Some college graduates complain they weren't prepared for the real world, writes William Deresiewicz in Persuasion. Others say they "didn't learn anything" about literature, philosophy, history, art, religion, about wisdom. They feel "cheated."
"Academic humanities departments have long been inimical to humanistic inquiry . . . as opposed to political tub-thumping, he writes.
Communities for lifelong learners to explore books and ideas are springing up" to prove opportunities for deep reading and discussion. Deresiewicz is involved with the Matthew Strother Center for the Examined Life. The Brooklyn Institute for Social Research, which has a left-wing slant, is another example, he writes. Zena Hitz, a teacher at St. John’s great books college, a Catholic convert, and, for three years, a resident of a monastic community, founded The Catherine Project for people “who actually want to learn.”
"Reading groups and salons that have been proliferating both in-person and online," writes Deresiewicz. There are lots of would-be learners out there.
Beneath their talk of education, of unplugging from technology, of having time for creativity and solitude, I detected a desire to be free of forces and agendas: the university’s agenda of “relevance,” the professoriate’s agenda of political mobilization, the market’s agenda of productivity, the internet’s agenda of surveillance and addiction.
Colleges and universities do not seem inclined to reclaim the liberal arts, writes Deresiewicz. "Between bureaucratic inertia, faculty resistance, and the conflicting agendas of a heterogenous array of stakeholders, concerted change appears to be impossible." The Harvards and Yales aren't worried about losing students, he writes. "As long as elite institutions remain the principal pipeline to elite employers (and they will), the havers and strivers will crowd toward their gates."
Luke Burgis envisions "a massive renaissance in the humanities, inside and outside of universities — but especially outside of them."
Due to AI, "technical education is still training people for jobs that may no longer exist by the time they graduate," he writes. Students will need an "education in the humanities — especially in the arts — because artistic training is training in how to see, how to perceive, and how to communicate."