The English writer of Portsmouth Charles Dickens, in his novel Hard Times, created the vivid portrait of a character, Thomas Gradgrind, a stubborn utilitarian, for whom education was a matter of teaching facts and applying arithmetic skills to all problems. For Gradgrind, imagination, as well as the arts and humanities, were luxurious irrelevancies. Dickens seemed to give literary flesh to an unfortunate thought of Hume:
"Does it contain any abstract reasoning about quantity and number? No. Does it contain any experimental reasoning about issues of fact or existence? No. Throw then (that book) to the flames, because it can not contain more than sophistry and illusion ".
For the above expressed, for these theories of intolerance against sensitivity and imagination, sound like Einstein's phrases: "Imagination is more important than knowledge" or "The most beautiful experience we can have is the mystery. It is the fundamental emotion that is in the cradle of true art and true science. "
The world, humanity and the sciences are three necessary and inseparable forms of the human spirit. Each one has a different and, at the same time, complementary function. The sciences make us expand our horizons regarding nature, in order to discover its wonders, while humanity cleans the doors of our perception, to apprehend the most proper to the human being the values of good and beauty.
Humanity and its fundamental purpose has been to help understand the process of life as a whole. The goal is to transcend the given and the material utility, to go in search of the value of life. Despite its importance for the constitution of the human being, humanity has had ferocious enemies in history.
The Cartesian mechanism, the alienation against the humanity, the totalitarian technocracy.
In defense of humanity there are two ways to defend it. One is the strategy followed by David Roochnik, who reaffirms the apparent uselessness of humanity. They do not serve to achieve things other than themselves. Its function is to make us more human, not richer or more powerful. The other form is developed by Martha Nussbaum (Non-profit, 2010). According to this author, the humanities are useful for the consolidation of freedoms and democracy. A healthy democratic society requires independent and creative minds that possess the character and confidence to resist arbitrary authority and hierarchical abuses.
These strategies are equally valid. The first emphasizes the role of the humanity in individual life. The second highlights the social aspect: it strengthens political consciousness. In any case, both agree that the humanist vision teaches us to fully enjoy life, which is not domination over people and things, but harmonious coexistence with himself and with our fellow human beings, attentive to resist the world against seduction of tyranny.