Have the Humanities a future?

[uppi]

The humanities have a future, but they need to envision their future and work towards it instead of bemoaning the past.

Like:

Alas for me, the institutions which I regarded as protecting the soul of civilization are reducing their collections to become computer labs.

Vast libraries as a physical place are a thing of the past. Knowledge is greater than the book it is contained in, so it should be digitalized and made accessible to the whole world. I can access almost the entire physics literature without getting up from my desk. The few times I have to physically go to the library is not because the digital version does not exist, but because there are legal reasons that prevent me from accessing it. The humanities should be at the forefront of the question how knowledge should be accessible to the whole world, instead of letting the scientists fight all the battles.

History should be factually accurate, but it should also be meaningful; literature and philosophy and history should all be connected together, delivering common themes to the reader, doing something to them other than entertaining them for a few minutes.

The idea of a holistic approach to the humanities is noble, but there is a danger here: The knowledge of humanity is ever increasing, but the time of a single human is limited. So you can either try to specialize and have deep insights in a very narrow topic or you can try to have shallow coverage of everything important. With increasing knowledge the latter is doomed to become shallower and shallower until it is a trivial accumulation of facts that seems to be of little value.

 

[Smellincoffee]

Could you explain what you mean here? For example, what does it mean for history and literature to be connected together? Does history need to examine the literature in the era covered? Must literature be written about historical studies to make the latter valid? I'm just not sure. Also, why should different fields of study need to have common themes?

Some of the most vivid history I learned came not from history class, but from English literature; in part because my English professors were better teachers, but largely because they gave every piece they taught historical background, and then we experienced the story of the past personally, through the story. Wouldn't students have a better, fuller appreciation of a given era or event -- the American Civil War, for instance -- if while they were learning the political and economic factors in history class, in English they were reading something appropriate, or engaging in writing project in which they had to present a case for or against secession, or something along those lines. A lot classes just "teach to the test", but the facts evaporate as soon as the kids are out. It's connections that matter, connections that deliver the richness of the human experience and demonstrate its relevance. Common themes are a part of that; think of American civics as understood through two centuries of literature on the appropriate relationship between individuals, their communities, and the state, the origin of rights -- does the state grant them, or do we simply "have" them? -- the appropriate role of government in economics. I heard Walden mentioned as a classic in American literature during school, but Thoreau's Civil Disobedience was never connected to my civics class.


Responding to Czeth and BvBPL, does my use of the passive voice in this case run afoul the rules of grammar? I intended to give the question a dramatic flair.

 

[Crezth]

No, grammatically it's understandable. I was just poking fun.

 

[Gori the Grey]

Moreover, your subject line is not in the passive voice. It's just more formal by the omission of the auxilliary verb "do." I rather like it. And rather think it means the humanities are marginally more likely to have a future.