SolarCross wrote:The liberal arts, sometimes called the humanities, formerly known as a classical education, are indeed less about training for a livelihood and more about practicing an expensive hobby as a status symbol for those so wealthy that they need not study anything useful.
And yet, they seem to be practical to employers who overwhelmingly take someone with a college degree instead of someone without.
But the reasons are as listed previously in the thread. It helps people sort through, understand, and communicate with facts and information effectively.
I agree that it can be used as a, "status symbol," which is why I think that it should be busted open and made universal and free (though, of course, as the students are adults, still optional).
STEM is also important for obvious reasons.
In defence of humanities, and history in particular, I think it's worth going further. What the fuck are we, collectively, doing here?
I'm not asking a question about the meaning of life, but somewhere, a long time ago, someone decided to bury a dead relative or friend. And then put a memorial up so that they could remember.
And then people began to record what was happening in crude ways without the view of history. A picture of a great hunt, slashes on a wall to indicate how much of something there were.
Around fires, elders told their children not to forget; to always remember the story of such and such.
But we have no idea who those people are and can only speculate.
Once the Mesopotamians put both together, and started to record these stories so we could remember, the entire notion of building a place in our world; of contextualizing events; of understanding what was going on—a historiography started.
And that is still how we judge ourselves.
I like to think of us in this context. If you want to strive to be an animal, limiting itself to farting and shitting, and eating until it dies and is never aware of what has occurred, I cannot stop you.
But I think most of us think of ourselves and a context in history. Even if we don't understand it, we know that we can pick up a book about the Phoenicians. That we can look to current events,
like the Deep State, and understand them historically.
We can do it, because there is still a tradition of the people at the campfire asking you not to forget, to know. Even if you ignore it, it's still worthwhile and you still end up using it.
Alis Volat Propriis; Tiocfaidh ár lá; Proletarier Aller Länder, Vereinigt Euch!
- By Rich
- By Unthinking Majority
- By Puffer Fish