Being Human

Nolite te Bastardes Carborundorum

My senior year of high school, my AP English Literature teacher assigned The Handmaid’s Tale as the very last book we would ever read together. I didn’t expect much. Thirteen years of Catholic education tempered my expectations of what would be read in the classroom—probably a “canonical” classic (written by a Caucasian man, but sometimes a woman; usually British, occasionally American; consistently having some thematic relation to sin). The Handmaid’s Tale shocked me. It was about women—the patriarchal, theocratic, governmental control of women’s bodies—and chronicled the collapse of a nation and the exploitation of citizens. Offred, deprived of even her name and known only by her connection to a man, reveals her frustrations with the system and her resolution to subvert it. The Handmaid’s Tale is about a woman’s protest.

It makes sense that Margaret Atwood’s novel is re-emerging to the forefront of our social consciousness. In a government that is increasingly challenging access to women’s healthcare and bodily autonomy, The Handmaid’s Tale is the adopted symbol of contemporary resistance. Across the nation this summer, women protested state legislatures in the iconic red robes and white bonnets of Atwood’s dystopia, forcibly drawing the parallel between the fictional authoritarian regime and the current administration. But why The Handmaid’s Tale? Why use a Canadian novel as a tool for American resistance? Why a novel at all?

A Case for the Humanities

This is my case for the humanities. Good literature—stories not only about the human condition, but those that themselves inspire humanity—remains integral to our society and must be intently consumed, studied, and critiqued. It is crucial to our contemporary world that is growing ever more globalized; technology-dependent; and disparate in economic outcomes, racial and gender inequality, and political ideology. For these purposes, I define literature broadly, as any medium that evokes a narrative of humanity—the humanities.

Just as The Handmaid’s Tale has inspired a movement in America, one of the largest benefits of literature is its ability to capture the human condition and spur social awareness and activism. Good literature doesn’t just reflect our world, but actively proposes or ignites a change in it. Namely, it inspires. It thrives on imagination and human connection, motivating people to action.

To take a step back and survey literature that has inspired past social movements—before identifying any that is formative to current activism—is helpful here. Uncle Tom’s Cabin, though famously problematized by Baldwin for its portrayal of slaves, tremendously expanded upon the abolitionist pamphlets of the time, offering a literature that sympathetically revealed the moral atrocities of slavery. It became a rallying cry for abolitionists, a source of emotion, outrage, and a cry for freedom. Upon meeting Harriet Beecher Stowe, Abraham Lincoln is credited for having said, “So you’re the little woman who wrote the book that started this great war.”

Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle famously exposed the horrifying processes of the meatpacking industry, revealing the unsanitary conditions and practices surrounding urban meatpacking plants and their products, as well as the exploitation of immigrant laborers. Public outrage ran loud and deep, garnering so many collective outcries that President Roosevelt signed the Meat Inspection Act into law in 1906, the very same year The Jungle was published. Writers like Sinclair played a significant role in shaping progressive ideas of the time and the social movements that proposed reforms for the social ills of the era.

A vast trove of literature dedicated to a variety of causes has fundamentally shifted social movements, forever altering how people relate to themselves, their surroundings, and each other. Thoreau’s Walden targets material excess, damaging social conventions, and the exploitation of laborers, beautifully blending poetry and economy. Environmental activists credit Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring and her warnings about pesticides’ adverse effects on the environment. The list continues today, including more media, more causes, and more people coming together. Wonder Woman — first published in 1941 and revamped in a film release this year—continues its legacy of empowering girls to be both unbelievably strong and loving, riding the momentum of huge movements like the Women’s March. Captain America, created by Jewish cartoonists during the height of WWII, was a direct counterpoint to Hitler’s fascism and recently paralleled a trend of dismantling Neo-Nazism. Kendrick Lamar amplifies the voices that speak out against police brutality and racial inequalities. Beyoncé echoes this message while also uplifting young black women.

A formula emerges. A writer sees something in the world or discovers something that haunts society’s unconsciousness and then writes about it. People consume it. They think, they observe, they discuss, they act. Sometimes it fundamentally changes their individual worldview. Sometimes it even changes the world.

This is why the humanities are essential. It is not a brush at sentimentality, nothing like reading books somehow equates to being an expert in humanity. It is because literature, at its best, makes us better people. It is a practice in empathy, in experiencing others’ lives, in inhabiting a world that is unfamiliar to you. It is a prompt to actively understand the world, admire it, and improve it. Art is often an individual experience and motivator—different pieces will change in meaning depending on who is consuming it. But the humanities also transcend fabricated social divides and connect people together. And this is the crux: bringing people together via the humanities in a world that is becoming more globalized with technology yet simultaneously divided.

To Be in Community

This summer, Mark Zuckerberg released a piece that proposes how Facebook—social media as a whole, really—can better integrate into the social structures of the world. His keyword is community, and his vision is to create one that is supportive, safe, informed, civically-engaged, and inclusive. With nearly two billion users across the world—spanning generations, genders, races, ideologies, and economic stations—building any sense of community aside from a requisite internet access is, at best, extremely difficult, and, at worst, probably impossible. Still, he suggests this change at a basic level that gradually moves outward. He emphasizes the values of communication, of continually sharing new ideas to keep informed of a common understanding that will “amplify the good effects and mitigate the bad.” He acknowledges that “Facebook is not just technology or media, but a community of people.” He encourages connection on the personal level, uniting disparate segments of populations that otherwise would not come together. And focusing on that personal bond, that string that ties us to others and weaves in and out of countless lives, is the real point. What better way to tap into these lives than by sharing our own stories?

Zuckerberg nails it in understanding that while his comments specifically pertain to connecting a global community, this vision can very well apply to individual countries, local communities, and even groups of strangers who share like-minded ideals. Consider both the local and global movements made possible by social media. A worldwide stage has been produced and nourished, a platform to share stories in solidarity, to put a name and a face to people’s experiences. Standing Rock refused to be silenced, with social media facilitating carpool matching, videos, and updates for protesters. The Women’s March garnered the participation of an estimated five million individuals worldwide. Pantsuit Nation, originally an ordinary Facebook group for Hillary supporters, now boasts nearly four million members. It transformed into a place where people could share their stories and struggles with the solidarity and empathy of total strangers. These contemporary movements are all organized around feelings of being individually moved, of wanting to be part of something larger, of a visceral humanity that strives for connection and social justice. Literature, too, depends on these feelings. Our lives are just collective stories we tell ourselves, and the emergent media for them reside in social media technologies.

Doing More with Technology

While technology is a remarkable tool that can rapidly connect a globalized world and foster social relationships, it is just that—a tool. We, the people, furnish the content, provide the stories worth telling. The humanities foster exactly what Zuckerberg envisions for social media. Literature is connective. When you’re finally done reading, you inevitably consider how it relates to your world and all the other people who have shared this reading experience with you. Literature has staying power.

But can’t social media capture the same things that the humanities do without clogging up feeds with book reviews and philosophical arguments? Sure. Literature and its media are always changing. What remains immutable are the values underlying it and how they intersect in our daily lives. The humanities are often written off because they are not hard sciences, not immediately visible or quantifiable in their complexity, impact, or perceived worth to society. But there is inherent poetry in the lives we lead, and this is the kind of thing that the humanities document: what makes us human. This strain of ourselves—who we are and what makes us— needs to remain vibrant. This is worth sharing, and this is what brings us together.

Katelyn Taira ’18 studies in the College of Arts & Sciences. She can be reached at ktaira@wustl.edu.