Why humanities matter

And they teach us to weigh evidence skeptically and consider more than one side of every question. Humanities students build skills in writing and critical reading. The humanities encourage us to think creatively.

They teach us to reason about being human and to ask questions about our world. The humanities develop informed and critical citizens. Without the humanities, democracy could not flourish. Andrew Gibson says:. March 4, at pm. Curt Rice says:.

Arto Mustajoki says:. March 31, at pm. Yves Salomon-Fernandez says:. February 9, at pm. I encourage you to republish this article online and in print, under the following conditions. You have to credit the author. In short, this means you should grab the html code below the post and use all of it. Keeping all this in mind, please take this work and spread it wherever it suits you to do so! Learning another language might help you gain an appreciation for the similarities in different cultures.

Contemplating a sculpture might make you think about how an artist's life affected her creative decisions. Reading a book from another region of the world, might help you think about the meaning of democracy.

Listening to a history course might help you better understand the past, while at the same time offer you a clearer picture of the future. Copyright Complaints.

Skip to main content. Facebook Instagram Twitter Youtube Subscribe. Why do the humanities matter? However, she does not make a persuasive argument. The persuasive argument that LM Jennings feels is missing here might be more of an indicator of how in late era American capitalism, there is only one civilizing force: the market.

We orient ourselves exclusively to the marketplace at our peril. I think that is what Ms. Harris is trying to say. This is only a little off the main course of the subject. They are like a flat tire. A person cannot be well rounded without a basic knowledge of math to include statistics and the basic ideas of Calculus.

The BA graduates who write our news and report on the media clearly do not understand basic differences like confusing the national debt with a balanced annual budget.

They often report study results listing the number of people responding to a survey in a particular way without giving the context of how many people are included in the sample.

Two students of about sixty explicitly said that they only wanted to get a D and I assume from the consistent low C high D performance of others that that was the case for others too. I offered help on every assignment and only three or four students ever took me up on it. I sent out emails telling them how to easily get full points for their weekly assignments, but the ones that complained grading was too tough.

A student who put an effort in will likely work harder in the job place as well; someone who is okay with putting in the minimal effort will probably do the same at work. I agree with her argument that the integrity of democracy depends on an informed public. Exposure and understanding is important, at the very least because we decide whether to fund the humanities, or the arts, or even public science. Take a poetry class. Minor in philosophy because you want to know something about philosophy.

I have always loved the humanities. It pains me to go to the symphony and ballet and see only half the seats filled much of the time. The original culture in this state was one that celebrated the arts. I worry that universities have prices themselves out of the education market and that more and more people will go on to technical training and not have any exposure to the humanities.

I graduated from the University in history, but wound up in a business career as a real estate appraiser, where an understanding of math as well as the ability to write a coherent sentence was essential. We need both areas of understanding. No one should live in a cocoon.

What humanities?