The indicators presented in this section attempt to shed some light on Americans’
perceptions of the humanities and on their influence on American society. How do
Americans feel about the humanities and those charged with transmitting humanistic
skills and knowledge to the nation’s young people? What effect do they believe the
humanities have on individuals and communities? Both questions involve important
and complex issues of value. Neither can begin to be adequately addressed through
existing data.
To be sure, participation data, such as those gathered by the National Endowment
for the Arts’
Survey of Public Participation in the Arts
(and presented in the previous section), are suggestive with regard to the extent
to which Americans value humanistic institutions such as historic sites and art
museums (see Indicator V-13,
Historic Site Visits,; and Indicator V-14,
Art Museum Attendance). However, more-direct measures of public attitudes
are needed not only to help explain why Americans utilize these institutions to
the extent they do, but also because such measures are critical to an understanding
of the place of the humanities in American life. Nonetheless, a comprehensive, ongoing
data collection program that can provide such information does not exist. Consequently,
the indicators in this section rely on the limited data on the topic obtained through
the General Social Survey (GSS), a survey of American values that has been regularly
fielded since 1972 by the NORC at the University of Chicago.
Although the GSS is a valuable source of information on changes in American attitudes
over the last several decades, most of its items relating to the humanities have
not been part of the core survey. As a result, much of the GSS data pertaining to
Americans’ attitudes toward the humanities are at least ten years old and are available
for only one or two years. These data therefore offer only a limited perspective
on American attitudes toward the humanities.
In spite of these drawbacks, the data do provide some sense of Americans’ views
on such issues as the suppression of controversial texts and the value of what have
traditionally been seen as literary classics, and in this way they touch on a few
of the debates that have surrounded the humanities in the last few decades. At the
same time, however, because the data are so limited, they are also a commentary
on how little is known about current attitudes toward the humanities and on the
need to gather additional information on this complex subject.
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Indicator V-15
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Public Attitudes toward Literature
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This indicator addresses questions concerning Americans’ view of the value and influence
of literature by presenting responses to four items that were included in the GSS
at various times, beginning in 1972. The extent of the data varies by item. One
item, concerning the suppression of texts, appeared regularly from 1972 to 2008,
but others appeared only once or twice during this period.
The first item gauges Americans’ belief that the sorts of texts on which much humanities
education focuses are valuable and contribute to young people’s ability to function
in contemporary society. The results of the survey show that in 1993, 38% of Americans
agreed with the statement “High schools and colleges make students spend too much
time reading ‘classics’ that have little relevance in today’s world” (Figure V-15a).
Whether fewer or more Americans feel this way today and whether events of the past
two decades, including the rise of the Internet and electronic media, have influenced
opinions of the value of the “classics” is, unfortunately, unknown.
Figure V-15b presents another perspective on Americans’ ideas about literature,
this time focused on the extent to which ethnic and cultural differences were felt
to be salient to literary meaning and value. In 1993, over three-quarters of American
adults believed that certain works could be considered universal in their appeal,
capturing elements of the human experience that transcend ethnic or cultural differences.
Regrettably, without data for a more current year, it is not possible to gauge the
extent to which this perception has changed in light of the debate about social
as well as literary values that has taken place in the United States over the last
two decades.
The next item, concerning Americans’ confidence in humanities educators’ judgment
as to which texts young people ought to read, is more informative insofar as it
appeared twice on the GSS, in 1993 and 1998 (Figure V-15c). In 1993, 63% of Americans
reported that they trusted high school and college teachers to select readings for
their students. Five years later, however, distrust had intensified, with the percentage
of Americans indicating strong disagreement increasing from 5% to slightly more
than 8%.
The weighing of conflicting points of view to arrive at reasoned conclusions is
a key humanistic competency, and Americans’ willingness to permit the public dissemination
of texts that they may find personally objectionable is one topic for which the
GSS provides long-term trend data. In the 36 years between the first administration
of the survey and 2008, survey respondents were regularly asked whether they would
favor the removal of books espousing particular beliefs if some people in their
community suggested that such books be taken out of the public library. Figure V-15d
indicates that in 2008 Americans were less supportive of suppressing most types
of texts than they were in the early 1970s, although a nonnegligible minority of
Americans still supported censorship of this kind. The greatest decline, 22 percentage
points, was in the share of Americans willing to suppress books advocating homosexuality.
The exception to this trend concerns books asserting the inferiority of African
Americans, toward which there has been a relatively consistent level of disapproval
over time. In 2008, the percentage of American adults favoring the removal of such
books from public libraries was only three percentage points lower than it had been
in 1976 (the first year in which data on this type of book were collected). Further
indication of Americans’ continuing discomfort with this sort of material is the
fact that in nine of the ten rounds of the GSS administered over the 1991–2008 time
period, racist texts were those that the greatest percentage of Americans indicated
they would be willing to see removed from a public library.
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Indicator V-16
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Public Attitudes toward Fine Arts
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One challenge that the humanities have traditionally faced in the United States is the perception that they are the purview of
cultural elites, produced by and for a select few. This has been the case particularly for the fine arts, yet accurate measures
of public opinion are extremely scarce. The only reliable data comes from the GSS. The GSS data are limited, however, because the
topic of the fine arts has appeared only twice in recent years, in 1993 and 1998, and the items about art and popular culture amounted
to only three. Making meaningful generalizations about American attitudes toward the arts during those years on the basis of such
limited data is difficult, and saying anything about current attitudes is impossible. However, the results of the survey do indicate
that in the 1990s a shift occurred in the degree to which Americans felt that the fine arts were accessible. The decade also saw an
increasing appreciation for the artistic merits of popular culture.
In 1993, over 49% of Americans either agreed or strongly agreed with the statement “Only a few people have the knowledge and ability to
judge excellence in the arts” (Figure V-16a). By 1998, however, a significant shift had occurred toward the view that more than just
a handful of people have the
competence to assess the quality of artistic production. While there was a small increase in the number of people strongly agreeing
with the statement above, the percentage of respondents expressing basic agreement had dropped by almost 10 points at the same time
that the percentage of those who strongly disagreed had risen from 9.4% to 16.7%.
Further evidence of the fact that the American public was coming to feel less alienated from “high culture” in the 1990s was the
decrease in the proportion of Americans expressing derisive opinions toward contemporary art. Betrween 1993 and 1998,
the level of agreement with the statement, “Modern painting is just slapped on: a child could do it,” declined by
approximately 10 percentage points (Figure V-16b). Earlier in the
decade, Americans demonstrated that they did not feel that the traditional fine arts were the sole repository of beauty and
meaning, with 95% of adults asserting in 1993 that artistic excellence could also be found in popular and folk culture (Figure V-16c).
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