20 May 2012
You should study something useful like mechanical engineering as you'll never get a job with that degree. Is the usual reaction i get when people learn I am studying history and philosophy. As if the only value of study is its ability to get a job and it's financial remuneration. As if the motives or study should be the social benefit to society. Subjects like engineering, Maths, science and accounting all have very clear benefits but they are hardly the most fun subjects to study. I would question the mental state of anyone who reads accounting books for fun. The difficulty is for the humanities is how do you show the need and use of the humanities? I guess by the fact is that no one would want to live in a world that had no history, art, culture and philosophy. A society deprived of these things will stagnate and decline. We cant point to a specific way in which the humanities enrich life, but we can see that without them society is less rich. The humanities are called the humanities because they help us to become human. To preserve our history and culture we need people to study and keep it alive as a subject so students of humanities are doing a thankless but vital task. They are preserving the knowledge that we need to flourish even if it wont make you a millionaire.
Why Do We Need Humanities? • Opuss № I