Why humans need the humanities

In Moby Dick, Captain Ahab nails a gold doubloon to the mast of his ship — a reward for the first crewman to sight the white whale. Ahab compares the coin to a “magician’s glass,” a mirror to each man’s “own mysterious self.” A 1978 Commission on the Humanities report employed the metaphor of the mirror. “The humanities mirror our own image,” the commission maintained, causing us to “reflect on the fundamental question: what does it mean to be human?”

By seeking our reflection in the world’s great writers, artists and philosophers, we can begin to comprehend the human condition. Writing to his nephew on the 100th anniversary of Emancipation, in the essay “My Dungeon Shook,” James Baldwin warned against people who are blind to the reality of others. “It is the innocence which constitutes the crime,” he said. Innocence stemming from a lack of self-knowledge is not blameless; on the contrary, Baldwin says, it can be dangerous. But he also told his nephew, “If you know whence you came, there is no limit to where you can go.” There is strength in an awareness of one’s own place in history.

As Americans, we are fortunate to have support for the humanities at the state and federal level. The National Endowment for the Humanities funds scholars, documentary filmmakers, universities, libraries, museums and archeological sites, all with 0.003 percent of the federal budget — the equivalent of someone who makes $50,000 a year spending $10. The endowment also helps to support state-affiliated humanities councils, which in 2016 put on more than 55,000 programs and conferences across the country. S.C. Humanities supports writers, speakers, libraries, filmmakers, festivals, conferences, workshops, traveling exhibits, student research fellows and an annual Humanities Festival. How much poorer we would be and how much less we would know of ourselves without the contributions of S.C. Humanities.

The Trump administration wants to defund the National Endowment for the Humanities and, by extension, the state humanities councils. Attacks on institutions that enrich and unite us have little or nothing to do with money. They are ideological assaults. All of us who value the humanities must speak up.

This story was originally published March 25, 2017 at 5:21 PM with the headline "Why humans need the humanities."