Post: #1

Roosh's twitter feed has linked to this article in the NYTimes about dwindling interest in humanities degrees at American colleges.

Roosh wrote: "Colleges freaking out that students don't want a useless humanities major anymore."

That's a fair enough point. But even more important, in my view, is that the humanities in college have become "useless" and even "worthless" because of the humanities professors themselves -- who have "deconstructed" and ridiculed everything that was ever good in the humanities. In colleges today, humanities departments are obsessed with class and race to the near total exclusion of everything else. Humanities departments are really cultural Marxism centers.

There is practically nobody left in American colleges who will make Shakespeare come alive or celebrate the achievements of Western Civilization. Every recent attempt at creating a "great books" curriculum that could be enriching and beneficial at a major college has failed because the humanities faculties oppose such programs and instead want to keep doing Marxist scholarship while calling it something else.

To see a detailed description of how one liberal arts college devolved this way, see this link.

I earned a humanities undergraduate degree and got absolutely nothing out of it -- not even the knowledge I was hoping for. It was the biggest mistake of my education, and, probably, my life.

Post: #2

Does the humanities include Philosophy? I think it does - but I have never being sure.

Post: #3

Will check out the link but I already agree with the premise. In the liberal arts majors you will now learn hardly anything of the classics and the history of western civilization. Instead you will be assigned a bunch of articles by Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault, and Susan Sontag. As a result graduates today are totally disconnected from traditional western scholarship.

This is very different to how it was before the 1970s or thereabouts.

Post: #4

(11-02-2013 07:19 PM)cardguy Wrote:  Does the humanities include Philosophy? I think it does - but I have never being sure.

It does. Though some fields we now consider social sciences - such as law and linguistics - were originally considered humanities as well.

Another article on the matter here:

The heartlessness of the matter

Quote:Nowadays even the greatest works of the past are hardly ever approached in [the spirit of unageing intellect]. Instead, they are “deconstructed”—which means analyzed not according to themes, ideas, or literary techniques, but into the political and social assumptions—especially assumptions about race, class, and sexuality—supposed to be typical of the societies that produced them. Instead of looking up to the authors as great artists, ignorant 19-year-olds are now encouraged to look down on them as political naïfs or propagandists, sadly lacking in their own progressive principles and intellectual sophistication. That must soon become a bore even to the young geniuses themselves.

Post: #5

(11-02-2013 07:19 PM)cardguy Wrote:  Does the humanities include Philosophy? I think it does - but I have never being sure.

Yes, it includes philosophy.

Post: #6

I think the addition of superfluous majors such as global studies, feminist studies, narrative studies, etc. have also contributed to the decline of the humanities.

Post: #7

(11-02-2013 08:46 PM)quino_16 Wrote:  I think the addition of superfluous majors such as global studies, feminist studies, narrative studies, etc. have also contributed to the decline of the humanities.

Those are an outgrowth of the same underlying phenomenon.

We shouldn't be surprised that nobody wants to take humanities courses, when the students are taught to feel superior (for no valid reason) to all of the great thinkers of the past, all of whom are trashed as a bunch of sexists, racists, and class bigots.

Post: #8

Quote:We shouldn't be surprised that nobody wants to take humanities courses, when the students are taught to feel superior (for no valid reason) to all of the great thinkers of the past, all of whom are trashed as a bunch of sexists, racists, and class bigots.

I saw a documentary a couple of years ago (might have been with Richard Brookhiser) and they were asking Columbia students on the campus questions about Alexander Hamilton (an alumnus of that very school). Some chick didn't even know who he was.

Post: #9

(11-02-2013 08:51 PM)Consul Wrote:  

(11-02-2013 08:46 PM)quino_16 Wrote:  I think the addition of superfluous majors such as global studies, feminist studies, narrative studies, etc. have also contributed to the decline of the humanities.

Those are an outgrowth of the same underlying phenomenon.

We shouldn't be surprised that nobody wants to take humanities courses, when the students are taught to feel superior (for no valid reason) to all of the great thinkers of the past, all of whom are trashed as a bunch of sexists, racists, and class bigots.

Lol. Yeah, I arrived at your conclusion right after I posted.

Post: #10

(11-02-2013 08:51 PM)Consul Wrote:  

(11-02-2013 08:46 PM)quino_16 Wrote:  I think the addition of superfluous majors such as global studies, feminist studies, narrative studies, etc. have also contributed to the decline of the humanities.

Those are an outgrowth of the same underlying phenomenon.

We shouldn't be surprised that nobody wants to take humanities courses, when the students are taught to feel superior (for no valid reason) to all of the great thinkers of the past, all of whom are trashed as a bunch of sexists, racists, and class bigots.

Lol. Yeah, I arrived at your conclusion right after I posted.

