Not just a useless degree: the importance of the humanities and social sciences
I am Caitlin Sovana McGregor, a student of the Humanities. I am a third year Philosophy and History student at one of the best universities in Africa. In previous years, I have also taken English Literature, Politics, International Relations, and Sociology. As you have probably deduced by my subject choices, I am extremely passionate about the field of Humanities. I believe that it is the single most important, yet sadly overlooked sphere of academia, and even life in general.
This is what I will be dedicating my entire page to. It pains me to see how neglected and mocked my field is, and I plan to educate as many people as possible on the importance and growing relevance of the social sciences and humanities.
For those of you who don’t know, the humanities is a field of study that, according to Encyclopædia Britannica, is concerned with humans, societies, cultures, and their thinking, values, knowledge, evolution, creations, and histories. To put it more simply, the field studies, well, humanity. Some disciplines within the humanities are: history, art, literature, philosophy, sociology, politics, anthropology, psychology, etc. Even disciplines such as law and economics fall within the scope of the humanities and social sciences.
Unfortunately, with the rise of anti-intellectualism, and the capitalistic desire to do everything only in pursuit of profit, the humanities and social sciences have been very lowly regarded as a field of study. You might have heard STEM, finance, or business students say things like “what job can you even do with a degree in the humanities?”, or “what are you going to do with a Bachelor of Arts, work at McDonald’s?”, or my personal favourite, “can’t you just Google the things you learn in your degree?”.
I strongly and fully believe that the humanities and social sciences are just as, if not more important than any other fields of study. Engineers design the physical aspects of the world for us to live in it more efficiently, medical doctors provide the solutions and preventions to injuries, diseases, and illnesses that would threaten our personal and collective development, lawmakers and lawyers design and maintain the structural aspects of society, scientists provide breakthroughs that could alter ways of life for the better, information technicians and technologists innovate and create methods for better communication and access to information. These are all important careers and aspects of life, but what do they all have in common? What is the golden thread tying all these very important spheres together? Humanity. Humans. Society. The very existence of people is both why and how these fields of study exist in the first place. Society is at the core of our human experience. So why wouldn’t the study thereof be important?
We need political and sociological thinkers to help us understand the complex powers and structures that shape society and our individual lives, the impacts of the relationships between individuals, groups, and institutions, and the extent to which change is possible on these levels. We need historians to analyse the structures, systems, individuals, and societies of the past in order to understand the social, political, and economic environments we are faced with today, and prevent the cycles of oppression from repeating themselves. This field is especially important in a country like mine, where cycles of oppression have repeated themselves over and over (colonisation and the brutality towards indigenous South Africans, followed by cruelty by the British towards Afrikaners, which later resulted in the oppression of non-Afrikaner South Africans by Afrikaner nationalists in the form of apartheid, followed by a long and complex continuation of oppression, even after the end of the regime). We need literary thinkers to explore the human pattern of storytelling, and how this practice can sometimes reveal more about humanity than a purely factual and explicit account of things. We need anthropologists to guide us through the evolution of societies and cultures, so that we may celebrate diversity and respect and understand our differences and similarities. We need philosophers to question literally everything, to relentlessly seek answers and knowledge, to study knowledge and the nature of reality itself, to teach us how to think critically, and to create a world of new minds that may begin to unravel and dismantle the rigidity of conservative thinking, one debate at a time.
Not surprisingly, most people who hold the humanities in disdain have fallen into the capitalist trap of seeking a return on investment after their studies. People like this fail to recognise that a return on investment doesn’t always have to come in monetary form. Personally, I do not plan to live a lavish life after becoming a teacher, professor, or researcher in my department. And the greatest return on investment for me, would be to know that my work, which I have dedicated my life to, has had an impact on society, no matter how great or small. A return on investment for me would be knowing that, at the end of the day, I have imparted my knowledge onto a younger generation of our country, and that I’ve helped mould them into citizens who understand the complexities of life, and who can think critically, and understand themselves and each other. A return on investment for me would be knowing that I have encouraged someone to speak up about the injustices they see, and that under my tutorship, they are able to view these issues on a level deeper than most. A return on investment for me would be to see more and more students fall in love with the pursuit of knowledge. After all, the pursuit of knowledge is the only thing worth living for.
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