Invitations and Becomings

In a couple of recent posts to his NY Times blog (1,2), Stanley Fish has come out strongly in support of the unmitigated uselessness of the humanities.

To the question “of what use are the humanities?”, the only honest answer is none whatsoever. And it is an answer that brings honor to its subject. Justification, after all, confers value on an activity from a perspective outside its performance. An activity that cannot be justified is an activity that refuses to regard itself as instrumental to some larger good. The humanities are their own good. There is nothing more to say, and anything that is said – even when it takes the form of Kronman’s inspiring cadences – diminishes the object of its supposed praise.

This has earned him a rebuke from Jeffrey Sachs. Sachs disputes what he calls Fish's "fundamentalism"

He operates in the same spirit as those who saw in the theologians of the Catholic Church an impediment to reading the clear, unambiguous message of the Bible.

Sachs argues that (a) the sciences and humanities are not nearly as distinct as Fish supposes, and (b) that Fish's view rests on something like a "great man" theory of the progress of the humanities, in which only the Shakespeares matter at all.

If Fish had his way, how would the disciplines progress? Merely on the shoulders of indisputably great men like Shakespeare who, says Fish, need no defending? Ought we just to close our eyes, keep our fingers crossed, and pray that every generation or two produces a man or woman of such outstanding genius that a truly important work can be summoned forth from the scholarly vacuum? Or, on the other hand, ought we to cultivate an environment in which thousands of people can discuss, debate, and research a succession of points that, while seemingly minor in social import, can on occasion burst forth and alter the course of history?

But Sachs misses Fish's point, which is that the humanities have no instrumental value, i.e. no use outside the humanities. Sachs is effectively saying the same thing, with one very important distinction.

Fish appeals to the pleasure that study of the humanities offers, and in doing so naturalises their value.

They don’t do anything, if by “do” is meant bring about effects in the world. And if they don’t bring about effects in the world they cannot be justified except in relation to the pleasure they give to those who enjoy them.

Fish is operating with too narrow a concept of "doing" here. He misses precisely the doing that Sachs refers to in talking of the progress of the humanities. Studying 18th century political satire does indeed do something... something more than pleasing the one undertaking the study or reading it ... it keeps the humanities themselves evolving.

But why is this important, even if it isn't of any instrumental use? The real question is why we ought to "cultivate an environment in which thousands of people can discuss, debate, and research a succession of points that, while seemingly minor in social import, can on occasion burst forth and alter the course of history".

The answer is: we like history. We like a sense of generational change. But at the same time we don't like social upheaval. The point isn't, as Fish suspects, that the periods in-between Shakespeares are completely useless. It's just that their usefulness is a little more indirect - humanities departments around the world have for centuries kept hundreds of thousands if not millions of fertile minds - who, as Fish well knows, have a tendency to question authority - off the streets.

For the record, I'm not saying (nor am I convinced) that this is a bad thing. However, by perpetuating the view not only that the humanities are useless but that they should be, Fish is only reinforcing this rather dim view of their raison d'etre, and encouraging his students to embrace a conservative redirection of their intellectual desires.