Tyler Austin Harper (3:54)

Yeah, absolutely. And I will note I actually have. I left the Bates College a couple months back. So I am officially just a writer at the Atlantic now.

Ari Weitzman (4:04)

Oh yeah, Just a lowly writer at the Atlantic.

Tyler Austin Harper (4:06)

Well, yeah, exactly.

Ari Weitzman (4:07)

You still up in Maine then or you England region?

Tyler Austin Harper (4:10)

No, no, I haven't left the Great White North. It has its hooks in me, so now I'm staying put.

Ari Weitzman (4:15)

Well, I've been very interested to talk to you about higher ed in general for a long time been following your work at the Atlantic. You're one of my favorite writers to follow there. We have a strangely similar background in that we're both from western Pennsylvania. I know you're from central Pennsylvania, but I consider central Pennsylvania to be part of Western Pennsylvania and move to northern New England. Have a bit more of an academic background than I do. But I think having that shared worldview is really interesting. It's interesting to me also to read somebody write about humanities in one article and then deep sea fishing in another. So I definitely encourage people to check out your work, but.

Tyler Austin Harper (4:51)

Oh, thank you.

Ari Weitzman (4:52)

Today we're talking about not fishing, but humanity. So story basically about the impact of one organization, the Mellon foundation, and how it became to be this big monolith in higher ed. So maybe you can start by just walking us through that background. How did Mellon become this big name and what is its influence actually like today?

Tyler Austin Harper (5:15)

Yeah, Mellon has long been a influential nonprofit in the humanities funding space. The organization was founded in the 1960s by the children of Andrew Mellon, who was a sort of famous robber baron. And it's always been a sort of liberal leaning institution that funds American arts and letters. And it's gone through different sort of changes over the course of its career. But certainly the most abrupt Shift came in 2018 when the nonprofit hired Elizabeth Alexander, a poet who was then a professor at Yale, to lead their organization. And one of the first things she does, and it's worth noting that Mellon is fabulously wealthy today. Their endowment sits at $8 billion. So this is an institution with a lot of economic firepower behind it. And her first order of business, when she came on board, she said that Mellon would be focusing their grant making on social justice work within the humanities. And so since 2020, they have basically only funded humanities research related to social justice. And given that they are by an order of magnitude the largest funder of the humanities in the United States, larger even than the federal government, that impact of that, that changed mission has been really decisive.

Ari Weitzman (6:27)

And not just only a little bit larger than the federal government, but seemingly orders of magnitude larger than the federal government.

Tyler Austin Harper (6:34)

Yeah. So like in 2024, just to give you an example, the National Endowment for the Humanities, which is the federal agency, they dispensed $78 million in direct grants that year. Mellon in the same year dispensed 540 million. So half a billion dollars, about, you know, roughly seven times more or something like that. So,

Isaac Saul (7:02)

We'll be right back after this quick break. Hey, everyone, quick thought before we get started. If you listen to Tangle, it's probably because you're trying to escape the media echo chamber. But even when you read broadly, it's hard to see which stories are being emphasized and which ones are being ignored. This episode is brought to you by Ground News. Ground News is not a publisher. It's an app and website that gathers reporting on every news story from across the political spectrum and shows you each outlet's bias rating, factuality rating, and who owns it. It's more than just an aggregator. It gives you context on every perspective in one place so that you can make up your own mind. For example, a recent story about a bipartisan border deal collapsing was covered by 50 plus outlets. One left leaning headline read GOP sinks border deal under Trump pressure, While a right leaning one said democrats block stronger border enforcement. Same event, very different framing. Ground News lets you compare that instantly and even flags blind spots. Stories disproportionately covered by one side. If you want unlimited access to these features, subscribe to the vantage plan for 40% off@groundnews.com tn that's groundnews.com tn promo code tn again, groundnews.com tn code tn for 40% off. If you care about seeing the full picture, I think you'll really value this tool. A thoughtfully built wardrobe comes down to pieces that mix well and last. That's where Quince shines. Premium fabrics considered design and everyday essentials that feel effortless to wear and dependable even as the season seasons change. Quince has the everyday essentials I love with quality that last. Lightweight cashmere sweaters, short sleeve Mongolian cashmere polos, linen bottoms and shorts. Tees in 100% Pima cotton and European jersey linen. These are the versatile pieces that make a wardrobe actually work season to season. Quince works directly with top factories and cuts out the middlemen. You're not paying for brand markup or fancy retail stores, just quality clothing. Everything from Quince's linen pants to their cotton polo shirts have become a staple in my own wardrobe. And I even get compliments from my W for what I'm picking out for myself, which is a new accomplishment for me. So stop overcomplicating your wardrobe. You don't need a closet full of options. You need a few pieces that actually work. Right now you can go to quince.comtangle for free shipping and 365 day returns. That's a full year to build your wardrobe and love it. And you will now available in Canada too. Don't keep settling. For clothes that don't last. Go to Q U I n c e.com tangle for free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince.com tangle.

