Uselessness: Now More than Ever!

An article in today's NYT bemoans the state of the Humanities in American colleges and universities:

...in this new era of lengthening unemployment lines and shrinking university endowments, questions about the importance of the humanities in a complex and technologically demanding world have taken on new urgency. Previous economic downturns have often led to decreased enrollment in the disciplines loosely grouped under the term “humanities” — which generally include languages, literature, the arts, history, cultural studies, philosophy and religion. Many in the field worry that in this current crisis those areas will be hit hardest.

....

“Although people in humanities have always lamented the state of the field, they have never felt quite as much of a panic that their field is becoming irrelevant,” said Andrew Delbanco, the director of American studies at Columbia University.

The natural response is to argue that a liberal arts education - which is very much what Confucius had in mind when he talked about education, though he would certainly emphasize moral theory and character education - is useful in the competitive global economy:

Derek Bok, a former president of Harvard and the author of several books on higher education, argues, “The humanities has a lot to contribute to the preparation of students for their vocational lives.” He said he was referring not only to writing and analytical skills but also to the type of ethical issues raised by new technology like stem-cell research. But he added: “There’s a lot more to a liberal education than improving the economy. I think that is one of the worst mistakes that policy makers often make — not being able to see beyond that.”

 
While I agree that all of what Bok says is true, I am leery of defending liberal arts, or something like, say, ancient Chinese philosophy (which may, on the face of it, not appear to be immediately relevant to getting a technical job) on grounds of utility.  I am afraid that, given the ever deepening power of technology and capitalist standards of efficiency, if we accept those as standards of justification we will, ultimately, lose.  I made a similar argument, years ago, about my son, Aidan.

What we need is a spirited defense of uselessness.   And where better to do that than on a blog named, The Useless Tree.

Zhuangzi, who gives us the useless tree image, makes at least three defenses of uselessness (which I spell out in the last chapter of my book, Aidan's Way, excerpted below):

1) "If you have no use, you have no grief."
This first interpretation points to liberation.  Without the appeal of utility, the useless tree is not cut down; it grows to mammoth proportions while those with sweet fruit or beautiful wood are hacked and cut until, wounded, they die.  It is the classic Taoist idea: by doing nothing, the useless tree gains what we all seek.   It escapes death and grief.  And, by extension, a similar kind of liberation from grief attends to all uselessness, even the Humanities.
 
2) "Everyone knows that to be useful is useful, but who knows how useful it is to be useless?"
Here there is a suggestion of inadvertent accomplishment.  Utility can be found in the apparently useless tree.  In one version of the story the ugly behemoth stands next to, and shelters, the village shrine, becoming, through its impressive immensity, a part of the shrine itself.  It has a certain function.  In another rendition, Chuang Tzu says that the good-for-nothing hulk is, actually, good precisely for its provision of nothingness: "Why not plant it in a village where there’s nothing at all, a land where emptiness stretches away forever!  Then, you could be no one drifting lazily beside it, roam boundless and free as you doze in its shade."

The tree thus becomes a facilitator, bringing those who care to use it closer to the Way.
This is a kind of utility by disutility, a backdoor utility justification.  Thus, even though it comes close to doing what I am trying to avoid (i.e. justify useless things - like liberal arts and ancient Chinese philosophy - in terms of utility), it is a ironic variation on that theme.

3) "Look, it isn’t like the rest of us: it’s harboring something utterly different.  If we praise its practicality, we’ll miss the point altogether, won’t we? "
This is my favorite approach.  There is no need for calculation and assessment of the apparently useless.   All such efforts are merely vain attempts to make sense of life in terms of only one part of it, the useful (and often not terribly interesting) part.   But if, as Zhuangzi argues elsewhere, each thing is integral unto itself; if ... "the real is originally there in things, and the sufficient is originally there in things. There's nothing that is not real and nothing that is not sufficient"…then, why should I ever worry about constructing a notion of usefulness to judge the apparently useless?  In doing so, I am blinding myself to large portions of human experience, to say nothing of the broader contours of Way.  Indeed, it would, by Zhuangzi's standards, be just as efficacious to reverse field and try to understand the apparently useful in terms of the seemingly useless.   Or maybe it would be best to not even try to understand, in some formal rational way, but just see.  Otherwise… …"we’ll miss the point altogether, won’t we?"

