The Deliberate Owl

Why bother with a humanities education? What is the point of learning things that are not instrumental to other goals—i.e., learning for its own sake?

These are some of the questions at the core of The Battle of the Classics by Eric Adler, which I read with my book club.

Currently, in most higher education in America, vocation and skills are highlighted over broader learning and moral development. The focus on vocational skills has steeply increased in the last two decades, especially since the 2008 housing crash. College is seen as a way to get trained for a job, not a path to self-improvement. A humanities education is pointless; it won't get you a high-paying job. So why bother with it? Why bother with any learning that won't help you make money and get ahead? In The Battle of the Classics, Adler argues that the humanities are still relevant.

Who should read Battle of the Classics?

Battle of the Classics may appeal to you if you're interested in the future of education, in particular if you're responsible for educating youth or if you homeschool, especially when it comes to thinking about curricula and what matters when deciding what children ought to learn. This book may appeal to you if you've studied the humanities (and are questioning your decision), if you're one of many who are wondering if funding the humanities is worth it—or if these subjects are being cut from school programs and you'd like a better argument about why they matter.

When I first read the description of this book, I didn't expect much. One of the women in our book club had picked it because she was reading it in an online book club, too. But I actually found it to be a thought-provoking look at the role of the humanities in education today. It led to a great discussion and dovetailed nicely with our previous book, Zena Hitz's Lost in Thought (read my review). Both books raised similar questions about the "crisis of the humanities."

(Read: Is Going to Grad School Worth It?)

Diving in: Why do the humanities matter?

When Adler explained the rise of the vocational focus in higher education, I was reminded of what Susan Cain pointed out in her book Quiet (read my review!): with the rise of extraversion over the past century, lauded personal traits shifted from the "serious, disciplined, and honorable" to "bold and entertaining." Marketability—in terms of a gregarious personality or in terms of job-oriented skillset—rose to the forefront. High school and college became about increasing one's marketability for jobs, not personal development.

Adler included a quote from Martha Nussbaum, stating that removing the humanities from education will produce "generations of useful machines, rather than complete citizens who can think for themselves, criticize tradition, and understand the significance of another person's suffering and achievements." (p15)

Part of the importance of a humanities education, Adler argues, is to introduce students to particular philosophical works, great books, and ideas that will enable them to grapple "with essential issues in meaningful ways" or have "historic importance to culture and the life of the mind." (p15-16) Adler argues that it is the content of what's read that matters—the specific books and texts. Something about those great books shapes one's mind, not the mere fact of reading words on pages. Studying older masterworks enriches souls and is central to both personal and civilizational flourishing.

This is opposed to the more common view that the humanities ought to promote a certain ideological lens through which a topic is to be viewed, or a certain mode of inquiry. Under this view, the content doesn't matter so much as the method used to read it and study it. A humanities education is about the skills learned: critical thinking, pre-professional development, learning to be a thoughtful democratic citizen. Adler says this stance stems from the extreme relativism in today's society. You can't make judgments about what's good or bad, what's quality and what's not. It might offend someone if you pick one work over another.

As a quick terminology note, Adler uses the term humanism a lot. He's not talking about the modern humanist movement, which is more of an atheistic agnostic religion replacement group, but rather humanism as an intellectual movement of universities about the benefits or lack thereof of humanities education.

(Read: How To Start A Reading Habit)

A Brief History of the Humanities

The phrase "the humanities" comes from Latin: studia humanitatis, the studies of humanity.

"For Cicero, the studia humanitatis and artes liberales describe a lifelong educational program encompassing a variety of studies appropriate for a freeborn person. Such a program, Cicero argued, can serve to instill the crucial quality of humanitas in human beings." —Eric Adler, The Battle of the Classics, p37

Humanitas meant kindness, benevolence, mercy, and humanity as in the quality of being humane. It was both a moral and intellectual virtue, developed via exposure to particular high culture. The humanities were an education in culture, good art, and personal development; particular works such as Homer and Virgil were always studied. Later on, the Renaissance humanists took a more individualistic turn, focusing on strengthening character. The humanities were for helping shape students' souls. So much so that, prior to 1869, at Harvard University, the intellectual and personal conduct of students were considered inseparable. Students' personal character and discipline were considered when awarding grades.

