What is the use of liberal arts? Defending the humanistic spirit surrounded by technological rationality
2024-08-09
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Recently, with the end of the college entrance examination season, and the fact that many colleges and universities have cancelled or cut some liberal arts majors in the past two years, the "liberal arts are useless" theory has once again become popular. This is not the first time that the "liberal arts" has been questioned: What is the use of it? Every once in a while, there are voices of doubt thrown in the face of the liberal arts and liberal arts students. Often at this time, the supporters of the liberal arts can only weakly respond with one sentence: "The use of the useless is the greatest use."
Behind the "uselessness of liberal arts" is the social psychology that has long been nurtured by one-dimensional "pragmatism". It seems that liberal arts cannot immediately create visible "benefits" for individuals or society. On the other hand, with the perceptible change in water temperature, the roles that should have been played by liberal arts have been intentionally or unintentionally obscured, eroded and withered.
Determining whether something is "useful/useless" is a concept that belongs to the category of liberal arts (value judgment). Rather than refuting the "uselessness of liberal arts", perhaps we should think more about how liberal arts became "useless" and what is truly "useful" today?
When prospective college students want to choose liberal artsTo suggest that a prospective college student study liberal arts is tantamount to pushing him or her into the fire pit of unemployment.Two years ago, a Weibo celebrity and university communications teacher named "Occam's Razor" posted on Weibo that the division of liberal arts into science classes in high schools is an "IQ screening" and that people who cannot understand "math, physics and chemistry" will choose liberal arts. This will be the first class differentiation between liberal arts and science students, because science students can choose more "majors with better employment prospects" when filling out their college entrance examination applications, while liberal arts students face the dilemma of "unemployment upon graduation."Occam's razor also believes that science and engineering are more difficult and more in line with the needs of China's current economic development, so they deserve more generous income. However, liberal arts students are prone to blindly criticize society in such an environment. For example, some independent documentary directors only know how to criticize, but cannot think from the perspective of builders. In the words of Mr. Occam, "These people think that their thinking is very profound, but in fact they are only thinking one-sidedly."The "Occam's razor" statement is a typical example of "valuing science over liberal arts", which encompasses our society's long-accumulated prejudice against the "liberal arts", ranging from the meager income of individual employment to the macro-level "liberal arts are ruining the country". For both individuals and society, studying liberal arts seems to have no "constructive" way out.Whether it is "liberal arts are harmful to the country" or "science students are smarter", these prejudices seem to be unworthy of refutation, but the reason behind them is that China, as a late-developing country, has a structural lack of liberal arts education after vigorously developing industrialization.If the idea still seems to be open to debate, then the decline of liberal arts is a cruel fact.This is reflected intuitively and concretely in the income gap between liberal arts and science graduates.According to a report released by consulting firm MyCOS in 2019, computer science, the Internet of Things, and software engineering ranked the top three in the comprehensive salary list for undergraduate majors after graduation, while liberal arts majors such as history, Chinese language and literature, and early childhood education ranked at the bottom of the income list. From this perspective, Mr. Ao's words are based on facts.Choosing a humanities major can even make the news. When Hunan girl Zhong Fangrong enrolled in Peking University's archaeology major with a college entrance examination score of 674, public opinion was in an uproar. Considering her status as a "left-behind child" and her poor family conditions, it seemed natural for her to choose a popular major. At the time, some people commented that her choice showed the courage of idealism. This is true, but when choosing a certain major requires courage as a support, its door has long been closed to those who are eager to try, leaving only a gap that needs to be pried open with force.A prospective college student who is passionate about liberal arts may be deterred by the various prejudices of society and the foundation of valuing science over liberal arts. So, what is the use of liberal arts? As a former liberal arts student who is still working in a liberal arts-related industry, I cannot use a calm answer like "useless is of great use" to get away with it, or encourage him to move forward towards his ideal like Zhong. Not everyone has enough cost and courage to accept the "uselessness" of their major; and the "great use" needs to be spread and connected by specific footholds to form a visible value picture.When the question "What is the use of liberal arts" is raised, it is precisely when this society needs liberal arts the most.It means that the nutrients in the soil are too single, so only jungles grow, but there is no place for flowers and aquatic plants.But before answering this question, as a liberal arts student, I should ask one more question based on the problem consciousness of the humanities: How did the saying that liberal arts are useless come about?How did liberal arts become "useless"?