Post: #11

I think there are many reasons for this, but to me the main ones are:
1. The creeping rejection of traditional Western culture that has infiltrated all aspects of Western society over the past 50 years. Political correctness, feminism, leftism, gender-equality doctrine, and similar doctrines have hammered home the point that traditional Western culture (our classical heritage, medieval heritage, Renaissance heritage, religious heritage, etc.) is basically outdated and worthless.
2. Ignorance of the classical languages most important in Western culture (Greek, Latin, and to a lesser extent Hebrew).
3. The general "dumbing down" of society means that even the elites now know very little about classical mythology, philosophy, religion, or foreign languages.
4. Mass media culture that focuses on instant gratification does not promote an environment of calm reflection and measured thought.

Our entire heritage has been amputated from our collective consciousness. When a nation or people breaks with the past and loses its memory, as our culture is doing, it goes mad. Just like a person who suddenly loses his memory. He also goes mad. There is a lot of truth in this analogy. The past is a race's collective memory, and it needs to be nurtured and passed on from one generation to another. Our father's generation has failed us miserably, as in so many other things.

Nothing is more important that the humanities, but you're going to have to learn them on your own. Don't count on any school to teach you. Study something that helps you get a job, and in your free time do your own studies.

Post: #12

One of my friends is a communications major (I think that falls under humanities). I'm better at arguing, I'm better at holding a conversation, and I read just as much as she does. I'm currently in high school, and she thinks she is superior to me. Every time she talks down to me in an argument I call her out and end it by deconstructing her. If you major in communications, don't you think you shouldn't be schooled by a person who is still in public school?

Post: #13

The humanities are an easy target for criticism in the US because Americans are obsessed with the idea of practicality. That is, if it doesn't lead to a job, it's not worth pursuing. That coupled with the fact that they are horribly taught and as previously mentioned on this thread, professors constantly demonize the West and the thinkers/philosophers that it has produced. There's a solid book that touches on this subject called Anti-Intellectualism in American Life.

Post: #14

The Wall Street Journal just published a fascinating article on the subject of the humanities dying at American universities. One of the very last good English programs, UCLA's program, has sold out to the class-race-gender "scholars" and no longer requires English majors to take a course on Shakespeare, Chaucer, or Milton. Remember this the next time humanities departments come wailing that their departments are in jeopardy. They destroyed the humanities first and deserve to wither on the vine and die.

Unfortunately, only subscribers can view the whole article. To avoid any copyright problems I will paste below some excerpts, so as to stay within "fair use" guidelines:

Quote:The Wall Street Journal

Heather Mac Donald
Jan. 3, 2014 6:43 p.m. ET

In 2011, the University of California at Los Angeles wrecked its English major. Such a development may seem insignificant, compared with, say, the federal takeover of health care. It is not. What happened at UCLA is part of a momentous shift that bears on our relationship to the past—and to civilization itself.

Until 2011, students majoring in English at UCLA had to take one course in Chaucer, two in Shakespeare, and one in Milton —the cornerstones of English literature. Following a revolt of the junior faculty, however, during which it was announced that Shakespeare was part of the "Empire," UCLA junked these individual author requirements. It replaced them with a mandate that all English majors take a total of three courses in the following four areas: Gender, Race, Ethnicity, Disability and Sexuality Studies; Imperial, Transnational, and Postcolonial Studies; genre studies, interdisciplinary studies, and critical theory; or creative writing.

In other words, the UCLA faculty was now officially indifferent to whether an English major had ever read a word of Chaucer, Milton or Shakespeare, but the department was determined to expose students, according to the course catalog, to "alternative rubrics of gender, sexuality, race, and class."

Such defenestrations have happened elsewhere, and long before 2011. But the UCLA coup was particularly significant because the school's English department was one of the last champions of the historically informed study of great literature, uncorrupted by an ideological overlay. Precisely for that reason, it was the most popular English major in the country, enrolling a whopping 1,400 undergraduates.

The UCLA coup represents the characteristic academic traits of our time: narcissism, an obsession with victimhood, and a relentless determination to reduce the stunning complexity of the past to the shallow categories of identity and class politics. Sitting atop an entire civilization of aesthetic wonders, the contemporary academic wants only to study oppression, preferably his or her own, defined reductively according to gonads and melanin.

***

It is no wonder, then, that we have been hearing of late that the humanities are in crisis. A recent Harvard report from a committee co-chaired by the school's premier postcolonial studies theorist, Homi Bhabha, lamented that 57% of incoming Harvard students who initially declare interest in a humanities major eventually change concentrations. Why may that be? Imagine an intending lit major who is assigned something by Professor Bhabha: "If the problematic 'closure' of textuality questions the totalization of national culture. . . ." How soon before that student concludes that a psychology major is more up his alley?

No, the only true justification for the humanities is that they provide the thing that Faust sold his soul for: knowledge. It is knowledge of a particular kind, concerning what men have done and created over the ages.

Post: #15

When I was in college I watched the Lit/Humanities department get emasculated before my very eyes. It came at the exact time the school decided to throw massive money at its football program. Remodeled/expanded the stadium, expanded the field house, etc.. The whole attitude of the school changed nearly overnight. Athletes and coaches became the rock stars. The Women's Studies department became virulent to counter it, and humanities got AMOGd.

Then we had FFRU -- Football and False Rape University.

The left would have deconstructed the western humanities regardless (through marches, bombings, etc), but a school's focus on sports invites it.

