Wang Jun | How do we defend liberal arts?

Recently, a mainstream media published an article titled “The Global Liberal Arts Disasters Are Here” about the decline of liberal arts at universities worldwide, which caused extensive reactions. The article generally argues that some universities such as Harvard University and the University of Virginia have canceled some liberal arts courses, reduced the number of students admitted, and cut down on liberal arts majors, analyzing the various reasons for the marginalization of liberal arts, including financial pressure at universities, structural optimization under social demand, and most importantly, the difficulty for liberal arts majors to justify their own existence in the face of rapidly developing technology. Today’s Z-generation young people are more pragmatic and hope to seek stable careers and returns through professional learning. In the context of economic uncertainty, liberal arts are even more difficult to provide such career commitments than STEM fields.

In recent years, similar voices have emerged endlessly. For example, some people previously declared that liberal arts are “service industries,” which provoked strong emotions among many scholars. More recently, several philosophy graduates turned to the stand-up comedy industry. When they stood on stage and said “I studied philosophy,” it triggered laughter, followed by jokes about how difficult it is to find a job as a philosophy major. It seems that liberal arts majors such as philosophy have become labeled as out of touch with reality and unable to find work.

Here, “liberal arts” mainly refers to humanities subjects like literature, history, and philosophy, excluding social science majors like economics, management, and law. The author is engaged in the profession of philosophy, which has become a common joke in stand-up comedy, and naturally feels the pressure of being at the forefront of the “disaster”. As a relatively senior professional, the author naturally hopes that her field will not disappear. How to defend philosophy and liberal arts is a problem we need to face.

Looking back at history, it can be found that humanities subjects represented by philosophy have been continuously marginalized in modern universities since the mid-19th century and have been forced to constantly justify their existence. This process coincides with the professionalization of philosophers in universities. Before the 18th century, almost all philosophers in philosophical history were not university professors. However, from the second half of the 19th century onward, all the philosophers we know by name were philosophy professors. Liberal arts subjects such as philosophy became purely academic activities. The vital signs of the booming natural sciences are not only new technological inventions that continuously improve human living standards and update survival methods but also the specialization of disciplines, where each discipline focuses on a specific field of study. In this process of specialization, humanities branches have constantly retreated from their research areas. This is particularly evident in philosophy. Engels once said that in the 19th century, philosophy can only study philosophical history. Meanwhile, humanities subjects continue to become more institutionalized and professionalized, with complex philosophical concepts and texts forming a professional threshold unrelated to daily life. Under such circumstances, the marginalization of humanities is inevitable. It cannot provide new technologies and inventions to improve human life, nor can it offer new knowledge about specific natural objects. Instead, it uses complex concepts and discourse systems that are alien to daily experience.

From the 19th to the 20th century, Arthur Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Bergson, Neo-Kantianism, Phenomenology, Hermeneutics, and Critical Theory all批判 modern technology and advocated for humanities. These defenses have maintained the dignity and status of humanities in modern university systems to some extent. However, at the same time, the continuous construction of humanities discourse has intensified its institutionalization trend and further detached from daily life. With the rapid development of new technologies and the relative stagnation of humanities sciences, contemporary humanities crises have resurfaced especially in university education today’s liberal arts education leads to exaggerated claims about “disasters.” Therefore today’s question is: how should we defend humanities in the face of the future?

The current crisis in humanities development stems primarily from its self-imposed isolation after institutionalization and professionalization as a humanities scholar engaged in public affairs with broad social impact that no longer adapts itself to real-life issues but instead shrouds itself in complex theoretical discourse and concepts. To defend humanities sciences effectively today means restoring their public nature by providing meaningful products that are relevant to our lives today rather than focusing solely on theoretical exploration within institutions. These products could be ideas or frameworks that address contemporary issues and provide explanatory resources for common people through interpretation of classics that guide societal values and shape cultural norms. We need humanities disciplines that are not just concerned with theoretical work but also engaged with real-world challenges facing society today such as ethical considerations arising from advancements in technology like artificial intelligence or life sciences which require corresponding ethical frameworks to guide human behavior within these new technological landscapes changing job systems due to technological shifts affecting employment patterns along with longer lifespans requiring new systems of meaning making for individuals within these evolving contexts . Humanities must play a role in shaping these new systems accordingly .