I found this piece poorly written and even more poorly argued. If Adler’s position is the best that academic classicists can muster in defense of the humanities, then it’s not hard to see why they...
Exemplary
I found this piece poorly written and even more poorly argued. If Adler’s position is the best that academic classicists can muster in defense of the humanities, then it’s not hard to see why they are struggling. I think it’s basically framed under the false dichotomy that scientism and humanism are somehow polar and also zero sum; if you are in favor of scientism you are against humanism and vice versa. I don’t believe that and I don’t think this piece offers a good defense of humanism, given the spurious basis.
Besides the weak logical foundation, this piece spans ~1500 words, yet manages to say hardly anything at all of substance, from my perspective. It is hardly semantically coherent, and left me wondering if this is the caliber of writing Professor Adler expects of his students. As an inconsequential example of the lack of coherence, I challenge you to justify the mention of the coronavirus in the title or the relevance of the pandemic to the content of this piece.
For further critical review, take the fourth paragraph:
How has this happened? How have humanistic disciplines such as philosophy and classics—which previously played a dominant role in American higher education—found themselves the odd man out of our contemporary curricula? For decades, conservative critics have blamed the bogeyman of postmodernism. In the aftermath of the 1960s, they claim, radicalized humanities professors transformed their disciplines into vehicles for their left-wing politics. College students, sensing that the contemporary humanities offer little but impenetrable prose and radical ideology, have supposedly fled from the study of such subjects for more practical fare.
Here Adler introduces someone else’s argument, though it is attributed only to anonymous "conservative critics". This doesn’t seem very balanced to me—I’ve seen plenty of criticism of postmodernism that manages to be quite clearly apolitical, or even comes from the left (e.g., Christopher Hitchens). There is also the qualified "supposedly fled". Have students really fled from such subjects or not? It’s not clear what Adler’s position is based on this qualified language. I think Adler intended to cast doubt on the origin of the scientism trend, but the argumentation is muddied severely by his language.
Then in the next paragraph it gets muddier still:
Unfortunately, though, the cause of the humanities’ current crisis is far older than critics of postmodern relativism allow—and more baked into the heart of the modern American university. In fact, one must look back to very creation of the American universities in the late nineteenth century to see why their triumph precipitated the marginalization of the modern humanities. The scientizing of our higher education amounts to the root of the problem, and without a deep-seated revolt against this process, the humanities will continue to wither.
I thought Adler had introduced postmodern relativism as a potential instigator of the scientism trend, and was setting up to argue against that. But now Adler shifts the argument—now he attacks critics of postmodernism, implying that scientism stands in the way of allowing its own origins to be sussed out? What was the purpose of the previous paragraph then? If critics of postmodernism are somehow collectively obfuscating the origins of scientism, how are they doing so? Adler does not give us any hints. Adler then says we must look to the founding of the American university as an institution to discover the origin of scientism. But, this is also just left there, without any further examples or unpacking. And the final sentence in the paragraph meanders back to the false dichotomy: scientism = bad; humanism = good.
From the colonial period up until the Civil War in America, the classical humanities were the lynchpin of higher education. The intellectual and moral inspiration for early American higher education derived chiefly from the Renaissance humanists, who contended that the study of ancient Greek and Roman literary masterpieces—when studied in their original languages—could perfect a human being. The young, they thought, should take in the wisdom of authors such as Homer, Plato, Sallust, Vergil, and Augustine, thereby recognizing their own higher potentialities. Given the paramount influence of Renaissance humanism, the early American colleges possessed almost completely prescribed curricula: they required all students to experience those literary masterworks that could best shape students’ souls.
So, the tradition of the American university was derived from Renaissance humanism. This I can entertain, in good faith, though I'm left wondering how postmodernist critics are somehow obscuring this. Have postmodernist critics introduced competing stories about the origins of humanism in American higher education? Adler doesn't give us any insight.
