Not for Profit: Why Democracy Needs the Humanities (New in Paper) (The Public Square) [Formato Kindle]

I was very much looking forward to this book as I have enjoyed and learned from Martha Nussbaum's writing in the past. Moreover, I strongly believe in the general thrust of this book -- that the humanities are being undervalued as our colleges and public schools become more and more career oriented. I teach humanities (English and Philosophy) myself, so I was predisposed to her thesis before I even picked it up.

But I found the argument to be mediocre at best; in fact, the whole book read like it was a journal article that had been stretched, padded, and embellished to meet the minimal page count to be credibly marketed as a book. There's also something of a dashed-off quality to the prose, lots of repetition from chapter to chapter along with loose sentences, incomplete thoughts, vagueness, and other signs of haste.

The book makes a decent case for critical thinking, but seems to lack that quality itself -- it unhesitatingly endorses the educational thinking of Rousseau, Dewey, and Tragore without critically engaging their thought or methods. Nussbaum argues that we need critical thinking in order to challenge traditions without seeming to be aware that she is simply making claims based on authorities that form a tradition, and, indeed, lots of educators and philosophers challenge these approaches. And she nowhere critically engages the possibility that some traditions might be valuable.

I am reminded that Mark Edmundson cogently observed that what passes for critical thinking these days is using methods of thought and vocabulary that one doesn't really believe to debunk world views one would rather not be challenged by. I fear that Nussbaum's approach to critical thinking would probably lead to that kind of superficiality.

Nussbaum's desire to mold students into "citizens of the world" whose perspective is global is, to me, naive idealism (and revealing of the political agenda behind her thinking). I'm all for students learning as much as they can about other cultures and political systems -- at least there we agree -- but there is no all-encompassing global perspective that can embrace, say, strict Sharia laws that force women into subservience and Western feminism (I could give a legion of other examples). Moreover, Nussbaum casually drops in the tired old trinity of "race, gender and class" enough to make me think that she would embrace crass West-bashing, such as we have seen in culture studies programs for decades now -- the kind that forgets that critical thinking is foundational to the Western tradition (indeed, she invokes Socrates at several junctures). (And please, I know that the West is not without fault, and that its faults should be exposed and corrected; but the West is not without virtue, and all too often those virtues are ignored or denigrated.)

I agree entirely that our students (and future workers, managers, leaders) need to be skilled at critical thinking and have educated imaginations, and I wholeheartedly endorse the book's title and theme: "Not for Profit." Among the great things about the humanities is that they help us to live complete and meaningful lives and to see things from other perspectives beyond that of "how is this going to make me money." In fact, I like to joke with my students that the great benefit of a humanities degree is that I can B.S. myself into believing I am happier with my pittance of a salary than I would be as a millionaire tycoon.

I simply don't think this book is worthy of Martha Nussbaum's powers as a thinker and a writer. She's better than this, and I expect she'll prove that on her next outing.

Nussbaum calls her book 'a manifesto'. Her manifesto on why democracy needs the humanities is made up of 6 interlocking propositions: (1) there is a crisis going on in education today; (2) this crisis is the shedding away of the humanities, which produce the necessary espirit de corps and competencies for an active and productive democracy; (3) this shedding away of the humanities can be attributed to the growth-oriented economy, which prefers professional skill-ism rather than the critical thinking skills and the imaginative empathy cultivated by the humanities; (4) at the same time, events in the world today are heading in the direction where more international cooperation and collaboration is needed, which must surely demand critical thinking and imaginative empathy for cross-cultural work; (5) however, we are heading in the opposite direction through our present attention on standardized testing and technically oriented education directives, which produce "useful machines" (pp. 2) but not imaginative and empathetic human beings; (6) hence, not only do we ultimately undermine our own cherished democracy, but ultimately too we undermine the solidarity needed for a universal democracy that can solve universal problems affecting all.

To be fair, we will have to take Nussbaum's argument one step deeper: that societies, and hence to a certain extent also publicly funded universities in many places, prefer practical skill-ism rather than the humanities. Since the growth-oriented economy requires skillful workers who can obey and work rather than to question and think, classes oriented to imparting practical or applied skills are much more favored by policy-makers, bosses, parents and students alike--because everyone in this squarish ecology seemed well-pleased. However, even growth demands people who possess the abilities to think and imagine creatively, and the humanities can help to cultivate that. Therefore, it is according to Nussbaum, never an 'either/or' for or against the humanities; rather, we can have both growth and the humanities. As a matter of her opinion, to have growth we ought to invest and grow the humanities.

