Not For Profit Nussbaum

Progress, democracy, and the soul: all concepts that the United States seems to be doing wrong, according to Nussbaum. Sure, we may be one of the richest countries in the world, and, thus, our economic progress/growth gets an A but in terms of equality of success and wealth and the improvement of quality of life, what should be the true marker of progress, we are failing on many levels. Our recent penchant for the supposed money-making STEM majors over the “useless” critical thinking skills obtained from the humanities and liberal arts serves to drive the United States’ students away from democracy, that is, a government in which informed, questioning, critically thinking citizens are expected to participate and choose their ideal representative. When it comes down to it, then, what suffers the most is the soul, that is, the humanity rather than cold calculations, connection rather than manipulation, and empathy rather than productivity. Everything has its price and what we exchange for efficiency and money is our humanity, our warmth, our soul.

The fact that these concepts are related are explicated by Nussbaum’s discussion of the soul:

“When we meet in society, if we have not learned to see both self and other in that way, imagining in one another inner faculties of thought and emotion, democracy is bound to fail, because democracy is built upon respect and concern, and these in turn are built upon the ability to see other people as human beings, not simply as objects.”    

In other words, our definition of progress as economic progress with no concern for equality of distribution and access, enables and even sometimes encourages anti-democratic practices of manipulation and sole productivity, of seeing humans not as humans but as production tools. The significance from this passage comes from its explanation of how the concepts are interrelated and, thus, may help us to reevaluate our lives. Some might go through their daily lives unquestioning of the end goal to find a career, unquestioning of the authority around them and the penchant for efficiency and productivity. Through this passage we are reminded that there is more to life than production.

With such egregious unequal wealth distribution, it always surprises me that there is not more protest from the other 99%. The fact that this unequal distribution can also be seen as a failure of democracy, one of the concepts the  United States prides itself on, is even more reason to protest. Perhaps, however, people do not realize the trend that progress = more money, but only for the 1% and that education is increasingly coming to mean passing a standardized test and becoming dutiful working citizens. The discussion of the soul was especially refreshing to me since I have become accustomed to competing with others by endlessly looking for opportunities for my resume or professional growth. It is easy to forget the value of friendships and humanity when your focus is on surviving in a competitive job market.