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Will the Humanities Save Us?

Tokenconservative said:
Well, yeah..I assumed I was addressing a libbie "man."

It's a given that libbie Wymyn (hoo, YAH!) never shave.

Not even their faces.

Tokie
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Oh for shame! How could you say that about Jane?

Barbarella was the pin up of youth and a source of joy :blush:
 
Tokenconservative said:
Yeah....just ask anyone who caught her act at the Hanoi Hilton.

Tokie
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I suspect that would require my learning Vietnamese but nonetheless proves my point. She may have been a little to the left politically but Barbarella still rocked.
 
Nogbad said:
I suspect that would require my learning Vietnamese but nonetheless proves my point. She may have been a little to the left politically but Barbarella still rocked.
Click to expand...

Just find a vet who was there. Many of them prolly picked up a little Vietnamese.

Tokie
 
I have degrees and a diploma both from Tokie's approved and unapproved lists and I am better (and more employable) for it. Not only that, the unapproved studies give/gave me a qualitative advantage in the approved studies.

In other words, give me a break. Park your bias Tokie, if you can.
 
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D'rok said:
I have degrees and a diploma both from Tokie's approved and unapproved lists and I am better (and more employable) for it. Not only that, the unapproved studies give/gave me a qualitative advantage in the approved studies.

In other words, give me a break. Park your bias Tokie, if you can.
Click to expand...

Hmm....actually, the one may complement the other, but had you ONLY the one you would be LESS employable for it.

You are not making your case, I'm afraid, only bolstering mine. I did not say:

If you have X AND Y, then Z

I said: If you have ONLY X, then Z.

See the difference?

By the way, my bias on this issue is "parked." I am simply speaking from real-world experience. You may have a nice place in the world that is enhanced by the second (let's call that the one from my verbotten list) sheepskin, but the reality is (and you curiously did not argue it this way) that absent the other sheepskin, that one would be economically useless to you.

But don't take my word for it!

Test it. Go out into the employment market presenting ONLY the verbotten degree (you'll have to do this rationally, too: you'll have to figger out a way to suggest that you are just now entering the workforce to keep from being checked up on at previous employers, etc.) and see if the offers come tumbling in.

If you want to do this, I'd be happy to put some $$ up on it.

Say, $5k? We'd need to talk more about just what it is we are talking about of course.

You game?

Tokie

Tokie
 
Tokenconservative said:
Hmm....actually, the one may complement the other, but had you ONLY the one you would be LESS employable for it.

You are not making your case, I'm afraid, only bolstering mine. I did not say:

If you have X AND Y, then Z

I said: If you have ONLY X, then Z.

See the difference?

By the way, my bias on this issue is "parked." I am simply speaking from real-world experience. You may have a nice place in the world that is enhanced by the second (let's call that the one from my verbotten list) sheepskin, but the reality is (and you curiously did not argue it this way) that absent the other sheepskin, that one would be economically useless to you.

But don't take my word for it!

Test it. Go out into the employment market presenting ONLY the verbotten degree (you'll have to do this rationally, too: you'll have to figger out a way to suggest that you are just now entering the workforce to keep from being checked up on at previous employers, etc.) and see if the offers come tumbling in.

If you want to do this, I'd be happy to put some $$ up on it.

Say, $5k? We'd need to talk more about just what it is we are talking about of course.

You game?

Tokie

Tokie
Click to expand...

Your case included doing away with 4 year degrees in the unapproved subjects and relegating what study was allowed in those subjects to state schools. Even then, you also proposed denying a major in any of those subjects unless it was accompanied by a teaching degree and opined that public funding should not flow there..

All of these things, if implemented, would severely affect my employability. I would not be in the advantageous situation that I am in now if those ideological limits had been placed on my education.

In other words, in your scenario, I could not have X and Y resulting in Z.

