An Initial Biographical Rant-Sketch
You get one shot at life, and, if you're like me, you then proceed to botch it royally in some way or other. Your young self is apportioned whatever amount of hope and drive and dream fuel, and then you just go on to squander it all spectacularly during the liveliest years of your life. There are as many ways to botch a life as there are ways to miss a target, and, if you're me-adjacent, you look at a far off tree or whatever off to the side and say, yeah, let me spend everything on the liberal arts.
Back in college, after I transferred, I was originally a math major. My intention was to get into med school, and I never felt so much at play doing intellectual work as I did while solving definite integrals, so math made sense. Unfortunately, reasonable plans were ruined when previous flirtations with majoring in philosophy (which I had (temporarily) rightly stopped) blossomed into a life-altering affair: while taking my first philosophy course, I decided to switch entirely to philosophy. The math department chair suggested I double major in math and philosophy; he said I had the horsepower to do so. I, being young and an idiot with no one around to give me a figurative (or not) slap in the face and strong words, said no, that I wanted to drop the math major entirely and focus solely on philosophy. So I did. I felt good. After all, I had chosen the higher things and virtue, etc., the path to wisdom and the highest form of knowledge. And philosophy people got into med school, so whatever. Well, philosophy became pretty all-consuming, as will happen in the case of neurotic, idealistic young people, I guess, who are afraid of not being good enough (in an argument, but it's always more global than that) and who think there's a war between the forces of truth and of falsity that needs committed fighters for the former. The result was that I decided to pursue a PhD in philosophy and ditch plans for medicine for a career in academia; the members of my college's philosophy department were encouraging, and I thought I could make it work.
As things worked out, I didn't get accepted into a philosophy grad program with funding, so I decided by means of many decisions to do the smart thing and take out, ultimately, over a 100k in student loans to study theology in Europe for five years. I was originally only going to be in Europe for one year, where I would apply again to PhD programs (my chaplain in college, who had supported my desire to pursue graduate studies in philosophy, suggested a year at the place I went to might be good, both for the "spiritual formation" it might provide (which I hadn't gotten enough of in college, apparently) and the apparent fact that a year doing something academic looked better than a non-academic gap year), but there was so much work that first year that I didn't have time or energy to do so. So, for various reasons, such as wanting the intellectual formation I saw in other students, not having the energy or trust (in myself and others) to change course drastically, a sense that it was God's will that I continue, and having started in my third year my own dumb journey in "reparative therapy" with a paychiatrist who taught at my school (which journey lasted 7.5 years and didn't work, of course) and not wanting g to end it all before I reached real success, well, that initial year became 5 years. I financed it all with student loans. Because I could. And because I thought (and sure, was enabled to think) it was God's will that I do so. You, the reader, can no doubt see how thoroughly dumb my choice of paths up to this point was; if only I had had your clarity at the time...
Which I didn't. If I had, I wouldn't have applied to, been accepted to, and then maxed out student loans to pursue, a PhD in philosophy. Yes, I did that. For six years, I did that. I earned an MA along the way (which seemed wise because my other degrees, two theology graduate degrees and a philosophy BA, were effectively useless), but I finally got off that train that was almost certainly headed to nowheresville by withdrawing from the program this past summer (hands and wrists and arms that now hurt when typing helped. They hurt now, but I'm mad, so here we are).
Now, at 35, with a future that kind of looks bleak for physical limitations and lack of current resources to cultivate other options that immediately make sense (like coding), my hefty liberal arts background at least positions me well to point out how terrible is the whole system that works to convince young people, or that enables them to think, and to act monetarily and otherwise on the thinking, that somehow majoring in a liberal art (like philosophy or theology) is somehow wise. A few well curated phosophy and literarure courses can provide all the foundation one needs to develop one's ability to think well over the course of a lifetime. In philosophy, a course each on Plato, Aristotle and Aquinas, and the first half of Lonergan's book _Insight_, maybe, would be all you need; students can read more if they like. Maybe a course exploring the ethical thought of China and ancient Greece could work. Anyway, if people want more philosophy or whatever in a sort of collegial setting, they could go and found salons. And as far as theology and anything ostensibly regulated by theology goes, if you're a Catholic like me, it is all stuff that you can't actually know anyway, a kind of worldbuilding by nerds that most people do not care about (and need not care about) that all has to be decided by authoritative fiat anyway, which is proven by Thomists trying since the 15th century to impose "self-evident principles" by means of magisterial/papal/institutional power - but, I digress. So, if people in a position to do anything about it actually care about young people in the sort of position I was in, they will work assiduously to ensure young people aim well and do not major in the liberal arts - or, even worse, pursue GRADUATE study in the liberal arts. (If they need help getting motivated, maybe they can go ahead and imbibe the statistics found through the following link:
Graduates entering the workforce with good career prospects and high starting salaries are the most satisfied with their major, according to
)
But of course (and this is my parting shot, mostly because my hand is tingling and this post is uber long) the people who COULD do something about it won't. Why? Well, there are all the institutional and microcultural inertiae, sure, but also because, well, various people and groups need idea mules to carry their ideas out into the world so as to retain cultural currency and general life through influence; people and groups need surrogates to give birth to ideas and mixes of ideas to keep different microcultures, traditions, etc. going into the next generation, I guess. Idea mules must be grown and groomed, and idea surrogates must be prepared well and given time to gestate their offspring; liberal arts majors provide time to develop cohorts of whichever. And so liberal arts majors will continue to be offered, and vulnerable youth will continue to be exploited, monetarily and otherwise, through them. Maybe the whole classical school movement will make those majors so obviously moot they'll be allowed to go away?
I only got a bachelor’s (in a degree sort of in between STEM and social sciences), but I was interested in philosophy. So I attended a philosophy club for four out of five years from about the age of 24 to 29, at a university near where I lived after college. I got some analytic philosophy from the overall scene, and some continental influence from a couple of more serious students. I think it’s taken until now (age 35) that I can write kind of rigorous philosophy, just by practice and sharpening of taste. No debt, no regrets.
I think the humanities are valuable, and I’ve thought of an idea of “endless grad school” (no deadlines, no debt, no degree) as a replacement for academic humanities. The academic system has some advantages, like encouraging rigorous thinking, but these advantages might be provided, at least in part, by an “endless grad school” in a city. (Like teaching people good researching and arguing skills -- people who got degrees could teach people who were never going to get degrees.)