As The Wall Street Journal noted earlier this month, the number of undergraduates earning degrees in English, foreign languages, history, or philosophy fell by about half between 1966 and 2010. But as shown in this great graph courtesy of the Chronicle of Higher Education, the late 1960s were actually a historical outlier, no doubt connected to the sudden flood of baby boomers onto campus. Most of the subsequent drop-off, meanwhile, actually happened in the 1970s. Since then, the humanities have accounted for roughly 6 to 8 percent of all college degrees.
None of this is particularly shocking. The typical college student in 2013 is not the typical college student of 1966. They’re older. There’s a good chance they commute to school, or are taking classes online. And they’re more pre-professional. As an industry, higher education has expanded to cater to them. According to the Department of Education, firefighting, homeland security, and law enforcement majors now make up about 2 percent of all graduates. They barely existed in the 1970s. Health professions now account for almost 8 percent of grads, more than double their share four-decades ago. Suffice to say, the 28-year-old going to school today to finish a B.A. in nursing, or criminal justice, is not the same student who would have been studying Homer in 1972.
The relative decline of majors like English is modest when accounting for the increased propensity of Americans to go to college.
In fact, the number of new degrees in English is fairly similar to what it has been for most of the last 20 years as a share of the college-age population. In 2011, 3.1 percent of new bachelor’s degrees were in English language or literature. That figure is down from 4.1 percent 10 years ago, 4.7 percent 20 years ago, and 7.6 percent 40 years ago, in 1971.
But as a proportion of the college-age population, the decline is much less distinct. In 2011, 1.1 out of every 100 21-year-olds graduated with a bachelor’s degree in English, down only incrementally from 1.2 in 2001 and 1.3 in 1991. And the percentage of English majors as a share of the population is actually higher than it was in 1981, when only 0.7 out of every 100 21-year-olds received a degree in English.
Meanwhile, Peter Orszag parses the study that Klinkenborg mentioned, showing that college grads in general are slipping “further down the occupational ladder or out of work altogether.” Recent Dish on the humanities here and here.
Fouad Ajami explores how the Muslim Brotherhood “hijacked” the revolution that began with “secular liberals, Christian Copts, young men and those daring women who defied custom and tradition to come out in the public square”:
[T]he Brotherhood had more than eight decades of political experience behind it. The military dictatorship had atomized the feeble liberals, leaving them unprepared for the contest over the new order. Like liberals elsewhere in hard, illiberal places, they were sure they embodied their country’s spirit. They were trounced by the Brotherhood and the hardline Salafis in the first parliamentary elections; the judiciary, a bastion of the old order, stepped in and dissolved the parliament. The democrats didn’t own up to the truth: While Egypt has a sophisticated intellectual elite, a modernist camp, and Europe isn’t too far away, it is a poor country with a high illiteracy rate and a population that the Mubarak dictatorship had been content to leave to darkness and the rule of superstition.
In the best of worlds, the Brotherhood would have been willing to tread carefully and to acknowledge the narrow mandate it had secured with Mursi’s election. But a paranoid movement that ached for power wouldn’t show restraint.
Leslie Chang checks in on the anti-Morsi protest movements:
The biggest challenge to the Egyptian government resides in a sweltering fifth-floor office in a crumbling building in downtown Cairo. It’s paper—millions of pieces of paper, sorted into stacks and piled on chairs and balanced atop cardboard crates. Each is a signed petition calling for the removal of President Mohamed Morsi and new elections, labelling Morsi “a failure in all the meanings of the word … unfit to administer a country the size of Egypt.” The petition charges the country’s leader with betraying the revolution, destroying the economy, and begging for foreign aid to keep the country afloat. Fifteen million Egyptians have signed it, which is two million more than voted Morsi into office a year ago. Many are expected to join mass protests on June 30th. …
After two years of watching politicians on both sides of the fence squabble and prevaricate and fail to improve their lives, Egyptians appear to be rejecting representative democracy, without having had much of a chance to participate in it. In a country with an increasingly repressive regime and no democratic culture to draw on, protest has become an end in itself—more satisfying than the hard work of governance, organizing, and negotiation. This is politics as emotional catharsis, a way to register rage and frustration without getting involved in the system.