To bring this back to the Humanities and liberal arts education, Confucius would justify his curriculum (ritual, music, archery, chariot-riding, calligraphy, and computation) in the manner of Derek Bok - such learning will have a useful effect on the world, it will lead people to live better lives and that will produce better societies, polities and economies.  And all of that is for the good.

But Zhaungzi goes further and asks us to embrace the apparently useless.  Why not study ancient Chinese philosophy?  It is there, it is part of Way, it will tell you as much as you need to know of Way as any other subject, be that chemistry or economics or some other "useful" field.  It is certainly a broader (and I would say much more interesting) view of Way than accounting or business.  Zhuangzi would not disdain more practical pursuits; quite to the contrary, he rather famously presents meat-cutting as a means of apprehending Way.  But why not poetry, too?  That is a way into Way also, just as "useful" in that regard as meat-cutting or accounting or whatever.  Li Bai (Li Bo) certainly thought so, and we remember him today as having quite a place in the world.  He may have had a hard time finding and holding down a job, but he had a heck of a good time of it...

Comments

[Leanne Ogasawara]

Hi Sam,

I could not agree more with this. I wrote this post below several months ago from a very similar feeling and copy the link here in case you are interested. I could not agree more that if one tackles this issue from the perspective of "efficiency" their argument will most likely be doomed to fail. And, I agree that it comes down to moving beyond this notion. Usefulness and efficient as significantly differentiated-- there is also the notion of a classical education (as opposed to the useful learning provided to slaves)

Anyway, I really appreciated this post.

I also will be adding one more short (short but sweet!) comment to the other issue at my place later.

View from Inside a Bronze Ding

[philosoraptor]

This is a ringing defense of a certain kind of "uselessness", and I hope that it receives a wider hearing. BUT, people have genuine concerns about the fast-rising costs of collegiate education, and how those costs might limit not which topics they value, but which ones they actually feel able to study. What are your thoughts about how your defense of "uselessness" can simultaneously assuage those concerns?

[Sam Crane]

Thanks, Peony.
philosoraptor,
It seems to me that paying for college and what one studies in college are rather distinct things. If a person majors in economics (we do not have accounting and finance majors at my college; it is strictly liberal arts), which might be seen to be more useful than ancient Chinese philosophy, he or she pays the same amount as anyone else. I am not aware of more "useful" courses of study costing any less than supposedly "useless" majors. Of course, there is an expectation that the econ major will get a better paying job afterward and thus be in a better position to pay back loans, etc. But that outcome depends on other variables. I suspect a truly excellent English major can create as many opportunities (or at least forge a comfortable and, perhaps more importantly, satisfying life) as a econ major with low grades and weak writing habits. How you do is just as important as what you do (which is an idea we can take from Zhuangzi's Cook Ting story).
So, yes, college education is too expensive. But those expenses should not be an insuperable barrier to the pursuit of "useless" knowledge....

[Siroj Sorajjakool]

I love the story of the useless tree. It is one of my favorites from Chuang Tzu's text. It is also fascinating when reading the outer chapters and learn of how Chuang Tzu uses people with deformity to teach us important lessons. Living in this society I am constantly being aware of the pressure to perform and be productive and the wisdom of the useless is so transformative for me.

[Mao Zedong]

humanities: free free free

liberal arts: free free free

social sciences: free free free.

you can spend 24/7/365 days of the year and read all the literature, arts free free free at:

1. library

2. bookstore

3. google. yahoo. web.

2-billion people on Net

[Mao Zedong]

Free Free Free

if you love literature. philosphy arts, thinking writing, talking. ever thought it is all free free free at starbucks.

1. library bookstore.

2. PBS Cable TV

3. Web. google yahoo.