Can the Canon make us humane?
Last summer Bret Devereaux, a professor in North Carolina, wrote a blog post making a ‘practical case’ for the humanities. I read it after listening to his interview on EconTalk.
Devereaux defines the humanities as “things which cannot be subjected to the rigors of the scientific method.” That which cannot be quantified. While his training is in Greek and Roman history, Devereaux thinks broadly. “A ‘humanities’ which covers only elite European men is a narrow field indeed, to its detriment,” he writes. To underline his point, he illustrates his essay with works of art and literature from a range of times and cultures. (Elsewhere he argues that the Roman empire was more diverse than television and movie portrayals by predominantly British actors would lead you to think. Rome itself was a melting pot peopled by Latins, Samnites, Sabines, and Etruscans who had little in common, at least initially.)
Rubens, Rape of the Sabine Women
Like many other advocates for the humanities, Devereaux argues it is not the Canon, but the skills gained from studying great works, that matter. “Indeed, the raw data is often far less important – I am much more interested to know if my students can think deeply about Tiberius Gracchus’ aims and means than if they can recall the exact year of his tribunate.” He believes that the humanities offer students a “detached, careful form of analysis and decision-making and then a set of communication skills to present that information.”
These are the skills of a leader, he says. And he reminds us that teaching leadership was education’s intent back when only a small percentage of – mostly men – would ever even dream of attending college. Writing at the height of the pandemic, Devereaux notes we were not failed by the sciences – vaccines were developed faster than ever before, on a foundation of basic research that had been built over decades. “But so far, that work hasn’t had the impact it could have had because of leadership failures – failures to buy the scientists the time they need to do their work, to get the public to follow best practices.”
Alas Devereaux’s plan is not practical. He’s clearly erudite, but at 5,700 words - and 62 parenthetical observations - he’s not going to convince anyone. Ironic as he argues one of the many benefits of studying the humanities is to “banish emotion” from our decision making and “encourage students to write plainly and clearly, without too much rhetorical flourish.” Perhaps entitling the essay a ‘practical case’ was a nod to Swiftian satire, but if so, he’s violated his own advice. To my mind a key failure of the plan is that fewer than 40% of Americans will complete a college degree, yet Devereaux’s plan does not make clear how the humanistic skills he values should or could be shared to the 60% that do not.
Effective leadership surely features tactics that can be learned, and not just in college. But it rests on a moral framework that is taught by great examples from history and literature. We see this in Eisenhower’s (draft) message taking responsibility for the failure of the Normandy invasion. (Note where Ike changes from the passive “the troops have been withdrawn” to the active “I have withdrawn the troops.”) We see it in the tragedy of Othello’s fall from grace, precipitated by Iago’s mendacity. We see it in Aeneas’ abandonment of Dido to follow fate and found Rome.
The humanities offer a hopeful vision of a more just and thoughtful society than we experience at present. But if we treat them only as skills to be mastered, and we have no plan to teach them prior to college, they will not help us. A practical plan must involve teaching children to aspire to goodness, and embracing our responsibility to guide them along that path. Absent that, all the coherent writing and precise argumentation in the world will make little difference. This critical task cannot wait until until they are 17, nor should it be the preserve of the minority who will complete a college degree.
