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Why Humanities: It’s Also About Class and Power

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davidMost arguments in support of the humanities are founded on the virtue of good citizenship. For the sake of democracy we need a broad-minded, critically thoughtful public. This sounds great. It is the origin of public education. Who can disagree with that?

Politicians can. Every new voice in a conversation makes consensus more difficult. A democracy of intelligent, engaged citizens would be madness. Policy makers realize this. The world is a mess of complex systems colliding with other complex systems. And the complexity is thickening every day.

The wonks hardly keep up with their own narrow expertise. The politicians don’t have time to read the bills and question their briefings. And now you want an informed citizenry to muck it up even more? People in the streets feeling confident in their third-hand comprehension?

 

There’s another reason for the humanities, and it’s as old as democracy. Greek fathers paid to have their sons cultured. It wasn’t only about service to the city. It was about power. And it was about class. The humanities, the study of culture, becoming a cultured person, provided access to power.

And it still does.

The college freshmen I have taught do not understand this. They don’t even care about power. They don’t believe that they could have it simply by claiming it. Most of them seek out creative ways to avoid responsibility, that is, power.

Writing well does not mean writing according to universal laws or following the rules. Writing well means writing the way powerful people write, sounding like they sound. It’s a pose, a performance. What I mean to tell them is, “When you go before the king, you must say this and that. You must not say it this way, but this other way. And the king will grant your request.”

Schmooze is a powerful tool. It can require reading the books powerful people read, seeing the art they’ve seen, listening to the music they listen to. Or it can simply require asking a thoughtful question, relating their answer to something you already know.

This is not how you get the job. This is bigger than the job. This is about power.

The Internet has very little to do with it. The Internet cannot help you with this because powerful people don’t sit around on the Internet all day. They hire other people to do that. Powerful people are out of the office—schmoozing.

The humanities are not a trade. The humanities are not mad Photoshop skills. They do not always lead to jobs because they are connected to a leisure class that does not think about having a job or not having a job. That class is the most powerful class in America.

You are not part of that class, but you can participate in it. If you have the humanities, you can move in social circles above your station. You can join conversations others cannot. You can be unemployed without being poor. You can influence important people without having money. That’s power.

Spending cash to purchase consumer goods is not power.

 


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