What’s the point of studying obscure topics in the arts and humanities when there seems to be no practical purpose or economic benefit for the students themselves or for the society that funds them? Six years ago the then Secretary of State for Education, Charles Clarke, was happy to suggest that public funding should only support academic subjects of ‘clear usefulness’.
Nigel Biggar wonders what universities are for, and gives a beautiful reflection on the poverty of this kind of utilitarian assessment. He explains the importance of the moral education that takes place when we study histories and literatures, religions and cultures, theologies and philosophies, music and drama:
One valuable gift that the arts and humanities make is to introduce us to foreign worlds: worlds made strange by the passage of time; present worlds structured by the peculiar grip of unfamiliar languages; worlds alien to us in their social organisation and manners, their religious and philosophical convictions.
Introduction to these foreign worlds confers a substantial benefit: the benefit of distance from our own world, and thereby the freedom to ask questions of it that we could never otherwise have conceived. In foreign worlds, past and present, they see and love and do things differently. And in reflecting upon that difference, it might occur to us from time to time that they see and love and do things better. So, one precious contribution of the arts and humanities is their furnishing public discourse with the critical resources of an understanding of foreign worlds, resources vital for social and cultural and moral renewal — a renewal that deserves at least an equal place alongside scientific and technological innovation.
He develops this idea and says that it is not just about appreciating other worlds and other people but understanding how to relate to them. This is ultimately a training in virtue:
The arts and humanities not only introduce us to foreign worlds, they teach us to treat them well. They teach us to read strange and intractable texts with patience and care; to meet alien ideas and practices with humility, docility, and charity; to draw alongside foreign worlds before we set about — as we must — judging them. They train us in the practice of honest dialogue, which respects the “Other” as a potential prophet, one who might yet speak a new word about what’s true and good and beautiful.
A commitment to the truth, humility, a readiness to be taught, patience, carefulness, charity: all of these moral virtues that inform the intellectual discipline into which the arts and humanities induct their students; all of these moral virtues of which public discourse, whether in the media or in Parliament or in Congress, displays no obvious surplus. All of these moral virtues, without which this country and others may get to become a “knowledge economy”, but won’t get to become a “wisdom society”.
And public decisions that, being unwise, are careless with the truth, arrogant, unteachable, impatient and uncharitable, will be bad decisions — and bad decisions cause needless damage to real institutions and real individuals.
What I’m saying, then, is that in addition to providing talented individuals with the opportunity to grow their gifts and find a social role to exercise them; in addition to producing qualified applicants for positions in legal practice and in public administration; in addition to training the labour-force to man a high-tech, service-oriented economy; and in addition to generating new scientific knowledge with technological or commercial applications, universities exist to form individuals and citizens in certain virtues — virtues that are not just intellectual, but are also social and political.
It’s no surprise that he turns to John Henry Newman for inspiration. It will be interesting to see whether Newman’s ideas about university education get any new publicity when his beatification takes place in September.
Bridges and Tangents 
Hello Fr Stephen,
If Universities were to be limited to teaching onlt those subjects which are of ‘use in society, then in not too many years time, we would be in a poorer world. We would have lost huge swathes of knowledge. There are far too many for me to include in this reply. My thoughts are that areas of knowledge is does not stand alone as disciplines in their own right. So many disciplines are mutually supportive of each other. In your Seminary, you teach Philosophy and Systematic Theology. I am not well versed in either. However, my limited knowledge from ‘A’ Level studies suggests that both draw upon history, ancient languages, anthropology and archaeology. I am a Nurse and education in my own profession draws upon psycholgy, sociology, history, religion and spirituality, ecucation along with other disciplines in order to produce a more rounded and aware practitioner.
There must, surely, be opther professions that rely upon such diverse disciplines in their training abd development.
I agree with Biggar’s proposition that knowledge of ‘other worlds’ gives us a respect for the ides of others. It also teaches us how our society has developed and how we might avoid the mistakes of others in the past.
Because they are an expression of human experience and make us value more than, just what can be economically measured!
knowledge is a theoretical or practical understanding or knowing gained by experience or study. One can be taught this.
wisdom is having that knowledge and or experience together with having the quality of being able to apply it with critical thinking, prudence and commonsense.
One does not always equate to the other. How many of us know the brightest spark in the box, who just has no common sense or wisdom what so ever. Wisdom can be acquired by life experience alone, without intellectual study.
My little sister was the first ever university graduate in our working class east end roots family. A privilege which up till then, the rest of us never knew. We had no money, living mostly hand to mouth and were not encouraged to follow our aspirations. But as a child I experienced in a simple basic way ‘the arts’ (a mostly free resource) which slowly became more accessible to us as a family . Our family had to make use of free opportunities. My very working class daddy wrote poetry, and had a great interest in food and other cultures. I joined a free youth theatre as a child, which introduced me to my wider circle of friends and my now Love of ‘the arts’, and my brother discovered a Love of visual art through friends who went to Art School. Mums best friends were musicians.
The Arts are so so so so important to me because they crossed and broke cultural, social and intellectual boundaries, and have given me a rich and varied education that other wise would have been beyond my grasp. A life which has taught me the extremes of human nature, survival and endurance, and blessed me with some of the wisdom that comes with that understanding of that experience. The Arts are A portal of world wide expression which in its truth can reach and teach the widest audience about human experience on Earth and be expressed in truth only by the Artist and perceived in another truth only by the observer. Just like the language of Love. The Arts are universal.