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This coming spring, a new group of students will think about choosing university majors when they apply to campuses across North America.<\/p>\n
In all likelihood, fewer of those students will choose humanities subjects \u2014 traditionally understood to include\u00a0history, literature, philosophy, languages and the arts<\/a>\u00a0\u2014\u00a0as their major, than in past years<\/a>.<\/p>\n This is because of an ongoing\u00a0\u201ccrisis\u201d in the humanities<\/a>, whereby the meaning, purpose, credibility and benefits of humanities majors are questioned.<\/p>\n Enrolment levels have dropped. Students have a harder time seeing the\u00a0\u201crelevance\u201d of the humanities<\/a>\u00a0and so they choose science, engineering or business in greater numbers. Research also suggests when students do choose a humanities major,\u00a0they often regret it<\/a>. This is bad news for both\u00a0democratic societies<\/a>\u00a0and leaders of university humanities faculties.<\/p>\n My pitch to reverse this trend: let\u2019s teach students to be makers, builders and creators, the architects of the future, and not just demolition crews.<\/p>\n Journalist Ryan Grim provides some insight into the problem in his June 2022 article\u00a0\u201cElephant in the Zoom,\u201d<\/a>\u00a0which explores how \u201cmeltdowns have brought progressive advocacy groups to a standstill at a critical moment in world history.\u201d<\/p>\n Grim examines the experiences of people working in non-profit organizations both after Donald Trump\u2019s 2016 election, and following the 2020 murder of George Floyd by police.<\/p>\n He found that workers in progressive organizations were skilled in analyzing and pointing out problems, but the skills required for\u00a0constructively managing differences<\/a>\u00a0were absent.<\/p>\n He suggests that for many managers, members of an older generation, the focus should have been on the work of non-profits, but for workers \u2014 presumably at least some who would be younger \u2014 the focus was on their own work environments.<\/p>\n Members of organizations like\u00a0the Sierra Club<\/a>\u00a0created major disruptions in those institutions.<\/p>\n Many projects stalled as organizations were left with the task of simply\u00a0managing intense internal conflict<\/a>.<\/p>\n Grim\u2019s portrait is a typical caricature of humanities graduates \u2013 they learn how to spend more time in meetings fighting with one another than changing the world.<\/p>\n The fights Grim chronicled were often about whether an institution saw, in sufficient detail and with sufficient urgency, how their own internal dynamics were corrupted by\u00a0systemic racism<\/a>\u00a0or sexism or other systems of power and privilege.<\/p>\n These are valuable insights. But now we have\u00a0\u201ccall-out culture<\/a>,\u201d which is more concerned with criticizing someone for lacking an appropriate level of moral purity than with changing systems or making people\u2019s lives better.<\/p>\n In other words, \u201ccall-out\u201d culture replaces the hard work of socio-political change with the easy work of shaming one person. As a primary way of engaging the world, there are limits to what \u201ccalling-out\u201d systems and people can achieve, and the relationships and\u00a0alliances required for democratic life<\/a>\u00a0risk being destroyed by such an approach.<\/p>\n \u201cCritical Theory\u201d<\/a>\u00a0emerged from the western Marxist tradition and aims to find and critique underlying assumptions in social life so\u00a0that the power structures<\/a>\u00a0maintaining domination can be challenged and transformed.<\/p>\n The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy notes that today \u201cany philosophical approach with similar practical aims<\/a>\u00a0could be called a \u2018critical theory,\u2019 including feminism, critical race theory and some forms of post-colonial criticism.\u201d<\/p>\n Critical theory<\/a>\u00a0has long been\u00a0a preoccupation of humanities work<\/a>.<\/p>\n Some might say critical theory has been the dominant way of doing humanities work particularly\u00a0in North America since at least the 1970s<\/a>, and its ascendancy has coincided with declining humanities enrolment.<\/p>\n At its best, critical theory is a toolbox for examining what we do and why we do it, especially by considering the ways in which existing systems of power limit (or condition) how we can act. While the aim of critical theory is to transform our world, too often the assumption is that if we see the hidden ways power operates we will be transformed by that insight.<\/p>\n Where is the humanities toolbox for creating or making a better world?<\/p>\n I used the word \u201cexamining\u201d to describe the work of critical theory because it offers more a way of seeing than a way of doing \u2014 and implies that seeing is all we need for change.<\/p>\n The humanities aren\u2019t just instruments of criticism. They also hold the keys to how we might imagine a better world, particularly through their emphasis on the\u00a0public good and the skills necessary for<\/a>\u00a0constructively managing difference.<\/p>\n Here\u2019s what I\u2019ll be teaching this year in general first year Arts courses and upper year communication courses, and I hope there are others like me out there: I will introduce students to imaginative builders like activist\u00a0Jane Addams<\/a>\u00a0who sought social and political change through engaging neighbours. We\u2019ll read about writer and entrepreneur\u00a0Chloe Valdary\u2019s work on enchantment, anti-racism and equity<\/a>\u00a0and communication consultant\u00a0Anat Shenker-Osorio\u2019s work galvanizing current progressive movements<\/a>.<\/p>\n\u2018Elephant in the Zoom\u2019<\/strong><\/h4>\n
Intense internal conflict<\/strong><\/h4>\n
Examining what we do<\/strong><\/h4>\n
Imagining a better world<\/strong><\/h4>\n