World crisis in humanities, not many hurt

It is precisely because Martha Nussbaum is so obviously one of 바카라사이트 stars of 바카라사이트 American academy that many people will be inclined to sit up and listen when she produces "a call to action" about "a worldwide crisis in education".

Her new book, Not for Profit: Why Democracy Needs 바카라사이트 Humanities, certainly pulls no punches. "We are in 바카라사이트 midst of a crisis of massive proportions and grave global significance," she writes, "a crisis that goes largely unnoticed, like a cancer; a crisis that is likely to be, in 바카라사이트 long run, far more damaging to 바카라사이트 future of democratic self-government (than 바카라사이트 economic crisis of 2008)."

She fears that current major trends within education are "producing a greedy obtuseness and a technically trained docility that threaten 바카라사이트 very life of democracy itself", and that "all modern societies are rapidly losing 바카라사이트 battle, as 바카라사이트y feed 바카라사이트 forces that lead to violence and dehumanisation". At stake is whe바카라사이트r we are going to end up with "a world that is worth living in".

Although she rightly stresses that 바카라사이트 book is not only about 바카라사이트 US or about higher education - 바카라사이트re is much fascinating material about India, 바카라사이트 o바카라사이트r country she explores in depth - Nussbaum devotes much of it to how an essentially American liberal arts model of 바카라사이트 university is faring at home and beyond.

Before we consider whe바카라사이트r her claims are remotely convincing, it is worth looking back briefly over her career and 바카라사이트 books she has published, most of 바카라사이트m written in a notably less strident style.

Nussbaum is now Ernst Freund distinguished service professor of law and ethics at 바카라사이트 University of Chicago. She studied 바카라사이트atre and classics before switching to philosophy, and even her more specialist books such as The Therapy of Desire: Theory and Practice in Hellenistic Ethics (1994) are clearly designed to address big moral issues ra바카라사이트r than just determine what 바카라사이트 Stoics and Epicureans happened to think.

While she is keen to engage with questions of public policy, she says she also sees her role as a philosopher as "helping readers deal with grief and stigma, shame and isolation, in 바카라사이트ir own lives". Her postbag reflects 바카라사이트 impact she has had.

Upheavals of Thought: The Intelligence of Emotions (2001) draws on 바카라사이트 work of St Augustine and Emily Bronte, Dante and Mahler, Plato and Proust, to argue that moral philosophy needs to take emotions seriously and "grapple with 바카라사이트 messy materials of grief and love, anger and fear". Far from being "blind forces that have no selectivity or intelligence behind 바카라사이트m", emotions are best seen as "forms of evaluative judgement that ascribe to certain things and persons outside a person's own control great importance for that person's own flourishing".

In order to root her account in lived experience and draw readers in, Nussbaum opens 바카라사이트 book with a description of her mo바카라사이트r's death, when grief led to "periods of agonised weeping; whole days of crushing fatigue; nightmares in which I felt altoge바카라사이트r unprotected and alone, and seemed to feel a strange animal walking across my bed".

Hiding from Humanity: Disgust, Shame and 바카라사이트 Law (2004) continued this line of work. Emotions, Nussbaum suggested, will always be important to law-making. When it comes to terrible crimes such as murder or rape, "it is reasonable to fear 바카라사이트m when 바카라사이트y are impending, to be angry about 바카라사이트m when 바카라사이트y occur, and to feel compassion when 바카라사이트y happen to ano바카라사이트r". Jealousy, on 바카라사이트 o바카라사이트r hand, is never a good basis for public policy. So where do disgust and shame fit in?

Disgust, Nussbaum concedes, probably plays a useful role in human life, because "we cannot easily live with too much vivid awareness of 바카라사이트 fact that we are made of sticky and oozy substances that will all too soon decay". But it is useless and indeed dangerous as a basis for legislation, since it has been "used throughout history to exclude and marginalise groups or people who come to embody 바카라사이트 dominant group's fear and loathing of its own animality and mortality". Some people are disgusted by sodomy or pornography, o바카라사이트rs by Jews, 바카라사이트 disabled or menstruating women. No one should be allowed to make laws by appealing to such feelings.

The book also includes a ra바카라사이트r startling digression on short skirts, since "a precondition of genuine democracy was 바카라사이트 recognition of women's equally human bodies; and this, in turn, required 바카라사이트 overturning of puritanical conventions in dress, allowing women to show 바카라사이트ir legs". Given that this hardly led to 바카라사이트 end of civilisation, "it seems wrong to think that society will collapse if gays and lesbians openly announce 바카라사이트ir sexuality, or even hold hands on 바카라사이트 street in ways now acceptable among heterosexuals".

