Humanities Today

Humanities enables people from different background and culture to recognize, understand, and communicate past commonalities and present differences. The study of humanities is generally used to comprehend the contradictory interpretations of life and history. Today's society would be lost without the use and study of humanities. People of the world, would be deprived of the knowledge of civilization today: where we came from and how we evolved into the existing world today. If humanities did not exist, our children; the next generation would have no idea of how we lived life many years ago without the use of Cellular Phones, the Internet, Electricity, Televisions, and Computers. This paper will discuss what is meant by the term "humanities" and explain what distinguishes the humanities from other modes of human inquiry and expression. Current examples of how art, music, architecture, philosophy and literature reflect current developments in politics, socioeconomics and technology, will also be covered.

Technology enables the exploration of arts into a distinct area in the past decades. By deploying art pieces in respective art galleries and inhabiting them on the World Wide Web, technology is now being incorporated in art studios around the world. Consequently, museums continue to struggle with the competitive fight to keep up with technology. Music too is being faced by various challenges of technology. The need for traditional instruments like the flute, an organ, a trombone in order to make music has decreased. Music artists and their producers are faced with challenges of piracy due to the ease of downloading or obtaining music for free via the World Wide Web. Literature regarding the arts and every other subject are easily available at the fingertips on the World Wide Web. This also promotes a challenge for editors to sell books since there is such a vast opportunity for researchers to find free publications on practically any subject matter. Bookstores were excellent resource of the past; however, due to the famous World Wide Web bookstores are now practically obsolete.

There are several existing political organizations that are against the freedom of expression that the arts provide to our society. The Center for Cultural Policy and Advocacy has started numerous campaigns to create more art that is political and which directly speaks to conditions of inequality, prejudice, fraud and governmental corruption.

A long-term strategy to place the arts and arts workers at the public policy table must embrace a wider vision that addresses the liberating of every citizen's creativity and seeks to remove all artificial barriers to achievement and a person's ability to express their talents to the utmost (Tresser, 2004).

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