In the familiar network society, the phrase "learn liberal arts and commit crimes yourself" is even very popular.
In recent ten years, humanities, including philosophy, language and other majors, have encountered a global crisis.
This is particularly prominent among American intellectuals and universities.
Of course, people often attribute this phenomenon to the decrease of funds.
In this case, even if the supporters and sympathizers of the humanities defend that "it is useless" and "freedom is useless", it is actually useless and just a kind of self-mockery.
Useless theory is just one of many denials to humanities.
There are also views that humanities are not only useless, but also cynical, causing a lot of trouble and being described as anti-intellectualism in American society.
For example, Rick Santorum, who was running for president of the United States, explained why he did so badly when he entered Pennsylvania State University. Because teachers are all left-wingers in the humanities, poor grades are punished based on political views.
Anti-intellectualism doesn't care about the ideology behind knowledge, left and right, radical and conservative, but it can't accept challenging and skeptical thinking.
Of course, more radical scientism also denies the value of humanities.
Data and technology make them arrogant, thinking that high-tech and new technology are the innovation of human knowledge and can create a better future. Humanism is a factor that hinders their innovation and is also a factor that puzzles them. For example, it is inappropriate for them to emphasize the privacy, dignity and significance of humanities.
Judith Butler, born in 1956, is a professor in the Department of Rhetoric and Comparative Literature at the University of California, Berkeley.
Works such as Weight and Gender Trouble have been published in Chinese versions.
Defenders of the humanities refute this view from all angles, including Judith Butler.
She is regarded as one of the most famous thinkers in the contemporary era and "one of the most influential voices in modern political theory"-of course, vague words have also been debated a lot.
Butler believes that the humanities and its education point out to us: "How to look at, read, create meaning, intervene, leave and judge, and make the world look brand-new." It goes without saying to her that people can understand each other even if they are not clear, so they don't need to be supported.
She skillfully explained the self-evident things with Kafka's novels and diaries, and re-evaluated the value of humanities on this basis.
Butler was invited to express this view in the Forum on Humanities and Public Life, which was included in Humanities and Public Life. When this book was translated and published, we extracted its main contents and thought about what the humanities would bring to the society we live in.
The following contents are approved by Fanyilin Publishing House and extracted from the book Humanities and Public Life. The content is Butler's "On the Humanities", which is extracted and the title is completed by the abstractor.
The original author | [America] Judith Butler
Excerpt | Luo Dong
Humanities and Public Life, by Peter Brooks and Hillary Jouett, translated by Yu, Fanyilin Publishing House, May 2022.
The inevitable connection between humanities and public life
I have repeatedly thought about how to open an article on humanities in this public domain is the best. Because these terms are too broad. Humanities, public sphere, or more accurately, public life.
However, the intention of this task is very clear. We must establish a connection between the two, or provide guidance on how to express this connection.
One of the reasons why we are asked to do this is that this connection has become uncertain.
In this regard, my first reaction is undoubtedly to directly announce that this connection is clear.
But we still have to analyze what happened in this so-called public sphere, construct events and their significance, speculate on our ideological trends, and draw a participation model when necessary.
If we don't have the ability to interpret texts and images, and can't understand how our world is formed, and if we can't think about what form we want our world to take and provide reasons for the form we choose, can the above ideas be realized?
All these basic forms of public participation seem to require education that runs through reading, history, culture, media, philosophy and debate.
Of course, critical thinking is the further operation of thought, including not taking things in the public domain for granted.
In short, there are no permanent boundaries in this field, and the boundaries that do exist subtly partially exclude things that should be private, hidden or privatized.
We should also be able to estimate what changes have taken place in this public sphere in which we are deeply involved.
Stills of the movie Martin Eden (20 19).
If we want to understand ourselves as not only a participant in the existing public sphere, but also an active constructor of the concept of "public", we need to carry out relevant meaning understanding education.
We should understand, listen, watch and discuss all kinds of idioms in public life with tolerance and criticism. Whether oral, written, visual, auditory, physical, tactile or demonstration.
