What productive thing have humanity majors produced again? That's computer science, engineering, not humanities. Basically what this sounds like to me is "people don't need an education to actually do something in their field, why don't humanities majors just be handed jobs because they are making things in other fields? Simple, a humanities major can get skills in a field where jobs are needed, where there are productive reasons for actions, and go there. Colleges have liberal arts for this reason, ensuring that those going into engineering, CS, STEM, have a more wide background of knowledge. And, even then, the internet does a far better job of teaching and diversifying what a person can know. My knowledge of so many things only exists thanks to reddit, random pages, hearing things from all sorts of people, from all sorts of places, in all sorts of fields. The scope of human knowledge exists in our pockets. We don't need a building an a teacher to expose us to the world anymore, the humanities are dead for all those willing to actually use what is at their disposal.student Jodie Archer developed a computer model that can predict New York Times bestsellers. Her soon-to-be published research landed her a top job with Apple iBooks and may revolutionise the publishing industry
It seems by this statement that you consider productivity in a literal sense to be the measure of value from education. I don't see it that way at all. STEM has no purpose. We give it purpose, however. The scope of information is in our pockets, but I hesitate to call it knowledge. IMHO it is a mistake to think that the expertise and talent brought to bear to define the boundaries of one pursuit is any less than that of another. Humans excel in all areas and the appreciation of that excellence requires rigorous application and study.What productive thing have humanity majors produced again?
This is true of literally everything. Gold, money, has no value, we just give it value. Yes, stem has little value because people don't value it. No, that doesn't mean things can be magically valuable at the flip of a dime, barring some revelation in technology. And that information, that knowledge, will no more come from the internet than it will come from teachers. Humanities courses have no special traits, being a person going into a class and listening to lectures, versus learning things and expanding one's view by browsing the internet and being sure to access a wide range of information. Except there is a big difference between the expertise and talent of "the humanities" and the engineering degrees. Film, art, writing, and so on, I have heard time and time again that college for these things is a waste of time, and youtube/the internet, the popularity of so many with so little education, but the right mind, proves it. Can these schools be good? Sure. However, they aren't good unless you are already good, and even then they are only good for those with a wealthy family that can afford the risk. Little value, high cost. Humanities are not worth it in the modern day. Study and value can exist, and does exist, outside the walls of a university.STEM has no purpose. We give it purpose, however.
The scope of information is in our pockets, but I hesitate to call it knowledge.
it is a mistake to think that the expertise and talent brought to bear to define the boundaries of one pursuit is any less than that of another.
Maybe that has to do more with the quality of humanities education that you have been exposed to? Of course, you don't need a university to learn computer science, math, or physics; I'd argue even less so than for history, for instance. The weakness of a cirriculum defined by the student is that it isn't informed by those that have expertise. It's a disadvantage that is very difficult to compensate for.
Exactly. We have a wealth of information available, but I can tell you, from the perspective of a CS major, it's hard to discern good info from bad at the beginning of your studies. I like to think of knowledge as connections between nodes of information. If you are unfamiliar with a subject, you have to skip around, adding 'unnecessary' nodes to your network of information and missing the important connections between those nodes. A good professor and curriculum helps weed out the unnecessary info and lets you focus on the important stuff.
Context is the big one. Information has context within its field and outside of its field. You typically require information for some sort of application, and without context, you might end up being inefficient, or worse, repeating something dumb. Cultural context matters too if you are solving a problem that involves people. Fields interconnect, and knowing how one piece of information relates to information in other fields can improve its utility. A number of technological advances came from applying a solution in one field to a problem in another. For example, before software could do it, bridges were modeled in electrical circuitry before building them to test for resonance conditions. Any given piece of information has other pieces of information of all different qualities that are related to it. Having a grasp of those relationships is what constitutes knowledge. That's why we say: "A little education is a dangerous thing." It's not often appreciated, but the humanities provide training to navigate these interconnections, because to do so is art, not science. It is not technical skill alone that differentiates the leaders in a field from the rest. Technical skill is just part of the equation. If you want to be an expert at something yet remain a fool, you have a much better chance in STEM than in the humanities. :)