I can't imagine spending tens of thousands of dollars on something that is monetarily worthless just because it is of personal value to me. That seems incredibly self indulgent.
In farming cultures, the more children you have the more workers you have. That seems practical as well.
I think his analogy is flawed.
The fact that after spending so much money on his libarts degree, he'd use the skills from his "education" to make such a terribly stupid and obviously factually wrong analogy just proves his critics right, invalidating his argument. (Many people have kids because they want to be taken care of. Duh.)
No matter how many of one's fellow liberal arts peers might preen about their fancy, overpriced sheepskins, the fact is that these would be emperors in reality have no clothes. (God forbid you point that out to them, though.)
"We don’t mock people who play the guitar, or go on walks in the woods. Why should we mock people who want to learn about their world and learn about themselves?"
Yes, perhaps, but if someone spent $200,000 on a beginner's guitar, or paid $30,000 for the a membership to a private property to go walk in your everyday typical (and accessible for free at a metro park) woods, we'd definitely be side eying them for it.
Edge cases aside, surely 'learning how to think' or indeed just learning is tremendously valuable - surely the ultimate value that all other kinds are implicitly converted to (cf. heat in thermodynamics[1]) is 'personal value' such as satisfaction?
[1]: A simplistic view, please don't flame me. :/
A lot of things are personally valuable but you don't necessarily spend tens of thousands of dollars on them - especially when they have no monetary value. And you have no real income.
How? There are people who spend thousands of dollars on shoes, clothes etc. Heck, how many of us here spend tons of money on the latest gadget? Compared to these, spending money learning something just because he wanted to, is way better. And in any case, it is his money (well, it was a loan, still..), so he can spend however he wants (same goes for people who spend tons of money on the latest and greatest fad - it is their money)
And, as for myself, rather than questioning the value of such an education in the first place, I consider it a problem that this it's as expensive as it is.
I also consider myself lucky that my passions and desires happen to align with -- or are at least complimentary with -- my economic interests.
I don't spend tens of thousands of dollars on my hobbies - they're near free.
I sold my car last year and don't plan on buying one again. But when I purchased it, I definitely made a self indulgent choice. I don't claim to be immune to temptation. But more to the point, it was never monetarily worthless and didn't put me tens of thousands of dollars in debt.
Underwear? I'm not sure what kind of fancy underwear would cost tens of thousands of dollars, but I'd definitely like to know more about that.