Adler goes on to cite Andrew Jewett's Science, Democracy, and the American University: From the Civil War to the Cold War, and posits that scientism ruined the American university by promoting "Darwinism and laissez-faire economics". This is where I have to stop entertaining the idea. The idea of academic electives is not a symptom of scientism overtaking humanism. The notion that rigid, prescribed curricula were somehow systematically dismantled over the past couple centuries and now students are synthesizing "choose-your-own-adventure" course schedules is unbelievable to anyone who has attended an American university recently, much less during the history that Adler discusses.
Personally, as an undergraduate, I attended a liberal arts college where I was required to 1) pick a major from within the three spheres of natural sciences, social sciences, or the humanities and 2) fill my course schedule from non-major track courses from the other two spheres. I ended up majoring in Linguistics (which was classified under the social sciences), but took courses in computer science and math (natural sciences) and architecture, digital art, philosophy, and film studies (humanities). I believe I received a stellar, and well-rounded liberal arts education—and while I was afforded some leeway in my course selections, the overall framework was far from Adler's contemptuous conception of "laissez-faire". While some of my peers who declared pre-medicine majors may have bemoaned that they were "forced" to take useless courses in the humanities, that requirement did exist, and I think they all ended up better educated for it.
The cause of the diminishing role of humanities in American higher education, I think, is quite simply a matter of economics. The original instance of an American university, Harvard, was founded as school for training clergy. The shift from religious motivations for education to a broader humanistic tradition I guess wasn’t of interest to Adler, as he focuses on a later transition to the modern, German model. My view is that that transition reflects a change in the value proposition being offered from real value to aspiring students, to simply career stepping stone for those who either are born into privilege, or are willing to take on massive debt. Adler does recognize this "professionalization", but I think he attributes it to a rise in scientism rather than rises in neoliberalism, disastrous economic policies, and defunding of public education. Academic science is being detrimentally affected by these policy changes even if it may be less dramatic than in the humanities.
And, just to drive a stake in the ground, I'd like to point out that some of the premier humanist thinkers in the West have also been scientists. These are not opposing traditions, whatever Adler says. Take a look at some of the Humanists of the Year who also happen to be scientists. I've selected a few, for emphasis:
Out of curiosity, what makes you say Christopher Hitchens belong to the left? I'm not the most informed on him, but recall he was a strong defender of the Iraq war and has some fairly conservative...
or even comes from the left (e.g., Christopher Hitchens)
Your ellipses cuts out the "if she doesn't want to" which he says multiple times . Hitchens supported women's right to work which he encouraged on a societal level (“The only known cure for...
Your ellipses cuts out the "if she doesn't want to" which he says multiple times . Hitchens supported women's right to work which he encouraged on a societal level (“The only known cure for poverty is emancipation of women”) but also their right not to work if they choose not too because it wasn't necessary.
Hitch was a self identified Marxist for most of his life and was left on pretty much all issues at the time (religion, lgbt, drugs, abortion, EU, spying, Kurds/Palestine etc.) except interventionism and gun rights.
I took a look at the wiki on his political views and there was certainly a lot I didn't know about him, appreciate the correction. I knew him from reading "God Is Not Great" and assorted news...
I took a look at the wiki on his political views and there was certainly a lot I didn't know about him, appreciate the correction. I knew him from reading "God Is Not Great" and assorted news blips like him changing his views on water-boarding, which gave a pretty inaccurate impression.
Your ellipses cuts out the "if she doesn't want to" which he says multiple times
I didn't mean to misrepresent what he said, just highlight the socially conservative view. He appears to have a view in line with women/men being inclined to being nurturers/breadwinners, and that at least men have a duty to be responsible for women.
It’s hard to classify people in total over their lives when they were public figures, but he protested against the Vietnam war and joined the Labour Party at one point. He was also into socialism....
