Studying Humanities, Influential or Irrelevant?

Literature is often seen as an unimportant and silly pursuit in society, but when we see it in its larger context, we will see that it provides a foundation for everything else. It helps us learn and grow through each other. As society grows, so does the opinion that literature is merely a self-indulgence rather than something useful. In the article, Devaluing a Humanities Education Ultimately Devalues Humanity Itself written by Mandy Pipher, she claims “These skills are fundamental, not only to the development of an individual human mind and to our capacity for forming deep and varied relationship with one another, but also to the continued functioning of a democratic society.” As she points out, literature skills are fundamental to learning everything in the world. Studying literature provides valuable skills such as teaching context and communication. I believe that many people believe studying literature is insignificant because they are not immediately good at it and value it much less than a useful skill like physics and math. This is supported by The Dead Poet’s Society: Why We Don’t Study Literature by Margarita G, quotes “lots of high school students think they aren’t good at English simply because they don’t like whatever it is they happen to be reading in class.” Keating states at 8:57 that academics are nothing more than conformity agents, meaning they can only teach us how to change our beliefs. According to him, he plans on teaching his students to think for themselves again, and although I believe it is a good idea, I think that we need to teach people how to think critically and creatively, which cannot be self taught, only by studying literature. We need to communicate with each other to develop a better society for all of us. As we discussed in class, one of the quotes teaches us that we need to study literature in order to understand the importance of context, otherwise topics can be seriously misunderstood. It is important to understand others when communicating as things could become misleading or become false information. To sum up, I believe that studying literature is extremely important to humans, almost as important as breathing, as it teaches us how to think, communicate, and learn through each other.

Photo Credits: The Daily Californian