This weakening is the process premise that should be said (should be heard), should be expressed), should be contacted, or should be close. The fields involved are restricted by many binding forces.
The key lies not in the complete freedom to listen, speak, see everything or act freely, but in the subtle limitation of free evaluation of feeling, tracing back its course and spatial structure, and critically evaluating how the world is organized and how it is better organized.
The investment in showing public life is closely related to humanities education from the beginning. It shows us how to think, how to deal with language and images, how to read, how to create meaning, how to get involved, how to leave, and how to set evaluation criteria, so as to make the world look brand-new.
For educators, these problems are fundamental, and I realize that I am trapped in them.
What must be asked is, what makes it harder and harder to be heard? There is an alternative between what I think is self-evident and the new value evaluation mechanism. This new mechanism must be emphasized many times.
In fact, I sometimes find myself skeptical. Because I mistakenly think that the public value of these activities is so self-evident that it hardly needs to be supported.
Invisible humanity
Photos of the TV series Fortress Besieged (1990).
I believe that we know the basic characteristics of this crisis, but we may have different views on its specific performance and plot.
Due to the reduction of public funds for humanities and arts, majors such as French, Italian, Russian, drama, classicism and philosophy have decreased. In Britain and the United States, the whole language department was suddenly merged into other departments without considering academic aspects.
Satire is sometimes directly exposed to the whole field of knowledge, such as racial research and racial criticism, which are declared illegal in Arizona. The public value of these activities soon becomes unreasonable.
I don't want to list everything we need to worry about. Because suppose you already know.
However, with the exception of the French Department of the State University of new york at Alba and the Philosophy Department of middlesex University, many American universities have abolished German, Latin, Italian and French departments.
20 10 It is estimated that 54 language projects are in trouble.
Many graduate programs that used to enroll students from 10 to 12 every year are now compressed to two or zero every year.
The history department is also struggling, which is clear from the postgraduate education and employment situation.
According to the data of chronicleofhighereducation, the demand for African history teachers decreased by 62% in 20 10.
Latin American history has also declined by 43%.
In the past few years, the biggest demand direction was European and American history, but it also decreased by 34% and 28% respectively.
Some people may say "this is just the fault of the budget crisis", or scold "stupid", or secretly develop.
This situation continues.
But as we all know, reducing budget or increasing expenditure requires a decision-making process, and decision-making must rely on broader values.
It is necessary to provide explanations on which projects have more doubts and which projects lack convincing project basis and need to be deleted.
So, as we can see now, if the humanities and arts are seriously damaged, the question is, what kind of values will make managers tend to decide where to cut and what to cut? If doubts about the humanities (often not simple doubts) lead to such a decision, how should people refute it?
Stills of the film Wittgenstein 1993.
I have read the report on how to save the dead on this topic. According to its author, the fate of humanities depends on the fate of universities, so we'd better focus on saving universities.
Admittedly, I can't deny that this task will continue a series of great changes, but we still have to focus on the important mission of humanities and start rethinking the mission of the university itself.
There is an urgent need to understand how the topic of life and death came about and the declaration of the disappearance of a world.
To this end, we must think about new value standards and consider the specific forms of today's cultural war.
Rick santorum announced his withdrawal from the presidential election in 2065438+02, but his speech did not go out of shape obviously, which aroused persistent resonance.
They are willing to indulge in prosperous anti-intellectualism.
While studying at Pennsylvania State University, he explained why his grades were so poor. Because the teacher is on the left. According to his political views, I gave him a low score as punishment.
Santorum and those incited by sensitive minds often confuse the pursuit of intelligence with their own ideology. Ideology here refers to stubborn and compulsory political goals, viewpoints or frameworks, rather than a topic that has been repeatedly thought over and fully verified.
Obviously, he compared liberal arts colleges and universities to "doctrine shredders" that turned students from faith to secularism.
Historian Richard hofstadter's Anti-intellectualism American Life is a classic study of anti-intellectualism.
The picture shows several Chinese translations published in China in 2023.
