Are the Humanities Doomed?

[polly_mer]

But there is also the Willie Sutton approach. Go where the money is. Top of the Federal list is the Defense Department. And they are interested in humanities. They have one of the best graduate language programs in the country. They hire a lot of historians, because the need to know what happened and what they can learn from it. Tapping into DOD money probably doesn't even require congressional action, it could be an allocation of funds from an existing program. That requries persuading those who run it that funding research at universities is worthwhile.

Money is important for keeping a discipline going. Schools sure are not paying for it out of tuition revenue. Throwing up ones hands, conceding that there is no money, will doom a discipline.

Tapping into DOD money means knowing your research directly benefits the military.  That can be a hard pill for many folks, even when it's the research those folks already wanted to do.

[kaysixteen]

Welcome back.

[Hibush]

Polly! Good to see you back.

Your point is well taken. Those of us in the applied sciences know that we get projects funded because the the application will be used for something the funders or their stakeholders value. That comes with the territory. I suspect that constraint will be difficult for many who don't now have funding for their humanities research--whether it is military, health or marketing appications that motivate the funding.

[lightning]

But there is also the Willie Sutton approach. Go where the money is. Top of the Federal list is the Defense Department. And they are interested in humanities. They have one of the best graduate language programs in the country. They hire a lot of historians, because the need to know what happened and what they can learn from it. Tapping into DOD money probably doesn't even require congressional action, it could be an allocation of funds from an existing program. That requries persuading those who run it that funding research at universities is worthwhile.

Money is important for keeping a discipline going. Schools sure are not paying for it out of tuition revenue. Throwing up ones hands, conceding that there is no money, will doom a discipline.

Tapping into DOD money means knowing your research directly benefits the military.  That can be a hard pill for many folks, even when it's the research those folks already wanted to do.

Every person has their price where they will sell out.

[Wahoo Redux]

From out of the murk, the return of the mighty polly_mere!

Good to see you, polly.

[apl68]

Hi, polly!  We had just been talking about "Super Dinky College" the other day.

[Wahoo Redux]

This is from a NYTimes Editorial on WVU:

cutting humanities programs — which make up a sizable minority of the majors slated to be cut, alongside pre-professional and technical programs — is not necessarily the best way to save money. There is substantial evidence that humanities departments, unlike a majority of college athletics programs, often break even (and some may even subsidize the sciences). In defense of its proposed cuts, West Virginia University has cited declining interest in some of its humanities programs, but the absolute number of students enrolled is not the only measure of a department's value.

The finances aren't the point, anyway. The humanities are under threat more broadly across the nation because of the perceived left-wing ideology of the liberal arts. Book bans, attempts to undermine diversity efforts and remodeled school curriculums that teach that slavery was about "skill" development are part of a larger coordinated assault on the supposed "cultural Marxism" of the humanities. (That absurd idea rests in part on an antisemitic fantasy in which left-leaning philosophers like Theodor Adorno and Herbert Marcuse somehow took control of American culture after the Second World War.) To resist this assault, we must provide broad access to a true liberal arts education.

The campaign to overturn the liberal arts is politically motivated, through and through. The Democratic Party has lost the working class, while the Republican Party has made electoral gains among the least educated. With the help of consultants, Republicans seek to gut the (nonprofit or public) university in the name of a "profit" it doesn't even intend to deliver. The point instead is to divide the electorate, and higher education is the tool.

[marshwiggle]

This is from a NYTimes Editorial on WVU:

The campaign to overturn the liberal arts is politically motivated, through and through. The Democratic Party has lost the working class, while the Republican Party has made electoral gains among the least educated. With the help of consultants, Republicans seek to gut the (nonprofit or public) university in the name of a "profit" it doesn't even intend to deliver. The point instead is to divide the electorate, and higher education is the tool.

In a case of kind of "burying the lede", the writer avoids identifying how the Democrats have "lost the working class".

[Wahoo Redux]

This is from a NYTimes Editorial on WVU:

The campaign to overturn the liberal arts is politically motivated, through and through. The Democratic Party has lost the working class, while the Republican Party has made electoral gains among the least educated. With the help of consultants, Republicans seek to gut the (nonprofit or public) university in the name of a "profit" it doesn't even intend to deliver. The point instead is to divide the electorate, and higher education is the tool.

In a case of kind of "burying the lede", the writer avoids identifying how the Democrats have "lost the working class".

Well, to be fair, that was not the focus of this article and the "Dems losing the working class" is old news by this point.  The author was only pointing out that this is one element in the matrix.

[apl68]

I'm aware of how opportunistic Republican politicians have often used academics as punching bags.  Honestly, though, I think the decline in the study of the humanities, and their support on campuses, owes far more to the overwhelming shift to thinking of college education as a way to get a job.  It's not like the humanities aren't being eliminated wholesale at many private colleges as well.

