IT HAS LONG BEEN A CLICHÉ TO SPEAK OF A CRISIS in the Humanities. As long ago as 1964, J.H. Plumb published a collection of essays under that title. Six decades later, and an article about external crises for the humanities writes itself: declining numbers, declining funding, declining societal value, declining autonomy and declining expectations.
These issues are rehearsed every year, drifting, unabated, in depressing directions. Yet what is rarely spoken of is the crisis within the Humanities: many of those entrusted with nurturing and propagating these disciplines have lost all sense of shared purpose.
TO START WITH FIRST PRINCIPLES: “HUMANITIES” IS NOT modern branding. The term comes from the very epicentre of Roman culture: in a law court of 63 bc, Cicero first spoke of studia humanitatis (“the pursuits of humanity”) to highlight the learning of his adversary, the austere Stoic grandee Marcus Cato. Fundamentally, humanitas meant the human condition, but it evolved to describe both humane conduct and a liberal education — synonymous with the artes liberales.
The Humanities continued through the middle ages, with Latin being the lingua franca of all educated discourse: linguistic training was essential, while philosophy and theology took centre stage. Come the Renaissance, the collective disciplinary sense of humanitas was revitalised by figures such as Coluccio Salutati and Leonardo Bruni, both Chancellors of Florence; these self-described “humanists” sought the revival of Latin and Greek culture through literature. Their optimistic vision of the humanities endured, in some form, for the next five centuries.
THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY, BY CONTRAST, HAS SEEN the Humanities decline, both proportionally and, now, in total numbers. In 1961, 28 per cent of British undergraduates studied a Humanities subject; now, only one in 14
