The Wykehamist
Editorial
With the end of Cloister Time comes this academic year’ s final edition of The Wykehamist, No. 1483.
Many of us, I think, have been hampered by flurries of existential thoughts in recent months. There are some shared, collective reasons for this. The miasma of political tensions surrounding certain unnamed presidents who like to post little AI videos of themselves when they just don’ t know what else to do in the morning, has caused us all to raise our guard. We are living in a truly unpredictable world, and it is unclear what sort of future we find ourselves growing into. This unease began to pester me as I was working on this edition, and I could not help but think: why am I doing this?
Whilst it is true that I am excited to be bringing to the school feature articles concerning the nature of the plural Weetabix( Weetabices?) and, perhaps even more importantly, yet another set of new and better crosswords, maybe my contribution consists of something more significant.
In recent weeks, universities across the country and in the US have been cutting humanities courses, staff and infrastructure due to underfunding and falling student demand. This makes sense; in such an unpredictable landscape, students feel the need to secure themselves a position in the future. Advancements in AI technology and a dramatic boom in the popularity of STEM subjects have given rise to a generation that dismisses the humanities as redundant; our government has yet to begin the herculean task of stabilising the arts sector. This decline, though, is not just down to institutional failure; it is a cultural shift that risks leaving future generations without the intellectual tools provided by literature.
So, why am I doing this? What, really, is the point of The Wykehamist? Or that of the humanities more generally?
I think such a publication provides a good indication as to why we must not limit ourselves to the sciences. Through writing, we enable the interflow of cultures, the representation of diverse voices and interests.
Although we may sometimes be too quick to blame social media for everything, it is inevitably responsible, at least in part, for the decline of the humanities. We are given the false impression that we can use online platforms to communicate, and so, our internal desire to express ourselves to others is quelled by an incorrect feeling that the task has already been completed. The likes of Instagram and X provide meagre and lacking substitutes for true human connection.
It might be the case, though, that the answer lies in history; each historical era had its obsessions. The Greeks had philosophy, the Romans the law, the Renaissance civilisations art and letters, and the Enlightenment thinkers reason— so perhaps our modern era is the age of technology, and this simply cannot be helped?
When I was in Year 5, my maths teacher told me not to write out all the questions from our textbook before solving them, in case we all suddenly died a fiery, infernal death. In this way, if ever such a calamity were to befall our class, we would have completed as much maths as possible before shuffling off the mortal coil. This sentiment is still true today— we cannot wait to do things. The world progresses too quickly. Banking on one route that has proven successful in the past is not a viable option.
So, what are we to do? Just read and write, would be my suggestion. Whether it be journals, criticisms, rants, limericks, articles in The Wykehamist or whatever, such an engagement with words and the magic they possess will carry us through this age of uncertainty. One could say, prosaically, that the sciences will build the future, but the arts will tell us whether it was worth building.
Thus, dig deep into our selection of features and reviews and so on; you need not read them all— that would be insanity— but pick out what you think might excite you. Maybe you’ ll find yourself becoming a fan of Springsteen or Kafka, or maybe you won’ t. It doesn’ t really matter— as long as it doesn’ t drive you mad like some of our features writers.
As always, happy reading...
Cover photo from Ad Portas for the Bishop of Winchester, April 23, featuring Georges Schwyzer( B, 25-).
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