Consciousness, Literature and the Arts
Archive
Volume 4 Number 3, December 2003
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Spellmeyer,
Kurt, Arts of Living, Reinventing the Humanities for the Twenty first Century,
New York, State University of New York Press, 2003, pp.297, ISBN 079145648X,
price: HC $78.50, PB $26.95.
Reviewed by
The
title of Spellmeyer’s book is, if nothing else, like swallowing a pill without
any water. The argument that
Spellmeyer makes for reinventing the humanities is fearless, forthright and
invective; a manuscript that in short deserves some attention. It is a lively, passionate, knowledgeable, opinionative and
electrifying book to read. In spite
of this, the book is troubling in more ways than one, but is this not perhaps a
good thing? In an educational
climate where there is so much appeasement, political correctness and spin, it
is refreshing to hear a different and distinctive voice free of educational
managerial doggerel. Spellmeyer’s
problem, however, is that he appears unable to notice what is paradoxical and
weak in his own argument. Yet, one
should also say that it is a work that is timely and has captured the mood if
not a large slice of the problem that is facing humanities teaching.
The book as suggested is insightful and Spellmeyer
speaks in ways that are moving and explorative.
It is a work rich in textural references and while the thesis has a
certain American nationalist focus to it, many lecturers working in similar
kinds of higher education institutions here in Great Britain may find
themselves, to different degrees, sympathizing with Spellmeyer’s account: that
essentially there is a current crisis in the humanities.
Spellmeyer puts much of the blame for this crisis in the humanities directly on
the teaching profession itself. A profession he sees that has lost its way and
become embroiled in too much conservative thinking, elitism and critical theory.
In essence, he thinks that the humanities teaching in higher education
has forfeited its common touch, its normality to the world, its affinity with
the people and its ability to address the ordinary citizen in ways that
acknowledges and supports their experiences, anxieties and understanding.
He surmises that intellectual navel gazing behaviour in the humanities
teaching fraternity has reached epidemic proportions.
The effect of this, he further argues, has been to alienate would-be
interested students, the wider public and political allies from enjoying what
the humanities can seriously offer in career and life enhancing experience.
The futility of these intellectual games, according to Spellmeyer, has
resulted in a decline of interest in the humanities and whatever relevant status
it once had in society. The
profession, he argues, has become too inward looking and rarely moves outside
its own inner circle of friends, notoriety and fanfaronade.
Spellmeyer
thinks that in part the cause of this decline is due to the intellectual elite
of mostly French and German thinkers. He
feels that a lot of post-modernist and Marxist ideology has managed to
centralise, restrict, reduce and impose certain narrowly prescribed teaching
standards and tastes in the humanities. The
result of this experiment, he says, is the infiltration into the humanities
subjects of Marxist and post-modern tendencies which emphasise theory over
practice. He further believes that
these theories, which in essence never get a clearly defined role in the work,
negatively exclude, subordinate and paralyse other natural evocations of student
life and with it the loss of any sustained interest in the humanities as central
to cultural well being and ethical life.
Clearly,
few would disagree with the suggestion that theory can undermine practice,
creativity, spontaneity, intuition and other psychological responses. But,
according to Spellmeyer's awkward analysis the writings of Gramsci, Marx, Adorno,
Deleuze, Foucault, Derrida, Lacan, Adorno and many more, have become the
dominant stock and trade arbiters, the thought police of what counts as proper
teaching and thinking in the humanities. He feels essentially that it is the market driven culture
which has been overridingly important in democratizing education and in
supporting the expressive nature of the humanities. True enough, but some will
rightly feel that his dislike of post-modernism and Marxist thinking is hardly
measured. Spellmeyer shows here
considerable ignorance of what many would regard as rigorous argument, effective
thought and historical scholarship that borders on the sublime in some
post-modernist and Marxist thought. What
critique he has in denouncing these ideas is at best discursive.
Similarly, in criticising minds like T.S. Eliot as he does on the basis
that he is a difficult writer to understand, fails to see how he may be
rubbishing a whole new generation of poets and writers who followed in his
footsteps like, for instance, Seamus Heaney.
Yes, there is some obscurity in Eliot’s writings but many a poet,
writer, painter and layperson has found by reading Eliot a plethora of emotional
agreement, a lucid mind, a bewildering array of images and an enunciation quite
special, memorable, learned and liberating.
Some of the heroes that Spellmeyer draws upon are: John
Dewey, Ralph Emerson, Lionel Trilling, James Agee, Matthew Arnold, Max Weber,
William James, Thomas Moore, Frank Lentriccia, Edward Ross and Earl Parker
Hanson. He weaves out from the above authors’ different but
compatible arguments as a basis to draw a substantial conclusion for reinventing
the humanities in the twenty-first century. His solution is for a more populist
and less specialised approach in humanities teaching. Spellmeyer wants to claim that the humanities need a greater
sense of artistic individualism, pragmatism, relativism, media information and
career culture in order to mirror the aspirations of students and thus counter
the growing apathy of interest in the humanities. The appeal to make the humanities more popular is not without
its problems and maladroitness but Spellmeyer’s conception that the humanities
need to reinvent themselves may prove to be correct but how to do this
comfortably in a way that is nourishing to all sides certainly requires much
more of an open intellectual debate.