Every Undergraduate Should Study the Humanities

Caleo

RosieandherMaw

I actually think that all Arts students should study a compulsory Science element. And Science students study a History/Humanities element.
I suspect many of us are woefully undereducated in the broader sense of the word!
I had to do a year of Moral Philosophy or alternatively Logic and Metaphysics as part of my MA degree at St Andrews which was fascinating.
However to go back to OP there is no link whatsoever between humanity and an awareness of it or indeed practising it in our lives, and studying what we loosely refer to as the Humanities.
Not the same word!

Do you not think that reading Jane Eyre can help you to be a little more understanding of how others feel?

Considering your later post concerning The Wide Sargasso Sea' , to return to 'Jane Eyre ' AFTER reading TWSS, one reads 'Jane Eyre' a lot more critically.

The character of Jane Eyre does not loose her courage and kindness. Rochester becomes a much more complex character, and we empathise with Rochester's 'mad' wife. TWSS improved my empathy as I could empathise with Rochester's wife.

Actually Rochester was kinder to his wife than was normal. Rochester did provide Grace Poole as competent nurse according to standards of the day, and he also housed his wife at home instead of abandoning her to a madhouse.

Lathyrus3

Allira

Lathyrus3

No, all us logical thinkers keep trying to say that😬

Is logic a Science or a Humanity?

Asking for a friend.

I think it’s a Science.

I’m open to counter arguments 🙂

When I was doing philosophy I felt that classical logic was not really philosophy and much more akin to mathematics. I think the reason classical logic is included in academic philosophy is that a basic grounding in logic is needed for proper evaluation.

Wide Sargasso Sea is not a sequel but a post-colonial prequel to “Jane Eyre”, telling the story of Antoinette, ( renamed Bertha - why?) a suffocating marriage, the racial and cultural tensions and issues of assimilation which contribute to her psychological unravelling.
Written in the 60’s it could not have been written in Brontë’s era when controlling dominant men were the norm even held up as role models.
So I’m not sure what the reader does learn from Jane Eyre except perhaps to swerve silent, saturnine and controlling men who declare their wife mad and lock her up in the attic.
Oh if only the final line had been “Reader, I ran screaming for the hills”

Caleo

Many people think novels or reportage are “just” for enjoyment or passing the time. But research — and common sense — shows that stories are one of the most powerful ways humans learn to understand feelings, relationships, and ourselves. That’s what psychologists now call emotional intelligence.

I'm reading a lot of murder mysteries at the moment
🤔

Allira, I don't enjoy them although one of my sons watches them on TV. With murder mysteries I have to work too hard to understand the plots .

Actually Rochester was kinder to his wife than was normal. Rochester did provide Grace Poole as competent nurse according to standards of the day, and he also housed his wife at home instead of abandoning her to a madhouse

Big ****deal!
He declared her mad in the first place exercising his absolute authority over his lawful wife as was legal in those days.
“Gaslight “ explored a similar theme.

Caleo

Allira, I don't enjoy them although one of my sons watches them on TV. With murder mysteries I have to work too hard to understand the plots .

You’re kidding

I've usually solved them before the end.

LONG before!

Usually the perpetrator is the one with no empathy 😁

Allira

Usually the perpetrator is the one with no empathy 😁

That is very interesting! I would have thought that empathy ( as in knowing how someone else feels)would make it easier for a criminal to estimate the opposition's reactions.

RosieandherMaw

*Wide Sargasso Sea* is not a sequel but a post-colonial prequel to “Jane Eyre”, telling the story of Antoinette, ( renamed Bertha - why?) a suffocating marriage, the racial and cultural tensions and issues of assimilation which contribute to her psychological unravelling.
Written in the 60’s it could not have been written in Brontë’s era when controlling dominant men were the norm even held up as role models.
So I’m not sure what the reader does learn from Jane Eyre except perhaps to swerve silent, saturnine and controlling men who declare their wife mad and lock her up in the attic.
Oh if only the final line had been “Reader, I ran screaming for the hills”

Of course, you are right ,it's a prequel. I still feel I can learn from the character of Jane Eyre that courage, self trust, and reasoned humility are virtues.

Caleo

RosieandherMaw

Wide Sargasso Sea is not a sequel but a post-colonial prequel to “Jane Eyre”, telling the story of Antoinette, ( renamed Bertha - why?) a suffocating marriage, the racial and cultural tensions and issues of assimilation which contribute to her psychological unravelling.
Written in the 60’s it could not have been written in Brontë’s era when controlling dominant men were the norm even held up as role models.
So I’m not sure what the reader does learn from Jane Eyre except perhaps to swerve silent, saturnine and controlling men who declare their wife mad and lock her up in the attic.
Oh if only the final line had been “Reader, I ran screaming for the hills”

Of course, you are right ,it's a prequel. I still feel I can learn from the character of Jane Eyre that courage, self trust, and reasoned humility are virtues.

