Martha Nussbaum Not For Profit

Free essay

Martha Nussbaum
Not for Profit: Why Democracy needs the Humanities

What is more important: Teaching skills for a job and to be profitable for the society? Or learning how to use your imagination, analyze your own and other cultures and be effectively involved within your own society? In her book Not for Profit: Why Democracy needs the Humanities (2010), Martha Nussbaum says thatwe are finding ourselves in a world-wide education crisis. She argues that nations are primarily focused on national profit. Schools and universities are increasingly forced to prepare their pupils as machines so they can provide for the economic prosperity. According to Nussbaum, however, it is unthinkable for us to maintain a democratic society without understanding the complexity of the worldwe live in. Behind the acts of great statesmen and the hypotheses of the greatest scientists lies certain qualities that do not have anything to do with calculations or profit, but with human knowledge, imagination and empathy. These are qualities you cannot master by studying economics, mechanical engineering and business administration, but by studying Humanities and Arts. Nussbaum's concern isthat the studies within the Humanities faculty are gradually being suppressed to make place for education focused on economic growth.
She addresses this issue on the basis of the pedagogical ideas of great intellectuals like Socrates, Rabindranath Tagore, John Dewey and Jean-Jacques Rousseau. What these people have in common is that they perceive pedagogy as a way to develop citizenship.Children have to learn to understand economic structures in the world and also get to know the different cultural and religious features of other countries. Hereby important is not just knowledge of tradition and skills, but through game, music and dance children have the possibility to engage with other people and different ideas. To really understand the world, to understand other societies, we haveto see ourselves in one another's shoes by using our imagination and empathy. Nussbaum argues that it is important that we have the ability to think critically, to approach world problems as a "citizen of the world" and to imagine sympathetically the situation of another person.
Especially the Indian Tagore is a great inspiration for Nussbaum. He made the boundaries between different castesand sexes negotiable and challenged the Hindu-nationalism by introducing children to other cultural traditions. Nussbaum uses this kind of examples to show how education can contribute to an atmosphere of tolerance, critical awareness and a richer individual life.

Now I will focus on some, in my opinion, remarkable points that Nussbaum makes in her work and I will clarify how I interpreted thesepoints.

An important argument she repeatedly makes in her manifesto, is that if we want to continue living in a democratic society, we have to recognize that we are all inviduals, all separated from one another and that we all "possess an inalienable human dignity that must be respected by laws and institution" (Nussbaum:24). The education model is at this point, however, primarily focused oneconomic growth and national prosperity and I would say that Nussbaum suggests that this growth model generalizes all the single individuals in the society and that therefore the concepts of democracy and economic growth are incompatible.
What I found notable though is that later on she says that the arts "are essential for the goal of economic growth and the maintenance of a healthy businessculture" (Nussbaum:112). So in the beginning of her book she argues that democracy and economic growth are two goals that cannot be 'combined' and I might say she excludes the one concept from one another. And then she contradicts herself by saying that the model of the liberal arts - the model that we, according to her, need to maintain our democracy - contributes to the economic prosperity of...