Should people get paid to write about Poe, Cummings, Hemingway, Thoreau? The original works themselves are pretty accessible. People can just read them and form their own interpretations. I'm skeptical that I really gained anything from reading literary criticism, at least it didn't make me appreciate the original works more or make me a better writer. I understand that there's a long tradition of scholarship in comparative literature and I'm not trying to be anti-intellectual or dismissive of an entire field of study, but maybe we should examine our assumptions and consider whether we're getting a good value from paying academics to do that work? Is it possible that society would be better off if we paid them to do something else, like maybe write new literature?
I don't actually care one way or another about that particular subject, but if you start making judgements about academic fields of study are worthwhile to pay for on the basis of value to society, you allow other people -- more ignorant people, let's say -- with different concepts of societal value to make somewhat unfortunate decisions. You might end up without any new literature at all.
Very little literature is written by academics. People who want to write new literature can just go ahead and do it.
In a world of limited time and resources we always make judgements about which academic fields of study are worthwhile. At some level it's a zero-sum game: time spent on comparative literature is time not spent on philosophy or history or creative writing. So, given that we have to prioritize which people to pay and which courses to require, how should we make those decisions?
To live a life thinking this way outside of work would fill me with existential despair. Life well lived is more than a mere exercise in market efficiency.
Academia isn't supposed to maximize our return on investment, and the people who made this their lives work didn't choose the field because it was the highest pay they could obtain or the thing which contributed the most to the orphan crushing machine (the economy).
As a society with limited resources we can't pay an infinite number of academics. If we pay more of them to do comparative literature then that necessarily means we pay fewer to do other stuff like history or philosophy. So, given that we need to make hard choices, which criteria should we use? It doesn't have to be ROI but there has to be some kind of rational basis for making decisions.
This is how things work in the real world. Enjoy your existential despair.
> So, given that we need to make hard choices, what criteria should we use?
That's a great question. I suppose we should start by asking ourselves who is currently paying them. It seems to me that would mostly be the for profit colleges who offer liberal arts degrees.
So far, letting "the free market" decide seems to be working for the most part. Although I am concerned that people are forgetting the value of having an educated popluace, and conversations like this one reinforce that fear. Do you know that 20% of Americans are functionally illiterate and the 54% read below the sixth grade level now?
It sounds like there is a quiet part you aren't saying out loud here, and I'm curious what it is? Do you feel that the government should be limiting access to education in some way?
On the contrary, I don't think government should be limiting access to education. But for publicly funded schools we should continuously re-evaluate the optimal required (i.e. non-elective) curriculum. Students only have limited time available to learn. Time spent on one subject like comparative literature is time not spent on other subjects like philosophy or statistics or foreign languages. So, given that it's a zero-sum game, what is the optimal amount of time spent on comparative literature? At some point you have to put aside the platitudes about "knowledge for knowledge's sake" and get to specifics about how many teachers to hire in each academic field.
There are very few for-profit colleges that offer liberal arts degree. Almost all colleges that pay academics to teach comparative literature are government or non-profit institutions. (Sure, you can buy an English degree of dubious quality from a for-profit school like University of Phoenix but the numbers there are tiny.)
Illiteracy is a symptom of a fundamental breakdown in the primary education system before students are even exposed to more complex liberal arts subjects like comparative literature. So I have no idea what point you're trying to make there.
You are technically correct, which is the best kind of correct. I concede the "zero-sum" point, thanks for taking the time to discuss it.
That's said, I still feel there is room to discuss which outcome we are trying to optimize for when we discuss the cost benefit of education and how to allocate those resources. Is the goal profit for employers, well adjusted complete cotizens who understand the world they live in, or something else?
I do suspect that our current attempts to laser focus on the skills most valuable to employers are short sighted, and frankly might be damaging society almost as much as the utter failure of primary education. That is why I mentioned the illiteracy issue before.
If only a minority can read well, and we are trying to "optimize" the learning outcomes of the remaining smaller percentage of competent students, we leave only a tiny percentage of well rounded and capable thinkers.
All knowledge is worthwhile. Its that easy. If you want to distinguish “useful” knowledge everything will eventually get thrown out. Why should people spend time and money investigating distant galaxies for example? Its completely useless for 99.999999 of all people. At best it results in “huh, neat” when reading about some new discovery about some star.
Python is pretty accessible, too... Should we pay people to write it?
I had some great comp lit courses in undergrad, which exposed me to some really fascinating work that I wouldn't have found otherwise.
Especially a course on literature of the Caribbean, which looked at a combination of contemporary work and older Western lot which are typical reference points: Robinson Crusoe and the Tempest. A good course brings together interesting world, and provides some structured discussion of both history and culture. You get more out of it through discussion with both the Prof and other students.
These courses at the undergrad level also create more writing practice on diverse topics, which is critical for developing writing skills generally.
I went on to get a PhD in mathematics, and now do machine learning for conservation, collaborating with folks all over the globe. Understanding the shape and impact of colonialism has been important for my subsequent work.
My English Lit friend definitely was aware of a trap of learning to pick apart literature before you can create your own. And then fell into it anyway. I suppose it’s like medical students and the DSM, sometimes it just freaks you out instead of informing.
It should probably be an MS class or a senior level class.
