What will happen to "useless" disciplines

Whoever retained some prudence must have felt his blood freeze in his veins after the Government's proposal to form a Working Group for amendments to the Law on Higher Education was disclosed. That Working Group would be headed by the new Minister of Education, Dejan Vuk Stanković (until recently the star of "Pinka"), and in that group, in addition to the seen, unscrupulous Essenes cadres, Rector Vladan Đokić should also sit in it - therefore, as representatives of the regime have been repeating for weeks, a terrorist, a criminal who should be arrested, an idiot and a foreign mercenary. By the way, Rector Đokić was not even informed about this circumstance (so that there is no misunderstanding: he was informed that he was a criminal and that he should be arrested, but he was not informed that they wanted to change the Law).

photo: marija janković

PHILOSOPHY, THE WORLD AND US

So, after 13 years of neglecting education - and this carelessness can be compared to an attempt to destroy the Serbian education system - in the midst of a student and professor rebellion against the regime, the regime reached out to change the Law on Higher Education. A man - who has spent the last six months, that is, 13 years, on nearby Jupiter - would think that the pressure has borne fruit, that people have come to their senses and now, after more than a decade, are starting over. Therefore, after a long public discussion, the engagement of dozens of experts - lawyers, professors who deal with the problem of higher education, philosophers, sociologists, pedagogues, economists - comparative study of experiences from other countries, careful review of the effects of the Bologna system, the amended law would regulate areas that have not been regulated so far, would oblige the state to double the expenditure for the university than before, insist on strengthening the staff and tightening the criteria for selection into positions, would reduce the obligations of professors and freed them from meaningless bureaucratic actions, which means - increased the time for scientific research work, he would threaten expulsion from the university in case of falsification of papers, reform the institutes connected to the university, and he would pay special attention to the humanities, which have barely survived in the last twenty years.

We will dwell only on the last item. Is it necessary to save what does not show enough vitality to just survive the present moment? So, why philosophy, classical sciences (Greek, Latin), archaeology, ethnology, history of art, various literatures? Isn't it easier to cut it short, spend the "huge" money allocated for those disciplines more wisely, and leave it to private faculties and private academies - which, by the way, are known for nurturing the humanities - to solve this matter in the market competition? Before we give any answer, let's go back to the Working Group and the amendments to the Law on the University.

The previous paragraph was, of course, a dark joke. Even in the wildest speculations, the Essenes government - which is unfamiliar with civilizational values ​​- cannot be expected to take care of the university. On the contrary, the Essene Law on Higher Education would mean the destruction of universities. And it is quite certain that, above all, the humanities disciplines would be hit by the amended Law. To that extent, the new Law would, on one level, be "found" in the opinion according to which philosophy, classical philology and other losing disciplines could be removed from state faculties without harm to society, and to the joy of the budget (and the Essenes).

Civilizational experience, as well as (unexpected?) tendencies, above all in Europe, show, however, something completely different. We will dwell, briefly, only on philosophy. The data on how much countries like France, Germany or small Slovenia invest in philosophy faculties is completely astonishing. For example, a multinational company based in France sent a proposal to the French government suggesting additional investments in philosophy because the company noticed, among other things, that philosophers are exceptional workers. That proposal was accompanied by a generous financial arrangement, and it should be remembered that the French education system, when it comes to philosophy, is the most developed in the world. Furthermore, it is amazing how much Mercedes allocates for philosophical institutes in Germany (Institute for the Philosophy of Technology, for example), and Slovenia - thanks to a smart educational and cultural policy - has no problems with employing philosophers (not to mention having one of the more exciting European philosophical scenes).

The amended Law could, for example, see the need for philosophers in other fields: philosophy of mechanical engineering (not only man makes machines, but also machines shape man), philosophy of medicine (why would doctors not pay attention to what is a disease, except that diseases are automatically cured), philosophy of geography (what is space, objective category or subjective condition of sensibility), philosophy of biology (therefore, what is life), which would be much more effective than dead ethics.

There are many ways in which the most useless of all useless disciplines can be yoked to the wagons of the whole society: it is cheap to educate philosophers, we would get new jobs, and society would, in the long run, feel the healing effects of thinking. In addition, as a discipline that teaches how to think, philosophy educates free citizens with backbone and integrity - the two new ministers in the reconstructed government, for education and information, philosophers by training, are the exceptions that confirm the rule.

