Not for Profit: Why Democracy Needs the Humanities

by Martha C. Nussbaum

What lessons does this analysis suggest as we ask what schools can and should do to produce citizens in and for a healthy democracy? • Develop students’ capacity to see the world from the viewpoint of other people, particularly those whom their society tends to portray as lesser, as “mere objects” • Teach attitudes toward human weakness and helplessness that suggest that weakness is not shameful and the need for others not unmanly; teach children not to be ashamed of need and incompleteness but to see these as occasions for cooperation and reciprocity • Develop the capacity for genuine concern for others, both near and distant • Undermine the tendency to shrink from minorities of various kinds in disgust, thinking of them as “lower” and “contaminating” • Teach real and true things about other groups (racial, religious, and sexual minorities; people with disabilities), so as to counter stereotypes and the disgust that often goes with them • Promote accountability by treating each child as a responsible agent • Vigorously promote critical thinking, the skill and courage it requires to raise a dissenting voice. This is a huge agenda. It must be implemented with constant awareness of local social circumstances, with rich knowledge of local social problems and resources.