3 ms·
> But the professors also seemed reluctant to define the success of a program by how many professors it creates—after all, most humanities PhD students at Chica
by lapcat 1y ago
> But the professors also seemed reluctant to define the success of a program by how many professors it creates—after all, most humanities PhD students at Chicago do not pay tuition and receive stipends to cover their living costs, and getting paid to learn and read is not the worst fate.
I think this neglects the stark opportunity cost: PhD students are devoting years of their life to this endeavor, which may pay modest living expenses during school but otherwise provides no current or future financial benefit to the student unless they get a job in their field. Those years become lost years in their lives, years they can never get back.
Moreover, if the ultimate goal of training graduate students is to preserve human knowledge, how is that goal going to be accomplished when those students are forced to leave the field and find some other way of supporting themselves after grad school? Ultimately, the knowledge will still be lost, won't it?
In fairness to the University of Chicago, this is not a problem specific to the University of Chicago, certainly not the first straw but only the final straw. When the humanities are defunded across the board, and tenure-track jobs become nonexistent, the training of humanities PhDs becomes futile. We can't look to Chicago for a solution to this larger problem. Every university, no matter how big and prestigious, should and indeed must face the stark reality.
- chongli 1y agoPhD students are devoting years of their life to this endeavor, which may pay modest living expenses during school but otherwise provides no current or future financial benefit to the student unless they get a job in their field I'd like to juxtapose your quote against a famous quote of John Adams: The Science of Government it is my Duty to study, more than all other Sciences: the Art of Legislation and Administration and Negotiation, ought to take Place, indeed to exclude in a manner all other Arts. I must study Politicks and War that my sons may have liberty to study Mathematicks and Philosophy. My sons ought to study Mathematicks and Philosophy, Geography, natural History, Naval Architecture, navigation, Commerce and Agriculture, in order to give their Children a right to study Painting, Poetry, Musick, Architecture, Statuary, Tapestry and Porcelaine. -- John Adams in a letter to Abigail Adams (12 May 1780) In this quote, John Adams offers the thesis that what subjects we deem appropriate to study is determined not wholly by our interests, but also by the situation (personal, economic, and political) we find ourselves in. Within your quote is an implicit sense of urgency that weighs against someone's desire to devote years of their lives to studying the arts. Perhaps we are returning to John Adams's tumultuous time? Then it should be wholly understandable for more students to choose pragmatism over personal calling when deciding on a course of study.
- logicchains 1y agoStudying in that context didn't mean spending years and years in an institution, it meant regularly taking the time to read up and immerse yourself in those things. One of the greatest tragedies of modernity is that we've created a society where the majority of people believe studying is just something done at university, and stop studying anything difficult after they graduate.
- lapcat 1y agoAdams may be correct, but isn't the lesson that we need people to study political science right now? The lesson surely isn't to drop all studies that aren't capitalistically profitable. I don't think the current situation requires even more ruthless profit-seeking.
- chongli 1y agoisn't the lesson that we need people to study political science right now? That's a quite literal interpretation of the quote, which I did not intend. John Adams studied political science because his business was the business of government. Studying political science today -- as an otherwise directionless middle-class student relying on loans and scholarships for tuition -- is not really hearing the call to favour pragmatism I believe Adams had intended.
- lapcat 1y ago> That's a quite literal interpretation of the quote, which I did not intend. Yes, but considering the contemporary assault on democracy and the rule of law, it seems apt. > the call to favour pragmatism I believe Adams had intended It depends on what you mean by pragmatism. I'd call it public pragmatism, not mere private pragmatism. Adams calls it his "duty" to study, and goes on to talk about the "liberty" and "right" to student other subjects. The obvious interpretation, I think, especially given who Adams is and his role in the founding of the US, is that he has the obligation to fight for democracy and liberty. Otherwise, he could probably just accumulate person wealth and allow his literal descendants, and those only, to study whatever they want.