I'm not making nearly that strong of an argument, and indeed neither is the regulation under discussion. They need to demonstrate that it's somehow beneficial on average to economic outcomes. That could mean: * You were able to apply that knowledge to something someone wanted.
* The experience somehow inspired you to find your own path to success.
* Your degree helped convince someone else that you're a generally intelligent or knowledgeable person and therefore more valuable to them.
etc. I added on top that as a liberal society, we could perhaps agree that being well versed in liberal tradition is itself valuable.I take your friends' work to mean they're in some academic position? Because funding some small number of those is a different proposition from funding a significant portion of the population to study whatever. Though actually if we back up a bit here, my original point was more that I doubt people are even learning things. e.g. if your history friend is unfamiliar with important parts of their own country's history (stuff that might even be expected in high school or earlier, but people don't do the readings), I'd be skeptical of the value of their program in the same way that I'd be skeptical of an engineer that doesn't know the difference between an ionic and covalent bond, or Newton's laws, or some basic programming, or RLC circuits, or other basic things that someone technical should know. Self-governance and self-determination are the founding assumptions underlying our democracy. This is pretty clearly stated in our founding documents. This has nothing to do with capitalism. I agree that people at Instagram and DraftKings are negatives to society, and probably they also failed to obtain their liberal arts education. Largely I think people with these things on their resume should be blacklisted by others as they proudly wear their lack of morals, and we should do more to regulate such things. Maybe my wording was off; by textbook my meaning was more along the lines of treatise, i.e. not casual. |
Well we can demonstrate conclusively with data that people who get a humanities education have lower unemployment and earn higher wages than people without college degrees. What else is needed?
> I added on top that as a liberal society, we could perhaps agree that being well versed in liberal tradition is itself valuable.
I do not agree that being well versed in liberal tradition is more valuable than being well versed in other humanities domains. The things that a humanities education teaches that are good for society are not adherence to libertarian philosophy.
> Though actually if we back up a bit here, my original point was more that I doubt people are even learning [these] things
And I asked where you are getting this conclusion from. This is a pretty strong claim given that you don't seem to be engaged with humanities departments in a meaningful way.
> I agree that people at Instagram and DraftKings are negatives to society, and probably they also failed to obtain their liberal arts education. Largely I think people with these things on their resume should be blacklisted by others as they proudly wear their lack of morals, and we should do more to regulate such things.
Why then can we assume that a STEM education is good for society in ways that you insist we cannot assume for a humanities education? If this education can be actively harmful to society then surely we need to apply your same concerns there.
> Maybe my wording was off; by textbook my meaning was more along the lines of treatise, i.e. not casual.
Usually "monograph" is the term used for academic books in the humanities.