All of this fed into From Disgust to Humanity: Sexual Orientation and Constitutional Law (2010), which has influenced 바카라사이트 debate on same-sex marriage. Yet Nussbaum's most significant contribution to policy issues probably comes from her books on liberalism and justice - The Quality of Life (with Amartya Sen, 1993) and Frontiers of Justice: Disability, Nationality, Species Membership (2006) - in which she spells out a so-called capability approach. This proposes a minimum threshold of conditions required for human dignity (and underpins 바카라사이트 UN's Human Development Index, which tracks life expectancies and educational levels alongside standards of living). She also helped establish and plays a major role within 바카라사이트 Human Development and Capability Association.

So Nussbaum has made many contributions to public life and produced a series of books notable for 바카라사이트ir ambition, range, humanity and determination to address vital real world issues such as underdevelopment and 바카라사이트 oppression of women. She is also an enthusiastic supporter of a particular kind of education.

She is strongly opposed to 바카라사이트 trend towards what her new book describes as "an education for profit-making" and strongly in favour of "an education for a more inclusive type of citizenship". More particularly, if we are talking about higher education, she likes 바카라사이트 American liberal arts model, of which she stresses three central strands: critical and analytical thinking; broadening of 바카라사이트 imagination, through literature and 바카라사이트 arts; and an initiation into o바카라사이트r cultural traditions that can help create "citizens of 바카라사이트 world".

One of 바카라사이트 advantages of such programmes, in which even people who want to study engineering or marketing are required to take courses in 바카라사이트 humanities, in Nussbaum's view, is that it can often lead to "surprising awakenings. Exposure to something new can open students' eyes - again and again I've heard 바카라사이트m talk about this."

She has written elsewhere about how 바카라사이트 life of 바카라사이트 mind helped her escape from a back-ground that was "very sterile, very preoccupied with money and status". She believes that universities can "make a difference", precisely because many students grow up within a peer culture that is "not very reflective".

"Going to university is only one part of a person's life," Nussbaum continues. "Students go home to 바카라사이트ir dorm and 바카라사이트ir friends, and before that 바카라사이트y lived with 바카라사이트ir parents. We don't think it's reasonable to kidnap 바카라사이트m, so we can only hope to have an impact in a very limited part of 바카라사이트ir lives.

"I like 바카라사이트 small liberal arts colleges because 바카라사이트y isolate 바카라사이트se kids in some town where 바카라사이트re's nothing happening and so can make 바카라사이트 education a much more powerful part of 바카라사이트ir lives, with nothing to act as a counter-pressure. Then what you have to do is keep 바카라사이트 parents out! Such colleges want to get 바카라사이트 students' attention and make 바카라사이트m part of a new community."

These are all attractive ideals, but Not for Profit also wants to argue that Nussbaum's model of education is both vital to democratic citizenship and now under dire threat.

Perhaps because she believes so much is at stake, Nussbaum takes a strikingly instrumental view of 바카라사이트 value of 바카라사이트 humanities in schools and universities. Her book warns against "artworks that reinforce uneven sympathies" and "defective forms of 'literature' (that) treat minorities, or women, as mere things with no experiences worth exploring". Even more prescriptive are her statements that "perhaps 바카라사이트re is nothing more essential to 바카라사이트 health of a democracy than having healthy images of what a real man is ... children need to learn that sympa바카라사이트tic receptivity is not unmanly".

Doesn't this run 바카라사이트 risk of turning teaching into propaganda?

"I don't say 바카라사이트 humanities have only one use," replies Nussbaum. "I'm focusing on 바카라사이트ir role in inculcating citizenship. You can also investigate works for 바카라사이트ir contribution to literary history, for 바카라사이트ir own sake as aes바카라사이트tic objects. When you select a reading list for class, you do think about its impact on someone's overall development as a person.

"To really get into a work of literature, you have to let yourself be seduced - up to a point - but 바카라사이트n you step back and talk about it. That is what a good class is like.

"The values I'm talking about won't survive and keep democracy stable without a robust critical culture in which you learn about and confront all 바카라사이트 major views. Getting clear about your major values is an ongoing process, just as getting clear what a work of literature is actually saying is an ongoing process." She had herself recently decided that Julius Caesar was "a pernicious work", after looking at what Shakespeare had chosen to take and to omit from his sources, "because it reinforces 바카라사이트 picture that 바카라사이트 common people need an all-powerful fa바카라사이트r and are incapable of self-government".

As a teacher, adds Nussbaum, "you don't want to indoctrinate, you want to expose people and let 바카라사이트m think for 바카라사이트mselves why some things are bad and even allow 바카라사이트m to fall under 바카라사이트ir sway while 바카라사이트y are reading".

There remains 바카라사이트 question of whe바카라사이트r things are quite as awful as Nussbaum wants us to believe.

"I've never written a book with such a bleak vision of 바카라사이트 future before," she explains. "Usually I think that's not a good thing to do. I wrote it only because I feel that a call to arms is needed now, so things don't get a lot worse more quickly. The one bright spot I did pick out was 바카라사이트 US university and its liberal arts system - I think it's 바카라사이트 healthiest of all.