Rosie , you describe "in Brontë’s era when controlling dominant men were the norm even held up as role models."
Jane Eyre was an unusual heroine as she was an early proponent of women's rights and Charlotte Bronte was a true innovator in placing Jane Eyre as heroine whose modern character contrasts nicely with What's-her-name , that brunette beauty who Rochester seemed to like a lot.

Throughout the 19th century women were standing up to men and asserting their rights. In 1792 Mary Wollstoncraft published her book. A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, which calls for women and men to be educated equally.

At the end of Jane Eyre, married to Mr Rochester or not, it is Jane who is in charge. She has married a man, burnt and blind, who is completely dependent on her.

Every one lives within the culture of the times. How much we women do now, at the same time as considering ourselves independent women, will others, 100 years hence still see as us being in thrall to the male sex?

M0nica

Throughout the 19th century women were standing up to men and asserting their rights. In 1792 Mary Wollstoncraft published her book. A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, which calls for women and men to be educated equally.

At the end of Jane Eyre, married to Mr Rochester or not, it is Jane who is in charge. She has married a man, burnt and blind, who is completely dependent on her.

Every one lives within the culture of the times. How much we women do now, at the same time as considering ourselves independent women, will others, 100 years hence still see as us being in thrall to the male sex?

Trump and other despots world -wide are set to rescind womens' rights. So in answer to your concern, I guess it all depends on how liberal people can fight back tagainst the menace of the extreme right .

Throughout the 19th century women were standing up to men and asserting their rights. In 1792 Mary Wollstoncraft published her book. A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, which calls for women and men to be educated equally
Correction Monica - some people including some women. Dare I suggest an enlightened few.
However the swashbuckling lantern- jawed Byronic heroes of romantic literature were still held up as aspirational.
Men were viewed as the Head of the Household and examples in literature ranged from (even) Mr Darcy to Dickensian husbands . So a study of his works would be unlikely to encounter marital equality or any feminist sympathies.
Domestic tyranny was a fact of Victorian life: men who were saintly in public could behave very cruelly behind their front doors. Even Dickens himself was a cruel tyrannical husband who was accused of severe mistreatment of his wife, Catherine Hogarth. He called her overweight and lazy after ten pregnancies and publicly portrayed her as a burden to him as a "suffering genius".
The Married Women’s Property Act was not passed until 1882 to allow married women to have complete personal control over all of their property.
Divorced women invariably lost their children in the case of divorce and until the 19th century, there were no consistently applied legal consequences for men who physically abused their wives or female partners. (In fact, all until the 1970s, it was not only legal but socially accepted for husbands to beat their wives.)
There was a long way to go.

I am not suggesting that male power wasn't predominant in the 19th century, but you in your turn are completely ignoring not only the many women who in many ways were working to change the situation, the opportunities for womens education increased enormously, girls schools taught the same curriculum as boys, the first university style colleges were established, the campaign for votes for women got under way.

The fact that many of these campaigns did not come into fruition until the 20th century does not diminish the factthat they had their roots, their formation and growth throughout the 19th century. Our 20th century successes were built on the shoulders of the campaigners in the 19th century.

We also tend to see domestic life through male glasses because most 'famous' novelists (Dickens, Trollope) are men - and =, yes, women achievers were written out of history, whether artists or business women, but the fact that history hid them does not mean that many women at a domestic and local level and national level lived lives of power of a kind not seen in male novelists books.

I am fan of Mrs Oliphant, a prolific writer of novels over much the same period as Trollope. The picture of women portrayed in her novels is very different. Read Hester, or Phoebe Junior or even Salem Chapel you will see, as in others, women who have practical day to day power.

