Against "mathandscience"

Have the humanities and the sciences reconciled their age-old feud? Not to judge by an essay in the latest Harper's [subscribers only] by the novelist Mark Slouka, who takes up a cudgel against his scientific rivals. Science, as Slouka sees it, too often serves as an ally of business, as business (with the aid of numerous policymakers) strives to co-opt the once-grand project of educating America's citizens.

Debates about education tend to take place along a single dimension, Slouka argues: are students acquiring tools that will help them to land jobs and "grow" the economy? The New York Times editorial writer Brent Staples, for instance, has written that American schools are failing "to produce the fluent writers required by the new economy." But is that what writing is about?

Students who have read the dissenting, disruptive texts produced by great thinkers--students who have taken a decent humanities course--might well raise a hand and object to our current political and economic arrangements. They might write fluent, dissenting essays. Nevertheless, continues the novelist, when it comes to education, the economic frame has become all but universal:

There are no corresponding "civic indicators," no generally agreed-upon warning signs of political vulnerability, even though the inability of more than two thirds of our college graduates to read a text and draw rational inferences could be seen as the political equivalent of runaway inflation or soaring unemployment.

Where do the sciences come in? Adherents of the status quo find scientists to be quite congenial for two reasons. First, their contributions to economic growth are tangible. Second, scientists are politically docile: "Science keeps to its reservation."

"[T]here are many things 'math and science' do well, and some they don't. And one of the things they don't do well is democracy. They have no aptitude for it, no connection to it, really." Which is why autocratic regimes are quite happy to pay mightily for science while repressing humanists.

Here at home, massive federal support for the endeavor Slouka calls mathandscience might be acceptable, if the humanities were granted corresponding respect and resources (as a way of keeping the national political faculties healthy). But they aren't.

The takeaway: beware anyone who laments the sad state of American education, says we're losing ground economically, then concludes by arguing we need to make our schools a lot more like Singapore's.

Students in Singapore are very good at mathandscience.

("Creepy scientist" cartoon: Nate Wragg)