Summary: “The Humanities Are Not A Luxury: A Manifesto For The Twenty-First
Are students changing from Humanities major? Is it too expensive to fund the Humanities department? Does it mean that the Humanities department is in crisis? Most of these answers are a bit complex. Many would argue that the Humanities department is in crisis; however, according to Martha Nell Smith, it is not in crisis. According to Smith’s Manifesto, “The Humanities Are Not a Luxury: A Manifesto for the Twenty-First Century,” her message to the readers executes that humanities was not about the luxuries, it was about the sheer fact of being humane. She quotes numerous authors from Audre Lorde to Robert Frost. Smith starts off by quoting Audre Lorde’s work by arguing that poetry is not just luxurious, it is also essential to our lives.
Furthermore, she claims poetry is not just words, but also involves “all the arts and humanities. ” (Smith 48) Smith gathers her claim of metaphors and words not always having a positive influence which was stirred from Robert Frost’s quote. Often certain endings of poems can contradict a different message to a reader who is reading a piece. Which makes it seem like you cannot tell ‘boys’ what to do, thus, this led to setup a problem of including metaphors in works of pieces.
However, Smith, contradicts the point and mentions that metaphors are important for critical thinking. (Smith 48) This led to her evidence of including Mark Yudof, the President of University of California’s speech about budget crisis of the English department. (Smith 50) It was emphasized many times that it had cost too much to fund the English Department which was part of the Humanities area. The evidence in this is that Yudolf’s claim is something we should already be “putting this and that together” (Smith 51) This means, we should already know that what he is stating is basically right. Smith then brings out Emily Dickinson, who claims we all have different views. She specifically declared, “We, see -- Comparatively. ” (1998, 580) Smith, then signifiest on how other department are funded by other agencies. She uses that as evidence that humanities can be enriched by more funding. (Smith 51)
Smith expresses her thoughts on how Yodolf and others are describing Humanities as it is in crisis -- it is not. She makes a declaration that is media is also making it seem like humanities is danger of being in crisis. The rebuttal here is that there are pictures of professors and students saying, “save humanities. ” The counter argument is that Smith is still in denial that it still should not be called a “crisis. ” (Smith 51 -52) Smith implicates her point in a “Jeordadized” way with her four counter evidence. Her first once were statistics which were gathered from MLA surveys which implicated PHDS not getting employments, ACLS employment is hard to find, humanities is attached every day and that humanity has become more “inhumane. ” (Smith 52)
The author wraps it up by suggesting five action plans. The action plans are: do not accept the myth that humanities cost but do not pay, power of literature will act as society as as whole, education cost should be the main concern, technology may take over, and lastly, opposition with administration or scientists. (Smith 55) She concludes by quoting Robert Frost, “ you don’t know the metaphor in its strength and its weakness. ” (1972, 334) The significance of this was to show that we do not really know the goods and bads of humanities but we should somehow preserve it for the public. (Smith 55)