Ari Weitzman (9:43)

And the impact for this, the question of, okay, so why does that matter? Is just that this is one organization with its own set of priorities. And now that it has more of a say over what the humanities are and how it's funded, then it's shaping in a very real way the slant that you might expect to be coming from universities towards humanities education. More or less, right?

Tyler Austin Harper (10:09)

Yeah. I think we tend to think of one of the ideals of knowledge production, intellectual work in general, but I think the humanities in particular is just freedom of inquiry, right? The freedom to pursue your intellectual interests, as they call you. And why this change in Mellon has been so decisive is that Mellon went from being an organization that funded a pretty wide range of different kinds of research, teaching initiatives, et cetera, to funding things within a much more narrow ideological bandwidth. And so when you have really one giant funder that dwarfs all of the other funders, they have quite a lot of power to determine the trajectory of the humanities in the United States. And they certainly have. And so one thing I'm at pains to say in the article is, however you feel about social justice, however you feel about progressivism and progressive culture, that's sort of beside the point. The real question is, should a private nonprofit have the power to influence the humanities in the United States to the degree that Mellon does? And especially considering that Mellon is not just dispensing funds to private institutions, but also has a lot of power over public institutions as well.

Ari Weitzman (11:19)

Well, let's go there first about why or should a private organization have that kind of sway? Because something that strikes me right away when I'm thinking about this is this seems like you could draw a direct line to the Mellon Foundation's influence from a sort of centrist or conservative backlash against higher education, saying anytime that there's NEH funding comes up, it's very popular to say, well, we don't really need that, so you can trim that as fat from the budget. And to have a push against institutions of learning getting their endowments furthered, endowments that may go towards humanities once they're given and have that budget trimmed and that fat trimmed, because you're supporting something that has this classically somewhat center left liberal bias. But it seems like when you do that, that's sort of creating this opening for an organization like Melon that has its own ideology to become the sole player in this game. So is that kind of what's happened here?

Tyler Austin Harper (12:20)

Yeah, absolutely. I think one thing I dig into the article that I think and in the article that I think is worth mentioning here. The National Endowment for the Humanities was founded in the wake of a kind of bombshell report in the 1960s about the state of humanities education in the United States. And that report emphasized or advocated the creation of a federally funded agency that would do grant making in the humanities to help support humanities education in the United States. Specifically, that commission recommended that it was really important that there be a broad range of different kind of funders, not just the government, because they were worried that if the government had a monopoly on humanities grant making, then the government could push the humanities in the direction of some political agenda that was favorable to the government. And so when the NEH was funded, it tried to be expressly non political. And in fact, for most of its history, and I think still today, they basically have language where they really don't like to fund projects that could be perceived as having a kind of political slant. They try to focus more on pure research. Right. And I think the fact that in the 1960s, in the middle of the Cold War, the concern was government, government tyranny and not private tyranny is really sort of. Yeah, collectivism, Exactly. It speaks to the moment. Right. It never occurred to the people writing that report that what you actually have to worry about is private industry might step in and rule with an iron fist. And so that's kind of what happened with Mellon. And as the NEH has retreated, its budget is now a fraction of what it was 20, 30 years ago. That has really created a power vacuum for Mellon as a private enterprise that is expressly political to step in and fill.

