Liberal arts degree programmes are on the rise in the context of Indian private higher education. At the same time, liberal ideologies are gravely misunderstood and viewed with scepticism in contemporary popular and right-wing articulations. As a faculty in a liberal studies school, I find that a greater understanding of the value of liberal arts education and what it offers to future citizens are extremely essential for a more harmonious future. By better understanding the nuances of what a liberal arts education can offer, students who opt for this degree can better respond to their contemporary problems — whether it is the on-going Israel-Palestine war or the politics of merging the state and religion.
The importance of context
A liberal arts education seeks to enable students and future leaders to understand contemporary social problems in context. This is to suggest that to understand and respond to any situation, we must engage with the historical, sociological, economic, and psychological contexts. Such an approach would necessitate openness, require an ability to comprehend a problem from multiple perspectives, and recognise the complexity of the issue at hand. No quick answers or solutions would be possible. Another important aspect of a liberal arts education is to learn how to historicise our contemporary problems. This can enable us to have a view of the present in a way that does not ignore the past but instead teaches us how historical events have led to contemporary crises.
This is why a historian may have a stronger and clearer opinion about present crises than someone in a non-liberal arts field. A nuanced perspective, fertile with critical thinking, would require us to recognise how and why we do have a problem or a conflict. Is there a context to the crises at hand? What are the larger geopolitical issues that affect the issue? Who is being affected and what is at loss?
For example, any armed conflict is not about a battle for physical resources or religious dominance, but represents multi-dimensional fault-lines over culture, language, perceptions of truth and justice. The construction of the idea of ‘sovereignty’ is itself often hinged on subjective perceptions of historical claims and injustices. Geopolitical and military interests add to the complications of a narrative of conflict. A liberal approach at the very minimum should recognise these complexities before denouncing any particular voice or narrative.
The subject of identity
People’s identities are intrinsically linked to regional, national, religious, gender, and other markers. There is nothing reductive about recognising identities of people. No social scientist or historian or economist is, as often labelled as doing so, trying to reduce identities to characteristics. This would be a grave misunderstanding of these liberal disciplines. Instead, recognising identities means acknowledging difference, which is innate in human society. How can we forget the history of human evolution, the formation of societies, cultures, and groups, and speak from a naive position of “simply being human”?
In making sense of conflict between two groups, a student of the liberal arts would instead first ask the question ‘when and why do national identities matter?’ Does the erasure of identity of some lead to the dominance/flourishment of other identities? If identities did not matter, then why do passports matter when we travel? Why do nations not open up their borders to all religious and national subjects?
Power as a central vector
In aiming to answer these questions, the role of power in societies can be recognised as being extremely significant. Liberal arts education allows students to learn that power is a central vector in understanding contexts and crises. Incorporating the role of power in any analysis does not denude it of nuance, as Allison Schrager argues in a ‘premium’ media online article of December 3, 2023, “There is an economic case for redefining liberal arts education”. Rather, it deepens the engagement with contemporary crisis situations. Ignoring power relations and hierarchies between identities often leads to flat, homogenised narratives that are hardly of use in the real world. It would be naive and ignorant to deny the role of power in war, or in societies at large.
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Power itself may operate in a society, or between nations, in a complicated, multi-layered fashion, and thus a nuanced liberal understanding should anchor itself on a complex treatment of power — not by excluding or wishing it away. A liberal arts education, seeking to be transformative, encourages students to be more humane, while recognising differences and identities, and understanding how power operates within our societies. By asking critical questions first and then understanding the problems in-depth, students can learn to think about solutions, take informed stands, and find resolutions — which shall also have to be complex and nuanced.
Anandini Dar is Associate Professor, School of Liberal Studies, BML Munjal University, Haryana
