One Year of Humanities in Revolt

Celebrating Over 200 Subscribers and an Outpouring of Support

I began Humanities in Revolt, in August 2021, as a labor of love. My aim was to share some of what I had learned from my own education and teaching experience with a larger public audience. I wanted to bring the questions, concepts, works, and insights of the humanities that had inspired me and so many of my students out of the ivory tower and into the wider public sphere. My view, as a high school dropout turned humanities professor, is that humanistic studies are too important to be confined to colleges and universities. And that these ideas and works could and should be discussed in the context of our everyday lives.

It turns out plenty of others agreed. By March 2022, Humanities in Revolt had gained 92 subscribers. Some of the first posts covered the difficulty of being good (ethics), popular quotes misattributed to thinkers like Confucius, and the importance of humanistic education. One post, "What Critics of the Humanities Don't Understand," particularly struck a chord—a nerve for some, really—eventually garnering more than 1,400 views and fostering plenty of critical dialogue in social media. Not bad for a little Substack newsletter on the cultural margins.

Our readership has grown to over 200 since our August 2021 start, and our posts have reached thousands. Thank you for helping to make Humanities in Revolt a success!

To my surprise, our readership was only beginning to grow. Recent posts addressing the problem of evil, moral integrity, the non-economic value of life, the original poor people's campaign, freedom of expression, and the courage it takes to live an ethical life have generated considerable interest within Substack and in social media, leading to a surge of subscriptions. In six months, our readership has more than doubled, growing to 231, as of September 16, 2022. Ninety-one new subscribers joined us in the last six weeks, alone.

I am genuinely grateful to each person who has so-far subscribed. You have my gratitude for sharing your time with me, as you read, comment on, and share these posts. My hope is that I am able to instigate a thought or conversation, share an insight or work you find valuable, or simply pose a question worth meditating on.

I must also thank those of you who are paid subscribers for honoring the work that goes into this project with your financial contribution. I am well aware of the economic hardships many are experiencing, and realize that sharing your hard-earned resources is no trivial act. Your contributions have allowed me to promote posts to reach wider audiences and gain new readers and subscribers. Those financial contributions have also helped allow me to invest more time into the production of each post. Most posts now include art that highlight an important idea and, importantly, provide a clear reference to the source of the idea so that readers can both verify the accuracy of the quote and dive more deeply into work under discussion.

You can also help us in our mission of promoting humanistic inquiry by liking and sharing posts you enjoy through social media and/or inviting others to subscribe.

Those of you who are unable to be paid subscribers are now and will continue to be welcomed and appreciated for your readership. You can also help us in our mission of promoting humanistic inquiry by liking and sharing posts you enjoy through social media and/or inviting others to subscribe. The goal of this publication continues to be the development of a community of curious, creative, and critical thinking readers who share a love of humanity and commitment to self-examination.

Why this Newsletter? Bringing the Humanities to the Public Square

It could be said that since the humanities are all around us—music, movies, art, books, quotes from great thinkers, religion and the like—that this project is an unnecessary redundancy. But this would be a misunderstanding of the humanities. What makes the humanities different, as we practice them in higher education and as I hope to stimulate in this newsletter, is the emphasis on rigorous evaluation, critical dialogue, and patient contemplation. I think it is fairly clear that these are not ordinarily features of our engagement with ideas and the arts in daily life.

First of all, it is important to recognize that a great song, film, or idea cannot reveal itself to us unless we make the effort to engage the work in serious reflection or dialogue. John Stuart Mill once noted that facts rarely tell their own meaning. We can just as easily note that even the greatest works of art fail to bestow us with their beauty or insight. For this we must engage them and not passively but with a creative, active mind.

As another example, consider that people routinely share quotes purported to be from great thinkers via social media. But sometimes those quotes are misattributed to the wrong thinkers. For many these kinds of errors aren’t a big deal. But I think that if it is important enough to attribute the idea to a thinker then we should make sure we are attributing it to the right person. At times ideas are attributed to thinkers that run counter to the very ideas they advocated for in their time.

More importantly, people too often use these quotes as exclamation points—as nails in the coffin of dialogue. In a humanities classroom, a great quote is the beginning of a potentially lengthy period of reflection, analysis, and discussion. In the first place, the humanities teach us that our task is not merely to bow down before an idea, work of art, or thinker of the past, but rather to try and understand it and then draw on our unique intellectual capabilities to engage and assess the idea. We ask:

Does it merit our admiration? Does it offer us insight? Is it beautiful? Is it truthful? Does it nurture our humanity? What is its relevance to the present? What assumptions are being made? How do others' ideas contrast with this one? How does this idea hold up against our own experiences and original thoughts?

The humanities, as a unique field of study, does more than tout a work of art or a quote from a purportedly great thinker. In the humanities we subject these ideas and works to critical and creative scrutiny. They become opportunities for self-examination and genuine dialogue.

