Doctorate Degrees in the Humanities: Exclusive Domain of the Aristocracy and Upper Class Once Again?

[Damuri_Ajashi]

[QUOTE=ThisUsernameIsForbidden;17122933There is a long-term bubble emerging in student loans.

http://www.newyorkfed.org/studentloandebt/[/QUOTE]

That’s not a bubble, noone is bidding up the value of student loans and now that the federal government is holding the paper, its not being traded around, securitized and leveraged the way mortgages were. What you are seeing is more people going to college and incurring more student loans. We should do something about the cost of higher education and making sure that people incur these debts with their eyes wide open but I don’t see a bubble. All the federal debt is held by the federal government from here on out.

We might see an increase in default rates but we’ve seen those before.

@Jumpin-Jack-Flash

The Ivy League would be the only place to obtain a classical education in America. Sad, but I think this is the future.

That’s not true. Unlike the UK, law school is a graduate degree and the humanities are common undergraduate degrees for people planning to go to law school. You also have those semi-liberal arts degrees like economics which can lead to really decent jobs.

@even_sven

It’s even more diabolical than that. The underlying argument is that “college isn’t for everyone.” Any guesses who college supposably isn’t for?

It’s all about decreasing competition for upward mobility low by keeping as many people as you can out of the market. Yeah, kids, education is a waste of time. Nothing to see here. Your better off being a plumber than applying to the schools my kids are applying to.

You realize that noone is discouraging STEM studies, right? I have not heard a single politician, conservative or otherwise telling people not to take out loans to get an engineering degree. The “why not go to trade school” is usually paired with criticism of too many people going into areas of study that have very poor job prospects. The point is to INCREASE economic mobility by encouraging people not to saddle themselves with debt to study something that isn’t going to help them pay off that debt.

@monstro

I’m feel uneasy about letting the wealthy and well-to-do dominate the humanities. Many of America’s great laureates have come from humble beginnings. The way we view the world and the things we think about are all shaped by life experiences. Why should philosophy be the domain of the leisure class? If all our essayists and social commentators all enjoying the same privileged background, then only the views and opinions of the privileged get aired and discussed. If you think TV and films lacks diversity now…if you think history is one-sided and biased now…imagine what these things would look like if these areas were restricted to the rich.

As long as law degrees are not undergraduate degrees, we will maintain a reasonably large population of folks who will feel like they can major in the humanities with an eye towards law school.

[Melchior]

@Steely_Dan_Fan

This is the exact opposite of true. We’re doing much better, because now we know how to deconstruct and reflexively analyze and engage with the tacit assumptions that underlay earlier scholarship, and are responsible for its being fundamentally flawed.

The Victorians were vastly far superior to the moderns. In philosophy, in particular. Read Jowett’s translations of Plato and compare them with any contemporary ones, if you even can stand to read them (I cannot do so without vomiting).

[ThisUsernameIsForbidden]

@Damuri_Ajashi

That’s not a bubble, noone is bidding up the value of student loans and now that the federal government is holding the paper, its not being traded around, securitized and leveraged the way mortgages were. What you are seeing is more people going to college and incurring more student loans. We should do something about the cost of higher education and making sure that people incur these debts with their eyes wide open but I don’t see a bubble. All the federal debt is held by the federal government from here on out.

We might see an increase in default rates but we’ve seen those before.

The idea is not that the value of the loans is inflated, but that the debt is unsustainable given the labor market. From the chart you can see a gradual increase in proportion of student loan debt relative to other types of debt, also the sharp increase in defaults. Yes it’s held by the government, but what’s the point? Unlike a bond where we loan govt money and it’s a very secure investment, this is like we owe the IRS and they can only get it if you have it. If the former students can’t pay back the debt then you have (much like a bank having artificially inflated assets due to bad mortgages) worthless assets. I think this is why it’s being called a ‘bubble’.

[WillFarnaby]

@Steely_Dan_Fan

It’s not frivolous. It’s the work done by scholars in the humanities that are foundational to social improvement.

Huhwaaaa? Are you kidding me with this stuff? 99% of the public do not care what these people are saying.

That’s the exact opposite of what the humanities have become over the last fifty years or so, thankfully.

Hmm. In favoring government action in every arena of human life, intellectuals have indeed served their masters dutifully.

