It is evident that there is a\nconscious or unconscious neglect of the study of humanities\u2014an umbrella term\nfor the study of religion, philosophical sciences, history, literature &\nart among others\u2014in the allocation of funds for scholarships, research grants,\nand publications from the public and private sector in Malaysia and emerging\nAsian countries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
What many people do not seem to\nrealize is that the neglect of proper support for the study of humanities in\nhigher education will be disastrous for the future advancement and well-being\nof our societies: the rise of suicide, depression, anxiety and mental illness\nin general today is clearly an indication that the lives of millions of people\nlack substantive meaning that could inspire or strengthen their souls in the\nface of existential challenges.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Thus, if we do not do more to\nalleviate the issue, even our best talents will flounder and the general population\nwill be demoralized or more disconcertingly, dehumanized<\/em>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n So much so that one of the world\u2019s\nleading Confucian expert, Tu Weiming, says, \u201cAt present, how to be a real human being has\nbecome an urgent problem for humanity.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n In addition, millions of\nprofessionals globally are becoming disillusioned with the senseless rat race\nin their working lives\u2014which led the World Health Organization (WHO) to declare\nthat \u2018stress\u2019 will be the health epidemic of the 21st<\/sup> century. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Interestingly however, William Damon, professor of education\nat Stanford University argues that, \u201cThe biggest problem growing up today is\nnot actually stress\u2026 it\u2019s meaninglessness.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Yet in this existing scenario, the\nhumanities is neglected \u2013 where is the logic in this?<\/p>\n\n\n\n This state of affairs is perhaps due\nto the pestilential winds of secularization as a philosophical program that\ncompels us to think that there is a dichotomy chiefly between knowledge and\nimplementation, and subsequently between the humanities and the more \u2018pragmatic\u2019\nor \u2018practical\u2019 sciences.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We should take heed of a remark by\nGlenn Seaborg, an American Nobel Prize Winner, who famously argued in 1965:\n\u201cWe cannot afford to drift physically,\nmorally, or aesthetically in a world in which the current moves so rapidly \u2014\nperhaps toward an abyss. Science and technology are providing us with the means\nto travel swiftly. But what course do we take? This is the question that no\ncomputer can answer.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n It must be\nremembered however, when we use this term \u2018humanities\u2019, it is only because we\nare making the distinction in the Western sense and since we have inherited the\nWestern way of looking at the sciences and the humanities. But in reality, in\nthe worldview of Islam for instance, if we speak about\nthe science as being the definition of truth; language is part of science,\nhistory is part of science, and philosophy is also part of science.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But if\nnowadays we are reducing and limiting science only to physical nature, and then\nconsider philosophy, language, music part of humanities, and not part of science,\nwhat is going to happen\u2014in countries where there is preponderance of a favour\ntowards the natural and physical sciences\u2014is that we are going to ignore proper\nstudy of languages, history, philosophy, and subsequently producing a population\nwhich is devoid of imaginaton, refinement, justice, and adab<\/em>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n As a result,\nwe will have the loss of adab<\/em>\u2014something that Professor Dr Syed Muhammad\nNaquib al-Attas has drawn the Muslim world\u2019s attention to in the last 50 years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Historically, it was the humanities\nthat inspired human beings in the scientific and practical domains; that\nenabled proper use of the intelligence to subdue the bestial self; that\nproduces moral conscience; that enabled us to look at problems of the world in\nan inter-connected fashion; that enabled farsighted solutions to be developed; that\nenabled the imaginative faculty to be unleashed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Even our eminent economist Royal\nProfessor Ungku Aziz has called on our decision-makers to pay attention on this\nmatter in 1991:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe study of literature and\nmankind\u2019s heritage should not be forgotten even though Malaysia is gearing\ntowards becoming a scientific and progresive society in the next century\u2026 man\ncould not live by science alone as he needed cultural nourishment for his mind.\nWe have examples of advanced nations where scientific advancement is balanced\nby an education system that encourages learners to appreciate the great works\nof the past and present and to be familiar with at least a portion of the\ncreative works and discourses of mankind through time and across the globe.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n In other words, it was the humanities\nthat enabled us to be truly human and advanced\u2014far from being a luxurious or\nelitist pursuit at the cost of pragmatic concerns as commonly perceived.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There are some logical implications\nof this line of thought, with which I would briefly like to conclude.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It is evident that there is a conscious or unconscious neglect of the study of humanities\u2014an umbrella term for the study of religion, philosophical sciences, history, literature & art among others\u2014in the allocation of funds for scholarships, research grants, and publications from the public and private sector in Malaysia and …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":37,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_analytify_skip_tracking":false,"_wpzoom_pinterest_image_url":"","_wpzoom_pinterest_hidden_image":"0","_wpzoom_pinterest_description":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[225],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26095","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article","category-225","description-off"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ikim.gov.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26095","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ikim.gov.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ikim.gov.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ikim.gov.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/37"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ikim.gov.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26095"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ikim.gov.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26095\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ikim.gov.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26095"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ikim.gov.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26095"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ikim.gov.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26095"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}