Many of those in the humanities are beginning to ring the alarm in distress--in fact many have started doing so many years ago, because many outside of the field are beginning to question the relevancy of the Humanistic disciplines such as Art History, Women's Studies, Literature, and a host of subjects that occupy the selves of your typical liberal arts college's academic advising office; especially now in the tough economic times that we are in.

As a college graduate in European History I am often confronted with the common criticism that says that my degree is worthless, or in a slightly nicer tone, that I have not acquired any of the skills necessary to make it out there in the real world. To the dismay of my parents, under immense pressure to change my major to something more "practical", I held my ground and continued with my major.

Even though graduation for me was just a couple of months ago, the economic realities have changed so drastically for many college students that holding their ground and sticking to their liberal arts' discipline today seem like a clear sign of insanity rather than resolve. Our initial reaction might be to shout, "Quick kid, switch to nursing while you still have a chance!"

The problem for the humanist educators and advocates has always been explaining how an investment (and that is after all what all degrees of Higher Education are: an investment) in the humanities translates to real world dollars in the end. Unlike other majors, like chemistry, accounting--though I am sure they too are suffering these days--and engineering, where the choices are more clear, and thus far more limiting, a degree in the humanities opens as many doors as it supposedly closes. Thus after the celebration of commencement a graduate in the Humanities might be left confused as to where they are supposed to go next.

Combined with our national disdain of intellectualism is of course the culture in which a young graduate in humanities finds him or herself. Our culture has become obsessed with bigger and better. Whatever your job is it is supposed to net you a certain income for it to be considered worthwhile. For graduates in the humanities those kind of occupations are few and scarce, and some would argue shrinking.

In a society focused on instant gratification, assembly-line efficiency, where the end result can be observed with the basic senses; sitting down starring at the Edward Hopper's Nighthawks seems like a waste time, especially when Cliff Notes are at your finger tips. The graduate in humanities seeks engagement, rather than results, because the graduate in humanities seeks a greater appreciation and acquisition of knowledge. As a result the graduate in humanities seems like a fish out of water, or appropriately a curious person starring at the sky in the middle of a busy street during Rush Hour: not so much concerned about where he or she is going but rather fully understanding what they are looking at and questioning why they are there.

Some have gone so far to call for the abolishment of the humanities, a purging of the educational system; only leaving behind the disciplines that can be cashed in at the end of the day. (Until recently this list included all fields related to business, but since the collapse they have been scrubbed off the list of worthy disciplines as well.) Because of this the stress test for the Humanities has gotten harder, as Higher Education has become less of a luxury for the wealthy and sustainable, and more of an economic necessity for everyone. The latest reaffirmation of this fact came Tuesday when the President spoke before both houses of Congress, and set the expectation that each American attain some kind of Higher Education.

The humanities have been having to justify their existence as part of the standard college curriculum for years now, but these days the opposition has upped the ante. Boards of Trustees have begun to cut back on funding for the Humanities, in exchange for a greater amount of resources devoted to the money-making disciplines. (Professors in the humanities can expect on average to get paid much less than professors in the STEM [science, technology, engineering, and mathematics] disciplines than ever before.)  Professors of the Humanities, stewards of the human story, have found themselves having to teach a generation that seems less interested in Plato (whom I never really liked so I can understand their reservation), Ralph Waldo Emerson, and even the Mark Twain and more concerned with the printed form of Jackson, Benjamin, and in such times even Washington.

If you ever have trouble trying to figure out how to stretch a fifteen cents into a dollar, ask the chair of a Humanities department, who has come to expect an ever shrinking budget with higher expectations from the administration every year.

To a certain extent this is to be expected, Higher education has always been a business, and like all businesses the primary concern is making money; however, the balance of being in the business of making money and in the business of developing the human mind has been shifted too far to one end of the scale. Even though I am a strong supporter of the liberal arts a nation of poets, historians, and philosophers is not going to get us far; however, a democracy of drone like accountants will not function well either.

As a liberal arts college student I enjoyed thoroughly my stint with the sciences when they were required to graduate. My courses in the humanities augmented my appreciation of the sciences, the class long discussion of the philosophical argument about why zero is truly a number is one of my most memorable. And I have always felt that college students should take an Intro to Physics and Philosophy 101 together, as both in many ways challenges the mind in its understand and perception of the immediate and unimaginably large universe: for example pondering the purpose for life when by most indications life and every other molecules there ever was or will be will be ripped apart by Dark Energy as the Universe continues to expand, eventually reducing everything to mere protons.

So, no, I do not think the humanities should be scrapped, if anything I think faculty across the board must learn how to make their classes augment each other, so that both the Chemistry major and History major can find value in their respective opposites' discipline.

In the immediate however I think we might be rushing to conclusions. While certainly everyone has the economy on their mind, there is no reason to assume that this crisis will undoubtedly lead to the end of the humanities. Surely the same arguments against the humanities were made during early periods in our nation's history. Literacy for one was seen as trivial for most, because being able to read the newspaper would not translate to food on the table.

In a similar sense, today we all focus on making ends meet and not coming short. I find turning to Abraham Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs (see here) as a good juxtaposition for where we are currently as individuals and as a country. By most indications we are somewhere between Physiological and Safety layers. Thus our decisions and advice are driven by the desire to ensure safety and well-being: "bread and butter" over "food for the brain". Conversely when the economy rebounds and we find ourselves back in the upper most layer, Self-Acculationazation, we are likely to see people then choose to go back into Humanities in greater numbers. With safety and well-being secure, the typical human being, or in this case typical college student, can afford to be intellectually curious.

While one of the roles of a college is to prepare its students for the working world another of its equally important roles is to prepare those students to become engaged with the world intellectually; and that is at the core why a liberal arts education is so important.

This post first appeared at Clips 'N Chips