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Do the humanities really succeed at accomplishing those goals? In my own college experience, the humanities courses I took mostly taught me how to parrot the pr

Do the humanities really succeed at accomplishing those goals? In my own college experience, the humanities courses I took mostly taught me how to parrot the professor's opinions, how to write long-winded dissertations with overly complicated language with the goal of appearing intelligent rather than being understood, and how to insert meaning into literary works that author likely never intended. And while I was very successful in those courses, I fail to see how they prepared me to be a better citizen, or to think critically about the direction society is going towards. For my daily life, I would probably have been better off taking a course in plumbing than literary analysis.

pasabagi 8y ago
I don't think the humanities departments are particularly successful - but they've been underfunded and horribly hamstrung by political and administrative interference for about half a century now. It's also not that Shakespeare's going to make anybody a better thinker. It's more that stuff like this sets the tone for the culture in general. If you don't really teach hard, interesting culture, then all the people who might have been interested just get the feeling that culture is kinda garbage and go on to engage with hard interesting ideas in other fields. Which leads to a public culture that's not in any way healthy - one that's really just people passing the time, that doesn't really push us or make us grow. History shows this kind of thing is just incredibly dangerous. If everybody likes culture that's enjoyable and easy, easy, self-satisfied thinking predominates. Then suddenly everybody is marching waving big flags and wearing funny hats, because it's a lot of fun, and makes you feel great to be part of something.
- im3w1l 8y ago
  > History shows this kind of thing is just incredibly dangerous. If everybody likes culture that's enjoyable and easy, easy, self-satisfied thinking predominates. Then suddenly everybody is marching waving big flags and wearing funny hats, because it's a lot of fun, and makes you feel great to be part of something. Please provide a reference for this. It sounds too much like a just-so story for me to take that at face value.
  - Nasrudith 8y ago
    I'm not sure if a citation would make it any better. That line of logic makes me think of the opposite pitfall - that it leads to needless hair-shirted puritanism because anything enjoyable can't possibly be a good thing. "We can't use anesthesia in surgery because the lack of suffering is detrimental to character!" By definition it leads to needless suffering. While knowledge and culture may seem boring or useless in itself (the fine details of long dead Roman politics) it is possible that there are hidden great applications to it in the right situation. Just for two surprising relevance examples Roman gladiatorial archetypes experiencing political correctness after annexing former foes, gladiatorial endorsements, and after the extended war had resulted in consolidation of farms in the hand of slave holding elites past legal limits the idea of land reform or enforcing the existing laws being called 'unRoman'. Science alone has a history of finding bizarre peripheral finds that nobody would have expected. Take an incident that resulted in cattle bleeding to death after routine mild procedures - the source was eventually traced back to fungus affecting their feed. Useful in itself but good only for agronomy. Said fungus was used to produce the first bloodthinner on the market.
    - pasabagi 8y ago
      >anything enjoyable can't possibly be a good thing. I think you're conflating enjoyment, in the sense you enjoy an apple, and enjoyment in the sense you enjoy a painting. It's a really common conflation, mainly because in our society, the dominant culture is enjoyable in the sense an apple is enjoyable. That, for me, is part of the problem. Nobody ever got inspired by eating an apple. Nobody ever learned new forms of empathy, or developed, through appetitive enjoyment.