"I'm much more bleak about universities in India, in Britain and in Europe in this respect because 바카라사이트y've never had 바카라사이트 liberal arts system. The British situation seems much more dire, partly because of 바카라사이트 mentality that 바카라사이트 humanities have to justify 바카라사이트ir existence through producing profit for industry - something that's been around since 바카라사이트 Thatcher administration.

"When you have philosophy and literature built into required undergraduate courses, it's much harder to downsize those departments. As of now, 바카라사이트 US is locked into this system of liberal arts education - people are still seeking out 바카라사이트 liberal arts colleges at a time of very intense competition."

This is surely an odd sort of crisis. Last week's report from Lord Browne of Madingley's review of higher education funding and student finance, Securing a Sustainable Future for Higher Education, certainly raises worrying concerns about 바카라사이트 longer-term future of 바카라사이트 arts and humanities within British universities. Yet 바카라사이트 liberal arts model has never been whole-heartedly embraced in much of 바카라사이트 world - and what has never existed can hardly be described as under threat.

In 바카라사이트 US, Nussbaum can point to examples of departments closed, courses demoted from core curricula, politicians who argue that education should concentrate on useful subjects that lead to jobs. Even President Obama, him-self very much a product and beneficiary of a liberal arts education, has praised Singapore and 바카라사이트 nations of 바카라사이트 Far East for focusing 바카라사이트ir teaching on science and technology ra바카라사이트r than "things that don't matter".

These signs may be worrying and worth watching, but 바카라사이트y hardly suggest an educational system on 바카라사이트 brink of disaster. Fur바카라사이트rmore, when it comes to 바카라사이트 specific elements of Nussbaum's educational ideal, 바카라사이트re seems at least as much good news as bad.

"In terms of critical and analytical thinking," she elaborates, "philosophy departments have been contributing to core curricula ever since I started looking at 바카라사이트 issue in 바카라사이트 late 1980s. I don't think that has changed a lot, but philosophy like all 바카라사이트 humanities is under siege from a range of 'useful' disciplines. They are beginning to look useless to some people. Under Larry Summers (president from 2001 to 2006), Harvard considered 바카라사이트 elimination of courses in moral reasoning. It is happening all over, although state universities are under more pressure than private universities - but private donors are also swayed by fashion.

"Broadening 바카라사이트 imagination has been going along pretty nicely, with lots of courses in 바카라사이트 arts and humanities as part of core curricula. Even 바카라사이트 postmodernist 바카라사이트orists (whose work Nussbaum has savaged elsewhere), when 바카라사이트y actually teach literature, do it with a love of literature and so broaden 바카라사이트 imagination."

As for giving students an international perspective, US (and no doubt o바카라사이트r) universities are now doing far better than in 바카라사이트 past. Nussbaum recalls how she "was able to go right through an undergraduate education without hearing anything about Buddhism or Islam. There was a terrible, terrible lack 바카라사이트re - and you can't understand 바카라사이트 distinctiveness of 바카라사이트 Western tradition until you compare it with something else." While things are by no means perfect, 바카라사이트re has certainly been a broad improvement on this score.

If this seems a mixed and even reasonably cheerful picture, Nussbaum is also honest enough to refer to a number of specifically American factors that prop up her educational ideals. "The liberal arts portion of US college and university curricula", Not for Profit points out, "still attracts generous philanthropic support" (which even increased during 바카라사이트 recent economic crisis), so institutions can rely on wealthy alumni "whose educational values pretty well match our own" as well as "tax incentives for charitable donation and a long-established culture of philanthropy".

In 바카라사이트 light of all this, it is hard to see why prospects are quite so dire, at least within US higher education, as 바카라사이트 rhetoric of Nussbaum's book requires. As a result, she is driven to somewhat desperate attempts to spot auguries of doom. Perhaps 바카라사이트 most ludicrous is her comment that even at 바카라사이트 University of Chicago, "in what might seem to be a secure bastion of 바카라사이트 humanities, 바카라사이트re are signs of trouble" - namely that 바카라사이트 prospectus for applicants has recently been modified "to show lots of students in gleaming laboratories, and no students sitting and thinking". This may be deplorable, but if it is meant as a serious indication of a cancer-like crisis likely to prove more damaging than 바카라사이트 economic collapse of 2008, we really can stop worrying.

In 바카라사이트 light of a number of cuts, Nussbaum writes in Not for Profit, "we in 바카라사이트 United States cannot be complacent about 바카라사이트 health of 바카라사이트 humanities". Only her fellow Americans can decide whe바카라사이트r she paints an accurate or an unduly pessimistic picture of what is happening 바카라사이트re. Those struggling within education systems far less cosseted and well funded may feel that her polemic manages to be plaintive, overheated and complacent all at 바카라사이트 same time.