By Doug Pugh
Once, I was a farmer working in the great outdoors, able to move with the breeze into open spaces. I had time then to pause and listen to the music in its rhythms.
The work was hard, but I could observe the quaking of the trees’ leaves, perceive what was being blown about, and in what direction. Comfort lies in such perceptions, and I could feel the absence of stress more than the weight of it.
Then I moved to town, worked as an attorney at an inside location.
A recent Harvard School of Public Health report asked people to identify what most helped them relieve stress. At the top of their list? Spending time outdoors (“Need Help For Stress and Anxiety? Maybe You Shouldn’t See A Therapist,” The Wall Street Journal, March 17, 2023)
My move to town was doubly stressful. Another article, from The Washington Post, “The Happiest, Less Stressful, Most Meaningful Jobs in America ” (Jan. 6, 2023), revealed that the practice of law is the most stressful occupation.
Both location and occupation affect stress, but you already know that. But another one of the reasons, you may not know and may be surprised to learn.
A significant cause of the increase in societal stress appears to be that, over the last few decades, the number of English and History majors at our nation’s universities has been reduced by roughly one-half. Enrollments in the humanities are in freefall.
For example, at Harvard University in the 1970s, 30% of the student body majored in one of the humanities, a percentage now standing at 7%.
Conversely, enrollment in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) has increased substantially.
It’s not that our priorities are wrong — STEM stuff is essential. Technological progress, though presenting unique challenges, has served us well. It may even save us if artificial intelligence doesn’t destroy us. But it can’t do it alone.
James Shapiro, an English professor at Columbia, attributes increased stress to two factors: first, the pervasiveness and speed with which technology has invaded our lives; and second, society’s allocation of resources away from the liberal arts.
If you graph funding for the humanities since the 1950s, you’ll produce an upside-down parabola, with the left arm trending higher, curving to an apex, and then crashing after the 2007 economic crisis.
According to Professor Shapirio, a graph showing the growth and decline of democracy during the same period follows this same curve.
These graphs reflect the reality that, for the first time in our nation’s history, an upcoming generation has less knowledge of the human past than the preceding generation. Hard to tell where you’re going when you don’t know where you’ve been.
But all is not lost. Sanjing Sarma, a mechanical engineering professor at MIT, says the future belongs to the humanities. A conclusion supported by career studies showing that humanities majors, with their writing, communication, and broadly based analytical skills, often assume leadership roles in society.
And change is evolving. People in their 30s and 40s and older are taking advantage of community colleges and/or internet access to higher education. In many cases, they are not going back to school to take technical courses; rather, they are returning to study the humanities.
Having been out in the world for a few years, experiencing the realities of competitive existence, they, too, are asking the question: “What’s it all about, Alfie? Is it just for the moment we live?”
New York Times columnist David Brooks recently wrote of feeling shallow. Technology had shortened his attention span by filling his day with petty distractions. So he escaped to art, finding relief from the “yapping within” and opening his consciousness to an appreciation not of new gadgets or a new political amorality but of emotions that could move him beyond narrowness.
Brooks recently left the Times and has accepted a position at Yale University. In addition, he will be a staff writer for The Atlantic whose editor in chief described Brooks’ anticipated contributions like this:
“With a reporter’s curiosity and a writer’s grace, David will speak to the faults of governments, institutions, and social structures and explore the moral, social, and philosophical underpinnings of human decency.” — Jeffery Goldberg.
This area is fortunate to USCB’s Center for the Arts and many fine artists, galleries, museums, and libraries.
Opportunities abound to forgo the trivialities, to allow a fresh breeze of the humanities to blow stress away, and to do as David Brooks is doing: explore the underpinnings of human decency.
Doug Pugh is a retired judge from northern Michigan. He and his wife are wintering on Fripp Island and are pleased to be there. He can be reached at pughda@gmail.com.