      - Nasrudith 8y ago
        I think of it in different frameworks personally - than enjoyment - novelty exposure and exploration vs sticking with comfortable and familiar - peripheral to how one receives it (although attitude would influence what and how much is learned). Theoretically appreciative enjoyment could be empathic in a "rags to riches" sense but that could arguably be making the bitterness more palatable while undermining fundamental aspects say the sense of helplessness - even if it shows both ends and cycle of grudges and oppression. I guess it is like Shakespearean "write to please both the groundlings and the noble patrons" - hard to do, let alone properly but if done right offers the potential to create masterpieces. Anyway I can see some point to the arguement personally even if I would phrase it radically differently - and it may not be entirely what you wanted.
- haihaibye 8y ago
  High / difficult culture like Wagner and Nietzsche?
throwawayjava 8y ago
If that's how you feel then why didn't you prioritize clear and cogent communication of your own thoughts when engaging with the course? It sounds like you prioritized maxing your GPA per unit of effort instead of engaging with the material in the way that's most beneficial to you. Why on earth would you ever write an essay that's just meaningless jargon to you? What on earth were you expecting to learn? The same thing happens in STEM courses. Three examples: 1. Projects. If your project incorporates the professor's research priorities/interests you can get away with way less work, but will also get less out of the course. 2. Programming assignments in CS. Professors rarely assign open problems; they're almost always assigning variants of important solved problems. Students will often look up the paper or wiki article where the original solution was described and then copy the algorithm and/or proof. This often results in high marks for low levels of effort. 3. There's an even better analogy in Mathematics, where students sometimes learn how to parrot the structure/rhetoric in proofs instead of actually learning the mathematics. Professors often don't do a careful enough job grading and give these proofs high marks because they sound correct and are mostly correct. However, it's clear from a second glance that the student has no idea wtf they're saying. Students prioritizing low-effort parroting instead of seriously engaging with the material is pervasive in CS and Mathematics. Some of that blame lies with the professor, and when students never learn that parroting/memorization is bad, I guess that's a huge failure of the entire education system (K-12 through higher ed). But IMO students who know that's the game they are playing (e.g., writing jargon-laden essays instead of writing in a way that is true to their own voice) don't have a lot of room to then complain that all they learned was how to play the "max GPA for min effort" game...
- joefourier 8y ago
  Clear and cogent communication of my own thoughts lead to me having lower grades. Lower grades lead to fewer opportunities - less chances of getting a scholarship, recommendation, access to certain programs, etc. It depends on what you seek from university. Unfortunately at the undergraduate level, its role has largely shifted from a place of learning into a provider of credentials that act as a signal to employers. With the high cost of tuition (especially in the USA), you want a good return on your investment, not waste your time engaging with the material at the detriment of your chances of success. It seems a far better strategy to maximize your GPA while spending the least possible amount of time on the assigned material, in order to have time to pursue your own interests and be able to more effectively learn the things you want to learn.

