A Plea for the Humanities

The humanities help nurture connections within and between diverse societies, offering pathways for constructive engagement. Learning about and respecting outlooks different from our own is crucial to our survival in the twenty-first century, moving us away from tensions created by ignorance and fear toward informed, sympathetic conversation between cultures. That does not mean forsaking our own identities and loyalties, but it does involve developing the capacity to see beyond them. – Richard Godbeer, Professor of History, University of Kansas

On June 4, 2009, President Obama gave a speech at Cairo University that sought to promote understanding and ease tensions between the United States and the Muslim world. Although it had been nearly eight years since a group of violent Islamic extremists attacked the United States on September 11, 2001, the country remained at war in Iraq and Afghanistan and divided about how to respond to threats of terrorism and religious-inspired violence at home and abroad.

Obama had come to Cairo “to seek a new beginning between the United States and Muslims around the world, one based on mutual interest and mutual respect, and one based upon the truth that America and Islam are not exclusive and need not be in competition.” Increased understanding between Islam and the West was essential for peace. “So long as our relationship is defined by our differences,” Obama said, “we will empower those who sow hatred rather than peace, those who promote conflict rather than the cooperation that can help all of our people achieve justice and prosperity.” Obama correctly noted that Islam was replete with teachings that promoted peace and condemned violence, and that most people of the Islamic faith opposed terrorism and had nothing to do with the violence inflicted on 9/11. 

The Cairo speech served educational and diplomatic objectives and was grounded in Obama’s knowledge and understanding of history, religion, and culture. Aided by his education and personal life experiences, he crafted a speech designed to lower tensions and provide historical perspective. Rooted in the humanities, the speech sought to counter the widening rift between Islam and the United States. 

As the previous eight years had demonstrated, a fundamental misunderstanding and aversion to a comprehensive understanding of historic, religious, and cultural dynamics led to a gross miscalculation in the War in Iraq and our response to the war on terror. It also contributed to Islamophobia, discrimination, and prejudice against Muslims within the United States. Obama’s speech, which incorporated his humanities-based education, exemplified how a broad understanding of history and religion, and experience with diverse cultures, leads to a deeper appreciation for differing perspectives and to better communication and judgment. 

America at its best is a nation that supports excellence, learns from history, promotes understanding between people of different religious and racial backgrounds, and engages other nations and cultures with appropriate humility. It is why an educational system founded on the humanities is so important to a free and vibrant democracy, and to American public life.

It is also why I find the Trump administration’s full-scale war on the humanities, the arts, and higher education in American life deeply troubling. Through a series of executive orders and other actions, Trump intends to disband the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) and National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), restrict the independence of the Smithsonian Institution, and defund libraries, museums, universities, public radio and television stations, and arts education in communities throughout the United States. Trump’s attacks on these institutions include censoring historical content on federal government and public museum websites, removing books on racial equity and gender identity from military academy libraries, eliminating public support for the arts in diverse communities, and canceling billions of dollars in funding for research at the nation’s top universities. He wishes to fund only causes he considers “patriotic” or that present a glorified perspective of American history and culture.

The administration has cited a variety of reasons for its actions, but rather than propose modest and evidence-based reforms designed to address a particular concern, Trump acts and talks as if he wishes to burn these esteemed institutions to the ground. I believe his actions will cause irreparable harm to the nation that even his supporters will come to regret. But rather than provide a detailed critique of why many of Trump’s executive orders are unconstitutional or grossly misguided, I wish only to explain why public support for the humanities is essential to an informed citizenry, and a free and vibrant democracy. 

The humanities include the academic study of philosophy, history, religion, languages, and the arts, and encompasses literature, poetry, writing, theater, music, and the visual arts. Aristotle believed that a study of the humanities was essential to excellence, and to perfecting of the self. Along with the sciences, the humanities formed the foundation for higher education. Without them our educational system would be nothing more than a series of vocational and professional schools in strict service to the economy. While such skills-based learning is important and necessary, the humanities are essential to a liberal education, with “liberal” in this usage derived from the Latin word liber, meaning “free.” The term itself recognizes that knowledge is liberating and explains why slave owners in early America deprived their enslaved subjects of books and education.

It is true that humanities education sometimes gets a bad rap. Critics contend the humanities provide “soft” knowledge with little utilitarian value in a competitive economy. In the movie Liberal Arts, a young college student asks the film’s protagonist, Jesse Fisher, what he majored in when he attended the same college ten years earlier. “English, with a minor in history,” replies Jesse, “just to make sure I was fully unemployable.” It is a common sentiment. When my father learned I was taking a course my sophomore year on Native American Literature, he cynically asked, “What kind of a job will that get you?” The course itself may not have added anything to my resume, but it is one of the few courses that I remember well to this day, for it helped me to better understand Native American culture and history and made me a better and more informed person. 