Post: #16

(11-03-2013 01:22 AM)Quintus Curtius Wrote:  I think there are many reasons for this, but to me the main ones are:
1. The creeping rejection of traditional Western culture that has infiltrated all aspects of Western society over the past 50 years. Political correctness, feminism, leftism, gender-equality doctrine, and similar doctrines have hammered home the point that traditional Western culture (our classical heritage, medieval heritage, Renaissance heritage, religious heritage, etc.) is basically outdated and worthless.

Yep. And they are all related - just different aspects of cultural Marxism.

Antonio Gramsci's "long march through the institutions" has been a phenomenal success. Some of us shake off this indoctrination as we get older, but many do not.

Post: #17

One of the things I like about this community is that useful, practical skills and are respected, yet the great heritage of mankind as found primarily in writings and art created by white men is also appreciated. Sadly in higher education we are seeing the results of decades of "teaching" by people who actually hate western civilisation. We need a return to the days when men would hunt, build things, and also read Homer and listen to Beethoven. You don't need a university degree for that.

Post: #18

Interesting reading since I work at a University. Also since I have small kids.

Post: #19

(11-02-2013 07:26 PM)RexImperator Wrote:  Will check out the link but I already agree with the premise. In the liberal arts majors you will now learn hardly anything of the classics and the history of western civilization. Instead you will be assigned a bunch of articles by Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault, and Susan Sontag. As a result graduates today are totally disconnected from traditional western scholarship.

This is very different to how it was before the 1970s or thereabouts.

This is cant. Not Kant. If you want to read those authors, you take a course in them. Otherwise, the Canon is still extant and you can study the classics in any university. It's not like much is forced down anyone's throat in most universities.

When someone criticizes Foucault without substance, I know they've never read him. I am not familiar with Derrida, can't judge him. I have read some of Sontag's essays, she had a long career, some good, some bad.

Foucault has written some of the most perceptive criticisms of the modern authoritarian "nanny state" (what he calls the therapeutic state) and the surveillance state (he identified Bentham's Panopticon as model for the modern state).

Read Discipline and Punish, The Birth of the Clinic, The History of Sexuality.

Post: #20

^^^Actually bits of Discipline and Punish were assigned for one of my classes...so I probably still have it somewhere. But I read it years ago and I fully admit to not remembering that book in thorough detail.

What you say is true but as a student you would have to go out of your way and either major or take a course in classics in order to be exposed to those works. You would have to know about them beforehand and go seek them out. My point was that exposure to them is no longer required to obtain the degree.

Post: #21

(01-09-2014 10:49 AM)RexImperator Wrote:  ^^^Actually bits of Discipline and Punish were assigned for one of my classes...so I probably still have it somewhere. But I read it years ago and I fully admit to not remembering that book in thorough detail.

What you say is true but as a student you would have to go out of your way and either major or take a course in classics in order to be exposed to those works. You would have to know about them beforehand and go seek them out. My point was that exposure to them is no longer required to obtain the degree.

Yeah, read Foucault with an open mind.

What degree are you talking about? If you want a degree in English, you have to read Canterbury Tales and Shakespeare. If you want a degree in Philosophy you have to read some classical stuff like Plato.
Those are always core courses for the degree.

Yeah, they don't force all students to read Plato - that goes for engineers as well as Gender Studies majors.

Post: #22

(11-03-2013 01:22 AM)Quintus Curtius Wrote:  Nothing is more important that the humanities, but you're going to have to learn them on your own. Don't count on any school to teach you. Study something that helps you get a job, and in your free time do your own studies.

When you have the time could you start a thread, outlining a curriculum for learning what we should have been studying all those years in public skoo?

Post: #23

No. Cultural marxism and social sciences replaced the Classics, Antiquities, Philosophy, and Western Humanities. Allan Bloom's The Closing of the American Mind presaged all these problems with American Academia.

The University is the result of the arts and sciences, anything else is educational inflation. As ebidenced by the fact that many majors and schools today didn't exist a few decades ago. An major that's title is a job description is being overcharged in so far as a decade or two ago industry paid to train employee. And that's what it is, training not education.

Post: #24

(01-10-2014 02:12 AM)PoosyWrecker Wrote:  

(11-03-2013 01:22 AM)Quintus Curtius Wrote:  Nothing is more important that the humanities, but you're going to have to learn them on your own. Don't count on any school to teach you. Study something that helps you get a job, and in your free time do your own studies.

When you have the time could you start a thread, outlining a curriculum for learning what we should have been studying all those years in public skoo?

______________

Wrecker:

I could do that. I could provide a list of books, plus other skills (e.g., painting, music, languages, athletics, leadership, speech-making, etc) that a man should have.

Would you want something like that?

QC

Post: #25

QC I would greatly appreciate that and I know that anyone here who has a son or is planning to would find it an invaluable guide. I'd also like to how you prepared yourself to become a military officer, how to develop the traits what you were taught in OCS without attending, looking back what were the most important things that brought success in Army and civilian leadership (MikeCF should weigh in on this too).