Because it is easy for us to make a list, I would like to introduce the ban on more than 80 novels and other books published for educational purposes in Arizona. It also includes Mersey Canterboy by Matt Drape. Because it contains the theory of racial criticism, it will inevitably be interpreted as "propaganda of racial hatred"
This argument belittles Sandra Heath's literary works as fictional narratives from a political point of view, which shows that the discussant does not really understand the voice and function of narration, and does not want to pay attention to basic issues such as liberal arts students and forms. He believes that literary narration is the transcription of doctrine.
The dominance of ideology in these cases is once again accompanied by malicious anti-intellectualism.
The disappearance of "self-evident things"
In fact, a puzzling thing is that those who ignore humanistic values always look like innovators, keep pace with the times and fight against stubborn and closed forces in universities.
People who introduce new standards in public higher education institutions often support new income-increasing plans on the premise of saving universities. They also advocate online education, thinking that poetry classes are no different from online teaching and on-site discussion.
Some people oppose the online education at the University of California, Berkeley, pointing out the importance of collective reading and direct text-oriented, cooperative research and discussion between lines, but they find it labeled as conservative and "emotional".
As a result, sometimes I feel like a crazy left wing, and sometimes I feel like a conservative. I find myself resisting this "new". I see that this formulation has gradually monopolized the words "innovation" and even "future" in the "innovation plan".
I realized that I wanted to avoid losses. That's too heavy for me. I can't take it anymore.
I even think it may be lucky to leave this world before seeing the humanities completely destroyed.
Worryingly, some people try to give up funding for the arts. Is that like a luxury, or is it because I gave up the humanities? Because it is a safe haven for the left wing, or it is obviously useless.
What was originally thought to be a consensus seems to be more and more difficult to understand.
What is self-evident, as long as we point to it, we should remember its position.
So, what happens when what is self-evident in our ideas becomes incomprehensible, or when ideas that people think are too incomprehensible gradually become clear? Shock and anger are not enough. Because they will not be transformed into a way to rebuild a different sense of reality, but make different declarations about what is self-evident.
"Everyday, I can't believe it."
Louis althusser is a philosopher.
Louis althusser took the time to explain the surface of "self-evident" ideology, and gained insight into how to construct self-evident.
For Adusse, it goes without saying that we are not "unrecognizable".
He told me that we had friends. When a friend knocks at the door, we ask "who's there" and they answer "it's me". We will regard this person as our friend.
Come to think of it, when asked "who's there", all "I" will say "it's me", so I know that the person who called and knocked at the door might say "I".
My answer is not single, but this unique one I can sometimes recognize: "Ah, it's you.
This happens between the author and the reader, and also between the speaker and the listener.
Take Kafka's novel A Battle as an example.
He started writing this story from 1904 and finished it five years later.
In his world and climate, some self-evident realities are disappearing, or the repetition of these plots has been amazing.
Franz Kafka (1July 3, 883-1June 3, 924) is regarded as a pioneer writer of modernist literature.
I work in the insurance industry.
In this story, two people meet in the church, but neither of them can easily stand or keep their balance.
A man's feet are like artificial limbs, but he has no artificial limbs.
Another person tries to strike a balance, but his method will only become unbalanced.
They clumsily pounced on each other and tried to communicate, but in vain.
One person leans back incredibly, and the other person leans forward next to him, which makes him feel a little sexy and completely uncomfortable.
The first-person narrator explained that he could no longer walk straight, and the ordinary gait escaped him.
He asked, "Like a shadow, I jump along the edge of the house and sometimes disappear into the window glass. Shouldn't I be extremely dissatisfied with this? " He went on to say, "What a day have I lived! Why all the houses are poorly built, and high-rise buildings sometimes collapse, but people can't find the reason for the collapse from the appearance of the house.
So I climbed up the ruins and said to everyone I met, "Why! In our city-this is still a new house. -Which house collapsed today? -Think about it.
No one can answer my question.
Therefore, the things that should be erected and built are being eliminated at an alarming rate, and the world that follows either has no sense of coordination between time and space or does not.