Given how the humanities were initially conceived, it's understandable why a humanities education is no longer valued. First, humanism insisted on a particular intellectual and moral development, which, under the auspices of present-day moral relativism, wouldn't fly. Second, Aristotle had divided all subjects into the liberal or vocational, with only the liberal appropriate for the freeborn, aristocratic class to pursue. The humanities used to be the pursuit of the independently wealthy, the upper-middle and upper classes. Now, people like to think we don't have the same class distinctions (read Paul Fussell's book Class: A Guide Through the American Status System for a great discussion on that). If everyone is equal, then everyone works, and so everyone must pursue vocations and skills. The upper-middle and upper classes are studying business administration or law instead of classics.

As I read, I wondered about undergraduate versus graduate level programs in the humanities. Were both in crisis? My sense was that studying the humanities as an undergraduate might be more acceptable, since many jobs simply require a college degree. Once you have specialized in graduate school, you are often seen as overqualified for any non-academic or non-teaching position.

(Read: How I Built a Career From My Strengths—and How You or Your Kids Can, Too)

How the Humanities changed

In the 18th and 19th centuries, Adler writes, the professionalization of higher education began, copied after German research universities. The focus of universities shifted toward the creation of new knowledge, rather than moral or personal development. This coincided with the influence of American pragmatism, the rise of industrialization, and the Morrill Land Grant Act that donated public land for colleges of mechanical arts and agriculture (which Wendell Berry has written disparagingly about before).

In the late 19th century, two developments were key. First, in psychology, was mental discipline theory—the idea that the mind is a muscle you can exercise by studying certain subjects or performing certain kinds of tasks. For instance, learning math was held to improve reasoning ability. Learning Latin would improve memory. However, experimental research has since found little evidence that practicing certain subjects improves overall general abilities in the way proposed. But mental discipline theory was all the rage. It denied the value of specific educational content, the kind of specific content that a humanities education originally included.

The second development was an address given by Charles Adams at Harvard in the late 19th century railing against the requirement of ancient Greek in admissions to the college and in the college after. Honestly, it sounded to me that Mr. Adams was sore about his education and took the opportunity to rant about it publicly. But his address brought to the forefront the larger debate about the purpose of the classics.

In that era, learning languages was seen as useful predominantly for the instrumental purpose of understanding the science coming out of Europe. Thus, many academics argued about the value, or lack thereof, of classical languages in college curricula—since you didn't need them to understand current European science.

In the responses to Adams' address, those defending Ancient Greek argued that studying it helped one attain mental discipline. With the general academic shift toward relativism, mostly coming from the romanticists, Adams' critics couldn't easily argue that the texts themselves were special, beyond some preference the reader might have for them. Relativism prevented them from arguing that reading specific texts (some in ancient Greek) mattered because of those texts' "unparalleled ability to shape one's character" (p107).

Adler explains other factors at play. The scientific democrats, with their excitement about Darwinism, hoped to limit theological influence in colleges. Colleges were changing their focus as a result of industrialization. More people, and more social classes of people, began attending colleges. Removing Ancient Greek from admissions requirements enabled non-elites to join the freshman ranks. A Harvard president removed many course requirements, pushing academia further toward individualized curricula and custom courses and majors.

With the elimination of many requirements, some traditionalists worried that students would use the elective course system to avoid difficult work. They would choose easier classes with professors who inflated grades. They weren't wrong. Students frequently do that today!

Many liberal arts colleges have followed Harvard, eliminating many curricular requirements. When I attended Vassar College, there were notably few requirements: a freshman writing seminar, a foreign language, some percent of classes outside of your department, and some percent outside of your discipline (courses in departments were broadly grouped into four disciplines). Many students used this to choose easy electives, exactly as the early traditionalists feared. But some, like me, didn't. The role of motivation isn't to be discounted. I was motivated by learning, so I chose classes that covered topics I found most interesting, which were frequently with the tough professors that other people rated as hard graders.