It’s hard to classify people in total over their lives when they were public figures, but he protested against the Vietnam war and joined the Labour Party at one point. He was also into socialism. One’s views on gender and sex are not the only issue one should consider when classifying political views, esp. if we reduce political space to a one dimensional conservative/progressive continuum. Hitchens was a mixed bag, but ultimately I think he was on the left, even if he doesn’t pass any purity tests, and was by no means an extreme leftist.
You're right, I just hadn't heard enough about Hitchens. Also agree that classifying views seems to be incredibly messy, especially over a lifetime. Heinlein comes to mind as someone that seems to...
You're right, I just hadn't heard enough about Hitchens.
Also agree that classifying views seems to be incredibly messy, especially over a lifetime. Heinlein comes to mind as someone that seems to have yoyo-ed a bit on his views.
A while back I read a book that talks about different fundamental values of liberals vs conservatives. Since then I've seen some critiques from psychologists that some of the questions moral foundations theory is based on boil down more to "are you an American liberal or conservative" and not "do you value loyalty". Seeing how little things like loyalty are cared about in the context of John McCain or Republicans that are called "human scum" by Trump for not supporting him reinforces those critiques a bit for me.
I actually find the social sciences are worse with regards of being platforms of professors' opinions. I had a socdem, former senatorial candidate as a professor who was good professor, but he...
In the aftermath of the 1960s, they claim, radicalized humanities professors transformed their disciplines into vehicles for their left-wing politics.
I actually find the social sciences are worse with regards of being platforms of professors' opinions. I had a socdem, former senatorial candidate as a professor who was good professor, but he could preach. One of his textbooks was one he wrote about how the American elections process works, from his position as a former Senate candidate (it was also a cheap book). Anybody I know who has taken a sociology class has been burned out by the professor's unneeded opinions on several topics from feminism to racial equality, which were oddly not discussed at the relevant point in the class when these opinions would have been relevant, but the students were expected to blindly buy into the professor's orthodoxy. Economics tends to teach the system of capitalism with strong notions such as "Taxing hurts firms, and should be avoided", and you'd have to go out of your way for a comparative economics class that even mentions the operations of other economic systems for a balanced education on the topic. I legitimately don't care what my professor's opinions are unless they can inform the topic at hand, and I've gotten more strong opinions from social scientists than humanities professors.
A note I think was missed in the article but I think is important is this: Our social sciences were essentially founded by philosophers. For example, modern economics owes itself largely to people like Ricardo, Marx, Engels, Smith and their contemporaries, who attempted to create formalized systems of analysis in a new area of societal concern. A lot of social science is applied philosophy, and the earliest forms of it tend to be philosophers trying to understand parts of society through their lenses. I think we've lost sight of this.
As far as teaching the "classics," I legitimately don't know. I think there is value, but I don't understand it all too well. Maybe to do with finding an understanding of author's intent within a given historical context or something, but this was always a weaker subject for me, both in interest and ability.
Great point! I’d even venture to say that all modern science is predicated to some degree on philosophy—from Aristotle to Karl Popper, there has been significant influence on scientific thinking...
Great point!
A lot of social science is applied philosophy, and the earliest forms of it tend to be philosophers trying to understand parts of society through their lenses. I think we've lost sight of this.
I’d even venture to say that all modern science is predicated to some degree on philosophy—from Aristotle to Karl Popper, there has been significant influence on scientific thinking from philosophy.
I found this piece poorly written and even more poorly argued. If Adler’s position is the best that academic classicists can muster in defense of the humanities, then it’s not hard to see why they are struggling. I think it’s basically framed under the false dichotomy that scientism and humanism are somehow polar and also zero sum; if you are in favor of scientism you are against humanism and vice versa. I don’t believe that and I don’t think this piece offers a good defense of humanism, given the spurious basis.
Besides the weak logical foundation, this piece spans ~1500 words, yet manages to say hardly anything at all of substance, from my perspective. It is hardly semantically coherent, and left me wondering if this is the caliber of writing Professor Adler expects of his students. As an inconsequential example of the lack of coherence, I challenge you to justify the mention of the coronavirus in the title or the relevance of the pandemic to the content of this piece.