The next thing to explain is that daily life begins to deviate, and the most self-evident things seem to become the darkest.
The narrator continued. "People often fall and die in the street.
At this time, all the shops are open, full of goods, running quickly, dragging the dead into a room, and then coming out to talk with a smile. "Hello, innocent and lovely, I sold a lot of square towels. Fight a war.
"I rushed into the building, timidly raised my hand several times, bent my finger and finally knocked on the small window of the boy in the community office." Dear, "I said kindly," the deceased was dragged here.
The narrator tried to disguise himself as a secret policeman, but he couldn't move the handyman. After a while, he said, there are no dead people here.
Probably next to it.
"Put on your hat.
"
Then the body began to fall apart and become completely heavy.
The wind was blowing hard and the commentator looked up at the church. "The pillar was blown up by the cloak of the Virgin Mary, and the wind was about to tear it up.
Are these invisible? The female teachers who should have walked on the gravel road are floating in the wind.
As soon as the wind stopped, they stopped, talked a few words and nodded and left. But if the wind blows again, they can't resist, so everyone raises their feet at the same time. "
Still photos of Kafka (kafka 199 1).
Then, in the inexplicable transformation, the listener will respond and bring us back to the self-evident sense of disappearance that we care about.
He remembered a conversation between them before, when the commentator asked, "Why do things around me disappear like falling snow, while the small glass on the table is as stable as a statue for others?" And said, "So, don't you think it will happen to others? Is it really unbelievable? So, please listen to me.
When I was a child, I took a nap and opened my eyes. Before I was fully awake, my mother said in a natural voice from the balcony, "What are you doing, dear?" It's very hot. A woman answered from the other side of the garden. "I drink tea in the garden.
"They say so without thinking. Then, the woman was waiting for this question, just like my mother was waiting for this answer, and she didn't make it clear. "
"I am drinking tea in the yard"-in this answer, the woman just said what she was doing, and provided this information to an audience, obviously with a self-evident feeling, "Who is there?" Must be very similar. "It's me.
But this kind of communication was introduced in another kind of dialogue, and in its new dialogue, the old dialogue caused surprise and doubt.
Then the building collapsed and the body in the shop was dragged away. After the store denied that there was a body, the episode of drinking tea in the yard was memorable.
Still photos of Kafka (kafka 199 1).
At the end of the exchange, some people said that the mother and daughter felt very comfortable in the yard, and suddenly they completely entered the daily language, talking about other people's ties and saying how beautiful his clothes were, just like two people were involved in daily life.
Those people soon forgot that there were bodies in the street and seemed to be immersed in greetings to the weather. The narrator is immersed in the daily words of chatting and flattery.
This story was written in 1904, but as early as 10 after the outbreak of World War I, Kafka was prescient and described unspeakable events.
1965438+On August 2, 2004, he wrote in his diary: "Germany declared war on Russia-swimming class will be held in the afternoon.
"
Suddenly asking for help in daily life and self-evident situations will solve a problem? Or is it just a hidden problem? That's what the last line of that story says. "When the confession is revoked, this confession is the easiest to understand.
"This sentence is full of paradox, but it is not necessarily puzzling.
After all, what can be understood is not necessarily daily communication, polite language or daily flattery; They cover up the feeling that the world is unstable and forced to die, and alleviate this feeling.
Blowing the body into the air, interrupting the dialogue, exposing the body on the road and releasing the wind of fear may be understood as the unique climate of the self-evident things between the activities and lives of Kafka's characters.
Pedestrians clung to their hats when they were rushed off the sidewalk. "They all beamed and didn't think there was anything wrong with the weather at all."
At the end of this paragraph is "Only I am afraid".
Arrogance of academic evaluation indicators
I have noticed before that we can point out the gap between emerging evaluation indicators and the unique value measurement mechanism of humanities, but this is not enough to correct our behavior or transform the world.
The cracks in the self-evident things revealed in Kafka's works create moral possibilities.