pasabagi 8y ago

I don't think the humanities departments are particularly successful - but they've been underfunded and horribly hamstrung by political and administrative interference for about half a century now. It's also not that Shakespeare's going to make anybody a better thinker. It's more that stuff like this sets the tone for the culture in general. If you don't really teach hard, interesting culture, then all the people who might have been interested just get the feeling that culture is kinda garbage and go on to engage with hard interesting ideas in other fields. Which leads to a public culture that's not in any way healthy - one that's really just people passing the time, that doesn't really push us or make us grow. History shows this kind of thing is just incredibly dangerous. If everybody likes culture that's enjoyable and easy, easy, self-satisfied thinking predominates. Then suddenly everybody is marching waving big flags and wearing funny hats, because it's a lot of fun, and makes you feel great to be part of something.

im3w1l 8y ago
> History shows this kind of thing is just incredibly dangerous. If everybody likes culture that's enjoyable and easy, easy, self-satisfied thinking predominates. Then suddenly everybody is marching waving big flags and wearing funny hats, because it's a lot of fun, and makes you feel great to be part of something. Please provide a reference for this. It sounds too much like a just-so story for me to take that at face value.
- Nasrudith 8y ago
  I'm not sure if a citation would make it any better. That line of logic makes me think of the opposite pitfall - that it leads to needless hair-shirted puritanism because anything enjoyable can't possibly be a good thing. "We can't use anesthesia in surgery because the lack of suffering is detrimental to character!" By definition it leads to needless suffering. While knowledge and culture may seem boring or useless in itself (the fine details of long dead Roman politics) it is possible that there are hidden great applications to it in the right situation. Just for two surprising relevance examples Roman gladiatorial archetypes experiencing political correctness after annexing former foes, gladiatorial endorsements, and after the extended war had resulted in consolidation of farms in the hand of slave holding elites past legal limits the idea of land reform or enforcing the existing laws being called 'unRoman'. Science alone has a history of finding bizarre peripheral finds that nobody would have expected. Take an incident that resulted in cattle bleeding to death after routine mild procedures - the source was eventually traced back to fungus affecting their feed. Useful in itself but good only for agronomy. Said fungus was used to produce the first bloodthinner on the market.
  - pasabagi 8y ago
    >anything enjoyable can't possibly be a good thing. I think you're conflating enjoyment, in the sense you enjoy an apple, and enjoyment in the sense you enjoy a painting. It's a really common conflation, mainly because in our society, the dominant culture is enjoyable in the sense an apple is enjoyable. That, for me, is part of the problem. Nobody ever got inspired by eating an apple. Nobody ever learned new forms of empathy, or developed, through appetitive enjoyment.
    - Nasrudith 8y ago
      I think of it in different frameworks personally - than enjoyment - novelty exposure and exploration vs sticking with comfortable and familiar - peripheral to how one receives it (although attitude would influence what and how much is learned). Theoretically appreciative enjoyment could be empathic in a "rags to riches" sense but that could arguably be making the bitterness more palatable while undermining fundamental aspects say the sense of helplessness - even if it shows both ends and cycle of grudges and oppression. I guess it is like Shakespearean "write to please both the groundlings and the noble patrons" - hard to do, let alone properly but if done right offers the potential to create masterpieces. Anyway I can see some point to the arguement personally even if I would phrase it radically differently - and it may not be entirely what you wanted.
haihaibye 8y ago
High / difficult culture like Wagner and Nietzsche?

throwawayjava 8y ago

If that's how you feel then why didn't you prioritize clear and cogent communication of your own thoughts when engaging with the course? It sounds like you prioritized maxing your GPA per unit of effort instead of engaging with the material in the way that's most beneficial to you. Why on earth would you ever write an essay that's just meaningless jargon to you? What on earth were you expecting to learn? The same thing happens in STEM courses. Three examples: 1. Projects. If your project incorporates the professor's research priorities/interests you can get away with way less work, but will also get less out of the course. 2. Programming assignments in CS. Professors rarely assign open problems; they're almost always assigning variants of important solved problems. Students will often look up the paper or wiki article where the original solution was described and then copy the algorithm and/or proof. This often results in high marks for low levels of effort. 3. There's an even better analogy in Mathematics, where students sometimes learn how to parrot the structure/rhetoric in proofs instead of actually learning the mathematics. Professors often don't do a careful enough job grading and give these proofs high marks because they sound correct and are mostly correct. However, it's clear from a second glance that the student has no idea wtf they're saying. Students prioritizing low-effort parroting instead of seriously engaging with the material is pervasive in CS and Mathematics. Some of that blame lies with the professor, and when students never learn that parroting/memorization is bad, I guess that's a huge failure of the entire education system (K-12 through higher ed). But IMO students who know that's the game they are playing (e.g., writing jargon-laden essays instead of writing in a way that is true to their own voice) don't have a lot of room to then complain that all they learned was how to play the "max GPA for min effort" game...

joefourier 8y ago
Clear and cogent communication of my own thoughts lead to me having lower grades. Lower grades lead to fewer opportunities - less chances of getting a scholarship, recommendation, access to certain programs, etc. It depends on what you seek from university. Unfortunately at the undergraduate level, its role has largely shifted from a place of learning into a provider of credentials that act as a signal to employers. With the high cost of tuition (especially in the USA), you want a good return on your investment, not waste your time engaging with the material at the detriment of your chances of success. It seems a far better strategy to maximize your GPA while spending the least possible amount of time on the assigned material, in order to have time to pursue your own interests and be able to more effectively learn the things you want to learn.