This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon, May 1, 2012 - The St. Louis Humanities Festival recently came to town as a collaboration among Washington University, the University of Missouri-St. Louis, Webster University, the Missouri Humanities Council and Cinema St. Louis. Modeled on the hugely successful Chicago Humanities Festival, events were held on the three university campuses, with all five consortium members assisting in the planning, promoting and funding.
Why celebrate the humanities? Critics complain that the humanities have made no progress in at least 2,000 years. They charge that studying the humanities does not prepare people to compete in today’s work force. They note that the percentage of students enrolled in humanities majors is shrinking and that some universities are eliminating or merging humanities departments. Yet, look at us. Here we are, holding a humanities festival in St. Louis. Is this another example of how St. Louis is so entrenched in the past that it cannot move boldly into the future?
Celebrating the humanities is, to the contrary, one of the most forward-thinking things St. Louis can do. Think about what the humanities are — namely, those disciplines that inquire into the creative and reflective expressions of the human spirit. They include the study and appreciation of literature, language, art, film, theater, dance, music, history, religion and philosophy.
We most decidedly do not study them first and foremost to succeed in the workforce. The stakes are far higher than that. We study them first and foremost to succeed as human beings.
The humanities help humans to succeed both individually and collectively.
Individually, our spirits are elevated by the work of those who are bolder, wiser or more creative than we ever suspected humans could be. Our horizons are widened by ideas, images or sounds that shock us into seeing possibilities that we had never imagined. Our pride is replaced by humility as we recognize that with a different shuffle of the cards we would have had a different mother, in a different place, at a different time, and along with her milk we would have imbibed a dramatically different culture.
Collectively, the humanities strengthen global society by promoting affinities with those who might otherwise repel us as strange or barbarous. A writer’s skin color may be unfamiliar and thus unsettling — until her story reveals that her grief over losing a child is as wrenching as ours would be, and that we can not only share it with her but learn from her.
Bizarre religious practices may strike us as ridiculous and primitive — until we find that the devotee’s longing for transcendence parallels, perhaps exceeds, our own.
A language inflected by tones or clicks may brand its users as aliens — until we learn that their utterances express identical insecurities, yearnings and satisfactions, until we learn that other languages are sometimes even apter than English at the creative and reflective expressions of the human spirit. And so, eventually, working together for common purposes begins to seem more attractive and achievable than defending to the death our tribal turf.
The problem is not that the humanities have made no progress in the last 2,000 years. The problem is that we have made so little progress because we have neglected to study the humanities, to appreciate them, to be elevated and united by them. The problem is not that we need more people in the work force with job-specific skills. The problem is that we need more people in the work force who combine their job-specific skills with broadly human attitudes.
More partners are already lining up for the next year’s St. Louis Humanities Festival, including Saint Louis University and Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville. Look at us. Here we are, holding humanities festivals in St. Louis. Because we wish to move boldly into the future.
About the author
David Carl Wilson is dean of Webster University's College of Arts & Sciences. During his tenure, the first endowed professorship in Webster's history has been established and many new programs have been launched.
Wilson also serves as professor of philosophy at Webster, covering such topics such as reasoning, ethics, science, religion, higher education and leadership. He earned his PhD in philosophy from UCLA, where he taught and served as associate provost until he came to Webster in 2002. He is the author of the McGraw-Hill textbook, "A Guide to Good Reasoning."
He has served as a fellow with the American Council on Education and is now on the executive committee of ACE's Council of Fellows where he co-chairs its national outreach and engagement committee.
Wilson chairs the board of directors of Upstream Theater and is an active board member for the Academy of Science-St. Louis, the Missouri Biotechnology Association, the St. Louis Psychoanalytic Institute, the Missouri Humanities Council, and Cinema St. Louis.