A new article published in Public Humanities argues that while the humanities are widely dismissed, other fields explicitly rely on the very skills that humanities education cultivates.
Philosopher Claire Elise Katz of Texas A&M University describes this as a paradox: the humanities are denigrated in public rhetoric even as colleges and employers prize “critical thinking,” ethical judgment, perspective-taking, and careful listening.
Katz emphasizes the essential pedagogical role the humanities play in developing these human skills, which are increasingly under threat in today’s political climate and growing influence of digital technologies and AI.
Her argument carries significant implications for the psy-disciplines, which, through a long history of attempting to associate themselves with the biomedical sciences, have detached themselves from the humanities, leading to a reductionist view of mental illness that overlooks the complex interplay of social and cultural factors contributing to mental health.
She writes:
“The humanities, which typically comprise literature, philosophy, languages, and history, entail the study of the human world and human experience from a critical perspective. Our engagement with these fields helps us understand ourselves and the world by showing us the complexity of human experience, examining emotions, considering different perspectives, and tracing the development of both ideas and events. These fields encourage us to explore different forms of government, ethical choices, human nature, and the meaningfulness of life.”
Katz offers a compelling analysis of the widening gap between the humanities and other fields, showing how this disconnection disrupts the development of critical thinking, sound judgment, ethical reasoning, and meaning-making in life.
You've landed on a MIA journalism article that is funded by MIA supporters. To read the full article, sign up as a MIA Supporter. All active donors get full access to all MIA content, and free passes to all Mad in America events.
Current MIA supporters can log in below.(If you can't afford to support MIA in this way, email us at [email protected] and we will provide you with access to all donor-supported content.)
I know my escape from psychiatry was very entwined with my artistry. One of my characters became another self, and he since showed me how my art was really just the way I had found to process my emotions. He showed me how art can be used to heal the soul, or for violence.
But first I had to face him and decide to reject psychiatry’s dispassionate narrative in which he was a symptom of a broken machine. I had been raised very secular atheist and I love science, but this was the crucial moment where I rejected its “science” and embraced him as another soul; a fragment of my own that I’d accidentally created and tortured through all my emotional processing work, because I had justified doing a lot of horrible things to him entirely because I didn’t believe in souls.
The psy-disciplines should not exist because they attempt and claim expertise on the human soul. And like my Vigil, treating people like you don’t believe in souls just ends in cruelty.
I think maybe we’d all be better off if artists replaced all psych unprofessionals.
There’d be way less gaslighting, I bet, because if you think brains and thoughts are a machine that can break, you could justify denying someone’s entire reality even if they protest.
But souls don’t malfunction the way machines do. They get injured, not broken. They need healing, not fixing. It’s quite stupid the way this would make as much of a difference as it would.
So to the article I say: Close but no, we need to abolish the psy-disciplines because their fundamental existence is anti-soul.
Report comment
I agree, Dead Soul, painting the evil out is good therapy. Let’s hope and pray the psych professions stop attacking us artists.
Report comment
“I think maybe we’d all be better off if artists replaced all psych unprofessionals.”
I disagree. Replacing psy-professionals with artists assumes that creativity equals kindness, patience, compassion and insight. It does not.
The truth is artistry can be a tool of healing—or harm.
Souls don’t need new interpreters. They need protection from being interpreted at all.
That’s something worth remembering—especially once you realize that every soul is an artist.
Report comment
Every soul is not an artist. I know this because my mom isn’t evil, yet she also has ZERO creativity. To be honest, I feel this as her not having a soul. She will never, ever be an artist. I don’t understand it. I don’t think it should be possible. I have an extremely hard time believing she feels much of anything. But if she were traumatized enough, I don’t even think it would do anything. She would never truly heal because she has no soul that I can see.
That said, I do agree with the larger point that these psych unprofessionals shouldn’t be replaced because their niche is one that shouldn’t exist. That’s fair.
Report comment
I believe every soul is an artist—not because they create, but because they carry the capacity to.
Artistry and creativity are not proof of value or virtue. It’s a language some souls choose to speak.
Whether they choose to express it or not is sacred because the choice is theirs, and ONLY theirs to make.
It’s a mistake thinking artistry equals virtue or holds some special value greater than the soul that carries it, thinking gifts of the spirit—compassion, kindness, patience, humility, discernment—are reserved only for the creative.
Artists are not saints. Psy-professionals are not soul whisperers. Each soul is born with an inborn capacity for self-realization and creative expression in whatever way speaks TO THEM.
