The HBS hosts present their best defense of humanities-based education and, in doing so, try to justify their existences.
As higher education has become more corporatized and STEM-focused, areas of study are often “pitched” to students on the basis of their future income-earning potential. However, college students now are entering a workforce where more than 30% of available jobs will be automated before those students reach middle age. Today’s college students need more than vocational training to prepare them for the future they are entering.
Most academics can (and do) make the argument for the intrinsic value of the humanities– that it helps shape us into good citizens and moral agents– but are there other defenses available? Does a humanities-based education also have instrumental value? How do you get a job with a History or Philosophy or Anthropology degree? Is humanities-based education for everyone, or is it elitist?
Check out the links below to thinkers/ideas referenced in this episode:
- W.E.B. DuBois, The Education of Black People: Ten Critiques
- John Dewey, Democracy and Education
- Aristophanes’ “Clouds”
- Theodor Adorno, Negative Dialectics
- McKinsey Global Institute, “Skill Shift: Automation and the future of the workforce”