[Steely_Dan_Fan]

@Melchior

The Victorians were vastly far superior to the moderns. In philosophy, in particular. Read Jowett’s translations of Plato and compare them with any contemporary ones, if you even can stand to read them (I cannot do so without vomiting).

1. Obviously, because translating is the same as doing philosophy. Is this seriously your argument?

2. I can’t speak to Plato in particular because I don’t know ancient Attic (do you?), but in general, translations today are vastly superior to the translations of a century or a century and a half ago because of improved knowledge of the cultural context and better methods of understanding the underlying dynamics, which helps us produce a translation that more fully represents the sense of the original.

[WillFarnaby]

@monstro

I’m feel uneasy about letting the wealthy and well-to-do dominate the humanities. Many of America’s great laureates have come from humble beginnings. The way we view the world and the things we think about are all shaped by life experiences. Why should philosophy be the domain of the leisure class? If all our essayists and social commentators all enjoying the same privileged background, then only the views and opinions of the privileged get aired and discussed. If you think TV and films lacks diversity now…if you think history is one-sided and biased now…imagine what these things would look like if these areas were restricted to the rich.

I’d much rather read an historian who has no incentive to lie to make a decent living, than some hack fellating the establishment to get ahead.

[Melchior]

@Steely_Dan_Fan

1. Obviously, because translating is the same as doing philosophy. Is this seriously your argument?

2. I can’t speak to Plato in particular because I don’t know ancient Attic (do you?), but in general, translations today are vastly superior to the translations of a century or a century and a half ago because of improved knowledge of the cultural context and better methods of understanding the underlying dynamics, which helps us produce a translation that more fully represents the sense of the original.

This is so hilarious I can hardly keep my hands on the keyboard. Translation is certainly part of scholarship. Jowett’s Plato is a monumental piece of scholarship unequaled before or since. His translation is accompanied by extensive commentary and supplementary material.

Though on individual points he may have been superseded, as a whole the work is a masterpiece of scholarship.

http://oll.libertyfund.org/?option=com_staticxt&staticfile=show.php%3Ftitle=166

[Kimstu]

@Melchior

Jowett’s Plato is a monumental piece of scholarship unequaled before or since. His translation is accompanied by extensive commentary and supplementary material.

To quote the classicist and poet A. E. Housman, Jowett’s Plato is “the best translation of a Greek philosopher which has ever been executed by a person who understood neither philosophy nor Greek”.

Though flippant, this echoes some of the criticisms Paul Shorey brought to bear in his (nonetheless appreciative) 1892 review of Jowett’s third edition:

Anxious to avoid the usual failing of translations — contamination with foreign idiom — he has, in his attempt to “form a general idea of the two languages and reduce one to terms of the other” chosen as his type of English that form of the literary language which bears least resemblance to the Greek language generally and to the style of Plato in particular. It is perfectly true that “good” modern English tends to throw off the adversative and inferential form ; that it avoids elaborate periods and pronounced rhythms, and is intolerant of anacoluthon and tautology ; and that archaisms, quotations and a consciously Saxon vocabulary impair the equability of a style. But English literature affords many models of style, from the prose of Milton and Hooker to that of De Quincey, Carlyle, Ruskin and Walter Pater, that in some or all of these respects are much better adapted to reproduce the effect of the Greek of Plato. The English reader of culture enjoys and appreciates these styles quite as much as his Addison, Swift or Macaulay. Why should he be compelled to read his Plato in a style that Lysias would have employed, had Lysias been a Saturday Reviewer? The translator’s statement that "in some respects it may be maintained that ordinary English writing, such as the newspaper article, is superior to Plato : at any rate, it is couched in language which is rarely obscure " — this portentous dictum, I say, makes one ask whether Professor Jowett is aware how much of the force and feeling of the original is lost in his fluent rewriting. […]

As a result of this lack of definiteness and precision in the conception and statement of philosophic questions, we find intermingled with the fine sayings that adorn these pages an equal number of errors, misleading suggestions, fantastic analogies, misconceived criticisms of Plato, epigrammatic evasions of serious problems, and Hegelian passages of what Ruskin calls " pure, definite and highly finished nonsense." […]

