The Danger of Progressives’ Inhumanity to the Humanities Science moves forward; literature doesn’t—and when it tries, the results can be monstrous. By Paula Marantz Cohen
https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-danger-of-progressives-inhumanity-to-the-humanities-1501270819
Ms. Cohen is a dean and English professor at Drexel University.
There was a time when both literature and the study of literature came under the delightful rubric belles lettres—beautiful letters. When the phrase was introduced in the 18th century, literature was considered, at its best, beautiful. Devotees tried to emulate that beauty in their response to it.
Modernism was a turning point, when literature became more alienated and combative with respect to society. American literature, with its muscular, democratic associations, contributed to the change. Belles lettres seemed too elitist, not to mention too French, to describe early-20th-century writing.
The prestige of belles lettres was further impaired by the rise of science as civilization’s potential savior. Science was necessary to defend democracy, first during World War II and then during the Cold War. Now, it is the means of moving ahead in a competitive, technological society. Who has time for beauty when there is serious work to be done?
The death knell for belles lettres came with a 1959 lecture by the scientist and novelist C.P. Snow, “The Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution.” Snow seemed to call for cooperation between science and the humanities, but he was really decrying the scientific illiteracy of writers and critics who, unlike him, didn’t happen to be scientists as well. His lecture touched a nerve. It spoke to the insecurity of the humanist who wished to have the hard knowledge and social status of the scientist.
The eminent literary critic F.R. Leavis delivered a rebuttal in 1962. He took issue with Snow’s tone and sense of superiority. But his critique was not so much about Snow himself (though it was taken this way) as about the assumption that science and the humanities could be judged by the same standards. Literature, according to Levis, had a role in society that had no bearing on what science—a focused, fact-based discipline—could do.
Leavis’s argument met with mockery and abuse. It was labeled foolish, intemperate and overly personal—which is to say original, emotional and subjective, the very qualities associated with the human condition that are central to the humanities.
He had few supporters at the time, but he never retreated from his position—and he turned out to be prescient. Snow’s scientific bias has infected all humanities disciplines at all levels. We have seen the prestige of numbers and facts take precedence over imagination and discernment.
The problem, as Leavis understood, is that science and the humanities are inherently incommensurate endeavors. Science builds on its discoveries. It moves forward, so that the past is the literal foundation for the present and future. Literature does not move forward in this way. Poets and writers may be influenced by their predecessors, but they do not have to be. One need not read Shakespeare to write a play or a poem. By the same token Shakespeare is as relevant today as he was when he wrote. That cannot be said of Ptolemy.
The simple truth that progress is central to science but not to the humanities is difficult to grasp for people who seek improvement in every walk of life. It fuels the drive to render the humanities scientific—through the use of technical jargon, general theories about social texts, and quantitative tools to analyze word choice, sentence structure and other aspects of literature. There are even efforts to measure the imagination using functional magnetic resonance imaging.
All this is fine as it pertains to political science, linguistics and neuroscience. But literature and literary criticism—belles lettres—ought not to be usurped in the process. Their purpose is different. Literary study ought to be concerned with the search for meaning and value in life. The humanities teach wisdom—or at least exercise the faculty that leads to that elusive end. Without wisdom, so-called progress can lead to corruption and devastation.
When the humanities desert their mission and seek to ally themselves with progress, they become dangerous adjuncts to ideological agendas. Students come to feel there is a definitive, “virtuous” reading of an event or a text; they excoriate great authors of the past for not abiding by the standards of the present; they come to see the world as divided into victims and oppressors. They create a climate that arouses opposition from those who feel excluded or demeaned by such thinking but who lack the humanistic training to do more than lash out.
The unique role of the humanities is to recognize genius, revere complexity, and be deliberative in judging character and action, in life as in art. Without training in this habit of mind, we become a polarized society with no tools to communicate across difference. Nothing happens except name-calling and retribution. CONTINUE AT SITE
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