Stanley Fish, an academic humanist, makes a bold claim about the utility of the humanities. He argues that their main purpose is to provide individual pleasure. They don’t reform, they don’t humanize, and they don’t help us understand the meaning of life, Fish asserts, because if they did, your English, philosophy, music, and history professors would be among the best people on earth (and you already know that they aren’t!).
Is Fish right? Scholars of history make war, writers of novels commit crimes, and gifted creative artists lose their lives to drugs and alcohol. And yet, it was a pamphlet that helped launch the American Revolution, it was music that helped empower a generation to oppose the Vietnam War, and a painting like Picasso’s Guernica is considered a national treasure in Spain.
What do you think? Can training in the humanistic disciplines do anything more than give us individual pleasure?
Wednesday, July 2, 2008
The Uses of the Humanities
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4 comments:
Humanities come from understanding the subject that we are working on, and getting a good view and sympathetic information about the work that needs to be done, and it should be done right and with pleasure. Stanley Fish who said the brave statement about the values of the humanities, saying that humanities not the main point to understand the life; it‘s because our professors in any subject that is related to humanities would be the best people in the world. I think this statement could be right in the ways and wrong in some points. We have a lot of good writers who became horrific after not understanding the humanities of their work. If someone just write a novel or paint and use their talent, but not their sense of wisdoms, their experience would die and be shocking. I absolutely think that by teaching and guiding our senses of wisdoms and knowledge we can have both the individual pleasure and the right humanistic disciplines.
Humanities serve some purpose in life. What kind of world would we have without music and entertainment? What boring conversations we would have without arguments over religion and politics. How would we tell stories from our past, if we don’t have writers? Students don’t need to memorize poetry or how to interpret every line of a poem to enjoy reading the poem or memorize facts to enjoy reading the history of a country. They need to learn from the poet about his subject not whether the poem has rhythm, rhyme or irony in order to enjoy reading his poem. We need to be aware of our past, how we got to be where we are, and what our future may hold. Studying humanities (ancient/modern language, literature, history, philosophy, religion and the visual and performing arts) helps us to better understand how we evolved to what we are today and helps us to envision what we have to look forward to in the future. Do they make us better humans? Maybe not, but they help explain why we are in the mess we are in and what we may be headed for.
To me, the most interesting phrase of this post "scholars of history make war." Obviously this struck me because I am a history major, but it is also interesting because it is true. Most political leaders are also students of history. The most famous example, both for his historical works and for his war making, is Winston Churchill. I think the most important contribution the humanities can make to civilization is to help us contextualize and understand the events of the past.
I believe that Fish could be right or wrong in his statement about the value of humanities. The humanities do have a direct effect on the world, such as the arguement that is made about art and music. I think that this subject is highly effected by it's own biases but that the teaching and understanding is necessary in human way of life. The humanities are what keep us "human" and I believe that they are important. But on the flip side of the coin, I can understand Fishs statement and appreciate it for what it is.
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