Ari Weitzman (14:06)

Okay, so now I'm going to take us a little bit into the deep end here. Just no waiting, just jumping straight in. So if I'm somebody who's concerned about an ideological bent in funding of the humanities, might I, instead of saying, okay, well then I have to fund stuff too. I have to contribute to some other humanities fund. Say, you know what, let's go all the way with it. Why do we need humanities today? Why not just let the Mellon foundation struggle under the weight of its expanded mandate and let the entire funding for humanities go stems so much more important in the 21st century? Why do we need this anymore at all? Like, what's the point of a humanities education in 2026?

Tyler Austin Harper (14:47)

Well, I would argue that the humanities and humanistic inquiry have been part of our species project from time immemorial and certainly as long as we've had the written word. But even if that argument doesn't persuade you that the humanities have a kind of intrinsic worth, and I should preface this by saying one of the cases I kind of make in the piece and that I've made in other writing, is that I don't think we should think of scholarly knowledge purely in utilitarian terms of how can this impact policy? Or what is this good for? Or how does this serve a political agenda in the case of Mellon? But if I wanted to make a utilitarian case, I mean, even if you take something like the question of artificial intelligence, right, and AI, the question of what is intelligence is one that philosophers have debated for millennia. The arguments they make are still very relevant to questions we're asking right now about chatbots, about large language models, about whether you can forms of intelligence that aren't embodied, or whether being embodied and interacting with a physical world is crucial to what it is to be intelligent in a human like way. Those are questions the humanities have asked from time immemorial. And I think one of the reasons we have many of the problems we do, particularly in tech at this moment, is just a dearth of Humanistic education and just a dearth of people who are, you know, fluent in these conversations that can help inform how we think about science, how we think about technology. Again, I, I am disposed to make non utilitarian cases, but to those people who reflexively are like, why should we care about this? You know, one of the questions getting back to the AI thing right now is like I said, can you have intelligence in the absence of a body, right. That is not interacting with the world? Now there are some people in AI who are coming around to the idea that actually maybe mind isn't just computation, but maybe there's other material stuff going on that's really important that we can't just lop off in the form of an algorithm, you know, and so those qu. If those folks had read some of the humanities and some philosophy of mind, they, they might have come to these kind of conclusions earlier. And so I think it's important. I don't think you can have civilization in the absence of the humanities. I would add that I don't think, you know, everything we think of, everything we think of as coextensive with liberal democracy has come in a time of mass literacy when you had a reading public. And I think it's a pretty big gamble to wager that we can still have a functional civilization built on mass literacy with a public that is increasingly illiterate. That seems like a pretty, pretty big wager.

Isaac Saul (17:24)

We'll be right back after this quick break.

BetterHelp Representative (17:30)

Have you ever been stuck on a weight loss plateau, trying everything and anything you can to lose that extra weight and reach peak health? We've all been there. But Noom's unlocked a secret to reaching the mountaintop. Go in Micro. The Noom GLP1 microdose program starts at $99 and is delivered to your door in seven days. Start your microdose GLP1 journey today at Noom.com that's N-O-O-M.com micro changes big results. Noom GLP1 RX program involves healthy diet, exercise and support. Individual results may vary. Meds and personalization based on clinical need. Not reviewed by FDA for safety, efficacy or quality. No affiliation with Novo Nordisk Inc. The only US source of FDA approved semaglutide. Not available in all 50 US states. BetterHelp Online Therapy bought this 30 second ad to remind you right now, wherever you are, to unclench your jaw, relax your shoulders, take a deep breath in and out. Feels better, right? That's 15 seconds of self care. Imagine what you could do with more. Visit betterhelp.com randompodcast for 10% off your first month of therapy. No pressure, just help. But for now, just relax.

