The Humanities are being pushed off the cliff right now. Seen as nothing more than lofty pursuits that do not translate into profits, classes in English, foreign languages, philosophy, history, and the like are being slaughtered in higher education. It’s a shame because the humanities provide students with a life skill that ranks above all others. To avoid a vulgarity, I will resort to a rhyming euphemism employed by the Washington Post: the humanities allow you to tell whether another human being is a glassbowl.
For example, every few weeks we are treated to the confessions of a past Trump staffer explaining that they were taken in by Trump. As someone who has studied literature her entire adult life, I am incredulous. Very few fictional characters have been as consistent as Trump: he has always lied, cheated, and stiffed his employees. How on earth did you expect different treatment? And then I think, well, you never studied the humanities.
Decades ago, while working at the University of Wisconsin, I met another faculty member during a social event for an author’s visit to campus. Seldom have a disliked a person more in the first five minutes of meeting. After two sentences, I knew that he was the ultimate glassbowl. Two years later, my initial negative impression was confirmed when he was arrested for pedophilia in Milwaukee.
So, the humanities can be valuable because they allow us to understand human beings...and avoid the ones that are harmful to our humanity.
I’m Frances Jaeger, and that is my perspective.
