The Decline of the Humanities (and Why It Matters)

Let’s get real.

Being practical is an American hallmark. “Getting the job done” or “being sensible”… these are oftentimes seen as the American virtues. Secular colleges and universities are even under attack from time to time today because the majors they offer are so seemingly absurd.

While those critiques might be true about some majors, disciplines like the humanities—including philosophy and theology—are actually what the university is primarily for. And yet, as author Terence Sweeney points out, the humanities are in decline by and large today: “The decline of the humanities has accelerated at American colleges. Majors in the humanities have declined between 30 and 60 percent, depending on the department.”

He identifies this as a refusal to ask the question “why?”

“Our culture keeps us locked within the horizon of going, thus refusing questions of origin and end (as offered in the humanities), and the answers that place us on the horizon of transcendence (as offered in religion). The concomitant decline in humanities and religion is shaped by the deepening rejection of ends. Considering this concomitant decline in humanities and religion, what are Christians committed to both to do?”

Sweeney cites the old Baltimore Catechism, which gives one of the greatest answers ever to the question “why...why do I exist?”

“‘God made me to know Him, to love Him, and to serve Him in this world, and to be happy with Him forever in the next.’ To participate in Christianity is to live for—as one is called—one’s end in light of the Creator’s purposes. Religion does not just offer answers, it moves the questions and answers into the intersecting horizon of God and humanity.”

All is not lost. “A final note of hope, however, is that in Christianity we find the union of ends and means.” There is a movement afoot from Catholic grade schools all the way up to universities to recover the humanities. Institutions desperately needed to help us ask why not just how and thus experience the fullness of our human life.

Read the entire piece on The Public Discourse.

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