What are the humanities? The immediate answer most would provide is something along the lines of “english, history, art, and other areas of studies,” and this might be somewhat true, but it by no means encapsulates what the humanities are. There is in fact “no adequate ‘idea of the humanities.” One could draw distinctions between the humanities and other areas of intellectual thought like the sciences and religion, even though they possess many similarities. During made me stop and think when he discussed the overlap between religion and some aspects of the humanities. The first being that the humanities, or liberal arts, as they were, emerged in support of religion, rather than against it. I would say this is because of the timing of these particular parts of history and how prevalent religion was at the time. Second, During says that the humanities can appeal to faith, which does not necessarily have to involve anything divine. Faith can be just that.
The distinctions, like the instrumental value that each of these different disciplines have ultimately make up the entirety of the difference between religion, science, and the humanities. Understanding the humanities and their history is really the only available method out there. In addition, it seems to be the concrete that is keeping the humanities alive, even though lots of humanities programs in institutions in the United States are underfunded and not treated with nearly as much respect as they had been in the past. We have seen an emergence of people taking part in the intellectual world of the humanities outside of institutions as well, which is promising considering the current conversational climate of our country. All in all, there is hope, but there is also a massive amount of pressure from all sides fighting the now fragile status of the humanities.
