Why humanities don't get no respect -- except for philosophy
- Joanne Jacobs
- Aug 12
- 1 min read
"i hate the fact that math and science smart students are considered smarter than english and history smart students," tweets ppyowna.
That's because they are, responds Matthew Yglesias on SlowBoring. Standards are lower in what we used to call "fuzzy studies."
"The way to make humanistic learning more respected and prestigious, it seems to me, is to make the classes harder," he writes. "Assign more work. Grade the work more harshly." If professors "get the laziest and dumbest students to opt out," better students will opt in, he believes.
Is the problem low standards? Or too much politics? I was an English and Creative Writing major in the early '70s. We were people who loved to read. Students who were obsessed with politics majored in poli sci.
Yglesias majored in philosophy, which is surprisingly useful in the job market, he writes. People with "a bachelor’s in philosophy earn pretty good money," more than history or English majors, who also learn to read texts closely, understand arguments and write persuasively. Yglesias thinks that's because "philosophy majors are smarter, on average, than students of other traditional liberal arts disciplines."
"Philosophy professors have higher GRE scores than professors of English or history or sociology," Yglesias writes. "They run classes that are relatively difficult and that dissuade people from pursuing the major unless they’re smart and hardworking."
His chart shows that would-be graduate students in philosophy have the highest combination of verbal and quantitative scores on the GRE. Social work is the lowest, followed by public administration and elementary education.
Well, the humanities are 'liberal arts', i.e, hobbies for all but the few "degree-hunters" looking to get a cush job in academia. But some programs do teach good rhetoric skills. My brother, BA history 1976, became a master carpenter, but later used his college skills to become the director of a nature center, run teacher ed programs in the summer and ended up a successful land conservationist.
I admit facing the prospect of writing interminable papers on an unreliable Sears electric typewriter did push me to major in Physics in the early 1980s. I do remember one aging humanities professor lamenting that he had to spend so much time teaching students how to write proper essays because that was n…
Matthew Yglesias has a philosophy degree from Harvard. The Harvard part of the credential is much more important than the philosophy part. I doubt any graduate of UMass-Boston could ever get the jobs that Mr. Yglesias has had no matter the major, GPA, or talent.