Why We Need the Humanities: Life Science, Law and the Common Good

197 Pages·2016·1.05 MB·English

by  Donald Drakeman (auth.)

Why We Need the Humanities
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Why We Need the
Humanities
Life Science, Law and the Common Good
Donald Drakeman
©DonaldDrakeman2016
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2016 978-1-137-49745-1
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Contents
Preface vi
Acknowledgments xvi
1 TheUpsandDownsoftheHumanities 1
2 TheHumanitiesandtheFutureoftheLifeSciences 16
3 TheHumanitiesandtheLaw 54
4 Toolboxes,PreferencesandtheHumanities 85
5 TheHumanitiesandtheCommonGood 109
Notes 118
Bibliography 153
Index 168
v
Preface
Aruleofthumbfrequentlyemployedinfundraising—whetherinthe
not-for-profitcontextorthesearchforinvestmentcapital—istofocus
the conversation on the interests of the person holding the check-
book. It is easy to see that things will be better for the people who
are, in the fundraising vernacular, ‘making the ask’. Their univer-
sity or soup kitchen or start-up will have more funds with which to
achieveitsgoals.Thekeyquestionforthegrant-giverorinvestoris,
‘Whywillfundingthisparticularorganization,outofallofthemany
excellentrequestsIhavereceived,bestfulfillmymission?’Thatsame
question is asked whether the checkbook belongs to the Red Cross
orGoldmanSachs,andthemissionmightbeasdifferentasfeeding
the poor, for one type of check-writer, and helping already wealthy
‘accredited investors’ become even wealthier, for another. In either
case, the fundraiser who successfully closes the deal is the one who
bestarticulatesthecommoninterestsofbothdonoranddonee.Over
theyears,numeroushumanitiesscholarshavedoneanexcellentjob
describingwhytheybelievethattheirdisciplineshouldhaveoursup-
port.Mygoalistocompletetheequationbydescribingwhywe—the
restofus—shouldbeequallyenthusiasticaboutdoingso.Weactually
needthehumanitiesbecauseoftheirpracticalimportanceinhelping
policy-makers address issues directly affecting our civil liberties and
significantpartsofoureconomies.
Myargumentherewilllargelyadopttherhetoricalstrategyblasted
byCambridgeProfessorStefanCollinifollowingthereleaseofaUni-
versityofOxfordreport,‘HumanitiesGraduatesHiddenImpact’.The
Oxfordreporthadhighlightedthehighnumbersofhumanitiesgrad-
uates with ‘successful careers in sectors driving economic growth’.1
ProfessorColliniexplained,‘This[report]isineffectsaying:“Yes,we
[theuniversitycommunity]knowthisisnottherealjustificationfor
studying these subjects, but there are some people...who can only
understandthequestionintheseterms.”’2
Thatis,membersoftheUniversityofOxfordcommunityhave—or
should have—better reasons for studying the humanities than argu-
ingthattheycontributetoeconomicgrowth.OxfordProfessorHelen
vi
Preface vii
Smallpointsoutthatthis‘beliefthatthehumanities,almostbydefi-
nition,mustbeatoddswith...economicinstrumentalismhasbeena
potentstrandinEnglishthinking...runningthroughNewman,Mill,
andMatthewArnoldinthenineteenthcentury,andcontinuing,with
what sometimes looks like incremental ferocity, through T.S. Eliot’
andothers.3
Many of these arguments against the economic utility of the
humanities emerged from distinguished men of letters who were
not primarily academics, but rather drew their income from jobs in
governmentorindustry.MillspentdecadeswiththeEastIndiaCom-
pany, Arnold was a state inspector of schools and Eliot worked in
bankingandpublishing.4Theincreasinglyfierceargumentsbeganto
arrivelater,withtwentieth-centuryuniversityprofessorssuchasF.R.
Leavis and Geoffrey Hill.5 These anti-instrumental arguments may
resonate differently when funding for humanities scholars is one of
the issues being debated. As Professor Small asks, rhetorically, ‘Are
academics seriously unwilling to concede that activities for which
theyreceivepublicmoneyshouldbepartlyassessedintermsofmea-
surable benefits passed on to society?’6 Her Oxford colleague, Nigel
Biggaradds,‘Weshouldn’tidealizeorovermoralizeuniversities.Right
from their medieval beginnings, they have served private purposes
andpracticalpublicpurposesaswellasthesheeramorscientiae.’7
There are certainly a variety of excellent reasons for pursuing
the humanities, most of which have nothing to do with economic
growth;nevertheless,astheOxfordreportpointedout,andasIhope
to supplement here, there are places where economic growth and
the humanities do actually overlap. Professor Collini would prefer
not to bring that subject up because ‘those who live by the sword
of contributing to economic growth will die by that sword’.8 He
is probably right: hence the periodic shift of interest toward more
practicalcoursesofstudyineconomicallytryingtimes.Butthatphe-
nomenon, at least so far, has been more ebbing-and-flowing than
living-and-dying,9andespeciallyduringthelowebbs,itmaybeuse-
ful for supporters of the humanities to remind everyone else that
there are, in fact, connections between the humanities and very
important aspects of modern life, including significant portions of
theeconomy.
