This Humanities Which Is Not One

It is old news that the humanities are in peril. It is also well-known that their crisis is not just going to go away on its own—even though some humanists seem to act as though this were the case. In fact, there is every reason to believe that neoliberal educational practices and the growth of the corporate university are only going to deepen the problems facing the humanities. Declining numbers of majors, reductions in financial support, and a general lack of understanding of the nature and value of the humanities are opening the door to a more vocationally-centered vision of higher education. In a political economy and academic environment wherein educational values are determined by market-share, majors and courses that cannot be directly connected to marketable skills and job attainment are regarded as expendable. As a result, the humanities are losing students and energy at an alarming rate—and are in need of reprieve, if not renewal.

So what is going to provide the reprieve? Where will the renewal come from? What is going to end the decline? Humanities scholars have been very good at pointing fingers at others for their woes, but have been hard pressed to provide convincing arguments in support of humanities education. In particular, they have had difficulty making a case for the humanities that is convincing not only to those inside the humanities, but also to those outside of the humanities; credible to those informed about the humanities as well as to those uninformed about them; persuasive to those sympathetic to the humanities as well as to those hostile to them. Take for example, Martha Nussbaum's recent efforts in this regard.

In Not for Profit: Why Democracy Needs the Humanities (2010), Nussbaum argues that assaults on the humanities are also assaults on democratic education. "Thirsty for national profit, nations, and their systems of education," writes Nussbaum, "are heedlessly discarding skills that are needed to keep democracies alive" (2). "If this trend continues, nations all over the world will soon be producing generations of useful machines," says Nussbaum, "rather than complete citizens who can think for themselves, criticize tradition, and understand the significance of another person's sufferings and achievements." "The future of world's democracies hangs in the balance" (2).

Nussbaum's arguments are typical of a liberal humanist response to the crisis in the humanities. Essentially, her position is that the critical thinking and reflection acquired through the study of the humanities provides citizens with the capacity to see beyond local problems and loyalties and "imagine sympathetically the predicament of another person" (7). Imagination and thought enriches our relationships with others and "make[s] us human" (6). However, the single-minded quest for economic growth and financial profit tends to abandon these democratic values, particularly in times of severe economic crisis. As a result, democratic education gives way to education for profit in times of financial crisis.

Arguments in support of humanities education like Nussbaum's are well-intended and noble. They take the high road through the history of ideas to support a beloved vision of liberal humanism. As arguments by humanists for humanists they are extremely persuasive. Phrases like "the faculties of thought and imagination" and "make us human" (Nussbaum 6) are hard for most humanists to resist in defense of the humanities. Nevertheless, they are still extremely vulnerable to the neoliberal onslaught.

The days of arguing that the arts and the humanities should be supported because they produce "good citizens" and provide "the ability to think critically" (Nussbaum 7) have been swept away by the tsunami of global capital. While Nussbaum presents a compelling case why democracy needs the humanities, she does not present a convincing case why neoliberalism needs the humanities. Nor does she address how public goods such as health, education, equality, and liberty can be protected in an age of neoliberalism. Furthermore, by trying argue that the humanities are good both for democracy and the bottom-line, Nussbaum fails to address the major challenge of the day: namely, why be a liberal humanist when neoliberalism appears to have a...