This sort of thing is pretty typical of Leiter. He has now, for instance, moved on to discuss the place of philosophy in universities. Reading this sort of thing from Leiter is always extremely awkward because of how much he tries to 1) professionalize and quantify philosophy yet, 2) speak of it as some sort of venerable tradition that transcends current market-oriented and other problems of university life. Leiter Reports is not the sort of place that a modern-day Socrates would be well-received. Without getting too grandiose in identifying Critchley as a sort of Socrates, I think the same dynamic is in play here. In a frantic rush to establish the Scholarly Serious Bona Fides of the discipline, Leiter forgets that the lifeblood of any sort of dynamic inquiry is those scholars who make of it a real endeavor of human pursuit of meaning, challenging those both within and without the circle of tenured university professors to think more deeply.
With humanities departments losing funding left and right, it strikes me that the last thing we should do is condemn a decision to try to bring the philosophical life and public life into closer contact.
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It's also worth noting that Leiter makes a call for people to write in complaint to the NYT over the decision. For those who object to Leiter's opinions on the matter, it may be worth writing a quick note of thanks in order to counteract the naysayers.
ReplyDeleteI look at funding humanities education as being a bit like funding (via tax free donations) the for the opera; basically welfare for the upper middle class and above. I come from a humanities background.
ReplyDeleteI suppose that could be one way to look at it, although I doubt you'd find many very committed humanists who would want to say that the humanities are just for the upper classes. The point of such critical engagements actually seems to be quite the opposite. But the idea that a state engaged with the pursuit of the common good is what's behind humanities funding is, I think, pretty accurate. This is why something like Martha Nussbaum's close association of the humanities with democracy is such an important point to make.
ReplyDelete"The point of such critical engagements..."
ReplyDeleteDo you realize how funny this phrase is to normal people?
"But the idea that a state engaged with the pursuit of the common good is what's behind humanities funding is, I think, pretty accurate."
Looking for the "common good" (the favorite phrase of prog-libs these days apparently) is a bit like being on a snipe hunt. Or let's put it this way - the common good brings some "common good" (or rather goods) to some people, which everyone else has to pay for. You know subsidized museums, opera houses and of course sports stadiums.
Best discussion I have ever seen on the matter of arts funding: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zvNw0P5ZMbA
Anonymous -
ReplyDeleteFirst, I think it's important to push back on Evan's assumptions regarding "the common good".
But what I find frustrating is that the libertarian mindset here so easily embraces a contractual view of the world while at the same time so easily closing their eyes to all that you have to accept as a problem when you've embraced that contractual view: the externalities, the incomplete contracts, the information asymmetries (does any citizen REALLY know the benefit they are missing from not having a robust humanities program? if not, how can they hope to make these decisions?). You parrot contractarian and individualist assumptions, which is OK, but you don't even try to engage the most important implications of a contractarian perspective because they're inconvenient for your position.
Evan could clean up vague sentiments about "the common good". I would also be willing to critique him from that angle. But I'm not sure you've made any cleaner an argument.
And, I should add, while I find that contractual approach to be a useful one, I don't think its the only one that makes sense. It assumes the unreality of corporate or social entities. I may assume that for convenience at times too, but just because I'm willing to assume it doesn't mean I'm willing to believe it.
ReplyDeletePerhaps you're just used to others entertaining talk of "us normal folk against them snobby progressives" without any question, but I'd like to establish immediately that you're delusional if you think a say-so from an anonymous blog commenter comes across as compelling to anyone except the choir that you're preaching to.
ReplyDeleteNormal people are interested in philosophical engagements as well as other things. And for someone who supposedly has a humanities background, you seem to have an awfully myopic understanding of what the humanities entails, as you seem to merely associate it with opera and museums. What of the humanities scholars who are pushing public discourse on political rights, or foreign policy? What about those who are teaching our children to read, and trying to turn failed cities around through a rejuvenation of the community? It strikes me as utterly absurd to act as if the bulk of attention in the humanities is paid to empty rituals of high culture. I think you've been misinformed.
Actually, I was thinking of the "common good" as opposed to common pool resources - contract is part of that certainly, but not the whole of it.
ReplyDeleteYou ought to watch the video; very funny.
Evan could clean up vague sentiments about "the common good".
ReplyDeleteOh, hogwash. What is "welfare" except a pursuit of the common good? And one is always perfectly free to argue whether or not a given policy actually works towards the common good, but there's nothing presumptuous about presenting this as a political end. It's as appropriate a term as "efficiency" or "security" or "justice" when speaking of societal structures, and while it's vague, it prevents a general orientation toward what we're trying to have a constructive discussion about.
The only people who could conceivably jump on a phrase as innocuous as "the common good" are those who are ideologically committed to seeing enemy conspiracies around every corner. It's absurd that something like this is even worth bringing into question.
*presents a general orientation.
ReplyDelete"Prevents" changes the meaning of my point quite decidedly, doesn't it? :)
...I did watch the video, by the way, and got a kick out of it. Yes Minister clips are always great, although I've only ever watched bits and pieces on youtube. I should try to track down the series to watch at length some time.
ReplyDeleteRE: "Oh, hogwash. What is "welfare" except a pursuit of the common good?"
ReplyDeleteNo, I'm actually meaning this: "But the idea that a state engaged with the pursuit of the common good is what's behind humanities funding is, I think, pretty accurate". That's the sentiment that is left vague. I'm actually somewhat agreeing with Anonymous's critique that you're just assuming that this is what the state is pursuing. I think that's a very tough statement to make, and while I suspect something like that is accurate, I wouldn't just declare it to be accurate.