Given how frightfully expensive a college education now is, students feel they have no choice but to major in something that promises to be lucrative.  Word on the street has long been that the humanities majors are anything but that.  I still believe that that's mostly a crock, but the perception has been cemented in place for so long that it's become almost impossible to combat.

[marshwiggle]

This is from a NYTimes Editorial on WVU:

The campaign to overturn the liberal arts is politically motivated, through and through. The Democratic Party has lost the working class, while the Republican Party has made electoral gains among the least educated. With the help of consultants, Republicans seek to gut the (nonprofit or public) university in the name of a "profit" it doesn't even intend to deliver. The point instead is to divide the electorate, and higher education is the tool.

In a case of kind of "burying the lede", the writer avoids identifying how the Democrats have "lost the working class".

Well, to be fair, that was not the focus of this article and the "Dems losing the working class" is old news by this point.  The author was only pointing out that this is one element in the matrix.

Perhaps, but often the implication is that Republicans are less educated than Democrats, on average. This would include any effects of working class people shifting from Democrat to Republican. If that is an important factor in the falling support for public education, then it means that the Democrats actually set the wheels in motion by abandoning the working class, and the secondary result was those now-Republican voters have further been turned off public education.

That suggests the alienation happened over an extended period of time and raised no serious concern within the party.

[ciao_yall]

This is from a NYTimes Editorial on WVU:

The campaign to overturn the liberal arts is politically motivated, through and through. The Democratic Party has lost the working class, while the Republican Party has made electoral gains among the least educated. With the help of consultants, Republicans seek to gut the (nonprofit or public) university in the name of a "profit" it doesn't even intend to deliver. The point instead is to divide the electorate, and higher education is the tool.

In a case of kind of "burying the lede", the writer avoids identifying how the Democrats have "lost the working class".

Well, to be fair, that was not the focus of this article and the "Dems losing the working class" is old news by this point.  The author was only pointing out that this is one element in the matrix.

Perhaps, but often the implication is that Republicans are less educated than Democrats, on average. This would include any effects of working class people shifting from Democrat to Republican. If that is an important factor in the falling support for public education, then it means that the Democrats actually set the wheels in motion by abandoning the working class, and the secondary result was those now-Republican voters have further been turned off public education.

That suggests the alienation happened over an extended period of time and raised no serious concern within the party.

Did D's abandon the blue collar working class? Or did R's do a better job of messaging to them? To whit...

• "You don't need a union, you are better than those lazy slobs you work with. You would make more money if you dumped those leeches."
• "You don't need the government to take care of you, you are independent."
• "Immigrants are taking your jobs."
• "The reason your wages are so low is that your bosses have to pay high taxes to keep welfare queens in food stamps."

Very good article in The New Yorker a few years ago. I can't find it right now but maybe someone else's Google magic is more aligned with their chakras.

[ciao_yall]

I'm aware of how opportunistic Republican politicians have often used academics as punching bags.  Honestly, though, I think the decline in the study of the humanities, and their support on campuses, owes far more to the overwhelming shift to thinking of college education as a way to get a job.  It's not like the humanities aren't being eliminated wholesale at many private colleges as well.

Given how frightfully expensive a unsupported by tax dollars college education now is as compared to in the past, students feel they have no choice but to major in something that promises to be lucrative.  Word on the street has long been that the humanities majors are anything but that.  I still believe that that's mostly a crock, but the perception has been cemented in place for so long that it's become almost impossible to combat.

There. FTFY.

[Wahoo Redux]

Did D's abandon the blue collar working class? Or did R's do a better job of messaging to them?

Both.

The Dems made minority rights a central issue, which is legitimate, of course, and failed to capitalize on what they did do for American workers.  FAUX News hopped into the breach and began building the MAGAmonster which will eventually eat its father. 

These are interesting:

Deseret News: How the Democrats lost the white working class

And

The Nation: Democrats Have Helped Working-Class Americans. They Need to Say So Loudly.

[Wahoo Redux]

In the past, Marshbeast, I have suggested that you think through your responses and look stuff up before posting:

Perhaps, but often the implication is that Republicans are less educated than Democrats, on average.

They are.

Facts are facts, and this one is all over the web.

This would include any effects of working class people shifting from Democrat to Republican.

It's the other way around.

If that is an important factor in the falling support for public education, then it means that the Democrats actually set the wheels in motion by abandoning the working class, and the secondary result was those now-Republican voters have further been turned off public education.

That suggests the alienation happened over an extended period of time and raised no serious concern within the party.

The Dems never abandoned the working class in America----ever heard of Obamacare? 

The turn from public ed is a reaction to the right wing propaganda fountain, which I think you've been drinking at.

And the Dems have been worried about winning back the working class for decades. They are trying still.  Democratic media has started using the kind of technologically advanced propagandistic material they were met with by the Repubs, and it successfully elected Biden, quashed the "red wave," and beat the Republicans back in Ohio.