Appreciating the Arts and Humanities
By Student Contributor Daniela Bendikova
If you are an Arts and Humanities student, you know well the reaction of people once you tell them you study Arts: ‘But what can you do with that degree?’ or ‘That is such a useless degree’. These are the same people that in their free time watch films, history documentaries, read books and go to museums. To people like this, the Arts and Humanities exist as a hobby or something they do in their free time to unwind from their ‘serious and more important job’, but someone has to dedicate their time and expertise to the Humanities to produce this content for people.
Galileo demonstrating his telescope, by Henry-Julien Detouche
Choosing a degree is now looked through the lens of how useful it will that be terms of making money? Which believe me, is an understandable and realistic outlook for the future, especially for people from low-income households, and with these rising prices it is only pragmatic to try to earn the most you can. However, this mindset of survival can be so damaging when it comes to the Arts. Nowadays not being ‘on the grind’ makes one look stupid to those people who force themselves through a degree they don’t like just to earn money in the future. Spending time doing a degree that won’t benefit you financially, like that’s a thing? People actually want to be intellectually fulfilled in this world of grind, making money from hobbies, and having side hustles? This mindset is so pernicious for society, and we are already feeling the effects of it; the defunding of Arts and Humanities.
After the Middle Ages (or as people call them the ‘Dark Ages’ – the time in history when intellectual thought and creative expression were suppressed by the Catholic Church) culminated in the Renaissance – one of the best periods in history (that is said very lightly as we know that oppression of thought still existed) Humanities and Science tried to co-exist to enrich people and cultivate new ideas after a millennium of drought. The environment and funding given to people to pursue the Arts and Humanities during the Renaissance allowed for appreciation of the past and for development of new ideas for the future. The most beautiful and evocative Art and Thought came from the Renaissance and we still strive for that beauty today. Those people were encouraged to supplant their humanity into physical art and that is why 500 years later we still visit museums and art galleries to appreciate what people could develop when given the encouragement and resources to do just that. A piece of ourselves was lost when we stopped dedicating time and effort to exploring individual humanity rather than giving our time away to being corporate machines.
Da Vinci’s studies of the human form and cadavers.
Even if people do want to participate in Arts and Humanities today and give society avant-garde ideas, they can’t. We are losing out on amazing authors, playwrights, artists, and intellectual thinkers because of this push from society away from Arts and Humanities. No one can afford to stay at home and paint when they need to survive in this hustling and bustling world – they need to work and suppress their artistic inclinations. Around the world there is a lack of Medicis that can fund our lifestyles so we can pursue Arts. Other than that, it is society causing our own destruction by not appreciating the Arts and Humanities and defunding them. We can no longer appreciate the exquisite delve into humanity as we are tied into this new world of STEM and corporations. Humanities and STEM co-existing would give our world such depth and development that we so desperately need, we are drowning, and we need the air of individuality and creativity in all disciplines to make us feel alive again.
