[SkyBelow]

>Specifically, having a population lacking in critical reading skills makes everyone more susceptible to propaganda, and less able to critique and assess flawed arguments in writing.

1. Humanities does not teach any sort of critical thinking more than other classes, and if anything I found my STEM classes to teach more critical thinking because of more formal systems of proof or statistics needed to back a point.

2. A very large percentage of the population doesn't go to college. If we wait to teach the basic skills in college, it is already too late. This type of thinking needs to be taught in grade school.

>If you want to know why, for example, our political “debates” are shallow circuses of misdirection and name calling, look at the state of the humanities.

Why wouldn't this be a symptom of the market? There is money to be made in controversy and click bait, and that applies just as well in politics.