Ari Weitzman (19:06)

So that's a very stakes laden argument about these values are pretty civilizational. And that goes deeper than just saying how am I going to get my dollar back after I graduate. But it does beg the question though of if I'm. Let's just say I'm a student here and we can just narrow the scope for a second before we broaden it again and talk about how we value these things writ large as a society with our funding. But if I'm a student going into college, universities cost so much these days. It was expensive even when I was going to school. It cost like $40,000 for one year of undergraduate univers, undergraduate education, even without any help. And now, I mean, those sticker prices are going up like that's the median price for a general education that you might get these days.

Tyler Austin Harper (19:51)

When I left bates, it was 95k.

Ari Weitzman (19:53)

I believe that's absurd. That's crazy. So if I'm an undergraduate or a parent of an undergraduate going to a liberal arts institution like Bates, where I can be assured that I'm going to have my mind provoked and challenged and I can grow, I also want to be assured that I'm getting an investment return when I graduate because that's a pretty considerable sum. So isn't it kind of fair to say, yes, I understand that these values are civilizational, saying I have to be literate, I have to be able to be able to ask and answer large questions, but I also need to have hard skills that I can bring with me when I graduate. And when I'm thinking like that, where's the room for me to say I'm going to actually take a couple more classes in humanities, I'm going to be one of those statistics that proves the need to have these programs when I know I'm really worried about what I'm going to be paying off in four years after I graduate.

Tyler Austin Harper (20:48)

Well, the first thing I would say is if I were giving young people advice, I would advise them to go to an affordable public university that has a strong humanities program. If they're interested in humanities and not pay an arm and a leg for tuition to go to one of these campuses that is essentially a glorified Disneyland.

Ari Weitzman (21:07)

Now that you're free of bait, you have to speak completely unfettered about your opinion.

Tyler Austin Harper (21:11)

Oh, I said that kind of thing when I was there. But if you've made the mistake of Going to one of these institutions that are going to charge you $95,000 for an education. Look, I understand that that is an acute question. On the one hand, I think people like me want to say, well, that's a kind of vulgar question, right? How can you put a price on being educated and being cultured? But the reality is when a degree costs $95,000 a year, there's clearly the return on investment question. The first thing I would say is I think that question has been overblown for a while. College graduates still do quite well, irrespective of whatever they major in. Most people don't go into fields that they major in. And then if you look at, there are a number of humanities fields where actually graduates end up doing quite well. I mean, the example that gets thrown around most frequently is philosophy, which is actually one of the more high paying majors in the long run. So I would say that it's partly a myth, but there's some degree of truth to it. Obviously most humanities majors are not making as much as an econ major or what have you. But setting that aside, I think in the moment we are in in particular, but I think we are watching computer science graduates really struggle to find jobs. We were watching STEM graduates, because of the uncertainty around AI, struggle to find jobs. And actually, if you look at recent data, humanities fields have been performing pretty well because they, ironically, the mantra of tech crowd, right, was learn to code, right? The future was we were all going to be computer plumbers, everyone's going to learn to code, and we will have, you know, we'll all make gobs of money. And it did not seem to occur to them when they were, you know, creating and imagining large language models in AI, that the first jobs that would be automated are not the jobs of people like me with a humanities degree, but their jobs, right? And so I would say at this moment in particular, there is a very good case for thinking about majoring in philosophy or majoring in literature because as people become more and more reliant on AI, there is going to be a premium for people who have knowledge and writing skills and who actually have those kind of, those kind of talents without the aid of just constantly relying on ChatGPT. So I think there's always been a solid case for the humanities, but I think in this particular moment where the STEM fields are a bit shaky economically, I think there's an even stronger case.