Those favoring non-economic arguments, including non-
instrumental arguments, may worry that, once the subject of
viii Preface
practical outcomes, and especially of economic growth, arises,
metric-loving, impact-measuring policy-makers will subject the
humanities to the kinds of quality assurance and productivity anal-
yses normally associated with corporate efficiency experts.10In the
STEM (that is, Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) fields,
there are numerous things to count: grants come in denomina-
tions such as dollars, pounds or euros; patent filings are visible
signsofpotentiallypracticalinnovation;andmulti-authoredpapers
allow for quantities of peer-reviewed publications that are virtually
unimaginable for those outside science and engineering. The fear
of inappropriate modes of measurement, combined with invidious
comparisonstotheSTEMdisciplines,isalegitimateconcern,butnot
necessarilyonethatshouldcauseustoignoreordownplaythecon-
nections between real world effects and the humanities where they
actuallyexist.Rather,thosewhoseetheconnectionsshouldconsider
howtomakethecaseinamannerthatillustrateswhytheimposition
of arbitrary measurements on ‘productivity in the humanities’ may
be the wrong thing to do. A field of study that is frequently hailed
for its ability to foster critical thinking and persuasive communica-
tion skills ought not shy away from making complex and nuanced
argumentsonitsownbehalf.
Instead,thesevalue-of-the-humanitiesdiscussionshaveatendency
tobemarkedbyaconsiderableamountofexasperation,andageneral
senseonallsidesalongthelinesof,‘Ican’tbelievewehavetohave
this conversation.’ As Berkeley Professor Judith Butler has written,
‘What is, of course, so increasingly difficult is that we [humanities
scholars] are now under pressure to...defend a set of...beliefs that
we have taken to be true, and whose value informs our daily prac-
tices and broader sense of vocation.’ These matters are ‘such basic
issues for educators that I find myself stumbling here....A gap has
emergedbetweenthisdiscourse,onethatIwouldhavethoughtwas
obvious, and a new metrics of value that is making...a claim on
theobvious.’11Asaresult,shewrites,‘SometimesIfindmyselfquite
incredulous because I mistakenly thought the public value of these
activitiesissoobviousthattheyhardlyneededtobedefended.’12
We can see similar feelings on the funding side of the discus-
sion in a review by UK universities and science minister David
WillettsofStefanCollini’s,WhatAreUniversitiesFor?13Inagenerally
laudatoryreview,WillettssummarizesCollini’sbookasarguing‘that
Preface ix
universities are not...badly run businesses’, and says that Collini
makes‘apersuasivecaseforthehumanitiesasadistinctformofintel-
lectual inquiry that is worthwhile in itself’. After praising the book
and expressing his agreement ‘with all these propositions’, Willetts
concludes,‘ButIsimplydonotrecognizehisattempttoapplythese
widepropositionstohighereducationpolicytoday.’14
For every scholar who follows Jonathan Bate in saying that the
value of humanities research is that it is ‘the only activity that can
establishthemeaningofsuchaquestion’,15therearerealworldana-
lysts ready with a contrary response. ‘We have plenty of tools with
which to calculate the value’, they would argue: ‘A market analysis
will tell us how many people will pay for a humanities education;
wecanmodelthatoutfifteenortwentyyears,takeintoaccountthe
economic contributions of those humanities graduates, subtract the
socialcostsoftheunemployedones,andthendoadiscountedcash
flow analysis to tell you exactly what your department or degree is
worth—tothepenny.’Infact,justsuchasetofcalculationshaslikely
been involved when investors have considered providing funding
for for-profit colleges and universities, from the intensely practical
UniversityofPhoenixtoLondon’sNewCollegeoftheHumanities.
I actually stand with Professor Bate on this issue, but those
of us who agree with that view need to work harder to show
the checkbook-holders that there are, in fact, important issues of
the humanities hidden within the assumptions employed in those
economic models. Classics Professor and college president Georgia
Nugent may be right when she says, ‘We have come to rely on the
explanatory power of quantification beyond its usefulness,’16but it
isnotenoughfortheclassiciststoreachthatconclusion.Thefinan-
cialanalystswhoemploythosequantitativetoolsneedtorealizethat
theiranalysesoftenrestonafoundationofassumptionsthatare,at
the very least, open to question. Or, put somewhat differently, the
lack of more courses on the epistemological foundations of modern
statisticsandfinancialmodeling—fornon-academics,aroughtrans-
lationis:‘Dothesemodelsreallytelluswhatwethinktheydo?’—is
alossforthehumanistsandthequantsalike.
Fromtimetotimeoverthepastmillennium,somescholarscould
afford to inhabit an intellectual universe detached from the many
complexities of the people and the problems that made up the so-
called real world. At some times, religious organizations or political