There is a gap between everyday things and the destruction targets they hide and convey. By exposing it, readers can enter moral reflection and awakening.
For Adusse, ideology seems to mean the effective operation of daily life. In other words, if you knock at the door, you will recognize this "I". In other words, the simple action of who is doing what will be accepted and understood by others.
It's me. I'm knocking at the door.
Yes, nice to see you again.
I drink tea in the yard.
This is a platform where I can rest in peace. I have the simple action of drinking tea and the ability to point to myself and tell you what I am doing.
Gravity, the world, food, communication, the foundation of these elements is complete for these short episodes.
The animated short film Franz Kafka (Franzkafka 1992).
Kafka's novels also question the firmness of the world and the fact that the possibility of communication has disappeared or is running away.
Kafka's texts tend to use neutral and observational narrative voices to report events.
As soon as the narrative voice of anger, destruction and suffering is broadcast, the gap between expression and expression opens, and readers not only see anger, but also feel relaxed. Anger is orderly and hidden.
There are cracks in the self-evident words, which shows that these voices and discourse patterns cover up the panic and unacceptable destruction and loss in their vague working methods.
This narrative voice actually covers up these anger, and at the same time, it can also reflect and evaluate the plot of these events from a certain distance.
It is incredible to cover up the disaster with neutral and harmonious language, and it is also incredible. As an inherent grammar, it induces doubt and transcends incredible daily life.
By writing such an article, we are immersed in the process of creating and canceling the world. This is not to say that the world is created by writing articles.
I have to say that we must concentrate on observing what is self-evident.
Alan Badiou quoted Wallace Stevens' poem "Men carry things" like this, "until it becomes bright and clear in the ice.
"I believe Stevens' poems don't mean foul, but I understand why those who want to cut Plato read like Dior.
Kafka can study with Adusse. I think self-understanding and its decomposition occur in reading and writing. In various communication modes, we are related to each other visually, verbally and tactilely.
To reflect on the ideological problems in Kafka's context, we might as well start by asking these questions. The basic propositions about listening, speaking, reading, writing, watching and watching have been eliminated and become uncontrollable fears. What will be destroyed, what will be destroyed, and what does it mean to preserve and resurrect the most valuable things?
Interpretation of "Intrinsic Value"
At the end of this paper, let's think about the prominent forms of supporting the humanities and make clear the moral tasks we face. In my opinion, this moral task cannot be divorced from criticism. In addition, it may just be called "confrontation and elimination."
I don't mean to temper the skills of critical disintegration, but to ask us to combine critical practice with moral thinking and think about the cultural vitality and destructive power that plunged us into struggle. Because they are related to what is valuable and what value should be.
In recent years, I have heard and read some arguments about how to best protect the humanities.
Listed below. Humanities has its intrinsic value; The humanities are useless, which is its value; Humanities provide some skills related to economic vitality, while humanities provide some reading and writing skills. As the last humanities subject necessary for citizens, it can provide a critical point of view for the value of following modern value standards, and the humanities itself is weakened or destroyed by this value standard.
Some of my colleagues believe that the humanities must be recognized because it has "intrinsic value".
Of course, the problem is that others don't recognize this intrinsic value-it must be clear about the intrinsic value.
If this must be clarified, in order to accept this value, it is necessary to use the language and vocabulary recognized by those people.
It is increasingly impossible or difficult for this language to realize the value of humanities. Because the value recognized by this language depends on this language, it covers up or ignores the disappearance of the value of humanities.
Stills from the movie AnnieHall 1977.
The same position of protecting intrinsic value is that humanities are useless and should be protected.
For some people, the humanities itself is based on the criticism of instrumentality, forming an institutional place to criticize practicality and functionalism, and the criticism of instrumentality is more common.
For example, Theodor Adorno talked about poetry. "When lyric poetry is incompatible with society, when it is alone, it has been deeply rooted in society.
"For Adorno, loneliness is the framework of refusing social interaction and the recognition of society. Therefore, when refusing to communicate, lyric poetry shows the most critical potential.