Elsewhere, Steve Negus reviews Morsi’s first year in office:
For the winner of the first freely contested presidential election in Egypt’s history, Morsi has reached a point where he is quite vulnerable. When a mass movement says it’s going to try and remove you, and the army and the police signal they’re not going to do much to stop them, it’s sensible to worry — the opposition may swear up and down that they do not want a coup, but it’s pretty easy to imagine a series of events where one ends up happening anyway.
(Photo: Egyptian opposition protesters hold their shoes in the air, an offensive gesture, during a demonstration in Tahrir Square against President Mohammed Morsi, prior to a televised national address by Morsi on June 26, 2013 in Cairo, Egypt. By Ed Giles/Getty Images)
Most definitions of masculinity can accommodate shirts soaked with sweat, blood, or ambiguous grime … but not applesauce … My son weighs more than most cannonballs, and he moves nearly as quickly—it takes a real man to shelter the house (and his sister) from these artillery-grade payload specs. I’m a tough guy—even when wearing a Björn.
Noting that “it’s easy to never be alone and yet very lonely,” Lane Wood relays an anecdote:
I meet someone interesting at an event and return home to find they’ve already added me on Facebook. I’m nosy, so I want to see what friends we have in common. Turns out, we know 89 of the same people. Which begs the question: How on earth is it possible to have 89 mutual friends with someone I’ve just met?
The experience prompted him to ponder the meaning of genuine friendship:
True friends are our best personal brand consultants, the ones that sit us down and tell us the truth about our lives. They understand not just what we do, but who we are becoming. They help expose the lies we tell ourselves and breathe life into moments that need encouragement. They’re not pursuaded by high levels of “epicness” or exclusive invites. Friends are content to navigate the mundane and the everyday together, because not everything can be “crushed.”
The world needs more friends. More specifically, the world desperately needs more “connections” to become true friendships.
A fascinating nugget from the post-revolutionary Iran era, as that country’s clerics dealt with the West. At one point in 1986, Rouhani was enticed by Manucher Ghorbanifar (remember him?) to talk with someone he thought was an American official in Paris. In fact, it was an Israeli, Amiram Nir. And he had a secret microphone. Here are some things Rouhani said a long time ago that might have some salience for today:
“I feel very uncomfortable over Imam Khomeini’s extremist speech yesterday,” Rouhani added, “I think it was his most hard-line speech since he seized power. He demanded to break and cut into pieces all those who don’t hold with his extremist anti-American stance, but it’s your fault: you Americans sit and watch what goes on between us and Iraq and do nothing to help us. You won’t get a thing from Iran until you start moving about and supply us what we need.”
At this point, however, Rouhani admitted: “It should be clear to you that what I said now is what Rafsanjani demands I say. If I will not do so, it will be the end of me. Of late, we’re led by extremists such as Khomeini and his son. I’m surrounded by guards. I want nothing to myself, least of all money, as I can’t spend it in my position: it would draw suspicion. I’m seeking what’s best for my country. You should know who you are dealing with.”
“If you analyze Khomeini’s character you’ll see that a strong opponent makes him go 100 feet back; while a weak one impels him to drive forward. Unfortunately, you’ve taken the wrong stance: you are too soft on him. Had you been tougher, you’d be in a position of superiority. You didn’t show power.”
All the moderates in my country are walking a thin line. We can’t meet with you every week. Not even every month. We are ready for a real cooperation with you, but first you’ll have to help us nurture the true Islam in our country, and for that we need your money and assistance to finish the war with Iraq.”
I stopped shaving in my mid-20s. Back then, I would joke to people that I am a Grateful Deadhead lesbian with a German mother, making it a triple threat for not being allowed to shave my legs and arms. Though I’m nearly 50 now I still, after 25 years, sometimes worry about people judging me for my unshaven legs and armpits. Not enough to actually shave them, mind you, but that thought is always there. Part of me revels in the rebellion of it and that I get to say an internal “Fuck you and your rules, man,” like any good hippy should. But part of me knows I’m being judged and I cringe a bit. How many ways can I create to get stared at and judged as a 6’2″ butch lesbian in a Grateful Dead t-shirt?
But here’s the thing I notice about not shaving. Deadheads and hippies mock women who don’t shave. Other hippy women mock not shaving. Many lesbians shave, to be attractive for other lesbians, though at least they don’t care or even blink when a women with hairy legs walks past them at Pride. And even my female German cousins now shave their legs and armpits (they didn’t up until we were about 30). If it’s just straight men asking for this, they have even more power than even the wildest of far-left radical hippies and feminists could ever imagine.