A philosopher is required to translate a philosopher, and Professor Jowett’s belletristic attitude towards philosophy impairs the value of his translation for serious students. One who reads for pleasure, inspiration and the general effect is charmed by the ease, grace and perfect propriety of the English, and accepts the translator’s dictum that nothing would be gained by a pedantic and punctilious conformity to the structure of the Greek sentence. But suppose a reader wishes to catch the exact nuance of Plato’s thought in some matter where thought and feeling surpass the subtlety of language many times at the best. He will desire either a facsimile of the original, by patient study of which he may puzzle out the meaning for himself, or a ’ compensating version made with an unerring instinct born of a profound insight into the author’s thought. Jowett’s pretty periphrases, elegant ‘compensations’ and ingenious abbreviations are a constant delight to a reader who seeks only the charm, the wit and the dramatic life of the dialogues. They will, even in this substantially correct third edition, frequently mislead the reader who wishes to follow the argument.

[bump]

@Jumpin-Jack-Flash

The same will happen in America, as state universities will no longer fund these subjects. The Ivy League would be the only place to obtain a classical education in America. Sad, but I think this is the future.

Doubtful. No state would want to be considered some sort of hillbilly state that can’t or won’t fund humanities at their state universities. Even somewhere like Arkansas or Louisiana would look even more benighted if they did away with the humanities at U of A or LSU.

Plus, most degree plans at big state universities require some portion of the courses taken be in the humanities, so they’d have to revamp the degree programs (and accreditation, I suspect) or at least keep rump humanities departments for that reason alone. My alma mater did just that for a long time; we were originally chartered as an engineering and agriculture school, and developed into a strong engineering, science, agriculture and business school, but for the most part, the humanities were there to say we had them, and to provide professors to teach the required humanities classes for everyone else. But we had them nonetheless, and they did award doctorates.

[Qin_Shi_Huangdi]

I sure hope not. I plan to aim for a career in academia as a historian even though my family isn’t exactly the wealthiest.

[Kobal2]

@even_sven

It’s even more diabolical than that. The underlying argument is that “college isn’t for everyone.” Any guesses who college supposably isn’t for?

It’s all about decreasing competition for upward mobility low by keeping as many people as you can out of the market. Yeah, kids, education is a waste of time. Nothing to see here. Your better off being a plumber than applying to the schools my kids are applying to.

I’d say the class issue, while present, is not that clear cut.
To me, there are two reasons anybody might go to college (well, three, but the third one’s irrelevant) : pursuit of a money-making career, or to learn something interesting. Rich kids don’t necessarily need a money-making career since they know they can always fall back on Daddy Warbucks, thus they’re more free to pursue more scholarly knowledge.
And the fact is, there isn’t a lone buck to be made in history, philosophy, or lit. studies.

[Wendell_Wagner]

Jumpin-Jack-Flash writes:

> Until the Second World War, academics associated with history, philosophy and
> English departments at the major universities of Europe and America were almost
> exclusively drawn from the aristocracy and the upper classes. Even to this day, it
> can be argued that the humanities are dominated mainly by the sons and
> daughters of affluence, in contrast to those scholars engaged in STEM subjects.

Do you have any evidence for this at all? I’m continually astonished by people who will start a thread by making some completely unsupported assertion who then want to know why such a thing happened or what the consequence of such a thing is, but they expect us to believe that this thing happened with no evidence from them that it’s true at all. Give us some evidence for this. Show us that academics before the 1940’s were overwhelmingly from “aristocracy and the upper classes.” (Among other things, I don’t think you know just how small a proportion of the population the aristocracy is.) I’m not asking for proof that only a tiny proportion of poor people went to college or that a relatively small proportion of middle-class people went to college back then. That’s obvious. I’m asking for proof that, among those relatively few people who graduated from college, those who became humanities academics were overwhelmingly from “upper class” families.

Furthermore, you don’t really know what the trends in academia are. Most academics in the U.S. today are not people in relatively comfortable tenured or at least tenure-track positions. Most college-teaching jobs are untenured. They are often taught by people who have to teach part-time at a couple of colleges to make a living. It’s been increasingly true for the past thirty years or so that getting a Ph.D. in anything is a crap shoot. You might be lucky enough to get one of the tenure-track positions at a reasonably good college, or you may spend the rest of your life trying to scrape by on temporary and often part-time work. I don’t know the statistics, but I suspect that there’s been no growing tendency in the past thirty or so years for Ph.D. earners to be from richer families. Rich people aren’t stupid, and they are willing and able to tell their children what career fields pay well. It’s more likely, I think, that the army of Ph.D.'s who have to spend the rest of their lives teaching at several community colleges at the same time to survive come from poor to middle-class families. They think to themselves, “Hey, I’m never going to make very much, but I still make a little more than my father did as a janitor. At least I can occasionally think about something interesting, rather than pushing a broom all day.”