FIGHT FOR STUDENTS

Boris Pendelj, a professor at another "useless" department - the Department of Classical Sciences - says that he met the current Minister of Education during the last accreditation cycle in 2020. "I was the director of the Department of Classical Sciences, and the current Minister of Education, as a philosopher, was then the head of the review committee of the National Accreditation Body for study programs at all three levels of study in my department. All programs, with a few remarks and suggestions, were approved. Will we continue the 'collaboration' in the same direction? I'm not sure about that. We would prefer that we continue to only (not) watch our minister on televisions with bright colors and boiling happiness."

Interest in enrolling in the Department of Classical Sciences at the Faculty of Philosophy has been declining for years. However, Professor Pendelj says that, although reduced, the interest is constant, and suggests to look at how things are not only at the basic, but also at the master's studies. "Students from other departments of the home faculty, as well as from theological and philological faculties... There is also great interest in doctoral studies. From the above, it is easy to conclude that older, more mature students better understand the importance of classical sciences. Recently, we also have a so-called non-philological master's degree - Ancient culture and classical heritage. Prior knowledge of classical languages ​​is not required, the subjects are interesting and varied, and it should not be surprising that the number of enrolled students is enviable. And in this way, we are fighting to 'survive in the market'.”

The professor notes that the situation is similar in almost all departments of the Faculty of Philosophy: "The situation is not much better in philosophy, archaeology, history of art, ethnology. All these disciplines are important for the preservation and understanding of our (local and national) culture and history - they also speak to us, which should not be neglected in a serious state." Pendelj further explains that the predominance today is on the side of the 'new' sciences, which approach in a more exact way the questions that were once dealt with by the humanities. At the Faculty of Philosophy, in fact, interest in all study groups, except for psychology, has decreased, and this fact is partly a consequence of increased interest in even newer sciences (political, organizational...).

"Let's 'relax' a bit: for example, understanding the human soul has been the subject of philosophy on a scientific level for millennia, and also for everyday self-help needs was read by the Stoic philosopher Seneca, that great life coach of the ancient world", says Professor Pendelj.

SHARPENING THOUGHTS

But can the humanistic disciplines be left to the market? Roughly speaking, the basic criterion of the market is earnings. Some of the faculties manage to earn enough money to be self-sustaining, but of course, archeology, for example, cannot be compared to law, medicine or electrical engineering. Does that mean they should be let down the drain? As a counterweight, Professor Boris Pendelj cites the fact that almost 40.000 students attend Latin classes in secondary schools in Serbia every year.

Finally, what are the classical sciences for?

"A similar question was asked by Jovan Turoman when, exactly 150 years ago, he was appointed professor of classical philology at the history-philology department of the Faculty of Philosophy of the Great School. He called his introductory speech 'What is the value of studying classical languages ​​and literature'", explains Pendelj, further stating that Turoman, in one place, ten years earlier, wrote that classical teaching had and still has 'adversaries among all nations'. The period immediately after World War II was marked by externally imposed personnel changes, dismissals, transfers, and then departures from the country. "It was not easy even in the second half of the last century. Namely, classical philology, the mother of all philologies, at the Faculty of Philosophy in Belgrade was renamed to classical sciences so that it would not, in two strokes, fail and be transferred to the Faculty of Philology, and thus mainly reduced to servicing the teaching staff, almost always the Latin one." Contrary to the above, concludes Pendelj, a very precise "diagnosis" of the place and need for learning classical languages ​​in the modern order of knowledge was made by academician Aleksandar Loma: "Besides purely scientific interest, which consists in achieving direct access to early periods of history, at least two other reasons can be cited for learning ancient languages", wrote academician Loma. "One is the ability to experience the original beauty of classical literary works. The second argument (...) is that learning languages ​​in general, and especially Greek and Latin, serves to sharpen and refine the student's thinking. (...) But we could also say that it is a humanistic universal, because the reasons for which the ancient Babylonians taught Sumerian in their schools centuries after it died out are not very different, nor are the reasons for which educated Indians still learn Sanskrit today, even though that language is not in living speech. used for a good two and a half thousand years."