RosieandherMaw

^Throughout the 19th century women were standing up to men and asserting their rights. In 1792 Mary Wollstoncraft published her book. A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, which calls for women and men to be educated equally^
Correction Monica - some people including some women. Dare I suggest an enlightened few.
However the swashbuckling lantern- jawed Byronic heroes of romantic literature were still held up as aspirational.
Men were viewed as the Head of the Household and examples in literature ranged from (even) Mr Darcy to Dickensian husbands . So a study of his works would be unlikely to encounter marital equality or any feminist sympathies.
Domestic tyranny was a fact of Victorian life: men who were saintly in public could behave very cruelly behind their front doors. Even Dickens himself was a cruel tyrannical husband who was accused of severe mistreatment of his wife, Catherine Hogarth. He called her overweight and lazy after ten pregnancies and publicly portrayed her as a burden to him as a "suffering genius".
The Married Women’s Property Act was not passed until 1882 to allow married women to have complete personal control over all of their property.
Divorced women invariably lost their children in the case of divorce and until the 19th century, there were no consistently applied legal consequences for men who physically abused their wives or female partners. (In fact, all until the 1970s, it was not only legal but socially accepted for husbands to beat their wives.)
There was a long way to go.

I think the reason that women almost without exception, have been deemed inferior to men is that

*women were most often either pregnant or nursing so their economic value was generally less than that of men.

* men were historically the fighters and defenders of the social group. The role of fighter and defender requires extra status to give the right to costly fighting equipment

^ there were notable exceptions for instance Boadicea, and for instance the women operatives in Lancashire cotton mills who were better earners than their menfolk, and for instance individuals like Annie Oakley who were proficient at traditionally masculine skills.

* the church hierarchy was in the past a political power and established churches such as RC and C of E endorsed laws that supported capitalism and kept women servile.

Caleo I am not sure I agree. I do so for the following reasons. To begin with the economic impact of women, and the extent tha they ran businesses or worked and were influential in family businesses has aways been underestimated. Some scholars are now reearching this, but as yet, very little has made it into common knowledge

Also while, yes, most women spent some years in pregnancy and childbirth, this did not stop them working in family home based businesses, which was the norm until the 19th century, but children were themselves a resource for a business. At the extreme 3 year olds worked in mines an many children would be involved in a family business in some form from he age of 10.

In agricultural economy, men ploughed and cropped the fields, but the women ran the farmyard, whether rearing poultry or looking after the dairy and producing dairy products and often taking them to market. Brewing was an industry dominated by women running ale houses and producing the beer they sold.

The dominace of men arose very early in human development because men were bigger and faster and more able to hunt and kill animals, while then, women were responsible for having children and seeingthem through their early years. But once humans started settling down to farming and agriculture the dominance of men remained, even though the roles of men and women changed, and once that was established it became self fulfilling that the dominant group would continue to dominate and as society developed to enhance it and almost ritualise male supremacy, BUT, you have only to read 19th century novels by men and women to see the world of male dominance and female submission portrayed in the books by male novelists and then read books by femail novelists to see how much agency many women actually had.

Of course there were laws that made life difficult for women and in many cases their legal rights were limited, but it dos not mean that within that legal, and often ignored framework - going to law cost money - women played a far more important rconomic role than currently fully recognised.

You are right Monica. I was perhaps too Eurocentric. For all I know women in some societies are more valued than men . One should take an anthropological view.

Your information may perhaps be true and mine be true also. It depends what questions one asks the statisticians. There are more variables than you and I have mentioned.

Let's not forget the religious authority which was on the same side as secular authority since the time land came to be fenced -in and owned. (" ritualise male supremacy").

PS Monica, the value of labour and labourers is one such variable. The Black Death for instance made hired labour more valuable. Women might then be viewed as burdens that needed protecting when they were pregnant or sexually desirable.

I'll just leave this here.

I'm afraid I don't see the logic of this thread. If someone has a strong enough cause to motivate them, their knowledge and education will not stand in their way.
I think all politicians should take a course in psychology, but it would not guarantee that they would be better politicians.

Caleo

PS Monica, the value of labour and labourers is one such variable. The Black Death for instance made hired labour more valuable. Women might then be viewed as burdens that needed protecting when they were pregnant or sexually desirable.

Sorry Caleo, the Black Death made the labour of women more valuable. This idea that in the historic past - and that goes back to the Iron Age women were protected when they were pregnant or young enough to be sexually desirable, is a lovely idea, but there is no eveidence that is what happened in practice.

Certainly in high status and rich households, being able to support you women so that they could concentrate on producing children to ensure the succession of your family and to use the daughters as pawns in dynastic marriages was a privilege limited to a very small sector of society. And then it was because of the economic and political value of the women, not out of care for their welfare.

Otherwise women worked for their livings in family enterpises, or as servants and labourers. In the late 18th/19th century women worked down mines regardless of their reproductive state and their children worked also from the age of 3 or 4. Special care for women when they are pregnant is very much a 20th century concept.

I accept your objections Monica. Thanks.