[QuickSilver]

@Wendell_Wagner

Do you have any evidence for this at all? I’m continually astonished by people who will start a thread by making some completely unsupported assertion who then want to know why such a thing happened or what the consequence of such a thing is, but they expect us to believe that this thing happened with no evidence from them that it’s true at all. Give us some evidence for this.

On the contrary. I believe that if you state your position emphatically enough and commit no spelling or grammatical errors, your argument is to be considered sound and requires no such supporting evidence.

[BlakeTyner]

This thread has taken some strange tangents…

(Disclaimer: I am an academic. My degrees are in the humanities. I grew up (and remain) middle class.)

The one thing that strikes me as being way off base is the idea that we professors somehow, as a whole, ‘carry water’ for the establishment. As someone who teaches literature–and makes many bucks doing so–I have to wonder whether or not y’all have sat through a literature survey course.

Did you not study “Ozymandias,” and relate it to Western Imperial powers? Or “Heart of Darkness,” with its critique of imperialism as well as the potential evil of both the individual and the establishment? What about Plato’s cave allegory, from “Republic,” which illustrates quite nicely what happens when plebes are held down by superiors? Or “The Importance of Being Earnest,” lampooning high society (the establishment)? Blake and Wordsworth on the industrial revolution in England? The list goes on…

The above texts are covered in the core curriculum; even engineering majors are required to take at least 2 literature courses.

Anyway, I do think that we are likely to see a shift in higher education; almost universally, in class discussions, 90% or more of my students say they are in college in order to get a job to make more money. Very few come from wealthy backgrounds, or claim to be there to simply gain a liberal arts education to make themselves better people.

As an insider at a public institution, one of the main problems that we face is that tuition alone, as expensive as it is, only covers about a quarter of our overhead. The state, over the past few decades, has continually cut funding for public education at all levels–their funding covered 88% of our costs in 1985, but 22% today; thus, our college President is less an academic and more a fundraiser-in-chief, out trying to find alternate funding methods.

I’m also interested in the statement about how “not everyone should/can go to college.” That’s about as factual as it gets; there are many students, of all backgrounds and demographics, that simply cannot handle the courses. Sometimes–usually–it’s simply immaturity and laziness. But when you have a student whose goal is to become a lawyer, and he cannot write a complete sentence, or understand that all mass has gravity, then he most likely shouldn’t be wasting taxpayer money, and/or taking out loans. My rosters always start full, but within about 3 weeks, 10% of the enrolled students are gone, never to be seen again by the college.

[Jumpin-Jack-Flash]

@Wendell_Wagner

Jumpin-Jack-Flash writes:

> Until the Second World War, academics associated with history, philosophy and
> English departments at the major universities of Europe and America were almost
> exclusively drawn from the aristocracy and the upper classes. Even to this day, it
> can be argued that the humanities are dominated mainly by the sons and
> daughters of affluence, in contrast to those scholars engaged in STEM subjects.

Do you have any evidence for this at all? I’m continually astonished by people who will start a thread by making some completely unsupported assertion who then want to know why such a thing happened or what the consequence of such a thing is, but they expect us to believe that this thing happened with no evidence from them that it’s true at all. Give us some evidence for this. Show us that academics before the 1940’s were overwhelmingly from “aristocracy and the upper classes.” (Among other things, I don’t think you know just how small a proportion of the population the aristocracy is.) I’m not asking for proof that only a tiny proportion of poor people went to college or that a relatively small proportion of middle-class people went to college back then. That’s obvious. I’m asking for proof that, among those relatively few people who graduated from college, those who became humanities academics were overwhelmingly from “upper class” families.