State support probably does pursue a lot of "common bad" in its humanities work too. I guess I'm just agreeing with Anyonymous's basic critique, critiquing Anonymous for pretending that there aren't a host of problems with his individualist/contractual basis of argument, and still agreeing with your wider perspective despite assenting to some of the concerns that anonymous raises.
"but there's nothing presumptuous about presenting this as a political end"
ReplyDeleteOf course that's a presumption! What do you think has more to do with public humanities education and funding in this country - the state's dedication to the common good, or the interests and opinions of tenured faculty and a self-appointed cultural elite who feel it is incumbent upon themselves to define what the common good is?
Again - I'm not disagreeing with your basic argument for public support for the humanities. But I do think this is more of an assumption than you're admiting. Just think of new art forms or offensive artists that don't get the stamp of approval. Think of how oriented towards the status quo the humanities can be. There are good reasons for that, of course. But the self-preservation of the incumbent is an important motivator as well.
"The only people who could conceivably jump on a phrase as innocuous as "the common good" are those who are ideologically committed to seeing enemy conspiracies around every corner."
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure the "common good" is so much a problem as your assumptions about the common good.
"...but I'd like to establish immediately that you're delusional if you think a say-so from an anonymous blog commenter comes across as compelling to anyone except the choir that you're preaching to."
ReplyDeleteThe operative word here is blog; there is nothing authoritative about blogs as a general rule. People have their opinions and they voice them.
"...you seem to have an awfully myopic understanding of what the humanities entails..."
I can only speak to my own direct experience.
"What about those who are teaching our children to read, and trying to turn failed cities around through a rejuvenation of the community?"
What about them? Are you somehow suggesting that we need a vast complex of form institutions for that? If it was ever required, that's just inertia now.
And cities are not turned around by planners; they are turned around by the people who live in them and care about them. If anything, what planning has proven is that it (a) destroys cities and (b) creates monstrous white elephants and Potemkin villages.
"The operative word here is blog; there is nothing authoritative about blogs as a general rule"
ReplyDeleteWe're the exception that proves the rule :)
"The only people who could conceivably jump on a phrase as innocuous as "the common good" are those who are ideologically committed to seeing enemy conspiracies around every corner."
ReplyDeleteIt actually is not an innocuous term any more (if it ever was); it is a well-worn phrase of the prog-left used to signal a vast complex of interrelated intellectual baggage.
For both anonymous and Daniel, it may be worth taking a step back here. Humanities funding as directed towards the common good was mentioned, but again (and again, and again), I'm not just talking about tenure lines here. The blog post itself was about a philosophy blog hosted by a newspaper. There is humanities work funded at the grade school level as well. The institutions I'm talking about here are not simply "planners" or a "vast complex". The "people who live in [the cities] and care about them" are exactly who I'm talking about, anonymous, but you miss this because you assume that I'm associating the humanities more generally merely with the memories of high culture that have most impressed themselves into your memory.
ReplyDeleteAnd yes, of course there are other motivations at play and it would be naive to say that all support of humanistic efforts has been done for the common good. But as a driving force, the tenured faculty and cultured elite are a rather limited (though, granted, influential) section of the humanities.
Initially I was worried about making this point because I thought it would detract from the post... but there's enough here now that I feel OK saying it:
ReplyDeleteRegarding the picture of Crichtley that Evan posted - I really don't like it when men wear scarves.
That is all.
It actually is not an innocuous term any more (if it ever was); it is a well-worn phrase of the prog-left used to signal a vast complex of interrelated intellectual baggage.
ReplyDeleteWell, I'm sorry, I'm not the "prog-left" (whatever that is), so I was blissfully unaware that I was using their secret password. Please find it in your heart to trust me when I say that I'm not trying to slip a fast one by you.
Prog-left = progressive left; also prog-lib = progressive liberal. The term has been all the rage since the mid-2000s. I'm rather skeptical that you can find a "common good" in a nation of hundreds of millions. In that sort of society the "interest group" explanation as Madison described it and as political philosophers/scientists have modified it makes much more sense.
ReplyDeleteAre we talking on the national level here? I missed the memo that this was established.
ReplyDeleteI would agree with you that such vast populations make talk of the common good difficult. Rather than throw up my hands and advocate for a break up of the Union, however, I tend to find it better to focus on local problems and local solutions. Indeed, half the problem with the cult of national interest is that people forget the more immediate social bonds, which are really the most important.
...and that's not to deny the wider political structures that hang over local community, but it seems to me that multiple levels of sociality are in play at any given point. I can care about my family, my town, and my state as it makes decisions that impact on social interactions without thus denying that anything is going on in D.C. or on Wall Street. And if you look at how the humanities are changing lives... again, with reading programs or community participation in renewal efforts... all of this has a pretty local focus.
ReplyDeleteAre anonymous and I even accurately interpreting "public" as being "governmental"? I think there's this assumption a lot - certainly in the circles I comment in - but it could also mean private civil society.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous - I can assure you that Evan is not a liberal/progressive. I think he has stylistic tendancies and values and ideals that you interpret as being left/progressive because you engage a lot of state vs. society issues (as do I) - but Evan often doesn't. He doesn't run in circles where "public" means "government", so I think a lot comes across as being about the state which really isn't.
That's not to say he doesn't think about the state or that he doesn't see a bigger role for it than you do - both of us probably do. But I don't think that's always where his head is, and I think that's causing a lot of the confusion here.
On the "public", I think you're right that I'm not talking "government", unless I used the word alongside "funding" (I don't know, we can look back and check if you want to).
ReplyDeleteAlso, w.r.t. funding, I come out of a private university context (Wheaton College and now UChicago), so my mind doesn't always immediately go to state funding for education either.