What Shall We Ask of the Humanities?
In 1946, Albert Maltz, a Hollywood screenwriter (one of the Hollywood Ten, in fact), published an essay which got him blacklisted from the Communist Party. It criticized the fundamental shallowness of the left’s creative work, and their willingness to use art as a cudgel to further their own ends. Read three-quarters of a century later, his work is prescient:
“If a work, however thin or inept as a piece of literary fabric, expresses ideas that seem to fit the correct political tactics of the time, it is a foregone conclusion that it will be reviewed warmly, if not enthusiastically. But if the work, no matter how rich in human insight, character portrayal and imagination, seems to imply “wrong” political conclusions, then it will be indicted, severely mauled or beheaded — as the case may be.”
What is the purpose of the humanities in academia? It’s a difficult question, one which often leads to hemming, hawing, and vagaries about creativity, the human spirit, all that separates us from automatons or beasts and the like. STEM and other ‘hard’ sciences are easier to justify; they advance the boundaries of knowledge about the universe and are how we make our lives easier, safer, and more comfortable.
It’s unfortunate that often, those most qualified to answer this question are the most incapable of doing so. For the sake of argument, I can offer a ‘good enough’ response: The humanities are to not only satisfy our innate aesthetic desires — we like beauty, cleverness, and insight even as we disagree on particulars — but also for us to grapple with the fundamental problems of our existence. It was Pratchett who once said we are “where the angel meets the ape”. They are for passing on the accumulated wisdom of the ages (history, literature, and philosophy) and to improve our access to that wisdom (language).
In a field which prides itself on examining these difficult problems, it would be natural for cultural taboos to be poked and prodded as well. It wasn’t too long ago that the idea of women voting was considered improper. Wind the clock back a bit further and we were murdering each other over subtle differences in faith.
So why then is this pearl-clutching prudishness, this Neo-Victorianism (without the elegant fashion) not just tolerated but encouraged? Why, when in a class about the study of craft, a student brings up the outrage-locus of the day (BLM, immigration, gun control, abortion, an off-color Tweet) does the instructor let the digression consume precious time and fan the flames? Where did our sense of humor go? When did we give our self-awareness the baseball-bat-and-shallow-grave treatment that Joe Pesci suffered in Casino?
In 2018, for his final project, one of my students took aim at the hypocrisy, collusion, inflated review scores, and lockstep propagandizing of games ‘journalists’. I was pleasantly surprised not just at the topic but his willingness to tackle it at all. I would’ve expected 18+ years of schooling to have scolded and shamed that sort of thinking right out him. I approved it, to his relief. A week before the draft was due, he lingered after class, looking ashamed and crestfallen. He’d taken an early version, along with his research, to the school’s writing center for extra credit. He believed the promises parroted by every tutor at their please-come-visit-us presentations and plastered all over their website: they were there to be sources of encouragement and critique, interested only in how to elevate students’ prose. So did I; otherwise I might have warned him.
The tutor informed my student that he had to abandon the topic as it was ‘inappropriate’ and thus, they were unable to give any useful feedback. I told him I was sorry that happened, and that the tutor didn’t have the authority to say what was and wasn’t allowed in my course. He walked away reassured, but the situation lingered in my mind for weeks. If I had any clout in my department or were more cavalier about my position, I would’ve confronted that tutor. It wouldn’t have worked, but it would’ve been honest.
The writing center reached a new low shortly after, with training on systemic oppression that tutors had to parrot before being allowed onboard.
Not that I was surprised, considering their staff. The assistant director had several poster-board-and-sharpie besloganed signs at the ready in her office. When asked, she said they were to ‘combat injustice’. Any conflict of interest, overstepping of authority, or keeping the private and public separate didn’t occur to her. It was direly important that she be perceived as Doing Something, even if that Something was ineffective, immature, or in direct opposition to her supposed job.
A colleague, in an announcement on the school’s online course portal reminded students to go vote. Though unrelated to the subject matter, the reminder seems barely worth objecting to. It wasn’t accompanied by a suggestion of how that vote should be cast. But as attempts at neutrality, objectivity and tolerance of difference are eroded, how long will it be until such reminders become instructions or demands? Would it still be harmless if said colleague gave extra credit for voting? For voting for the ‘approved’ candidate? Would voting ‘inappropriately’ impact a student’s grades, even if the instructor swore up and down that it wouldn’t? These hypotheticals seem less farfetched as the 2020 election approaches.
Another newly minted instructor scoffed at the idea that student works should be judged, at least in part, on how grammatically correct they were. She and her crony-via-covert-texts didn’t think that a piece of writing’s being coherent and understandable was worth consideration. I was stunned at her arrogance, her assuredness that she knew better than a senior faculty member who had been teaching for as long as she had been alive. Whether or not anyone in her classroom realizes it, she is letting her students down. Years or decades after they escape her clutches, some will look back in sadness and anger.
Of course, how much weight should be given to structure and style as opposed to content is a longstanding debate. Are the rules created first, and then we judge the effectiveness after? Or do the rules come from usage? If, say, ‘literally’ is (over)used as an adjective, does that then become correct? The answer is often somewhere in the middle; if we always adhere to rules or come up with too many, we stifle creativity. Too little, and we do our students a disservice by not preparing them for the world. But to paint all rules (especially ones created by their predecessors) as unnecessary and flat-out immoral is incredibly destructive. But to these radicals, any rules that have come before must be immoral, because finally, Good People have appeared on earth.
Equally destructive is the idea that literary canon should be dictated by the amount of melanin in the creator’s skin. It implies that any potential audience can only appreciate things created by those who look similar to the reader or are from a shared background. It denies the truth of any work: how effective is it in terms of moving us, entertaining us, making us see the world in a new light, giving us a respite from day-to-day toils. Instead, they only base their approval on the shell; appearance is the only aspect worth considering. It’s limiting, reductive, shallow and dehumanizing.
This poison has spread to on-campus events as well. Most follow the same format:
“An evening with…”
“A conversation with/about…”
Except these aren’t really discussions, explorations or debates; not even mild (or, depending on your cynicism, controlled) opposition is allowed. A speaker who a few years ago would’ve been considered fringe is flanked on and offstage by enthusiastic support.
For all the talk of privilege and power dynamics, there’s almost a glee in their abusing their position to tell students what to think, instead of how to think, to sanitize the past by scouring away anything that doesn’t measure up to an impossible standard. They are all too eager to play Inquisitor and root out alleged sins. It’s not only disingenuous but speaks to a lack of confidence and fragility; they must repeat their ideas over and over to the impressionable for them to be accepted.
I leave the final word to William Faulkner, from his Nobel acceptance speech:
“The young man or woman writing today has forgotten the problems of the human heart in conflict with itself which alone can make good writing because only that is worth writing about, worth the agony and the sweat. He must learn them again. He must teach himself that the basest of all things is to be afraid; and, teaching himself that, forget it forever, leaving no room in his workshop for anything but the old verities and truths of the heart, the old universal truths lacking which any story is ephemeral and doomed — love and honor and pity and pride and compassion and sacrifice. Until he does so, he labors under a curse. He writes not of love but of lust, of defeats in which nobody loses anything of value, of victories without hope and, worst of all, without pity or compassion. His griefs grieve on no universal bones, leaving no scars. He writes not of the heart but of the glands.”
