HUMANITIES SHOULD BE TAKEN SERIOUSLY......

THIS IS THE TEXT WE HAD THE CHANCE TO READ IN THE LANGUAGE EXAM OF EVAU THAT I DARED TRANSLATE BECAUSE I WAS GETTING BORED AS AN INVIGILATOR:  MARGA HERRERO

There are more and more proposals to introduce humanities in the training of Executive managers. Here, it still sounds like an heresy or just an ornament, or even something worse. As there are many types of dogmatic people, for some of them, it is something useless like trying to mix water with oil; for others, it is a sort of rude manipulation. And there is nothing else to talk about, is there??

Facing the one who one to stop it before discussing, others suggest that, in times of uncertainties, when calculation and planning don’t solve anything, the liability of the organizations requires a detailed and lucid development of the human condition. That’s why, we have a market of coaching, self-aid, emotional learning and several types of mindfulness, which exists because it corresponds to a need we have, still not recognized by the conventional training.

Maybe, we can better understand out times getting into Antigona, King Lear, or the Grapes of Wrath, than reading one more useless report. If we have to be open to complexity, to learn, or to listen, or not to reproduce the usual patterns, maybe Humanities can contribute to it more than the enthusiastic conferences of the motivating experts. Even more, they can contribute better to create a shared culture rather than can another meeting about corporative values. Paradoxically, that is so, when we take Humanities seriously and not as the ninth blind man kick to the air after asking for the last trend in education. Because taking them seriously means, in words of P. Kolvenbach, that it is also a question of cultural criticism and not simply of culture transmission.