David Brooks' column in this morning's New York Times is a defense of studying the humanities. He talks about the need to hone communications and social skills in this technical age. But he also talks about how a study of the humanities helps you be a better human:
Let me try to explain. Over the past century or so, people have built various systems to help them understand human behavior: economics, political science, game theory and evolutionary psychology. These systems are useful in many circumstances. But none completely explain behavior because deep down people have passions and drives that don't lend themselves to systemic modeling. They have yearnings and fears that reside in an inner beast you could call The Big Shaggy.. . .
The observant person goes through life asking: Where did that come from? Why did he or she act that way? The answers are hard to come by because the behavior emanates from somewhere deep inside The Big Shaggy.
Technical knowledge stops at the outer edge. If you spend your life riding the links of the Internet, you probably won't get too far into The Big Shaggy either, because the fast, effortless prose of blogging (and journalism) lacks the heft to get you deep below.
Brooks is echoing a long standing argument about the need for a balanced education. When I was a freshman in Engineering School at Michigan, we had to take a "Great Books" course. In part this was an attempt to produce an "educated person" not just a technician.
In more recent years, this debate seems to have focused on the broadening of the type of skills needed in this new economy. But that is clearly not enough. Not only does the ability to get below the surface go beyond the technical and scientific skills many associate with the "knowledge economy", it goes well beyond the social and communications skills that we tout as so necessary.
In 2003, the American Council of Trustees and Alumni and Institute for Effective Governance produced a report Becoming an Educated Person: Toward a Core Curriculum for College students (I assume the title is a takeoff on the classic college orientation book On Becoming an Educated Person). William Bennett's forward to that report states:
Education is not the same as training. Plato made the distinction between techne (skill) and episteme (knowledge). Becoming an educated person goes beyond the acquisition of a technical skill. It requires an understanding of one's place in the world--cultural as well as natural--in pursuit of a productive and meaningful life. And it requires historical perspective so that one does not just live, as Edmund Burke said, like "the flies of a summer," born one day and gone the next, but as part of that "social contract" that binds our generation to those who have come before and to those who are yet to be born.
While I may disagree with some of the educational reform recommendations by Mr. Bennett and others, the point is well taken. In the knowledge economy, it is not enough to cultivate skills -- we must also strive to cultivate knowledge.
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