Ari Weitzman (23:38)

You know, I've made similar arguments too. Again, putting my cards on the table completely here is I graduated with a liberal arts degree. And I was able to become a successful professional by taking a coding bootcamp and learning code in the window for which that was doable. Yeah, sure, I dropped out now to a point where here I am having a conversation with another person about the value of humanities from purchase, where we're able to get to those places now. But for people coming out of undergraduate. Undergraduates, those opportunities are a little bit tougher to grab right now.

Tyler Austin Harper (24:11)

100%. Yeah.

Ari Weitzman (24:12)

So just appreciating that makes it feel like, you know, we're. This is all a collection of individual decisions that we're talking about. Like an. An individual decision for what they want to get a degree in, for where they're going to go to school, an individual decision for what they're going to invest in for a grant, who we're going to vote for in terms of how things get funded. But broadly now, broadening that scope back again, what is the way that we actually move forward here if there's not. If it's something that I appreciated you writing in this article was a quote from a member of the. From another person whose last name was Harper, who was a member of the Mellon Institution. Yeah, yeah, he said that this wasn't melons. I'm paraphrasing here, but funding the humanities is not Mellon's role. It's the position that it's in now because of abdication. So how do we actually level up now and offer more funding towards the humanities if it's something that's going to be so vitally important for sustaining illiterate civilization in the future?

John Law (25:17)

Hey everybody, this is John, executive producer for Tangle. We hope you enjoyed this preview of our latest episode. If you are not currently a newsletter subscriber or a premium podcast subscriber and you are enjoying this content content and would like to finish it, you can go to readtangle.com and sign up for a newsletter subscription or you can sign up for a podcast subscription or a bundled subscription, which gets you both the podcast and the newsletter and unlocks the rest of this episode as well as ad free daily podcasts, more Friday editions, Sunday editions, bonus content, interviews, and so much more. Most importantly, we just want to say thank you so much for your support. We're working hard to to bring you much more content and more offerings. So stay tuned. I will join you again for the daily podcast. For the rest of the crew, this is John Law signing off. Have a great day, y'.

Ari Weitzman (26:08)

All.

Tyler Austin Harper (26:11)

Peace.

Isaac Saul (26:12)

Our executive editor and founder is me, Isaac Saul, and our executive producer is John Law. Today's episode was edited and engineered by Dewey Thomas. Our editorial staff is led by Managing Editor Ari Weitzman with Senior Editor Will K. Back and Associate editors Audrey Moorhead, Lindsey Knuth and Bailey Saul. Music for the podcast was produced by Diet75. To learn more about Tangle and to sign up for a membership, please visit our website@readtangle.com.

Ad Narrator (26:51)

When you manage procurement for multiple facilities, every order matters. But when it's for a hospital system, they matter even more. Grainger gets it and knows there's no time for managing multiple suppliers and no room for shipping delays. That's why Grainger offers millions of products in fast, dependable delivery so you can keep your facility stocked, safe and running smoothly. Call 1-800-GRAINGER click granger.com or just stop by Grainger for the ones who get it done

Tyler Austin Harper (27:22)

with its two juicy beef patties, three slices of melted cheese and tangy Big Arch sauce. The Big Arch is what happens when you start making a McDonald's burger and never stop. The Big Arch the most McDonald's McDonald's burger yet for a limited time.

BetterHelp Representative (27:37)

The youth mental health crisis is growing and social media is a major driver. Kids are spending up to nine hours a day on screens, often unsupervised, and studies show a direct link to anxiety, depression and even suicidal thoughts. That's where Gab comes in. Gab offers safer phones and watches for kids with no social media. Tailored to every age, offering the right tech at the right time or tech in steps. From GPS tracking enabled watches for younger kids to phones with parent enabled apps for teens, each device allows kids to more safely grow their independence. Visit gab.com getgab and use code getgab for an exclusive offer. That's gabb. Com getgab. Gab tech insteps independence for them, peace of mind for parents.