The humanities

Ah, the ages-old debate about what a non-vocational education is good for. Perhaps some, like my mother, would use against it the fact that I am not capable in the short time I have before I need to run to work of putting together a strong argument (nor is it likely that I'll have the energy when I return from work). That's a cop-out, though: it's not a lack of energy; it's intellectual laziness. The value of the humanities is so obvious that it's a chore to make it explicit, and I've done just that so many times that I'm sick of it. Some of you are familiar with the debate's bastard step-brother: what difference does it make that an engineer has never heard of Che Guevara? Besides, what does Che Guevara have to do with anything in this day an age? To me, that's akin to questioning what education and community building have to do with poverty alleviation, but that's a statement about my opinion rather than an argument. An argument will not be forthcoming because, as I said, I have to go to work.

I will, before I go, invoke another Nina story. Nina's parents were over for latkes over the holidays; Natasha, her mother, was telling us that neither Nina nor any of her classmates from her stint at Mass. College of Art were working as artists. Which begs the question of what that education may be good for. Composing an answer to that question would be a waste of my breath and your time; the question itself, however, is symbolic of the larger debate at hand.

I will, while continuing to cop out of developing a coherent response, sloppily share some observations. I have worked with or otherwise encountered more than my fair share of people who, for example:
-do not think abstractly
-do not tolerate intellectual uncertainty
-cannot see proverbial shades of gray
-cannot put two sentences together
-do not think critically

Now, it's only fair, since we're talking about fair shares, to disclose that I, for example:
-still do not know how to fix my outlets
-do not understand the internal workings of my car
-don't know a lot about a whole bunch of things

But I'm pretty good at my job, and I owe much of that to my non-vocational education. I would still argue that even if the only thing the job market needed was people to fix toilets and build bridges, society would still need the humanities; otherwise, see Idiocracy (see Idiocracy anyway). And there are two parts to that: (1) there are plenty of plumbers, engineers, what have you, that do think critically and understand what Che Guevara has to do with anything, and it may or may not make them better plumbers or engineers but it makes them better citizens and (2) there is great, real demand for people who can think critically and put two (or more) sentences together, and those skills, for the most part, need to be cultivated.

Okay, I really have to go to work now.