{"id":11584,"date":"2018-12-18T12:07:31","date_gmt":"2018-12-18T20:07:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/?p=11584"},"modified":"2018-12-18T12:07:31","modified_gmt":"2018-12-18T20:07:31","slug":"the-liberal-arts-werent-murdered-they-committed-suicide","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-liberal-arts-werent-murdered-they-committed-suicide\/","title":{"rendered":"The Liberal Arts Weren\u2019t Murdered \u2014 They Committed Suicide"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ National Review<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"drop\">T<\/span>he great culture wars on the campuses of the 1980s were largely lost by traditionalists. And the question then became not if but when the liberal arts would die off as a result. What is strange nearly 40 years later is that the apparent outrage over what was clearly foreordained is now becoming fact. What did academia expect, given its years of academic specialization and politicized indoctrination?<\/p>\n<p>Recently the University of Wisconsin\u2013Stevens Point announced plans to drop liberal-arts majors in geography, geology, French, German, two- and three-dimensional art<em>\u00a0\u2014 and history<\/em>.\u00a0<em>The Atlantic\u00a0<\/em>ran a well-meaning essay by Adam Harris on the controversial move, \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.theatlantic.com\/education\/archive\/2018\/12\/the-liberal-arts-may-not-survive-the-21st-century\/577876\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The Liberal Arts May Not Survive the 21st Century<\/a>\u201d \u2014 again, a\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/warontherocks.com\/2018\/12\/the-historical-profession-is-committing-slow-motion-suicide\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">topic much in the news recently<\/a>. The article\u2019s chief thrust is that insidious efforts to promote STEM vocationalism \u2014 the need to prepare young people for careers requiring extensive math and science skill sets \u2014 has driven out the need for more in-depth focus on the liberal arts, in a climate in which crass Republican state legislators, in allegedly vindictive and short-sighted fashion, demanded catastrophic cuts in state public higher-education budgets.<\/p>\n<p>The Stevens Point campus highlighted a popular perception that emphases in literature, history, or languages lead nowhere for cash-strapped graduates but to more debt and fewer jobs. Yet what the article on official university policy misses is\u00a0<em>why<\/em>\u00a0students do not concentrate in the liberal arts in the fashion of the past.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nationalreview.com\/2018\/12\/liberal-arts-education-politicized-humanities\/\">Read the full article here.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ National Review The great culture wars on the campuses of the 1980s were largely lost by traditionalists. And the question then became not if but when the liberal arts would die off as a result. What is strange nearly 40 years later is that the apparent outrage over what was clearly [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[1210,1],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-30Q","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1022,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/in-defense-of-the-liberal-arts\/","url_meta":{"origin":11584,"position":0},"title":"In Defense of the Liberal Arts","author":"victorhanson","date":"December 20, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson Tribune Media Services The liberal arts face a perfect storm. The economy is struggling with obscenely high unemployment and is mired in massive federal and state deficits. Budget-cutting won't spare education. The public is already angry over fraud, waste and incompetence in our schools and universities.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;December 2010&quot;","block_context":{"text":"December 2010","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/archives\/2010\/december-2012\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":11594,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/can-higher-education-be-saved\/","url_meta":{"origin":11584,"position":1},"title":"Can Higher Education Be Saved?","author":"victorhanson","date":"January 8, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ National Review America is schizophrenic about its major universities and, to a lesser extent, its undergraduate colleges. On the one hand, higher education\u2019s professional schools in medicine and business, as well as graduate and undergraduate programs in math, science, and engineering, are the world\u2019s best. America\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Education&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Education","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/education\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3127,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/mission-lost\/","url_meta":{"origin":11584,"position":2},"title":"Mission Lost","author":"victorhanson","date":"May 5, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"by Bruce S. Thornton City Journal \u201cWe offer unlimited opportunities to help students achieve their goals,\u201ddeclares\u00a0the California State University system on its homepage. \u201cWe prepare graduates who go on to make a difference in the workforce. We engage in research and creative activities leading to scientific, technical, artistic and social\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Education&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Education","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/education\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3186,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-humanities-move-off-campus\/","url_meta":{"origin":11584,"position":3},"title":"The Humanities Move Off Campus","author":"victorhanson","date":"December 10, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson City Journal Autumn 2008 Until recently, classical education served as the foundation of the wider liberal arts curriculum, which in turn defined the mission of the traditional university. Classical learning dedicated itself to turning out literate citizens who could read and write well, express themselves, and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;December 2008&quot;","block_context":{"text":"December 2008","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/archives\/2008\/december-2008\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6952,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-death-of-the-humanities\/","url_meta":{"origin":11584,"position":4},"title":"The Death of the Humanities","author":"victorhanson","date":"January 29, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"A liberal arts education was once a gateway to wisdom; now it can breed ignorance and arrogance. by Victor Davis Hanson \/\/\u00a0Defining Ideas\u00a0 The humanities are in their latest periodic crisis. Though the causes of the ongoing decline may be debated, everyone accepts the dismal news about eroding university enrollments,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Education&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Education","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/education\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1432,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-fannie-and-freddie-university\/","url_meta":{"origin":11584,"position":5},"title":"The Fannie and Freddie University","author":"victorhanson","date":"November 23, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson PJ Media It\u2019s More than Just PC The traditionalist critique of the university \u2014 I made it myself over thirteen years ago in the co-authored\u00a0Who Killed Homer?\u00a0\u2014 was that somewhere around the time of the Vietnam War, higher education changed radically for the worse. 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