And while some might argue that having the time to spend on such pursuits reflects a life of privilege and too much leisure time, I counter that it was my humanities-based liberal arts education that developed my skills in speaking and writing, the art of persuasion, and critical thinking, all skills I needed as a lawyer and that are skills desperately needed in today’s world. 

In Man’s Search for Meaning, the Holocaust survivor, psychologist, and philosopher Viktor Frankl wrote, “Life is never made unbearable by circumstances, but only by lack of meaning and purpose.” It is this search for meaning that most explains my interest in the humanities. As the years pass and I become older, the more fully I comprehend how important history and religion, philosophy and literature, art and music, and exposure to diverse cultures, languages, and traditions are to a fully engaged and exalted life. Good literature and the arts enrich our lives, help us better understand and empathize with others, leads to genuine human interactions, and guides us in our human quest for truth and understanding. 

It is why the power of an enjoyable book is so liberating, and why the joy of reading uplifts and enhances our lives. Marilynne Robinson, who wrote a defense of the humanities for The New York Review of Books, contends that an informative book “has a suggestive power far beyond its subject, a potency the affected mind itself might take years to realize.” She once talked with “a cab driver who had spent years in prison. He said he had no idea that the world was something he could be interested in. And then he read a book.” 

According to the 17th Century French Catholic philosopher Blaise Pascal, “All of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone.” Humanities and the arts contribute to the development of well-rounded human beings with an ethical core and a moral compass, something desperately lacking in the world today judging from the current crop of world leaders.

But why should we publicly fund the humanities? How one answers that question may depend on what sort of society and country one desires. In Democracy in America, Alexis de Tocqueville perceived education and the humanities as rays of sunlight that spread democracy and enlightenment over the western world: 

From the moment when the exercise of intelligence had become a source of strength and wealth, each . . .  new area of knowledge, each fresh idea had to be viewed as a seed of power placed within people’s grasp. Poetry, eloquence, memory, the beauty of wit, the fires of imagination, the depth of thought, all these gifts which heaven shares out by chance turned to the advantage of democracy and, even when they belonged to the enemies of democracy, they still promoted its cause by highlighting the natural grandeur of man. Its victories spread, therefore, alongside those of civilization and education. Literature was an arsenal open to all, where the weak and the poor could always find arms.

Tocqueville believed that advancements in knowledge enhanced the general welfare of the community and promoted excellence. In an increasingly complex and evolving world, private means alone are inadequate. It is why public support for the humanities and the arts are historically important to a free and democratic society. Without public support, humanities and the arts would benefit only the privileged and affluent. The availability of public funds extends their reach to poor and rural communities, and thus benefits all of society. This is why grants from the NEH and NEA are so important, and why funding cuts to higher education restrict the aid available for lower income students.

Our nation’s founders, although flawed individuals, were highly educated and widely read men. These traits enabled them to inspire a national movement and draft the American ideals expressed in the Declaration of Independence and U.S. Constitution. It is why the freedom of expression, and of the press, and the free exercise of religious belief and practice were so cherished and embedded into the nation’s founding documents. And it is why the courts have traditionally outlawed efforts to censor news reports or ban books, things free societies that value unfettered thought and creativity simply do not allow.

This is why the current attacks on our educational system and hostility to the humanities are so troubling. In free societies, governments do not dictate what universities can and cannot teach, and do not prohibit courses that express new theories and methods of study simply because they open new avenues of thinking about race and gender. Free societies do not whitewash history, suppress unorthodox religious expressions, or outlaw differing academic notions of gender identity or racial equity.

The United States remains a grand experiment. Tocqueville discernibly uplifted the humanities as essential to a free society, for they nurture and enrich a nation founded upon the right to pursue happiness. Concepts of beauty, eloquence, depth of thought, should belong to all of us. Our universities are among the best in the world because they are based on the concept of liberal education, designed to teach excellence, and enrich the whole person, and because we have supported them with needed funding while protecting their independence and autonomy.

Why should we support the humanities? Because core skills in the humanities help us develop skills in critical thinking, deep research, reading and comprehension, critical analysis, and problem-solving. Because without support for the humanities, education, and the arts, we are a less free, less democratic, less informed, and less vibrant democracy. Without the humanities, our lives are less fulfilled, and our world is a darker place.