I leave you to ponder on Nussbaum's surprising acquiescence. But the strangeness of this acquiescence to incorporate the humanities into the growth-oriented economy is surely, and only, because of Nussbaum's paradoxical nullification of the very thing she sought to defend in this book: how is it possible to defend the humanities by deliberately subjecting, and designing the humanities so that it can support growth (i.e., economically oriented growth laced with many externalities)? Thankfully Nussbaum's did not say how, beyond these hints, and to what extent this can be done. But at least one thing is clear: the kind of growth Nussbaum criticizes is also the kind of growth that bears no special allegiance to anything or anyone; as long as something expands the economy in the short-term, this something is valued. Thus to expect growth to value the humanities because the humanities seem to impart valuable fundamental and hence, somewhat long-term competencies with uncertain outcome is naive at best.

And half expecting this book to fulfill its large graphical and title promise on the critique of the for profit system (i.e., "NOT FOR PROFIT..."), Nussbaum unfortunately did not venture into the intricacies of the 'FOR PROFIT' teleology working at every level of the society today. Instead what Nussbaum presented is a defense for Socratic pedagogy and a fastpaced clip through the ideas of several education progressivists, names like Rousseau, Dewey and Tagore. I don't think Socrates needs to be defended again; and I certainly don't think Rousseau is as innocent as Nussbaum made him to be, or Dewey so easily and swiftly understood. Rather, I think that both Socrates and Rousseau et al.--the progressivists--are misplaced as two whole chapters in a book with a more critical and urgent mission. For these reasons, I am also not convinced.

In more than a few places Nussbaum makes uncritical statements that seem at odds with the overall thesis in her manifesto, for example, "knowledge is no guarantee of good behavior, but ignorance is a virtual guarantee of bad behavior" (pp.81). Well, that depends on what kind of ignorance one speaks of. Arrogant and inconsiderate ignorance, yes, of course. But humble and considered ignorance: isn't that the goal of Socratic teaching and the beginning of knowledge? Similarly but on a broader interpretation, Nussbaum's uncritical call for the 'universal citizen' or the cosmopolitan citizen demands a very careful review: who and to what extent, can be a citizen of the world today and for what purpose or mission? And what are the underlying ethos of such a global citizenship? What are its underlying binding values? Without answering these questions, we can only suspect that what Nussbaum has in mind as the underlying ethos is the ideal form of democracy that she is familiar with. This is unlikely to go well with everyone in the world today. Not only so, Nussbaum's uncritical call is likely to exacerbate her very quest for a productive citizenship of the world.

In all, I think this manifesto is a missed opportunity for a stronger and a more convincing call-to-arms in the humanities today. Insofar as Nussbaum's premise is concerned, I think it is relevant for the complex crisis the world is facing today: what to do at the limits of the market economy and how to deal with the threats of the environment at its limits. However, Nussbaum's subsequent arguments stray too often from the deeper and much more urgent mission that her premises promised.

I concur with the reviews of Alan Mills and J. Marlin and in particular agree with their assessment Professor Nussbaum's academic sloppiness that includes a failure to footnote contentious statements.

I would add that if you want to change the world by improving public policy, you had better adhere to the the new standard of evidence based research to support your arguments. Professor Nussbaum appears to be oblivious to this requirement; especially when she extols the writings of Rousseau who did not conduct scientific studies of children. Her thesis is that "the humanities and the arts are being cut away, in both primary/secondary and college/university education, in virtually every nation of the world." (p. 2) There is no research cited to support this statement nor could I find statistics in the book about the nature and score of these cuts. A good researcher could compile and interpret this data--at least for the US. One cannot expect policy decision-makers to be convinced to change their views without this critical information.

Another jarring issue is the exclusion of science and mathematics in her description of an ideal education (arts and humanities including languages). Instead of encouraging students to pick either sciences or humanities as their focus, the educators in my state strive to include both to produce educated minds. In fact, students who focus on the humanities may compromise their intellectual and career development. A case in point is the tendency of English major journalists to publish statistical errors very frequently. The math and statistical literacy problem was so acute at The Washington Post that the newspaper has considered providing journalists with remedial math training (Washington Post, Andrew Alexander, Post Stories do Not Add Up, Nov. 26, 2010).

I did enjoy her exposition of Tagore. I am a philosophy graduate and here is my personal conclusion: I will continue to ask my children to focus on math, science and Lego Robotics at school for their career while keeping them exposed to arts and humanities as hobbies.