The phenomenon of "focusing on science and neglecting liberal arts" is not unique to China. Under the guidance of technology and globalization, pragmatic thought has spread across the East and the West, and liberal arts are increasingly looking like a luxury, not as good as flying to the moon in space, but not as good as a professional skill to make a living.In a speech in January 2014, then-President Obama admitted that manufacturing and trade can at least make people earn money, "better than a degree in art history." Although he later apologized for this, his words have reflected the decline of humanities in the United States. Columnist Fareed Zakaria wrote in his book "In Defense of Humanities Education" that most American students now tend to go to college to learn the necessary skills to find a stable job. The liberal arts no longer shine the same dazzling light on children of different backgrounds as they did in the 1950s and 1960s.In China, since the division of arts and sciences was implemented in the 1950s based on the Soviet model, the gap between arts and sciences has been widened by various administrative interventions. The division of disciplines first started in universities. In the adjustment of colleges and departments in 1952, the number of comprehensive colleges was reduced from nearly 50 to 14, and similar professional colleges were merged into professional colleges; at the same time, sociology was abolished, law and finance were also weakened to varying degrees, and anthropology was retained because it was classified as biology.According to the data from the "China Education Yearbook (1949-1981)", in 1949, the proportion of liberal arts students among college students was 33.1%. After the adjustment of colleges and departments in 1953, this proportion dropped to 14.9%.Comparison chart of departmental adjustments in the 1950s: Tsinghua UniversityImage source: Look at history, "1952: The Death and Rebirth of Chinese Universities"Under the wave of socialist industrialization, education needed to adapt to the needs of the planned economic system and train specialized talents. As a result, engineering education developed rapidly, and engineering talents became the backbone of national development. The division of liberal arts and science, which has a historical color, continued after the college entrance examination was resumed in 1977.In an era that emphasizes economic development, building comprehensive universities has become a new demand of the times, but the "historical debt" owed by liberal arts departments is not so easy to pay off. Many comprehensive universities were transformed from science and engineering universities in a short period of time. From funding to faculty, their liberal arts departments are difficult to compare with science. On the one hand, compared with science and engineering, liberal arts have lower requirements for research funds such as equipment. In the rounds of university expansion, it is easy to open liberal arts majors but lacks sufficient preparation; on the other hand, liberal arts majors are too poor. In April 2017, 75 universities under the ministry announced the annual budget rankings of that year. Except for Beijing University of Chemical Technology and China University of Mining and Technology, the bottom ten universities are all liberal arts colleges.In addition, the research fields of liberal arts in colleges and universities have been squeezed in recent years. The political, historical and philosophical research in many colleges and universities is becoming more and more like a metaphysics. Apart from proving various legitimacy and circling around the periphery of the problem, some big and irrelevant theories are also difficult to respond to specific fields."Liberal Arts Jargon"Becoming the target of public ridicule, "discipline", "exploitation", "alienation", "landscape", "consumerism"... these seemingly profound but ambiguous liberal arts professional terms frequently appear on social networks. The original precise context has been extracted, leaving only various cultural meme-like capture and abuse. The first word to be affected is "involution", as if everything can be rolled up.When information cannot flow freely, people express their own opinions and all kinds of fragmented concepts run rampant, creating the illusion that the threshold of liberal arts is low, as if one can grasp the essence of liberal arts just by reading a few books and reciting a passage about "construction, deconstruction, and postcolonialism."What is even more shocking is that some critical theories have been co-opted by power. From university research to self-media writing, some "reverse Foucault" phenomena have emerged. Foucault's originally decentralized discourse on reshaping the subjectivity of marginalized groups in society has been reinterpreted as the necessity for power to deeply govern the masses according to identity labels.The professionalism of liberal arts has been deliberately ignored. Whether it is philosophy or journalism, both require systematic training and rigorous expression, but today, from the ivory tower to the market of ideas, the serious, professional and critical liberal arts are losing ground, leaving only a lot of noise and scattered private plots.Under the influence of history and environmental constraints, the idea that “liberal arts are useless” has been gradually established, and can even become a self-protective rhetoric. The liberal arts certainly need internal reflection, but before that, when the grass and water are not yet lush and the soil is filled with thin air, what role should the liberal arts play?What is the use of liberal arts today?
