Arts, Humanities and Politics

John Wilkins has a discussion on his science blog 'On the decline of the humanities'.

Wilkins begins:

Yesterday I attended a meeting at my university which pretty well aimed to wind up the disciplines of my school (history, philosophy, religion and classics) and present a single school with five majors and no departments.

And mentions:

Yet at the same time as Melbourne is losing one of its star philosophers - Graham Priest - leaving only eight full-time actual (not honorary) staff where once there were over twenty...

This is bad if you're a student in philosophy obviously, but there are a whole lot of different perspectives on whether or not this is a bad thing in society.

Students who go to university from lower SES groups are likely to be more career focussed, since they are all too familiar with the unpleasantness of poverty. In this sense, increasing access would be accompanied by a slight shift as a larger proportion of university students take up subjects on a pragmatic basis.

However, in a two-cycle model, professional graduate Law Schools (based on US experience) are quite fond of the philosophy graduate for their clear thinking and analytical skills. The low-SES student bias against philosophy would then disadvantage them slightly for admission to Law School. This is a paradoxical effect, considering that one of the arguments for the Melbourne Model was that it would allow for elite private schooling to wash out during the undergraduate years, thereby promoting access and equity.

Further down the threat, Wilkins makes the comment:

If funds can't be found elsewhere, then the whole nation is removing the humanities from public universities. One possibly unintended result is that humanities such as ethics, history and so on will tend to be done either by the Catholic university system or by industry. This leaves a gap in secular discourse.

And secular discourse is what feeds progressive political movements on the fronts of race, gender, poverty, globalisation, health and education. Also, it isn't as if the 'breadth' components of the Melbourne Model are holding the humanities afloat since most students are taking breadth subjects that relate to commerce and business. The loss of the humanities from the academy won't be the end of the world, but it certainly doesn't help.