Another female reader:
I shave my legs only because I’m straight and hairy legs signify otherwise. I don’t feel shame about having hair on my legs (or armpits), nor do I feel that appearing lesbian is objectively bad. It’s just factually incorrect in my case. The haircuts, clothes shopping, hair products, makeup, hairdrying, face tweezing, jewelry, “accessories” (ugh) and on and on are just so fucking time-consuming, and it’s not fair. And I say this as someone who lives in Seattle, where my no-makeup, no-manicure, minimal jewelry, sensible-shoe, perpetual-bad-hair-day look makes me a pretty normal-looking straight woman. I don’t think it matters how girly you look otherwise; sporting hairy legs immediately labels you as gay – such is the ridiculously strong cultural expectation of bare-leggedness for straight women. (Considering how few of my lesbian friends/acquaintances currently have hairy legs – that’d be zero of them – it’s even more nuts that hairy legs remain a signifier of lesbiantasticness, but a signifier they remain.)
Another sends the above Youtube:
This song by Keb’ Mo evokes a strong positive reaction from his female fans whenever he plays it. It’s my favorite song of his (and I’m a big fan).
Another:
I have four reasons why women enjoy shaving their pubic hair:
1. Oral sex, the runaway winner. Both giving and receiving. I give you a pass on knowing this, Andrew, but this is probably the #1 reason why women in relationships go bare.
There is no comparison in the amount of enjoyment for the giving party. No comparison. It also feels better and more sensitive receiving (at least with a clean-shaven man or a soft-skinned woman as the giver; I can’t speak to receiving from a bearded man as that’s the one experience I haven’t had). If the giving partner is happier to give, the receiving partner is happier – full stop. What percentage of women cannot achieve orgasm through intercourse alone? More enjoyable foreplay makes for more orgasms, which makes for stronger relationships.
2. More comfortable during hot humid weather. Hair sweats. Sweat chafes.
3. Lochia! I’ve given birth five times. Lochia is a comparative BREEZE without hair (especially during the first few weeks when you’re not physically able to shower very often).
4. Less hygiene maintenance during the gloppy, mucousy week around ovulation, less annoyance during that slow 24-hour trickle after sex, and obviously less odor and cleanup during menstruation. The normal gooey hassle of femininity is hugely reduced when you don’t have individual curly strands of hair to keep clean.
Maybe you read all that and went, “ew, I don’t want to hear about this.” Well, I don’t want to live it! Female bodies are full of icky-feeling liquid messes, and shaming me into accepting a life without modern, unnatural conveniences like tampons and razor blades isn’t un-repressing me.
Another:
I’m a female ginger, and I have hairy arms and hair on my chest. The latter is quite fine and downy, and when I was younger, it really bothered me. I was relieved whenever I ran across another female whose arms were also noticeably hairy and I shied away from two-piece bathing suits because of the hair on my torso, which probably only I noticed according to my husband whose attention I had to direct to the issue, and being quite the bear, he laughed.
I don’t worry about the hair anymore. Mostly because I am older and I long ago stopped caring about culture and its norms, but this conversation reminded me that as a female, there are a lot of inane “rules” we are expected to adhere to in terms of our bodies that are largely dictated by men. Men are free to be apes, which happens to suit me (except for the ear and nose hair – pluck that, seriously).
Another:
I have dark hair, and lots of it. Dealing with upper lip and even underarms is no big deal; it only takes a few seconds. But shaving my legs takes 5-10 minutes every time. That doesn’t sound like a lot, but it essentially doubles my shower time on days when I do it. On the other days, my legs don’t show, period. I recently wore jeans on a 90-degree afternoon because I was rushed that morning. I cringe at my arm hair, too, but I learned in middle school that shaving your arms is somehow even more shameful than leaving them hairy.
Given the extent to which leg hair affects my life, I’ve considered laser. But the dilemma is my daughter. She’s 5, and a carbon copy of me. Her hair will get darker, and she’ll probably have the same issues that I do. Maybe she’ll want to laser it off, too. What would I say? Half of me would want to challenge the notion that a significant portion of her body hair should be removed permanently – no need to adopt my hangups. But the other half thinks back on my own experience and would love to save her the trouble of shaving through all those years before she can afford to pay for removal herself, if that’s what she’s going to do anyway. So I keep shaving, and hope to find her some better role models in the meantime.
