An Essay on why we should study Literature

"Strangely enough humankind longs for progress, but insists on repeating the same mistakes and injustices of the past."

An essay on why we should study literature.

Attending the invariant need of a capitalised world, to produce enough work force with the sole purpose of developing products which value is mistakenly measured by its price; literature -not to mention the humanities in its entirety- are often reckoned as fields doomed to failure. So much so that the search for such courses are facing a significant decline over the last years. However, it’s dangerously naïve to think of this trend as a mere demand of globalisation when it’s actually a successful colonisation of thought.

In the allegory of the cave, Plato intended to “compare the effect of education and the lack of it on our nature” using a series of metaphors to make a balance between ignorance and enlightenment. The cave represents the world and the prisoners its inhabitants. The shackles preventing them from freedom represents ignorance, for it deprives them of the truth. The shadows cast on the walls represents the illusions of the world and the freed prisoner represents the person who can now see the world from what it really is, therefore he can separate the truth from the illusions.

 

Having said that, the deprivation of the masses from literature or any other subject which purpose is to not only philosophically enlighten the individual, but also train them to question their own reality; serves the maintenance of a halter designed to keep those in power free from the shackles of ignorance and in control of others, which in turn are conditioned to sub-existence. It’s only natural that a system such as this deprives the individual of such subjects; that is to say; deprives them of knowledge. Looking back, the white upper-class men have always been fighting to maintain a hierarchy of knowledge using a deranged justification called meritocracy. To them, the merit lies on the nobility of caste rather than in the effort one makes to be freed from the darkness of illiteracy.

However, the theory that literature -or humanities- is a dispensable subject falls into contradiction as the globalised market requires a high degree of “critical thinking, communication and cultural perspective, which cannot be taught by business schools, for it hasn’t the expertise to teach philosophy, history and English” says Emad Mohammad, the director of the Business and Humanities program of McMaster’s DeGroote School of Business. A sign of this segregation can be seen on the vast curriculum on the humanities field offered by renowned schools throughout the world that can only be patronised by privileged “costumers”, whilst the rest dreams of an unaffordable higher education.

Moreover, literature plays a vital role to the enlightenment of the shackled individual, thus, when used alongside other disciplines of humanities, business, and the exact sciences enhance greatly one’s sense of identity and place in the world. Naturally, any attempt to subvert the long-stablished norm is viewed and labelled as unacceptable, for the subject who thinks is an unruly one.

Author's Note

Any review -good or bad– will be appreciated. Should you happen to review it, please let me a link so I can return the favour.

Reviews

[sette]

for someone who appreciates both subjects literature and humanities this is a poignant piece and about time that somebody has to write something about it, i can relate the allegory of the cave with the world itself wherein fear has been the main barrier why we never learn our lessons despite what history has been describing all along, people never learned from the mistakes and this is where literature comes in, people should learn that it is the reflection of one's life and that there are things that we need to appreciate or not, depends on the knowledge and perspective of an individual but as the rationalists say knowledge has a reason and no matter how abstract it is there is still learning to explore and maybe there is no other tool for learning but only through a holistic education which does not depend on science alone but social sciences as well thanks for this enlightening piece.

[R. M. Suarius-Heilig]

First I would like to apologise for taking so long to submit a response to your review, thank you for your words, mate. It means a lot.
It is hard to witness the inversion of value that it's taking place throughout the world over the last years and with a very few exceptions, more and more governments are insisting on the stubbornly persistent illusion that the world is binary when in fact its most beautiful aspect is exactly the opposite of it. I personally think that the worst case of blindness affects us when we just refuse to open our eyes.

Once again, thank you for your review and I hope I can find some time soon to return you this favour.

[Victor Hugo]

foda. Tenho que escrever algo mais porque o minimo de caracteres não permite só o foda, mas o foda me representa.