A Novel Way to Learn About People

There's an old approach that deserves rediscovery.

We need to expand people skills in a society where the younger generations are challenged by conversations, relationships, and isolation and where an addiction to social media makes matters worse.

One of the answers, strangely enough, may be to increase the exposure to literature.

But perhaps that’s not so strange. I suspect that most people have gotten more practical, real world, lasting value out of having read Macbeth or To Kill a Mockingbird (or even The Godfather) than from having studied algebra, geometry or chemistry. That doesn’t discount the value of those subjects, but the skills and warning signs addressed via novels confront us on a far more frequent basis.

Sometimes they can provide extraordinarily direct lessons. General David Petraeus’s thoughts on fighting insurgencies were influenced by The Centurions, a novel by Jean Larteguy about the French military in Indochina and Algeria. In a key scene, a French officer in a Vietminh POW camp uses card games to contrast the two sides. He notes how the French strategy resembled belote, a card game with only 32 cards while the Viet Minh strategy resembled bridge, which uses 52 cards. The extra cards allowed Viet Minh planners to go beyond traditional warfare and address things such as “politics, propaganda, faith, agrarian reform.”

Tangible lessons are helpful, of course, but the greatest value of literature may stem not from its influence on what we do as much as its role in shaping who we are.

Beyond the Tangible

Amid all of the current gushing over artificial intelligence, we need a major revival of the Liberal Arts. While AI will be able to tell us how to get from Point A to Point B, we’ll still need individuals with the ability to determine whether or not it’s worth the trip. We’ll need people who know people and values, not just programs.

Nowadays you hear disturbing stories of universities where English Literature majors are derided for their love of the subject. They are quickly introduced to the role of societal commissar and urged to scrutinize once-treasured works for racism, sexism, colonialism, and homophobia.

In other words, the faculty takes one of the most fascinating subjects in the world and squeezes out the joy.

Along with that joy go superb ways of learning about people.

Shakespeare, Dickens, and Company

Literature in general is important due to its insights and values, but English literature has the richest soil. Russian, French, Spanish, Italian, American, South American and other literatures contain marvelous works, of course, but England’s vast contributions are the place to start and there’s a big reason aside from volume that makes it convenient: People.

You can call it “people skills” if you like, but readers gain unparalleled knowledge about a variety of other people by reading William Shakespeare, Charles Dickens and a host of other English writers. Why? Because long ago, Great Britain cornered the market on eccentricity.

Dickens is extraordinary because the man never had a minor character. His novels are filled with people who grapple with the ever-present uncertainties of life: poor decisions, soul-crushing institutions, false friends, unfairness, cruelty, greed, madness, snobbery, criminality, poverty, and fanaticism are all part of his message and yet they are told with hope and humor. His novels contain very human examples of people who awe, inspire, and prevail.

Life 101

I cannot imagine how diminished my own “people skills” would have been if I’d never met Uriah Heep, Oliver Twist, Wilkins Micawber, Madame Defarge, Sydney Carton, Nicholas Nickleby, Pip, Fagin, Abel Magwitch, Mr. Pickwick, Mr. Bumble, Wackford Squeers, Bill Sikes, Mr. Dick, Ebenezer Scrooge, David Copperfield, Mrs. Jellyby, Harold Skimpole, Miss Havisham, Mr. Jaggers, and The Artful Dodger.

That’s just to name a few, of course. All are walking, talking, schools in human nature and their lessons are timeless.

Encounter Mrs. Jellyby and Harold Skimpole in Bleak House and you’ll think the altruist who saves children in Africa while neglecting her own family and the manipulator who declares himself a mere child while leeching off of his friends could have been featured in a recent news article.

They continue to walk among us.

Stir in characters from the novels of Anthony Trollope, Henry Fielding, and William Makepeace Thackeray and you’ll be meeting such unforgettable people as Obediah Slope, Tom Jones, and Becky Sharp. Only one of those stories ends well, but all provide serious lessons in life.

Our Challenge

But if a literature craze took place, would it have a lasting effect with generations that have been drenched in smartphones, rap music, scrolling, texting, a dwindling attention span, and a cancel culture that favors vanilla thought?

How many of today’s young people, awash with a desire for instant gratification, have the capacity to understand why people once stood on the docks for the latest chapter of a Dickens novel?

How many of them can spot the larger meaning of Sydney Carton’s conversation with the young, guillotine-bound seamstress in A Tale of Two Cities and appreciate what her fate tells us about the dangers unleashed when political idealism turns into fanaticism?

That’s all the more reason to waste no time in introducing more people to Harold Skimpole and Madame Defarge.

If societies in the future are going to possess the virtues needed to avoid a purely transactional and robotic fate, extra effort will be needed to revive and promote what it means to be human.

The leaders of this movement will be numerous, but I expect many of the most inspirational ones in the future are currently enrolled in English and Writing classes, knowing what they don’t like and discovering what they do.

The choices they make will be vital.

The war will be between pages and screens. Let’s make sure that the pages win.