Saw this article going viral There Is No Case for the Humanities
Among the tech-smart, there is a sort of cognitive dissonance of both supporting technology in so far as promoting progress and well-being (such as reducing global starvation and infant mortality), but also nostalgia and respect for the “old ways of doing things.” Traditionalism in this context is not about imposing traditional values (such as heterosexual-marriage, as opposed to same-sex marriage), but rather concern perceived ‘ills of modernity’ wrought or exacerbated by technology–such as careerism, the ‘loneliness epidemic,’ social media envy and anxiety, helicopter parenting, or kids having to much screen-time–or praising the value and cleverness of relearning, adapting, or rediscovering an old technology or habit when modernity falls short or to fill the gaps of modernity. This is why stories about old computers being used in modern society go viral, because in spite of increasingly fast computers, old computers still have value for specific applications, or a recent viral story about how old tractors are superior to new ones, which got over 700-votes and enormous discussion. There is also value and intense interest in contrarianism and the counter-intuitive, like why do Nigerian spammers make their emails so obvious? The presupposition of the rationality of self-motivated, competing economic agents, means there is a good reason.
Among STEM people, there is great respect and interest in the liberal arts such as history, philosophy, and literature {posts about GoodReads always seem to go viral). For the liberal arts, it’s reversed, with STEM being held in high regard. Interestingly, the the most avowed defenders of the liberals arts, in general, are STEM people, not liberal arts people. I have joked or observed that if you tell a philosophy major that philosophy is useless and or has no real-world applications, he may actually concur that perhaps philosophers could do a better job communicating to non-philosophers the value or usefulness of their field. But tell STEM people that philosophy is useless and you will get responses about how philosophy has applications pertaining to computer science or neurology, or how it helps improve critical thinking skills, or contains insights into understanding the world in ways that cannot be explicated by science alone, or is edifying in its own right without justification in much the same way that abstract math is useful even if it’s hard to articulate exactly how. It works the other way around, too, with liberal arts people being surprisingly resolute defenders of STEM.
Regarding the humanities being worthwhile from a financial standpoint, in some sense, it is a scam because students are vastly overpaying for material that is in the common domain and can be read for free. There is no reason why anyone should have to spend $20,000/year to read into psychology or ‘the classics.’ Obviously, as Bryan Caplan notes, the credentialization is what gives a degree its value, not the knowledge in and of itself. Even low-ranking schools confer a benefit, even for liberal arts subjects. The short-term indebtedness is offset and overcome by higher lifetimes wages, which is further magnified by buying a home or investing in the stock market, compounding wealth even more so. I have never heard of anyone not being able to go to college because they could not afford it. There is so much aid, scholarships, and other programs.