One more:
There’s another element to this, which is what many women do to keep hair off other parts of their body – like their faces. I have dark, curly, thick hair; I’m Ashkenazi Jewish on my mother’s side. Since I was a teenager I’ve grown facial hair, and as I aged, it got worse. I had highly-visible hair on and under my chin; on my cheeks; on my upper lip; and I grew a pair of thick sideburns that would be the envy of many men.
As an adult I finally felt I had to confront this – I’d started going everywhere with my eyes down, unable to look people in the eye – and so I had it lasered off. This is a painful, slow, and expensive method to permanent hair removal; basically you are burning out the melanin in your hair follicles with a laser. It hurts like hell, like being snapped repeatedly with an electric rubber band (though the degree of pain varies by person and treatment). Some of the hair grows back, but less of it each time, and it’s thinner, lighter, and weaker. After an intensive initial treatment period lasting about a year, I now go back for a treatment about every eight months or so.
It’s been unpleasant, but I can honestly say that it has changed my life. I feel good; I look good; I walk with my eyes up, meeting people’s gaze.
But I did leave the sideburns. They were so thick I frankly didn’t see how they could be unobtrusively lasered away, since between treatments they would grow back and be obvious to anyone who saw me over time. It was too embarrassing. Now they are the only remnant of my prior hirsute self, and I don’t actually mind them (and I’ve had partners who found them downright hot.) So I trim them down and forget they’re there, and that mostly goes okay except for the occasional incident where I hear a whisper, or catch a stare on the street or on a train.
Still, I imagine my experience isn’t that unusual. For women, facial hair is common, and what we go through to get rid of it – and the judgment we suffer for it, much of it from other women – would surprise you. Behind many a perfectly smooth female face lie thousands of dollars and hours of pain in treatments.
Thanks, as always, for hosting such a fascinating discussion.
This file photo taken on October 15, 1990 shows African National Congress leader Nelson Mandela sitting beneath Mahatma Gandhi portrait in New-Delhi. By P. Mustafa/AFP/Getty Images.
The labeling of deadly pathogens is more contentious than you might think:
Human disease is littered with examples of fractious, sometimes furious rows over what emerging pathogens are called. Some 30 years ago, when the human immunodeficiency virus, or HIV, was discovered, it was named “GRID,” or “gay-related immune deficiency,” helping to spread the slur “the gay plague.” It was not until it became clear the sexually transmitted virus was also infecting heterosexuals and haemophiliacs, that GRID was replaced with the more accurate HIV.
More recently, the scientific “H1N1″ was the name that stuck for the pandemic flu strain that swept the world in 2009/2010 after earlier suggestions proved too sensitive. An Israeli health minister objected to “swine flu” on religious grounds and “Mexican flu” caused offense to a nation. When scientists called a “superbug” enzyme that makes bacteria resistant to almost all known antibiotics “New Delhi metallo beta lactamase,” or NDM-1, the Indian health ministry called it “malicious propaganda” to put India in the name.
Update from a reader:
It’s scientifically and historically nonsensical to say that “GRID” was replaced by “HIV”. I recognize, it’s not your error, but the above passage should be more accurately written:
Human disease is littered with examples of fractious, sometimes furious rows over what diseases and pathogens are called. Some 30 years ago, when AIDS was first described, it was initially referred to as “GRID,” or “gay-related immune deficiency,” helping to spread the slur “the gay plague.” It was not until it became clear the sexually transmitted virus was also infecting heterosexuals and hemophiliacs that GRID was replaced with the more accurate AIDS.
As you no doubt remember – I certainly do – both GRID and AIDS were described years before the discovery of the causative organism, and by the time HIV was discovered, GRID had long been relegated to the waste bin of formerly-useful-yet-now-recognized-as-inaccurate terms. And neither AIDS nor GRID can accurately be described as pathogens, let alone emerging pathogens.
Or as another reader puts it:
The article you cite is confused. The name of the bug and the name of the disease are two different things. The virus that causes AIDS, now generally called HIV, has at times been called LAV, and also has been called HTLV III. But it has never been called GRID. GRID would be an early synonym of AIDS, not HIV.
The Dish 