No one is in a position to declare another soul non-existent, however bleak things seem.
Report comment
Spiritual maturity and artistic ability are two entirely different things. One does not necessarily indicate the other.
Artists are just as prone to vanity, competition, and self-aggrandizement as any other misguided soul.
Report comment
I don’t think you get it; I really want to agree with you but my mom is completely soulless and may have never had an original thought in her head. She openly admits she is 0% artist and never will be. I genuinely don’t understand how she claims to appreciate art.
If she had a soul, it would be one I guarantee you could never produce art.
Report comment
It sounds like you’re equating creativity with soulhood—but those aren’t the same thing.
I do understand why it might feel that way, though. For you, art has been a way to process the pain of being unseen—a way to express and make sense of yourself, your soul, in an insensitive world. Or find sanctuary in the artistic creations of others.
But not everyone’s soul speaks through creativity.
And that doesn’t make their soul any less real.
Report comment
The “soul” (or spirit) can be abused and misdirected in ways that make it totally unaware of itself and its own truth. This is really the only weapon that can be used against us. And it has been used with much success against many beings here on Earth (as well as many other places, I reckon). The major purpose of a true “mental health” system would be to rehabilitate the “soul” and return it to a state of self-awareness and a willingness to be able and creative AND ethical.
Report comment
I agree. The mental health system is Gaslighting Incorporated.
I learned more about life and myself in relation to it from studying the humanities or reading a good novel or biography in my spare time than I ever did from “psychotherapy”.
Report comment
“Psychology” infiltrating the humanities is a terrible idea. It’s the one discipline that needs protection from those under the influence of psychology’s “clinical gaze”.
The fact that some psychologists see no problem with invading the humanities reveals how blind they are, and their lack of understanding of what’s at stake: independent thought.
Moreover, this article does a good job hiding what’s in plain sight: indoctrination. That it IS happening NOW in the humanities, and students who disagree are silenced. Oppressed. Meaning psychology, i.e. politics, has invaded university classrooms. Full stop.
There’s actually a psychological term for this kind of abuse: reverse discrimination
But here’s the litmus test: the humanities have integrity. Psychology has NONE.
Report comment
“The psy-disciplines should not exist because they attempt and claim expertise on the human soul… we need to abolish the psy-disciplines because their fundamental existence is anti-soul.” – Dead soul.
Agee 100%. The psy-disciplines are cannibalistic. They chew up suffering with clinical detachment, spit it out as “diagnosis” and call it “care”.
They don’t interpret the soul—they strip-search it.
Report comment
Co-mingling psychology with the humanities taints what the humanities are all about: the sacred search for meaning in a complex world.
It’s like inviting a wood-chipper to choir practice. It doesn’t harmonize—it annihilates.
Report comment
I’m all for the exploration of the human experience whatever form that takes: literature, philosophy, history, the fine arts, cultural studies, etc.
I just don’t believe matters of the soul—the humanities— should be exposed to the reductionist theories found in “psychology” when humanity has already suffered enough.
Report comment
The exploration of one’s own soul is exactly the kind of healing one will never ever find from these “professionals” so long as they frame it as medicine-shaped (the medical field itself not drugs) “treatment”.
Report comment
Agree 100%.
But the exploration of one’s own soul DOES NOT REQUIRE a “therapist”.
Report comment
The healing of the human soul does NOT belong in medicine.
Report comment
“The Seven Stages of Awakening (and How Consciousness Evolves)” | Dr. John Churchill, @Andreduqum
Report comment
“The Great Shift in Human Consciousness Has Already Begun” | Dr. John Churchill, @Andreduqum
Report comment
I only learned of this post through extensive scrolling on Facebook. So far there have been only three active commenters.
My teacher complained about how the “humanities” (or social sciences) were lagging far behind the physical sciences and engineering. This was in the 1950s. Now they are arguably catching up. And so they are being suppressed even further. Why? Because the humanities must confront the human mind, the human soul and the human spirit. And now, besides my teacher (Hubbard), there have been several other researchers who have made notable advances in these areas.
The existence of Spirit, and its exact properties and capabilities, is the greatest secret held by those who wish to control Earth. And that secret is now being revealed – via what most of us know as “the humanities.” Should the population of Earth – or even some significant portion of that population – become fully aware of what these researchers have discovered (or are still discovering), they could challenge this control, possibly even breaking free of it.
The controllers will do everything in their power to prevent this from happening.
Report comment