The author is right. Gender studies, for example, is a pointless degree. You certainly have a point about not being quick to judge, or overly dismissive, but there are certain things in life that are genuinely pointless, even in education.
It's not because it doesn't impact your field/industry, isn't marketable and profitable, or because your politics don't comingle with them, that such studies are pointless or useless.
Handwaving humanities on the premise that they are humanities is just another very stereotypical show of STEM arrogance.
You talk about "STEM arrogance", but maybe you should take some time to analyze where you feelings comes from, and if you're not suffering from a huge bias against these fields yourself. If the defenders of social sciences aren't even able to apply their teachings to themselves, people have the right to be skeptic about the value of their fields.
I don't like the "STEM arrogance" bit (I wouldn't go so far as to say there is anything inherently arrogant about those in STEM), but I also don't think you can ever fairly judge the value of someone else's field.
You don't know why they went into the field -- I promise it's because they saw more value in it for themselves than other fields.
You don't why the school offers such programs, but I promise they wouldn't offer it if they didn't think there was some demand for it. (Programs that don't get students to enrol stop existing pretty quickly.)
So while I don't believe in "STEM arrogance" or "HN arrogance" (I'm here because I believe this is one of the least arrogant and most open-minded online communities I've ever encountered), I do believe it's arrogant to proclaim yourself the authority on whether someone else's field has value. Just because you don't see the value doesn't mean it's not there. It might even be more valuable than your own.
By the way, not sure if this was intentional on your part, but "maybe you should take some time to analyze where your feelings come from" is very much an idea that came from the humanities. So there's a certain amount of irony in your comments.
> By the way, not sure if this was intentional on your part, but "maybe you should take some time to analyze where your feelings come from" is very much an idea that came from the humanities. So there's a certain amount of irony in your comments.
There's no irony except the one I was highlighting: someone is saying that humanities are important and have lots of value, while not applying that really fundamental concept.
Sometimes people study stuff for intellectual fulfillment. I haven't studied gender studies, but according to HN, if I were to study sociology I'd be an ass with a pointless degree.
PG’s point is that those degrees have no extrinsic value, even if they provide lots of time to think, learn, and gain enjoyment. That can certainly be valuable, but it isn’t necessary or helpful in achieving success.
Nothing wrong with that, and his choice of wording wasn’t ideal, but that was my takeaway.
I'd argue that the social sciences need more people involved in them, not less. For example, the way behavioural psychology has been weaponised during the pandemic by political actors (particularly the British government) has been very unethical in my opinion but as the social sciences are often seen by the general public as a bit woolly there's not been an awful lot of publicised expert criticism in the same way, say, a government denying genetics in favour of LaMarckism would put angry biologists directly into every newspaper.
Is History a _useful_ degree? Is Economics? Is Politics? Psychology or Sociology?
I actually don't want to make those determinations. I don't think I'm qualified. I have a rough view that highly specific degrees are worse overall than general ones. Eg Actuarial Mathematics vs Mathematics. Marine Biology vs Biology.
But those are personal dinner table views, and I'm not certain I'm right! I certainly don't want to define policy on it, and I'm not sure I know of anyone I think is qualified.
History: often useful
Economics: can be useful, has a lot of fiction mixed in
Politics: irritatingly useful
Psychology: mostly garbage
Sociology: almost entirely garbage
I would say that, like most interdisciplinary and many other degrees, its not particularly useful as a vocational credential outside academia.
OTOH, gender studies as a component of or elective within other degree programs that are more vocationally useful outside of academia is useful, and you don't have that without gender studies professors who you don’t have without people focussing on gender studies.
You can say that the degree "leads to no jobs", but saying it's pointless seems like you are angry at it when it is just a subset of social science
Is lying in the grass pointless?
That aside, let's say that a degree is "pointless" if it doesn't lead to good job prospects. By that definition, there's an awful lot of fields of study that are "pointless".
For example, I love philosophy. It was my favourite topic in school. But the only job that a philosophy degree seems to make available is that of teaching philosophy.
I think what we're seeing now is the market at work. There was, for a long time, a push to simply get a post-secondary education. It didn't matter which field. Just get a degree! Now we have a couple generations of heavily indebted students in fields that did not improve their job prospects, and they're telling the next generation: don't do it.
So I think we're going to keep seeing financial pressure on these fields until they shrivel up and go away. Capitalism at work, for better or worse.
But that's not the same as thinking these fields were pointless. I see tremendous social value in them. Having entire generations raised with a healthier and more accurate understanding of race, gender, class struggle, etc., is good for society. It's just not good at creating jobs.
So I guess my point (no pun intended) is that "pointless" is in the eye of the beholder. No one sets about wasting money pointlessly, and the things that you see no value in may be of great value to many others. You're not the arbitrator of what has value. Nor am I. But the market does a pretty damn good job.
Just because you think something is pointless doesn't make it so.
Who’s to determine these criteria? And aren’t they just opinions instead of real facts?
Likely the criteria made up in the heads of those who feel they've somehow been "wronged" in life by somebody who participates in said studies.
It would be much more truthful to say that everything in life is genuinely pointless than what you've said - and I'm saying this as a lifelong multidisciplined engineer.
Perhaps you meant to say useless instead of pointless? Yes, I would agree, that the overwhelming vast majority, if not all of gender studies degrees are useless in the world/societies we live in. But pointless? No.