What is more, some of the most treasured ideas of the humanities are underrepresented within the wider popular cultural discourse. My hope is to bring some of these important ideas, works, and questions to the attention of a wider audience, including those outside of higher education. And to support the rigor of thought characteristic of humanistic thought.

The hope is not that readers will passively consume or regurgitate the ideas and interpretations they encounter here. After all, the appreciation for independent thought and human autonomy are central values within the humanities. As Immanuel Kant put it, in “What is Enlightenment?” (1784), “Sapere aude!” or “Have courage to use your own reason!” was the very motto of the Enlightenment, and intellectually passivity is scorned:

“If I have a book which understands for me, a pastor who has a conscience for me, a physician who decides my diet, and so forth, I need not trouble myself. I need not think. If I can only pay—others will readily undertake the irksome work for me.”

Painting of Immanuel Kant by Michael Newton.

The feminist poet, Adrienne Rich, said much the same in her 1977 convocation speech, “Claiming an Education,” at Douglass College. Addressing female students whose very ability to survive sexism required intellectual independence, Rich said that claiming an education requires intellectual responsibility to one’s self.

“Responsibility to yourself means refusing to let others do your thinking, talking, and naming for you; it means learning to respect and use your own brains and instincts; hence, grappling with hard work.”

Portrait of Adrienne Rich by Janna Klaevers

The hope of this project is that readers will seriously contemplate the accuracy, relevance, and importance of the ideas and works before them; that they will critically engage with these ideas and be willing to be challenged and maybe even changed by them.

The aim is also to create a space where matters of existential importance are given the prioritization they are due. Humanistic psychologist, Abraham Maslow, lamented the sciences and wider education’s abandonment of the inescapable and centrally important realm of human values. His criticism was also directed at those within the humanities who had begun to adopt the perilous path of valueless scholarship. In Religions, Values, and Peak-Experiences (1964) he reminded readers,

“The goal of humanistic studies was defined as the perception and knowledge of the good, the beautiful, and the true. Such studies were expected to refine the discrimination between what is excellent and what is not (excellence generally being understood to be the true, the good, and the beautiful). They were supposed to inspire the student to the better life, to the higher life, to goodness and virtue.”

Digital portrait of Maslow by Kegya

Maslow’s critique, that we were failing to honor such humanistic matters, is as freshly relevant as ever. His recognition of the centrality of humanistic inquiry is equally true. Year after year, students report finding it strange not to have learned more about such an intrinsically important and interesting area of study, prior to college. Humanities in Revolt insists that humanistic questions like these are invaluable to us as individuals and as responsible members of a society:

What is the good life? What does it mean to be moral? What is justice? What is beauty? What insights are offered to us, today, from the past? When and why did humans first begin making art? What differences are there between ancient civilizations? What, if anything, should we be willing to die for? How do we know if something is true? What is success? What do ancient poets have to teach us about life and love? What do different religions and mythic systems have to teach us about the human condition and the inner psychology of human beings? What does it mean to “love” your “enemy,” as Jesus insists we do? Is this advisable let alone feasible? And how does this idea fit with our ordinary beliefs about justice? More fundamentally, what does it mean to love? Is love simply a feeling or is it a skill? And what is the relationship between love and justice, or love and our own flourishing as individuals?

The other aim is to create a virtual space mirroring aspects of the humanities classroom, where intellectual independence and humility are honored and opposing views are brought into respectful, reasonable conflict. Again and again students in my college courses have noted that they particularly appreciated that our class confronted the most challenging, controversial subjects while maintaining respectful dialogue even as we explored views that sometimes unsettled us. They appreciated that we took time and explored our differences of beliefs and understanding in detail rather than seeking to avoid such conflicts. Students appreciated that this was done without personal attacks, belligerence, and combative score-keeping.

The ideal humanities classroom is one where we consistently adhere to the basic principles of Socratic Dialogue: aiming to gain clarity and understanding rather than defeat the other person; approaching questions with intellectual humility and a commitment to logical consistency. We also courageously and fairmindedly consider competing perspectives, including those we most vehemently disagree with. Such experiences facilitate the growth of critical thinking skills, empathy, and self-knowledge. My hope is that this project can contribute, however modestly, to the similar outcomes in readers.

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Subscribers will receive periodic posts pertaining to the broad domain of humanistic inquiry, from the insights of great thinkers throughout human history, the meaning and importance of critical thinking and ethics, the underappreciated poetry in everyday existence, to contemporary cultural analysis and the ongoing struggle to combat human oppression and violence. You will also have the opportunity to engage the author and our online community in dialogue about each post.

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Paid subscriptions directly support Dr. Jeffrey Nall’s efforts to produce and share publicly accessible independent scholarship and analysis. Supporting donations can also be made through PayPal. For more about my work go to JeffreyNall.com and find me on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.