The urgent relevance of arts and humanities

Some months before his death, Prof. Ediriweera Sarchchandra delivered a university convocation address in which he made a passionate plea for the cultivation of arts and humanities as a vital discipline in the contemporary world, and not to jettison them as a relic of the past.

A similar plea has been made by Martha Nussbaum, in her latest book, 'Not for Profit: Why Democracy Needs the Humanities.' published a few months ago. She is one of the leading philosophers in the world who is currently a professor in law and ethics at the University of Chicago. Her books dealing with Greek thought, ethics and emotions, public policy and literary imagination, human development have been at the centre of manifold productive discussions and arguments.

Some years ago, I heard Martha Nussbaum speak at the famous East-West Philosophers Conference held in Honolulu, Hawaii. The eminent American philosopher Richard Rorty had just finished speaking to a packed audience. Martha Nussbaum sprang to her feet, made certain observations on Rorty's talk, constructing a multi-step argument as she went along. I was deeply impressed by her ability to think on her feet and articulate her ideas with crystalline clarity.

This sixty-two year old philosopher has produced a remarkable body of work dealing with such important topics as those that I have alluded to in the first paragraph. Her books 'The Fragility of Good' and 'Cultivating Humanity' display her profound understanding of Greek thought and culture while 'Hiding Humanity' reflects her deep understanding of the issues of emotion, law and public philosophy. Two books that I find particularly attractive are 'Upheavals of Thought: The Intelligence of Emotions' and 'Poetic Justice: The Literary Imagination and the Public Life'.

This is primarily because they have a direct bearing on my literary interests.

'Upheavals of Thought', is a book that makes a compelling case for the power and moral efficacy of emotions. She succeeds admirably in demonstrating how emotions inflect the landscape of our social and inner lives. Just as much as geological upheavals in a physical landscape, emotions bring about upheavals and uncertainties in our inner lives. Many critics have argued that, in this book, Nussbaum has taken the unending struggle between thought and perception to a brilliantly novel register.

'Poetic Justice', published six years earlier, is more restricted in scope, but is thematically connected to 'Upheavals.' In 'Poetic Justice', Nussbaum examines persuasively how literary imagination constitutes a vital ingredient of just public discourse and a democratic polity. We, students of literature, would surely find her close reading of Charles Dickens' novel 'Hard Times' contained in this volume highly illuminating.

'Not for Profit' is a timely book that seeks to address an issue of compelling importance and topical relevance - the place of arts and humanities in the modern world. It is a short book consisting of 158 pages; but the message contained in it is of paramount importance.

Her argument is that as a consequence of education becoming increasingly utilitarian, driven by market forces, and career-oriented, there is a corresponding decrease in the interest and investment in arts and humanities, much to the detriment and diminishment of human society as a whole.

She makes a strong case for the development of humanities as a way of promoting global citizenship, democratic values and a critical turn of mind. She is seeking to make her arguments for arts and humanities not only at the tertiary level but at all levels in the education process.

She begins her book by sounding an alarum. 'We are in the midst of a crisis of massive proportions and grave global significance.

No, I do not mean the global economic crisis that began in 2008. ....no, I mean a crisis that goes largely unnoticed, like the cancer; a crisis that is likely to be, in the long run, far more damaging to the future of democratic self-government; a world wide crisis in education.' One very important facet of this troubling crisis, for Nussbaum, is the increasing neglect of humanities in the education systems throughout the world and its implications for human growth and social development.

Nussbaum is not minimizing the importance of science and technology and the teaching of these subjects. What she is protesting is that these should not be developed at the cost of humanities.

'With the rush to profitability in the global market, values precious for the future of democracy, especially in an era of religious and economic anxiety, are in danger of getting lost.......we should have no objection to good science and technical education, and I shall not suggest that nations should stop trying to improve in this regard. My concern is that other abilities, equally crucial, are at risk of getting lost in the competitive flurry, abilities crucial to the health of any democracy internally, and then to the creation of a decent world culture capable of constructively addressing the world's pressing problems.'

Quite apart from the central problem that Nussbaum addresses in 'Not for Profit', there are two further reasons why this book should have a special appeal to Sri Lankan readers. The first is that the author has chosen as one of her guiding lights Rabindranath Tagore who has exercised a deep influence on local culture. Second, the author has considerable experience in working in India, and throughout the book she focuses on the strengths and weaknesses of the Indian educational system.