For Kafka, the loss of communication is at least twofold. Its loss makes people mourn, but also makes people afraid of forgetting the ability of life and death, which sounds like a moral alarm.
Another view is that students' skills need to be improved. Analysis shows that this is very beneficial to economic life, more specifically, because it is indispensable to public life and civil rights.
When we produce and teach skills, we can show how skills are used and realized, depending on their practicality.
Powerful defenders of the humanities have adopted a version of this position.
For example, Jeffrey Harper wrote. "We not only emphasize" knowledge for knowledge's sake ",but also cannot advocate that obeying utilitarian judgment is a humiliation for liberal arts education.
"This seems to mean that we must apply our work to instrumental modern measurement indicators. Or, we must find a way to make our work and these specific value indicators sign with each other.
In any case, we can't continue to regard our profession as a pure vocation.
reappraise
I agree that intrinsic value and waste are not enough (although I admit that any one can touch my heart)
However, we have to ask, if the humanities want to create new ideas for public life, must it be said to be a tool conducive to social welfare? Is instrumentality the only way for us to talk about it? In fact, we are faced with new measurement systems and evaluation standards. Some of them have devoted their lives to the humanities, but they have lost their way.
Interestingly, according to these new indicators, not all "impact" methods can produce measurable impacts.
Stills of the movie "Dangerous X Scene" 20 16.
A British colleague held a meeting and suggested raising funds from the country's arts and humanities research Committee to study the various meanings of today's European monarchy.
The proposal was rejected. The reason is that there is no clear "impact".
When she asked what kind of "influence" such a meeting needed, the advertiser said that all such meetings should show that their research results are applicable to current policies. In fact, their website clearly declares that this kind of "influence" means that "excellent research can bring demonstrable contribution to society and economy", and adds that this kind of "contribution" can be evaluated by demonstrating how the resulting knowledge can be "transformed" to individuals and groups outside academia.
Her reaction was that she pointed out that the meeting would help promote the collapse of the monarchy, but her potential funders were not tempted, so the project was not passed.
Can other results meet their requirements? Paradoxically, for her, claiming to be influential in this situation will soon lead to other forms of criticism. For example, it must be said that the ideology of left-wingers in Britain and America-distorting academics, especially humanities, for ideological purposes, has no reason to do so.
Of course, I do want to say that the humanities are very important.
However, when we say this, we must let us see what we mean by remarkable, and we are caught in a difficult and worthless disagreement.
Film stills theprofessor20 18+08).
According to Hafen's point of view, we must use instrumentality to measure value, that is, it is the most meaningful and appropriate to accept the measurement system mentioned above.
But I think what he said is that we can't avoid instrumental thinking as a whole.
The dilemma is that it probably thinks that whether it is internal capital injection, investment income, government funds, generous capital injection by private investors, or the government budget of public research institutions, we must follow the standards contained in these requirements in order to obtain the funds we need.
If we are too obedient-that is, completely obedient-we risk giving up the primary responsibility of the humanities. This duty is to think critically about the evaluation model and evaluation scheme, and make clear which ones are justified, which ones are really suitable for their own evaluation objects, and which ones are introduced and maintained by academic circles and taught by humanities.
Back to the question at the beginning, how to keep the staff in the literature department from becoming a bubble? Now we have a different way to go.
We find ourselves living and working in peace and contentment in the words of the value evaluation system, but they can't measure our behavior well. They are just a territory of monopoly value, threatening us that they can destroy everything we do.
What can those who are worried that their words will disappear do? They can participate in the debate again and open a space between those self-evident words and the huge losses that have appeared and reappeared.
This kind of crack brings a moral connection, which is not only related to the past and the future, but also related to the possibility of "incredible" and surprise when the value of the new value system is incalculable.
This means that we criticize in the gap, add ambiguity to what is self-evident, and emphasize that what is left between us may be lost, but it may also be revived.
Original/Judith Butler
Excerpt/Luo Dong
Editor/Luo Dong, Zhang Ji
Introduction Proofreading/Jia Ning
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