I’m proud to say that I’m not very easily proven wrong (at least in my opinion), and if I am, I very rarely take any remarks personally. I enjoy a good debate as much as the next one. I’m also very set in my vision of what the world is all about and what constitutes a “good life”. However, one Wednesday evening a couple of weeks ago I was struck silent by a debate with my two good friends. We were in the pub having a couple of beers after a day of studies and work, and we got into a discussion, where each of us tried to justify to the others why we study what we study and why we think how we think.
The premise was promising for a fruitful debate: I was the humanist; the linguist; the “mind over matter” philosopher. My friend number one (let’s call him Tom) was a student at the Helsinki School of Economics; the economist; the one who one who could reduce all existence into an equation, where on one side is Money and on the other side is Happiness. My friend number two (that’d be Harry) was a graduated engineer; the one who would assert that technology is the future; the “we must build machines that will build machines” utopianist.
So we’d drink a few beers, exchange common pleasantries, until Tom turns to me and says: “So Simo, are you still wasting your time with your linguistic studies, or have you finally started on something actually useful?”
BOOM! Struck Silent I.
Tom was always going on about how the future is in global financial markets – a very stereotypical, and often parodied, frame of thought from an HSE student. Life was all about harvesting material and making money. Money is great, I like money. Material, too, is great. But hasn’t it always been said that money should be a means, not an end? But what got me most about Tom’s simple and innocent question was the fact that that’s how they all must see us humanities students. By all I mean everyone else. Since our selected branch of academic study doesn’t really lead us anywhere (except to teaching, another blatant stereotype), they must all think we’re mad! We’re wasting our lives learning about art, literature, history, cultures, languages and other “spiritual gibberish” (direct translation from one of Tom’s comments about humanities) and that’s why we’re wasting golden opportunities.
Harry, even though in a far more lukewarm manner, soon sided with Tom. Harry agreed with money being of paramount importance, but disagreed with it being used as an absolute value. Harry didn’t believe in my choice of studies either, but he did appreciate art and how some people might get their kicks out of the “spiritual gibberish”, even if they’ll have to live in poverty for all of their lives.
Poverty? Golden opportunities wasted? Struck Silent II.
So, here I was, struck silent twice in the course of 10 minutes. I was forced to defend my vocation, if not for myself, then for all the other humanities students, whose dreams and ambitions people like Tom and Harry were set on shattering. So here’s what I think about it all:
I believe that in a world full of people like Tom and Harry, humane values are of the utmost importance. Economics and technology, while extremely important in sustaining the machinations of our society, would soon wither away if not accompanied by an understanding of humanity, its history, its love for beauty and literature, the many wonderful creations of the human mind. The ability to understand and study things in the metaphysical level is what separates us from robots. Being human is the necessary evolutionary backbone that we humans need in order to provide the society, fuelled by economical and political laws, some sort of frame of reference. If you look at history, you’ll notice that it’s most often organised by technological inventions (and wars). The arrowhead, the wheel, the writing system, the printing press – each invention echoes the fulfilment of a need; something necessary to better the lives of people. Art and humanities can thus be easily dismissed as having no such purpose. But that leaves the question why do we need people like me? What can be so profoundly interesting in something as vague as the human mind?
An understanding of humanity is something that every single person, regardless of profession, needs in order to survive. Tom and Harry can’t possibly justify their own vocations if they dismiss the history of their own professions. Tom and Harry can’t possibly state that art and culture haven’t shaped the world and even their own lives. Tom and Harry can’t possibly be so blind that they’d like to live in a world where instead of Rachmaninoff’s piano concertos you’d only hear the rattling of coins in the cash register or the steady hum of an electric regulator.
The world needs economics, politics and technology. Our mode of thought at least since the days of colonialism has been predominantly economic and technological. I’m not going to refute that, because it really is a fact of life. But the future – my friends – the future is in humanism! The human mind is the centrepiece of all creation. In the throes of globalisation I believe studying art and all the other “spiritual gibberish” is more important than ever before. Cultures are being overrun by their bigger and stronger friends, and work must be done to ensure cultural preservation.
This was what I was supposed to say to Tom and Harry, but I was still suffering from Struck Silent II, and could only mumble: “Stuff it guys”. Tom and Harry got the best of me then, but maybe after writing this article I can direct them to read it and thus get my say in the debate.
While walking home from the pub I saw a magnificent sunset. It lifted my spirits, because I knew that Tom couldn’t capture it with any amount of money, Harry couldn’t recreate it with any amount of machinery, but I, the lowly humanities student, could just stand still and watch it in awe, capturing a piece of it in my mind forever.
