To the Editor:
Re “History
for Dollars” (column, June 8):
As a professor at a liberal arts college, I appreciate David Brooks’s
grabbing a sandbag to help prevent the demise of liberal arts education.
His essay left me panicked, though. When your friends don’t get it,
then you really start to worry.
He’s right that studying the humanities is about more than reading
comprehension and memo writing. He’s also right that the humanities are
where we plumb the depths of human emotion, passions, suffering and
vice. But I disagree with Mr. Brooks’s warning that it’s dangerous to
“enter exclusively into this realm and risk being caught in a cloister,
removed from the market and its accountability.”
The humanities teach us what it means to be human. Their siren song is
not to the cloister, but to life, real human life. It’s the humanities
that ought to hold the market accountable rather than the other way
around. After all, the market was created for humanity, not humanity for
the market.
Daniel J. Ott
Laurinburg, N.C., June 9, 2010
The writer is an assistant professor of religious studies at St.
Andrews Presbyterian College.
To the Editor:
David Brooks underestimates the role that science and mathematics have
played in broadening human minds. Since the days of Pythagoras, great
philosophers have considered those disciplines essential to
understanding human nature.
Unfortunately, many people view computers only through the lens of
accounting spreadsheets or increasingly illiterate e-mail messages.
Semiconductor engineers know better.
The chips that drive the computers are marvels of science and
technology. The processes that create the chips by converting crude
silicon into beautiful crystalline structures capable of producing
artificial intelligence require analytical thought adaptable to other
situations in life. The same is true of other areas of technology.
Mr. Brooks writes that “studying the humanities will give you a
familiarity with the language of emotion.” That familiarity can also be
enhanced by the knowledge of science, mathematics and, yes, engineering.
Those disciplines should not be viewed as somehow inferior to
humanities.
Bill Frusztajer
Boston, June 9, 2010
The writer is a former semiconductor engineer.
Keith Burgess-Jackson, J.D., Ph.D. 