One might think of activities like reading, painting, or listening to music as solitary pursuits. Yet, while it’s true that people can enjoy the humanities in a room of one’s own, it’s undeniable that there is a strong social aspect to them, regardless of whether one is engaging with them as part of their job, academic curriculum, or personal enrichment.
All sciences are taught and pursued communally at all levels of education and in research institutions. Unlike other sciences, though, the humanities have a characteristic: they are about comprehending how people and societies translate their personal understanding of the human experience into a shared, understandable language, seek meaning, and morph over time. Studying the humanities is, in many ways, training empathy, something that anyone who has ever felt understood by a literary character or deeply moved by a work of art can easily understand. It’s no surprise that, as social creatures, we would want to share and discuss what moves us so.
The world’s oldest book club was founded in 1764, and book clubs, film clubs, and indie music festivals all around the world are still up and running despite the pandemic, the cost of living crisis, and the lingering sense of doom and alienation that many people have been carrying around for the past few years. That’s because the humanities can not only help us make sense of the world but also improve our well-being.
In 2011, a group of experts appointed by the European Statistical System (ESS) developed a multidimensional life quality measure: the eight dimensions plus one system. The latter refers to the personal perception of quality of life. In the wake of this and other similar endeavors, a project by the Italian National Institute of Statistics focused on researching equitable and sustainable well-being identified 12 determinants of well-being, one of them being access to landscape and cultural heritage. The same institute has been conducting an annual statistical survey to understand the daily lives of the people living in Italy, including whether and how much they engage in cultural activities. An analysis of these data suggests that a shortage of cultural activities is correlated with a negative judgment about one’s own health.
Needless to say, not all cultural events are the same. The Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival debuted in 1999. Behind it was the company Goldenvoice, which throughout the 1980s booked punk rock acts that their fellow promoters wouldn’t book. Goldenvoice’s CEO, Paul Tollett, also helped the band Pearl Jam book venues during its 1990s boycott of Ticketmaster, the ticket sales and distribution company.
The tickets cost $50 a day. Despite these beginnings, the festival, whose current co-owner has donated to anti-LGBTQIA+ rights organizations, has once again generated a lot of controversy due to its exorbitant ticket prices and the ostentatious displays of wealth that surround it, like the viral house tour video Kylie Jenner posted during Coachella 2026, showing off her sprawling Palm Springs mansion. An example of what sociologist and economist Thorstein Veblen, in his 1899 work ‘The Theory of the Leisure Class’, defined as “conspicuous consumption”: the practice of buying and using luxury goods primarily to demonstrate wealth and social status rather than to meet practical needs.
Art, music, and literature, once turned into marketable products, are a source of massive profits for the ultra-rich, but with their ability to nurture critical thinking and ethical reasoning, the humanities have been bearing the brunt of a long-standing assault on public higher education, particularly that aimed at the holistic development of individuals rather than solely on vocational training.
In the US, according to the Federation of State Humanities Councils, these councils have not received any federal funding since the summer of 2025. The situation is similarly critical on the other side of the pond. According to a report by the charity Campaign for the Arts and the University of Warwick, there has been a 23% decrease in the number of hours dedicated to arts instruction in English state-funded secondary schools since 2011.
In this political climate, engaging with the humanities through independent, community-focused entities such as small music venues, libraries, indie bookstores, publishing houses, and community theaters has increasingly become an act of resistance. A way to exercise our imagination to see what the art would look like as a whole, when regular people can make the bold, transformative, and necessary art that speaks of and to us.