Technorati Tags: humanities, humanism, economics, techonology, future, student
Amen Simo! You should tell your friends to remove everything from their lives that isn’t measurable in money and isn’t a technological device and see how much fun they have. What’s the point of having a printing press if the only thing you have to print is an instruction manual for printing presses? I’m constantly shocked that so many people display this kind of blatant ignorance of the importance of cultivating an understanding of human culture and expression.
I’m not sure how much of this is a specifically Finnish problem, fuelled by the Finnish university system’s overly rigid faculty boundaries. For example, take legal training. In Finland, law students are in the law faculty from day one, and can graduate without taking any courses from outside that faculty. In the States (and the UK, as I’ve understood), law school is a master’s program. Most lawyers first get their BA in subjects like history or *GASP* English before really getting into the law.
This, I think, is the biggest weakness of the Finnish university system. By putting up high conceptual walls between different disciplines, it feeds the idea that certain types of studies lead only in certain directions and other studies in others. That’s my two cents, anyway.
Good follow-up, Juha. I totally agree with your arguments about faculty boundaries. I guess it’s also partly to blame on the major/minor -system we implement. Students are rarely encouraged to “experiment” with their choice of a minor subject, and the powerful potential of academic cross-disciplinary learning is discarded.
In Finland the new curriculum is too fresh to allow for the kind of scheme you described in the States. Working towards a Master’s Degree in the same subject your BA was done in is taken for granted. I guess it’s also because Faculties haven’t as of yet really emphasised the different possibilities that enrolling in a Master’s program offers. I guess the only way to really get an all-around education (suom. ‘yleissivistys’, which should be the object of all studying at all levels, at least from this humanist’s point of view) is to enroll for another degree after you’ve finished your first one. This, however, isn’t a proper plan of action, considering that jobs and careers won’t wait for you to finish your second degree by the time you’re 30 and hopelessly behind in the career world.
Cross-disciplinary studies should be encouraged, because no one can refute the value of the broad spectrum of knowledge such a plan offers. Having a subject or two from the Faculty of Arts should be necessary for all students, regardless of their chosen course of studies. Right now resources are foolishly wasted in other faculties, where knowledge of English, history and other relevant subjects are taught at the very basic, rudimentary level, when one could instead take a course at the appropriate department, gaining thus a more in-depth and to-the-point tuition.
Thank you so much Simo!
The atmosphere in our society is continuously developing into a discouraging downward spiral of trust in the potential of the human being, the individual. This has contaminated also the institutions that are supposed to keep the art of knowledge and understanding going, and even us humanists clinging to our “calling” or what ever you want to call it. There are times when this talk of “efficient” and “useful” education and the praise of “cost-effective” solutions in university degrees gets even me down when my friends start freaking out about the future and the narrow field of opportunities for us humanities students, constantly narrowing with every year that goes by and brings us closer to the inevitable decision whether or not to _have_ _kids_!!! Have we really been brainwashed into believing that it’s not wise to study arts, history or languages if you’re interested in starting a family?
I’m glad someone brought this up, because nowadays it’s worryingly unfashionable to talk about things like this that people assume everybody is thinking anyway and others have processed the thought enough.
Amen, indeed. I’m so tired of hearing the question “So… what are you going to be when you graduate?” I know you’ve all heard that one a million times too. I suggest we start answering “I’m going to be happy. And what are you going to be?” If we can get fifty people to start answering that idiotic question like this, we may start a movement, yea, even a revolution. And who can revolt better than students of the humanities? Economists? Please; only if the revolution will be televised in black and white. No, now is the time to act, my friends. Let’s show them what we’re really made of.
I like Simo’s comments in defense of humanism, but I’m troubled by the conclusion. He implies that as a humanisit he (we) have some unique ability to admire and value the sunset which the economist and engineer don’t. I don’t think this is true. Moreover, humanists not only sell themselves short, but also needlessly alienate people by claiming that we are somehow “deeper” or “more profound” than they are.
Our expertise, I like to think, is more important than this: through our literary analyses we can show how people have described sunsets, or put into words the feelings generated by the sunset. These verbal constructions and narratives are important for emotional health (see Monday’s HS, Health section), for intellectual development, and also for becoming aware of historical and cultural differences. If we look more closely at the metaphors, etc. used to describe that sunset, we can also learn more about cognitive functioning, about how our minds perceive similarity and difference, or make connections between things. We can further analyze the sounds and metrical devices used in those descriptions, which will tell us something about what sorts of language people perceive as “beautiful” or “effective.”
If we think only of instrumental value, we could say that all of this gets chanelled back into helping the engineer develop products which people can actually use, and also helps the economist developing marketing strategies/slogans which work. In the foreign language context, this information helps Finns survive in global markets.
So let Tom and Harry gloat if they want. But I think they need us just as much as we need them.