First of all, we may need to rethink what is "useful"?Under the guidance of utilitarianism, "useful" can refer to those visible economic indicators, salaries, KPIs, and a series of modern facilities around people. Therefore, the "usefulness" of "science and engineering" is almost self-evident. Look at the air conditioners we use in the summer, the takeaways we order, the online dramas we watch, the goods we buy online... Everything we see is made possible by technology, and the majors involved in computer, logistics, engineering, communications, etc. are basically science and engineering.Heidegger compares modern technology to"Gestell", it can be understood that the entire lifestyle of modern people is completely embedded in technology, coming from technology and going to technology. Even if one seeks to master a pre-modern barbaric state, it must be captured through technology. For example, people watch the idyllic rural life of some UP hosts through various streaming platforms, but not to mention that the MCN organization to which the UP host belongs is highly technological, and the countryside presented by it is also accelerated, promoted and experienced in editing and speed.Technology has created a closed loop, and everything seems flawless, but is there really no problem? In a recent interview, scholar Liu Qing said: "It seems that values are useless, but interests are useful. But if there are no values, you don't know what your own 'interests' are."When modern people take it for granted that they are resting on the pedestal of technology, they are unaware that seemingly neutral technology is quietly changing. The doctor you consult online may be from Putian Hospital, but their icons appear in the first row of search engines as a matter of course; you order takeout for three meals a day, but the delivery man who delivers your food will be fired if he gets three bad reviews a day, and the platform algorithm has mapped out the shortest route to your home for him, but taking this route means driving against traffic and running red lights; you happily watch a video, thinking that you see what you want to see, but the algorithm may just recommend content to you based on your previous clicks, and the information cocoon is increasingly reinforced.These problems seem to be technical, but behind them is the lack of humanistic qualities.Media professionals and scholars with a liberal arts background discovered the implicit tension before many others, which led to reports like "Deliverymen, Trapped in the System" and questions from all parties about the search engine algorithm mechanism, which ultimately forced the platform to make changes.When technological rationality prevails, only with a humanistic perspective can we see the specific people included in the indicators and algorithms, translate individual concerns into public issues, empathize and reflect.In the recent torrential rain in Henan, Zhengzhou, a modern metropolis, suddenly lost water, electricity and the Internet. Non-fiction author Du Qiang keenly captured the state and situation that cannot be covered by modern technology."Zhengzhou after the disaster: When a city suddenly lost the Internet | Hard-core story"This report wrote the following:
There is no doubt that before the power and Internet were restored, the slow restoration of order in Zhengzhou relied on ordinary people, including the Lalamove drivers, the cleaners who cleaned the sludge on the roadside, the traffic police who were loyal to their duties, and the waitresses who opened Internet hotspots for passers-by downstairs of the hotel for free. It was the empathy and sense of responsibility that we had before the development of Internet technology, and even for self-interest. I am not nostalgic or defending these "primitive" things, but to be honest, because of the advanced technology and sophisticated governance, sometimes I almost forget these things.
Those voices that constantly remind people not to forget and those eyes that re-examine what we take for granted all come from a humanistic perspective.In fact, humanism is not a trait unique to the humanities, but a basic quality that both the humanities and sciences should possess. If we do not stick to the debate between the humanities and sciences (in fact, this opposition was also artificially constructed later), and regard the humanities qualities advocated by the humanities as a method and perspective, even if the liberal arts education cannot be fully released in the institutionalized education system, the humanities qualities can still become a source for individuals to reflect on themselves and understand the outside world.As early as in the city-state of Athens,Liberal ArtsThe seven arts of literature and science were combined: grammar, rhetoric, logic, arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy. The rulers of Athens regarded humanities education as the basic general knowledge that every citizen should learn. Politics and astronomy seemed to be unrelated, but at that time they belonged to the same system of thought. As the whole world was drawn into the modern industrial order, specialized subdivisions appeared in various fields, and differentiation between disciplines was inevitable. But today, when the world is experiencing the same cold and heat, sticking to a single discipline can no longer solve those problems that appear at the same time and are related to each other.The School of Athens, RaphaelHumanities education that integrates the humanities and sciences is being revived, but it may not reappear in the form of general education. Some technology companies have begun to introduce talents with sociology or anthropology backgrounds as consultants to measure whether their products will fall into ethical traps; scholars with a background in humanities are also shuttling back and forth between the humanities and sciences in their research to supplement the lack of perspectives.The famous feminist scholar Donna Haraway has a background in zoology. Her research and writing broke the binary opposition between animals and humans and nature and society. By re-examining traditional natural sciences, she put humans, animals and machines on the same plane. The three are intertwined and define each other. Humans are no longer the only subject. In the "post-human" perspective she proposed, human subjectivity is not necessarily swallowed up by technology, but at the intersection of cyberspace, it escapes from the body and all the essentialism that binds us, from gender to race, and looks forward to a new way of thinking.So, what is the use of humanities?It is about values, morality and the joys, sorrows, anger and happiness of individuals. It pays attention to the anxiety and indifference that permeates society and perceives the level of ideas. As sociologist Mills said in The Sociological Imagination: "Anxiety itself is a problem, and indifference itself is an issue." It is the pulling force before everything slides into the abyss, and tries to find a new path in the face of seemingly unsolvable opposition.Whether it is humanism or scientific spirit, what they care about and point to is the human condition. Therefore, when we can't help but defend the humanities and worry about the humanities being despised, the dams of science formed by the spirit of truth-seeking may have already been shaky.In this sense, arts and sciences cannot be separated.[1] A Brief History of Liberal Arts in China, NetEase Inspur Studio, Sun Yixu[2] Where Does Science Chauvinism Come From: The History and Reality of the Decline of the Liberal Arts, Interface Culture, Zhang Zhiqi[3] MyCOS - China's 2019 College Student Training Quality Tracking Evaluation[4] Fareed Zakaria, The Case for Liberal Education[5] Yang Dongping, Restoring the Humanity, Democracy and Fairness of Education[6] “1952: The Death and Rebirth of Chinese Universities”, Looking at History[7] The Sociological Imagination, Wright Mills[8] Donna Haraway, Apes, Cyborgs, and Women[9] “Why do technology companies need anthropologists?”, Teng Yun, Zhang Jieying[10] “Zhengzhou after the disaster: When a city suddenly lost the Internet”, Hardcore Story, Du Qiang[11] The Question Concerning Technology, Martin HeideggerLayout | Xiaoqi
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