One of the most commonly asked questions English majors receive is “Why?”  While the lack of consideration that many people give the subject is insulting, the question itself is certainly one worth engaging.  Why be an English Major?  What value does an English major provide?

The New Yorker’s Adam Gopnik put it succinctly, saying “The reason we need the humanities is because we’re human.  That is enough”.  His argument was prompted by the question of what kind of value teaching English provided.  The rate at which colleges are graduating English majors has been rapidly declining for a while, now, and there is worry that English departments will begin to disappear.

There are two arguments that Gopnik examines: One stating that English majors make better people and another insisting that studying the humanities makes society better.  Gopnik argues that these two things aren’t really true, but the evidence that he uses is dubious at best.

Gopnik first argues that, while the humanities may make a contribution to society, they do not provide the same kind of material value that a more technical profession would provide.  Gopnik is missing the point, however.  The humanities don’t exist as a method to more efficiently provide goods and services to others; rather, they are intended to explore the world from differing perspectives.  Gopnik rebuttals this by saying that Bernard Lewis, a leading scholar on Islam, consulted with Dick Cheney before the Iraq war.  This example is dubious, at best, for a few reasons.  First, it relies on a sample size of one to make a point.  When looking at an entire field of study, a more comprehensive analysis is needed.  Secondly, Bernard Lewis was a poor example to choose from.  Lewis’s studies were so focused, that he was unable to see the nuances of the Arab world.  This defeats the point of the study of the humanities, as the humanities are designed to offer perspective, and that is clearly not what happened in the case of Lewis

Gopnik next argues that the people who study English aren’t necessarily better people.  He points out that “no one was better read than the English upper classes who, a hundred years ago, blundered into the catastrophe of the Great War. (They wrote good poetry about it, the ones who survived anyway.) Victorian factory owners read Dickens, but it didn’t make Victorian factories nicer”.  These things are true, but Gopnik contradicts his himself in his following statement, saying “what made them nicer was people who read Dickens and Mill and then petitioned Parliament”.  The conditions which led to class stratification were not products of education in the humanities, but rather a lack thereof.  In fact, the study of the humanities is what led to a civil uprising rather than a violent one, in the case of the factory labor.

The importance of the humanities should not be understated, but there is debate over what the subjects of study should be.  In particular, is it more valuable to study the classics or a diverse set of literature from people of various backgrounds.  These concerns are addressed in two separate essays, Michelle Smith’s “A Spurr to Abandoning the Literary Canon” and Irving Howe’s “You Should Absolutely, Positively Read the Canon in College”.

Smith’s article concerns University of Sydney poetry professor, Barry Spurr.  In particular, Smith addresses Spurr’s marginalization of the Aborigines native to Australia and other multicultural groups.  Spurr argues that Aboriginal literature isn’t important, because it doesn’t have the same cultural influence as works from the literary canon.  Smith takes the time to point out that the reason that Aboriginal works do not have influence is because people to not study them.  Smith argues that it is important to study a diverse set of texts, otherwise we will become ignorant of other cultures.

On the other hand, Howe, in short, argues that the literary canon is the most important to read.  The crux of Howe’s argument is that the literary canon is the most important, well-written collection of books available, and so every student should read them.  Howe also argues that there are diverse groups in the literary canon, citing examples such as Jane Austin and Emily Dickinson.

Both authors make good points; Smith argues that studying diverse texts is necessary, because it allows a person to see multiple viewpoints, while Howe argues that a reader should read the best texts, regardless of background.  Howe judges a work solely based on its quality, but acknowledges that many extraordinarily talented writers may not have gotten a chance to write based on social circumstances.  This is why Smith’s approach is so important.

Studying English, and the humanities in general, is important because it gives us perspective.  The humanities let us see what it is like to be human from a number of different sources.  When people can acknowledge the brilliance of others, regardless of race, gender, or other factors, opportunities arise for more writers, which is better for the experience of all humanity.