For further critical review, take the fourth paragraph:
Here Adler introduces someone else’s argument, though it is attributed only to anonymous "conservative critics". This doesn’t seem very balanced to me—I’ve seen plenty of criticism of postmodernism that manages to be quite clearly apolitical, or even comes from the left (e.g., Christopher Hitchens). There is also the qualified "supposedly fled". Have students really fled from such subjects or not? It’s not clear what Adler’s position is based on this qualified language. I think Adler intended to cast doubt on the origin of the scientism trend, but the argumentation is muddied severely by his language.
Then in the next paragraph it gets muddier still:
I thought Adler had introduced postmodern relativism as a potential instigator of the scientism trend, and was setting up to argue against that. But now Adler shifts the argument—now he attacks critics of postmodernism, implying that scientism stands in the way of allowing its own origins to be sussed out? What was the purpose of the previous paragraph then? If critics of postmodernism are somehow collectively obfuscating the origins of scientism, how are they doing so? Adler does not give us any hints. Adler then says we must look to the founding of the American university as an institution to discover the origin of scientism. But, this is also just left there, without any further examples or unpacking. And the final sentence in the paragraph meanders back to the false dichotomy: scientism = bad; humanism = good.
So, the tradition of the American university was derived from Renaissance humanism. This I can entertain, in good faith, though I'm left wondering how postmodernist critics are somehow obscuring this. Have postmodernist critics introduced competing stories about the origins of humanism in American higher education? Adler doesn't give us any insight.
Adler goes on to cite Andrew Jewett's Science, Democracy, and the American University: From the Civil War to the Cold War, and posits that scientism ruined the American university by promoting "Darwinism and laissez-faire economics". This is where I have to stop entertaining the idea. The idea of academic electives is not a symptom of scientism overtaking humanism. The notion that rigid, prescribed curricula were somehow systematically dismantled over the past couple centuries and now students are synthesizing "choose-your-own-adventure" course schedules is unbelievable to anyone who has attended an American university recently, much less during the history that Adler discusses.
Personally, as an undergraduate, I attended a liberal arts college where I was required to 1) pick a major from within the three spheres of natural sciences, social sciences, or the humanities and 2) fill my course schedule from non-major track courses from the other two spheres. I ended up majoring in Linguistics (which was classified under the social sciences), but took courses in computer science and math (natural sciences) and architecture, digital art, philosophy, and film studies (humanities). I believe I received a stellar, and well-rounded liberal arts education—and while I was afforded some leeway in my course selections, the overall framework was far from Adler's contemptuous conception of "laissez-faire". While some of my peers who declared pre-medicine majors may have bemoaned that they were "forced" to take useless courses in the humanities, that requirement did exist, and I think they all ended up better educated for it.
The cause of the diminishing role of humanities in American higher education, I think, is quite simply a matter of economics. The original instance of an American university, Harvard, was founded as school for training clergy. The shift from religious motivations for education to a broader humanistic tradition I guess wasn’t of interest to Adler, as he focuses on a later transition to the modern, German model. My view is that that transition reflects a change in the value proposition being offered from real value to aspiring students, to simply career stepping stone for those who either are born into privilege, or are willing to take on massive debt. Adler does recognize this "professionalization", but I think he attributes it to a rise in scientism rather than rises in neoliberalism, disastrous economic policies, and defunding of public education. Academic science is being detrimentally affected by these policy changes even if it may be less dramatic than in the humanities.
