The point of work should not be just to provide the material goods we need to survive. Since work typically takes the largest part of our time, it should also be an important part of what gives our life meaning. Our economic system works well for those who find meaning in economic competition and the material rewards it brings. To a lesser but still significant extent, our system provides meaningful work in service professions (like health and social work) for those fulfilled by helping people in great need. But for those with humanistic and artistic life interests, our economic system has almost nothing to offer. (Source)
Yes and no.
I want to like Gary Gutting, but every time I read one of his pieces in the NYT Opinionater, there's something that seems off about it. And the same is true for his piece today about the crisis in the humanities. He's right, kind of, but his arguments strike me as clueless, and the only way to explain it is say he's trying to make an argument within a particular value frame that makes no sense given the basic assumptions of that value frame. And is the crisis really about people with humanities degrees getting paid decently or about what in fact the humanities represent and our ambiguity and confusion about what it means to be human?
HIs argument that people who take degrees in the humanities should find good paying jobs makes no ecnomic sense in an economy that is driven by market thinking. If you want to get paid, do something or produce something that people want to buy. The local symphony or opera is struggling and the local football and baseball teams are thriving because more people are willing to pay for the former. The university's football coach is getting paid more than the university president because, while both get paid well, the demand for football coaches who can win and draw the crowds willing to pay millions is valued in economic terms more than than fundraising and other administrative skills performed by a university president. If you accept the validity and fairness of the market frame, then it's silly to get all bent out of shape about it.
But if it seems unfair to you, skewed in some way that seems wrong, what's your alternative? Gutting's suggestions seem out of touch. I like his idea of creating a well-paid, elite K-12 teaching corp. That's what they did in Finland, and it transformed their educational system from mediocre to top performing on all the international assessments. In Finland they only accept people into teaching masters programs only from the top ten percent of undergraduates, and no one gets into a classroom without a masters degree.
There are so many good things that the Finns do, but it's unrealistic that the U.S. would adopt their model. Why? For the same reason Americans would never support a single-payer health care system. It's too socialistic. While we Americans say that we care about our kids' education, we really are not willing to pay for it, if it means paying for the education of kids not our own. Charters and vouchers make more sense to Americans because they are all about 'me' and not about 'us', and so market thinking aptly reflects what Americans really want and believe. Until that changes, nothing does.
And then there's the larger issue of the values ethos of humanities departments in most universities today. Does it reflect and convey the great humanistic tradition of the West, or is it dominated by trendy fringe thinking that no one will care about one hundred years from now. That's the real crisis of the humanities, but that's a topic for another day. Or for comments if people want to talk about it there.