Furthermore, you don’t really know what the trends in academia are. Most academics in the U.S. today are not people in relatively comfortable tenured or at least tenure-track positions. Most college-teaching jobs are untenured. They are often taught by people who have to teach part-time at a couple of colleges to make a living. It’s been increasingly true for the past thirty years or so that getting a Ph.D. in anything is a crap shoot. You might be lucky enough to get one of the tenure-track positions at a reasonably good college, or you may spend the rest of your life trying to scrape by on temporary and often part-time work. I don’t know the statistics, but I suspect that there’s been no growing tendency in the past thirty or so years for Ph.D. earners to be from richer families. Rich people aren’t stupid, and they are willing and able to tell their children what career fields pay well. It’s more likely, I think, that the army of Ph.D.'s who have to spend the rest of their lives teaching at several community colleges at the same time to survive come from poor to middle-class families. They think to themselves, “Hey, I’m never going to make very much, but I still make a little more than my father did as a janitor. At least I can occasionally think about something interesting, rather than pushing a broom all day.”

Yeah, I have evidence. My own personal observations after a lifetime of existence. Honestly, communicating with you mathematics/hard science types can be excruciatingly frustrating! Empirical evidence is fine for many arguments, sure, but in the sort of informal discourse such as I initiated here, and within the confines of something which is not much more than an online chat room, really defies your ridiculous request for bibliographic references.

I am British. My research and expertise lies within the humanities. I have been employed on the staff at several large British universities for many years. I am keenly aware – make that painfully aware – of the workings, both spoken and unspoken, of the British class system. Therefore, I believe I can make an observational anecdote of my world without having to dig out texts and citing one study after another confirming my anecdotal observations. Try to remember that this is merely an online forum where many academics and intellectuals can blow off steam and/or instigate discussion. If you want a full bibliographic essay, subscribe to a journal. Don’t expect one from me on this online discussion board. I’m new to this board, but after perusing it I sense there are a lot of socially retarded individuals hiding out here, many of whom bear all the markings of pompous, pretentious post-graduate students.

In closing, please do not respond to any of my writings in future, as I do not have the patience for hair-splitting. Your insistence of mind-numbing, one-sided statistics as proof of my lifetime of worldly experience is not only insulting but downright ridiculous. Now go back to your laboratory or computer and do whatever it is your kind does.

[Wendell_Wagner]

That’s how the Straight Dope Message Board works, Jumpin-Jack-Flash. We demand evidence for things. We know by now that people are far too likely to unconsciously massage their memories to make them fit their theories. Without evidence, people could claim many things and get away with it. My personal observations don’t fit yours, and if personal observations were all that’s important, mine are as good as yours. Incidentally, I have master’s degrees in both a science-related field and a humanities-related field, and I lived in England for three years as an adult, knowing a lot of educated people. Find some evidence. If you don’t like that, you’re welcome to find another message board.

[Damuri_Ajashi]

@ThisUsernameIsForbidden

The idea is not that the value of the loans is inflated, but that the debt is unsustainable given the labor market.

The point is that people are using the word bubble to try and equate it to the mortgage crisis or the dot com bubble, etc. This is no more a bubble than the medicare bubble or the social security bubble. They are challenges we have to address but I don’t know if its a bubbles except to the extent that people might be overly optimistic about the value of universal higher education.

[Jumpin-Jack-Flash]

@Wendell_Wagner

That’s how the Straight Dope Message Board works, Jumpin-Jack-Flash. We demand evidence for things. We know by now that people are far too likely to unconsciously massage their memories to make them fit their theories. Without evidence, people could claim many things and get away with it. My personal observations don’t fit yours, and if personal observations were all that’s important, mine are as good as yours. Incidentally, I have master’s degrees in both a science-related field and a humanities-related field, and I lived in England for three years as an adult, knowing a lot of educated people. Find some evidence. If you don’t like that, you’re welcome to find another message board.

That’s what peer reviewed journals and monographs are for, @$$hole. This is not a peer reviewed journal. Don’t write back, blowhard.

[Wendell_Wagner]

You know nothing of how the SDMB works. Spend some time reading it before you discuss it. We require evidence here.

[Bridget_Burke]

In closing, please do not respond to any of my writings in future, as I do not have the patience for hair-splitting. Your insistence of mind-numbing, one-sided statistics as proof of my lifetime of worldly experience is not only insulting but downright ridiculous. Now go back to your laboratory or computer and do whatever it is your kind does.

We have absolutely no reason to believe in your “lifetime of worldly experience.” And anybody here can respond to anybody else’s post. This is the Great Debates forum, in which cites & evidence are usually expected. Don’t papers in the humanities require references to support opinions?

I was going to add that many of us are not impressed by the High Class British act. (We aren’t all Downton Abbey fans.) But your last response to **Wendell Wagner **blew your cover…