(Read: How Schools Zap Kids' Motivation and Mental Health)

(Read more about how motivation works)

Babbitt versus the Romanticists

Not every thinker of the late 19th and early 20th centuries fell into the mental discipline and relativism traps. Irving Babbitt, influenced by classical, Christian, and Buddhist thought, wrote about humanism, New Humanism, how to learn to live the Good Life, and the benefits of a humanistic education. However, he didn't think students ought to merely receive wisdom from the ancients. He thought students ought to assimilate the best from the past into the present. We don't live in the past; we ought to adapt the wisdom therein to our current circumstances.

He disagreed with the romanticists, who generally believed that innate desires were all good, there was no general norm or values to aspire to, all was relative, and there was thus no need to improve character. The romanticists loved impulse and the particular at the expense of what is general and universal about humans and human life.

"Of cardinal importance to Babbitt's humanism, then, was the analysis of literary and artistic masterworks that would provide for the young the most compelling visions of the good, the true, and the beautiful." —Eric Adler, The Battle of the Classics, p172

This was about the point in the book where I began wondering every page what Adler's own opinions were about the purpose and value of a humanities education. Fortunately, the final chapter of the book gives us some clues.

Humanities and education today

In the final chapter, Adler argues for a specific, substantial humanities education that uses models of the past and masterworks of art, literature, philosophy and religion to shape young people's character and souls. He points out that at Yale, one of the most popular undergraduate courses is called "Psychology and the Good Life." He says that people want to learn the wisdom of the ages about common human experience and the human condition. But most people don't know how to learn it, and contemporary higher education doesn't help much. He writes,

"[O]ur laissez-faire course of studies has helped create laissez-faire Americans: rootless, isolated, utilitarian, and possessed of an impoverished view of the Good Life. To revitalize American society, we need to train students not just for service and power but also for wisdom and character." —Eric Adler, The Battle of the Classics, p213

I wondered how Adler sees a broad humanities education fitting into job preparation and making a living. Did he imagine a dual curriculum? Perhaps in the vein of new colleges like St. Joseph the Worker, that combine core theology and humanities with vocational training to give a solid foundation for both a good life and a good job. I also wondered how he thought of the purpose of humanities study in graduate education or beyond—while it may be valuable for the individual, how did it contribute to raising or keeping a family? There are limited positions in humanities academia. Perhaps he envisioned including humanities earlier, in the later high school and early college years. Or perhaps he's imagining a broader restructuring of society… Adler writes,

"If we aspire to produce future generations that are not only efficient but also happy and morally grounded, we must compel them to look forward and backward, outward and in." —Eric Adler, The Battle of the Classics, p209

Like Wendell Berry and others, Adler argues that we cannot focus only on what makes us happy. We must focus on what is actually good for people to be doing. Happiness is not the be all, end all goal. He asks whether we can create education that will encourage people to "improve the material conditions of the world and to improve oneself." (p217)

I was reminded of graduate school at the MIT Media Lab. Many people focus on questions like, what's the next Cool Tech to build? Can we make tech that does X, Y, or Z? Not as many people asked, should we? Adler is concerned that without the humanities, the world is left "in the hands of those who lack an ethical center." And I think that he is entirely right.

Adler argues that modern education is a danger to society. People get pragmatic, vocation-focused training… but they may not use it for good ends. He points out that many Silicon Valley tech giants, while making plenty of money, are not actually making the world a better place, but instead are increasing depression and anxiety, and contributing to overall misfortune. Numerous tech billionaires don't let their own children have constant access to smartphones or other technology, and yet promote it for use by other people's children? Gives you something to think about.

Adler ends the book with a proposed list of some possible texts to use in a broad humanities education that might shed light on human universals. Students are, after all, human beings first and foremost. He suggests texts drawn from around the world and throughout history. It's a starting point. What texts might you include?