot of newer sciences (e.g. biology, geology, psychology, sociology) we use -logy as a suffix meaning "field of study", again from ancient Greek. Some of these are natural sciences, some others are social sciences.

3. in newer fields of study, rather than deriving new Latin/Greek names we just use "X science", which is not that different from what's being done in (2) A major exception to this is the medical fields (like oncology) where we still use -logy because Latin/Greek roots are still in common use in medicine.

Re: A practical case on why we need the humanities

#44

Post by papeda »

currymj wrote: post #10

apart from the benefit of the humanities in an undergraduate education, there are big positive externalities from the scholarly work as well. for instance, even if most people never read any of the written work of historians, the existence of that community and its scholarly standards helps prevent a lot of bizarre, erroneous historical narratives from gaining traction, and society is much better off for it.

It's a little strange to me to use history as the representative for the humanities, because history seems like the most "scientific" one -- there's some truth of what happened, and historians are trying to navigate toward it, figure out how to talk about it, identifies whys and hows.

On the other hand, there seem to be broad swathes of humanities academia that strongly reject the notion of some kind of "truth", e.g. new criticism. I find this strain of humanities work a lot harder to appreciate.

Re: A practical case on why we need the humanities

#45

Post by haihaibye »

currymj wrote: post #10

apart from the benefit of the humanities in an undergraduate education, there are big positive externalities from the scholarly work as well. for instance, even if most people never read any of the written work of historians, the existence of that community and its scholarly standards helps prevent a lot of bizarre, erroneous historical narratives from gaining traction, and society is much better off for it.

Historians wanted to push the narrative that primitive people were less violent, that seeing the pots dug up during different eras was due to cultural transmission not people being wiped out and replaced, "Pots, not people"

Genetics has revealed that no, it was people not pots:

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-03773-6

You'd have had a more accurate picture of prehistory watching Conan the Barbarian than sitting in anthropology lectures.

Re: A practical case on why we need the humanities

#46

Post by dragonwriter »

haihaibye wrote: post #45
currymj wrote: post #10

apart from the benefit of the humanities in an undergraduate education, there are big positive externalities from the scholarly work as well. for instance, even if most people never read any of the written work of historians, the existence of that community and its scholarly standards helps prevent a lot of bizarre, erroneous historical narratives from gaining traction, and society is much better off for it.

Historians wanted to push the narrative that primitive people were less violent, that seeing the pots dug up during different eras was due to cultural transmission not people being wiped out and replaced, "Pots, not people" Genetics has revealed that no, it was people not pots: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-03773-6 You'd have had a more accurate picture of prehistory watching Conan the Barbarian than sit…

Your description of history and anthropology is about at the level of accuracy that one would expect of someone who conflates the two.

Re: A practical case on why we need the humanities

#47

Post by mcguire »

Barrin92 wrote: post #37

What gets me the wrong way about these arguments, and it is even itself addressed somewhat in the article is the reduction of 'the humanities' to formal or academic study. The ideal of the humanities and of the holistic, cosmopolitan citizen with a broad education in every field of human activity is not new. Humboldt (and others) formulated it long ago. In that sense I think the humanities aren't just needed in educa…

That's one of the reasons why there are required humanities courses: to try to ensure that graduates are "well rounded".

As for their emphasis in higher education, where else are you forced to face different and conflicting ideas? Certainly not in political debates.

Re: A practical case on why we need the humanities

#48

Post by rsj_hn »

Barrin92 wrote: post #37

What gets me the wrong way about these arguments, and it is even itself addressed somewhat in the article is the reduction of 'the humanities' to formal or academic study. The ideal of the humanities and of the holistic, cosmopolitan citizen with a broad education in every field of human activity is not new. Humboldt (and others) formulated it long ago. In that sense I think the humanities aren't just needed in educa…

The "Humanities" come from the story of Oerestes, who was being chased and tormented by the screeching furies, often portrayed in art as harpies or other shrieking, biting spirits that yell into Oerestes' ears.

At the end of the play Apollo arrives and turns the Furies into Eumanides - Humanities, who comfort Oerestes. The humanities were created to heal us, but in modern academia, they have been turned back into shrieking furies, and the response we are seeing -- the only sane response -- is to flee them like Oerestes did.

There are still humanities out there, and it is important to seek them out, but you wont them in modern humanities departments.

Re: A practical case on why we need the humanities

#49

Post by mcguire »

ianleeclark wrote: post #19
mc32 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>” the humanities study things which are not (entirely) subject to scientific rigor, but which are still worth studying.” An issue with these things is that institutions and government make major decisions based on the output from these fields. It’s not that we discount them completely but we should also consider opposing data from alternate studies, but what you get is agenda driven decision making (on all sides, th…

> An issue with these things is that institutions and government make major decisions ... what you get is agenda driven decision making What do you think politics is? Everyone in politics has an agenda. > It’s not that we discount them completely but we should also consider opposing data from alternate studies Politicians already do this. Whenever there's a decision being made, it's being processed through a host of…

"What do you think politics is?"

How human beings make collective decisions. Why, what do you think it is?

Re: A practical case on why we need the humanities

#50

Post by recursivedoubts »

ianleeclark wrote: post #9
recursivedoubts wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes to all of that. A culture of fear and loathing. Charging obscene levels of tuition for it while piling the real work onto adjuncts. Close-mindedness that would make John Calvin blush. The list is extremely long. There is no chance I would let a university humanities department anywhere near my children at this point.

> A culture of fear and loathing. Examples? > Charging obscene levels of tuition for it while piling the real work onto adjuncts. This is endemic to the US university system, in general. > Close-mindedness that would make John Calvin blush. Again, it's all fun and games to riff and instantly disregard a vast number of fields of study, but you're not doing yourself any favors by just throwing out a laundry list. You h…

Of course not.

There are wonderful resources for getting a liberal education today. More than ever, in fact, and far less expensive than ever as well.

They just have nothing to do with going into a humanities department.

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