And, just to drive a stake in the ground, I'd like to point out that some of the premier humanist thinkers in the West have also been scientists. These are not opposing traditions, whatever Adler says. Take a look at some of the Humanists of the Year who also happen to be scientists. I've selected a few, for emphasis:
I'd also add some other notable humanists who also happen to be scientists (or at least proponents of science, and not enemies of humanism):
Out of curiosity, what makes you say Christopher Hitchens belong to the left? I'm not the most informed on him, but recall he was a strong defender of the Iraq war and has some fairly conservative views like "no, I'm not having any woman of mine go to work" ... "they're called the gentle sex for good reason, I wouldn't want to see them coarsened by the labor market".
Your ellipses cuts out the "if she doesn't want to" which he says multiple times . Hitchens supported women's right to work which he encouraged on a societal level (“The only known cure for poverty is emancipation of women”) but also their right not to work if they choose not too because it wasn't necessary.
Hitch was a self identified Marxist for most of his life and was left on pretty much all issues at the time (religion, lgbt, drugs, abortion, EU, spying, Kurds/Palestine etc.) except interventionism and gun rights.
I took a look at the wiki on his political views and there was certainly a lot I didn't know about him, appreciate the correction. I knew him from reading "God Is Not Great" and assorted news blips like him changing his views on water-boarding, which gave a pretty inaccurate impression.
I didn't mean to misrepresent what he said, just highlight the socially conservative view. He appears to have a view in line with women/men being inclined to being nurturers/breadwinners, and that at least men have a duty to be responsible for women.
It’s hard to classify people in total over their lives when they were public figures, but he protested against the Vietnam war and joined the Labour Party at one point. He was also into socialism. One’s views on gender and sex are not the only issue one should consider when classifying political views, esp. if we reduce political space to a one dimensional conservative/progressive continuum. Hitchens was a mixed bag, but ultimately I think he was on the left, even if he doesn’t pass any purity tests, and was by no means an extreme leftist.
You're right, I just hadn't heard enough about Hitchens.
Also agree that classifying views seems to be incredibly messy, especially over a lifetime. Heinlein comes to mind as someone that seems to have yoyo-ed a bit on his views.
A while back I read a book that talks about different fundamental values of liberals vs conservatives. Since then I've seen some critiques from psychologists that some of the questions moral foundations theory is based on boil down more to "are you an American liberal or conservative" and not "do you value loyalty". Seeing how little things like loyalty are cared about in the context of John McCain or Republicans that are called "human scum" by Trump for not supporting him reinforces those critiques a bit for me.
I actually find the social sciences are worse with regards of being platforms of professors' opinions. I had a socdem, former senatorial candidate as a professor who was good professor, but he could preach. One of his textbooks was one he wrote about how the American elections process works, from his position as a former Senate candidate (it was also a cheap book). Anybody I know who has taken a sociology class has been burned out by the professor's unneeded opinions on several topics from feminism to racial equality, which were oddly not discussed at the relevant point in the class when these opinions would have been relevant, but the students were expected to blindly buy into the professor's orthodoxy. Economics tends to teach the system of capitalism with strong notions such as "Taxing hurts firms, and should be avoided", and you'd have to go out of your way for a comparative economics class that even mentions the operations of other economic systems for a balanced education on the topic. I legitimately don't care what my professor's opinions are unless they can inform the topic at hand, and I've gotten more strong opinions from social scientists than humanities professors.
A note I think was missed in the article but I think is important is this: Our social sciences were essentially founded by philosophers. For example, modern economics owes itself largely to people like Ricardo, Marx, Engels, Smith and their contemporaries, who attempted to create formalized systems of analysis in a new area of societal concern. A lot of social science is applied philosophy, and the earliest forms of it tend to be philosophers trying to understand parts of society through their lenses. I think we've lost sight of this.
As far as teaching the "classics," I legitimately don't know. I think there is value, but I don't understand it all too well. Maybe to do with finding an understanding of author's intent within a given historical context or something, but this was always a weaker subject for me, both in interest and ability.
Great point!
I’d even venture to say that all modern science is predicated to some degree on philosophy—from Aristotle to Karl Popper, there has been significant influence on scientific thinking from philosophy.