The epitaph for the fourth chapter titled, 'Socratic Pedagogy; the Importance of Argument;' is a statement of Tagore. 'Our mind does not gain true freedom by acquiring materials for knowledge and possessing other people's ideas but by forming its own standards of judgment and producing its own thoughts.' Nussbaum regards not only Tagore's artistic gifts but his philosophical outlook very highly. He was a multi-talented artist - poet, novelist, short story writer, playwright - who won the Nobel prize for literature in 1913. In addition he has clearly displayed his philosophical acumen in his copious writings.

Martha Nussbaum says, 'Tagore was also an impressive philosopher, whose book 'Nationalism' (1917) is a major contribution to thought about the modern state, and whose 'The Religion of Man' (1930), argues that humanity can progress only by cultivating its capacity for a more inclusive sympathy, and this capacity can be cultivated only by an education that emphasizes global learning, the arts, and Socratic self-criticism.'

Nussbaum sees that university, Vishva-Bharati, (Shantiniketan) that Tagore established as representing the best ideas and values he stood for.

It used to attract educationists from all over the world, who were interested in Tagore's educational experiments. Unfortunately, owing to a plurality of factors today this university has been reduced to a pale shadow of its former self.

What Martha Nussbaum finds interesting about Rabindranath Tagore's work in the sphere of education are his unremitting emphasis on arts and humanities as a way of securing responsive democratic citizenship with a global outlook, the focus on Socratic self-inquiry and the enlargement of empathy through art and literature. It is evident that the educational experiments of Tagore and John Dewey have stirred Nussbaum's imagination.

A curious omission in 'Not for Profit', from my perspective, is any reference to Edward Said's important book, 'Humanism and Democratic Criticism'. The idea of humanism is closely intertwined with humanities and the fate of one rests on the fate of the other. In recent times, as a consequence of the rise and spread of such modes of inquiry as structuralism, post-structuralism, post-modernism and new historicism, humanism has begun to receive a bad press and suffered obvious set-backs.

It is against this predicament that Said is making his case, cogently I might add, for a new kind of humanism. Like Nussbaum, Said is keen to demonstrate the vital relevance of humanism and humanities in the consumer oriented, technologically-driven modern world. Like Nussbaum, Said is moved to underline the importance of Socratic self-questioning, enlarging the capacity for empathy, and going beyond the boundaries of Eurocentric thinking. Both see humanities, to use a phrase that Yeats employed in a different context as, 'the spiritual intellect's great work.' Therefore, it is something of a surprise that there is no mention of Said's book in 'Not for Profit'.

Edward Said says very lucidly that, 'what concerns me is humanism as a usable praxis for intellectuals and academics who want to know what they are doing, what they are committed to as scholars, and who want also to connect these principles to the world in which they live as citizens.' The strength of Said's book reposes in the fact that he is able to criticize some of the excesses of post-structuralists and others as someone who is broadly sympathetic to their efforts.

As he himself states in the book, he is one of the earliest scholars who sought to introduce French theory to American world of letters. His complain is that these proponents of French theory have gone over-board and that in their enthusiasm to embrace French cultural theory they have a turned a blind eye to questions of agency, political action, human responsibility and the vital role that humanisms can play in promoting them. I pluralize the term because Said talks of other traditions of humanisms that are patently different from the European one which is held up as the universal norm. Nussbaum and Said write clearly and passionately and with great conviction. They are both, understandably, perturbed by the fashionable linguistic obscurantism that seems to have settled on the world of humanistic studies.

They believe that one can write in an accessible way without abandoning the complexity and gravitas their subjects demand - and they have demonstrated that. Some time back, Martha Nussbaum offered a devastating critique of the gratuitous density that characterizes Judith Butler's - a highly respected post-structuralist thinker - writings.

Similarly, Said makes the point that it is always good to avoid the jargon, wherever possible, that only facilitates the alienation of a potentially wider constituency.

The argument is made that critics like Adorno employed difficult syntax and demanding modes of expression in order to uncover the ideological complicities that go unnoticed in the so-called transparent writing. This is a point made by Judith Butler. As Said remarks, 'Unfortunately, Adorno's poetic insights and dialectical genius are in very short supply even among those who try to emulate his style.'

Thinking along these lines, one cannot escape the troubling conviction that humanists themselves are in a way responsible for the visible loss of interest in their chosen field of engagement. Both of them have been able to take the pulse of a worrying situation and make a bold diagnosis - and it is shockingly accurate.

It remains to be seen whether Nussbaum's book will have the salutary impact it needs to have on policy-makes and academic administrators. However it has to be said that she has had the courage to measure ourselves against the predicament confronting us. The awakened language and concomitant clarity of expression that characterizes the book is a prerequisite and consequence of humanistic learning. The book authorizes the conviction that moral sensibility and purposive social action are intertwined at the roots.