Robert Matz explained in his article, “The Myth of the English Major Barista”, that “there was a time when we understood that English majors, like other majors in the liberal arts, end up with far more than a salary — they develop the sense of ethics, history and culture, and the habits of open and reasoned deliberation, that the coffeehouse ideal represents and that are essential to functioning democracies, not to mention to lives well lived.”

I think that it’s commonly heard amongst anyone with a liberal arts degree that the degree is either worthless or it’s just a gateway into saying you’ll end up as a teacher or some kind of journalist. There is nothing wrong with these jobs but we all seem to be pigeonholed into one thing, which is where things get messy. These positions, funny enough, seem to all be interchangeable with each other when talking to the right set of people. All three of the articles spoke to this idea but Matz in particular hit on a point that resonated with me. The humanities, for me, has always been about the arts, history, and culture. To me, it’s the very thing that makes the world run. It seems this very idea is often glossed over, however. Like Matz said, that coffeehouse ideal is something that we value even if we don’t necessarily realize it.

Let’s take something very basic into consideration. If we stopped caring about the humanities, who would make the art we put in our house or something as mundane as a piece of furniture? Not to say that every single person doing these things has a humanities degree but the foundation for all of these things are inherintly based in the humanities, which is why its so important. If we went a step further and took into consideration something like a tv show, this point is made even more clear. How would you feel if you were told that the writers of your favorite show was fired because what they did ‘wasn’t really essential’. What do you predict would happen?

Senator Marco Rubio made a statement that was funny to me, but I think it proves my point. He questioned whether it was worthwhile for students to “study, you know–I don’t want to offend anybody–Roman history. Are there any Romans here?”. I can’t personally speak for any Roman History majors but if we were to assume that same person applied all of their knowledge to a massively popular movie, tv show, or book series that is revered by many, would we be as quick to write them off and question whether what they did in school was really important or not? What about if we were to say to that same person outside of the entertainment industry that their study of history doesn’t matter because “nobody cares about the Romans”? If this was the case then could we just as easily remove the subject from school entierly? If something as basic as this doesn’t matter, what other things revolving around history could we cut out? Wouldn’t it be strange to find out that any history that doesn’t involve America past the 60s has permanently been cut from curiculum with the justification of “well, does this really matter” in mind? (Say goodbye to any and all history references/memes that have been made ever because no one under the age of 20 would know what you’re talking about). This is an extreme but I think it’s something that can put things in perspective to a lot of people. I could keep going on but the point is that the argument of the importance of the humanities is something that some people only really consider when something’s directly being taken away from them.

There were also several mentions on salary and specifics on who usually ended up in low-skill jobs in the three articles. It’s been shown that these numbers aren’t as alarming as many would have you believe, however, and that although it’s often seen that humanities majors seem to have a fraction of a percent more of a likelihood to be hired into these positions, it does not account for the amount of people that end up in high paying jobs directly after their part-time job as a service worker. As someone that’s worked in retail since high school, I, and many others college students like me, see it as nothing more than a stepping stone. Career wise, I like to view my choice in pursuing English with the idea in mind that “The world is your oyster”. This was something that was stated in one of the articles too but as an English major, there is next to no field that I couldn’t get into if I really wanted to, which to me makes this one of the most versitile majors I could have picked. The constant existential dread/idea that i’ll never get a job I want still haunts me but again, that idea is based on the idea that every decision i’ve made from the point of declaring my major as a freshman has been nothing but wrong, which was stimulated by the same people that question why I’d pick a major like English to focus on. Still, I can’t really imagine myself as pursuing anything outside of the humanities. To do that would be setting myself up for failure.

In Culler’s “Literary Theory” I’d like to focus on the last section of ‘What Stories Do’. He stated that stories give pleasure – “Plots tell of desire and what befalls it, but the movement of narrative itself is driven by desire in the form of ‘epistermophilia’, a desire to know” (Culler 91). I found this section interesting because it perfectly describes that intense feeling/urge of wanting to know what happens next when reading a story. In the same light, Culler also mentions this intense urge of knowledge is also followed by exposure. We seek knowledge and to know more than what we should because knowledge exposes “the hollowness of worldly success, the world’s corruption, it’s failure to meet our noblest aspirations. They expose the predicaments of the oppressed” (Culler 92).

When looking back at the story so far, this intense need of knowledge and the reasoning behind seeking this knowledge personally manifested for me when reading about Lucy’s death and her subsequent ‘resurrection’ shortly afterwards. That feeling of wanting to know how A lead to B and why it lead to there is something Culler described perfectly. That almost perverse feeling of wanting to see every detail of Lucy’s demise, no matter how cruel it is portrayed in the story, is also strong. As strange as it sounds, this feeling in particular spoke to me because as a reader, we are always enraptured by the things that should be horrifying or we should feel shameful towards. Instead, we flock to it like a moth to light.

This same mentality reminded me of the lecture on the decline of culture. I related Culler’s mentality on the subject to people’s shifting views at the time. People were fearful of their crumbling social structure but there was still enough people curious enough to push the boundaries, no matter how odd or taboo it may have seemed at the time.

This is the second time i’m reading Westover’s “Educated” and it’s amazing how much i’ve forgotten about the book. I remembered the plot and could pinpoint specific points in Tara’s life, but I hadn’t remembered how the book made me feel. I can confidently say this is one of my favorite books ever but it’s also extremely depressing in certain areas. Tara’s life is such an emotional rollercoaster that it’s hard to imagine how she could have possibly come out of it at times. 

I want to talk about chapter 12; “Fish eyes”. At this point in the story, we do not know much about Shawn, one of Tara’s older brothers. Even so, at the end of this chapter we can kind of take a guess at who exactly Shawn is. Judging from his treatment of Sadie, it’s easy to label Shawn as manipulative and maybe even sadistic (From both the store incident with Sadie running back and forth for items Shawn supposedly didn’t even want, and to the moment where he stopped communicating with her because she was seen talking to Charles). By the end of chapter 12, once Shawn decided to yank her by the hair and pin her towards the toilet bowl, I think the perception of him changes to more along the lines of abusive. In this chapter, When Shawn asked Tara for a glass of water, she knew Shawn was treating her just like Sadie so she decided to pour the water over his head. Shawn then decided to escalate the situation even further. “He seized my wrist and folded it, curling my fingers and palm into a spiral. He continued folding until my body began to coil…As if he could read my mind, he twisted my wrist further; my body was coiled tightly, my face scraping the floor. I’d done all I could do to relieve the pressure in my wrist. If he kept twisting, it would break.” (Westover 110).

Just as a disclaimer, I don’t have any siblings. I don’t really know what a brother and sister relationship is like. I can only infer so much from the media, friends, and family. With that being said, I think most people would agree with me when I say that this interaction isn’t normal in the slightest (And if you don’t agree with me, feel free to tell me!). I don’t want to spoil the story too much but from what I know, the relationship between Shawn and Tara doesn’t get any better. Throughout this story there are many different instances that leave me feeling sorry for Tara but I can confidently say that Shawn is at least the cause of half of them. The cycle of Tara doing something small and ultimately insignificant and Shawn overreacting is a repeated pattern.