Why Humanity Needs the Humanities
by George DeMet
People say you should never discuss politics or religion, but many of last year’s biggest public conversations, from Ferguson to Gamergate to gay marriage, were exactly that. While social media provided an outlet for many people whose lives are impacted by racism, sexism, homophobia, and other forms of discrimination, all too often, their voices were drowned out by trolling, harassment, and other forms of online abuse. Even intelligent and well-intentioned allies sometimes found themselves in over their heads when trying to participate in these conversations, resulting in misunderstandings that left both parties even farther apart than they were before.
If we can’t even find a way to talk about challenging issues without alienating each other, we have little hope of solving them. While there are many reasons that productive conversations online are difficult, I think one that doesn’t get enough attention is the well-documented decline in the study of the social sciences and humanities.
Subjects like history, political science, sociology, and philosophy give us the perspective and the frameworks we need to understand, process, and challenge racial, gender, and economic issues. They can also reveal the underlying institutional structural barriers that may seem invisible to outsiders.
Yet you can graduate today from one of the nation’s top universities without having taken a single course on feminism or the history of race relations in America. And many public high schools can’t or won’t touch these subjects because of fears of getting too “political.”
Labeling these topics taboo makes it easy for myths about “social justice” to spread through ignorance. Even if you don’t agree with every aspect of something like feminist theory, it provides a thought-provoking analytical framework for challenging preconceptions, examining and understanding the world that helps people think about media and culture in ways that they wouldn’t have done otherwise.
Although I work in technology, I rely on the ideas and concepts that I learned from the humanities and social sciences every day. Being deliberate about what I focus on and what I prioritize while being aware of my natural biases and being able to place them in context (instead of just trying to pretend they don’t exist) is what gives me the perspective necessary to be effective in both my personal and professional life.
These tools need to be taught, not just at college, but at all levels. An integrated curriculum that teaches the humanities and social sciences along with math, science, and engineering is the only way that we can better equip American students to deal with the problems of an increasingly complex world.
We’ll never end arguments on the Internet, but if enough people can learn how to understand each other, we just might stand a chance of making the future a better place to be.
