In response to this article, on a blog which I highly would recommend you peruse.

Bret’s Thoughts

Bret presents an argument, supports it with evidence, and makes a conclusion.

1. The argument is that the humanities are valuable to teach not for the enrichment of the student, but because they teach them how to make an argument, support it with evidence, and make a conclusion. I found it amusing that the article follows this structure perfectly! This skill is the most important for being an effective leader, and an effective member of a human society.
2. The evidence is two-fold—first, Bret mentions that the collapse of the Soviet sphere was not through war (and the new weapons that STEM provided), but through the soft power of Hollywood and Rock ‘n Roll. The second evidence is that historical education of the ruling class was heavy in the humanities for the specific purpose of teaching leadership skills. The Ancients talked about how studying history was important not because history repeats itself, but because human affairs repeat themselves. To be a leader of humans, you need to know how humans act—which is what the humanities teach.

3. The conclusion Bret draws is best said in his own words with his own emphasis:

   The most pressing problems that we face are not scientific problems. That is not because science has failed, but rather because it has succeeded—it has given us the answers. It has told us about the climate, given us the power of the atom, the ability to create vaccines and vast, vast productive potential. It has taken us beyond the bounds of our tiny, vast planet. What is left is the human component, which we continue to neglect, underfund, and undervalue. We look for scientific solutions to humanistic problems (where our forebears, it must be confessed, often looked for humanistic solutions to scientific problems) and wonder why our wizards fail us. We have all of the knowledge in the world and yet no wisdom.

My thoughts

I am a gullible person, which I like to frame as me being an optimistic person. I’m inclined to agree with every argument I see, and it takes conscious effort to actually think of possible problems with an argument. In other words, I think Bret is right, even though I have quite limited study in the humanities.

I do want to poke at his evidence, though.

I’m certain that Western culture played a part in the fall of the Soviet Union. It was before my time, so I’m taking people’s word for it. I believe that there were other major factors that make it hard to claim that the collapse happened from force from the outside nearly as much as internal problems. I know very little about the Soviet Union, but I believe they had major problems economically with providing for their people, put their populace in perpetual fear, and enacted reforms to take the pressure off at an extremely poor time. A strong cultural force pushing at the walls certainly helped, but I can’t believe that it was the primary cause.

As for the historical precedent of humanistic teaching, I have just a technicality. Just because something was effective in the past doesn’t mean that it will be today, or in the future. It’s probably the case that the humanities are still useful to teach people about human affairs, but it could not be—I didn’t see any evidence.