Also, the employment picture for humanities grads, at least here in Canada, is much more nuanced than your bias dictates:

"Surprisingly little empirical evidence is available on the relative labour market performance of university graduates from different programs. One study, which compared unemployment rates and annual incomes of university graduates in the humanities and social sciences to those of their counterparts in more applied streams, found the labour market performance of the graduates to be roughly similar (Allen, 1998). This result was confirmed by another study, which found that in 1992, two years after graduation, the unemployment rate for bachelor's graduates in humanities and social sciences was the same as the rate for engineering graduates and four percentage points lower than for applied sciences graduates (Lavoie and Finnie, 1999)."

http://www.statcan.ca/english/freepub/75-001-XIE/00701/ar-ar_200107_02_a.html

Instead of grandstanding, how about backing up your position with some authoritative citations?
 
Tokenconservative said:
Har-dee, har, har....

Curious: why do you suppose that in this thread, the immediate response to my post was to begin calling me an "idiot"?

Tokie
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I assumed it was an ongoing love/hate thing carried over from previous threads - the history to which I am not party.

The position you hold is not uncommon and I think, to a degree, it is one that we all hold. I would look askance at a four year degree in media crocheting and feminist hanging baskets. However, I would not consider, as the opening article seems to suggest some might, Classics, History, English Lit or Modern Languages as money wasted - FFS! business needs translators and most multi-nationals look for some people with modern languages.

Cultural capital is alive and well and to my mind is the difference between civilisation and returning to the trees. The notion that business is neutral and exists separately from the history and culture of the society it springs from is erroneous in my view. Obviously, a society cannot afford to have 90% of its people studying Peruvian nose flutes to Doctorate level but is that likely to happen?
 
When law schools were asked to rank the most desirable major for their perspective students they said it was a tie between philosophy and physics.
 
D'rok said:
Your case included doing away with 4 year degrees in the unapproved subjects and relegating what study was allowed in those subjects to state schools. Even then, you also proposed denying a major in any of those subjects unless it was accompanied by a teaching degree and opined that public funding should not flow there..

All of these things, if implemented, would severely affect my employability. I would not be in the advantageous situation that I am in now if those ideological limits had been placed on my education.

In other words, in your scenario, I could not have X and Y resulting in Z.

Also, the employment picture for humanities grads, at least here in Canada, is much more nuanced than your bias dictates:

"Surprisingly little empirical evidence is available on the relative labour market performance of university graduates from different programs. One study, which compared unemployment rates and annual incomes of university graduates in the humanities and social sciences to those of their counterparts in more applied streams, found the labour market performance of the graduates to be roughly similar (Allen, 1998). This result was confirmed by another study, which found that in 1992, two years after graduation, the unemployment rate for bachelor's graduates in humanities and social sciences was the same as the rate for engineering graduates and four percentage points lower than for applied sciences graduates (Lavoie and Finnie, 1999)."

http://www.statcan.ca/english/freepub/75-001-XIE/00701/ar-ar_200107_02_a.html

Instead of grandstanding, how about backing up your position with some authoritative citations?
Click to expand...

I guess we need to define some terms
1. "State schools"?
2. "Unapproved subjects"
3. "Ideological limts."
4. "Authoritative"

If I were blind and crippled and lived in Central Africa, my employment prospects would also be limited....So?

Does this 1999 study you quote indicate when/where it got it's data from? For decades in the US (by the way, I have no idea how this works in a more socialist society like Canada, nor do I really care), we were told that a college diploma...din't matter WHAT it was in...meant better employment opportunities.

Try getting worthwhile employment TODAY in the US, bringing ONLY a 4-yr English, or Philosophy, or History degree with you to the interview (outside education).

Most areas of the Liberal Arts have no practical application in America, today. In a socialist society, sure...employers are likely forced to hire people with them, but not so here. Now, that's not to say these should be banned, as your strawman argument asserts that I am suggesting, just that no taxpayer funds should go to these disciplines OUTSIDE a directed course of study in which the student is headed toward education, primary or secondary, I don't care which.

This is really pretty simple to understand and does not require a lot of convoluted reasoning, nor should it be taken personally. The reality is that post-about oh, 1990, let's call it, such degrees serve very little practical functionality in THIS society. We neeed (and pay for) engineers, businesspeople, scientists, lawyers, etc., etc. You don't need $200,000+ education in Philosophy to be a waiter. If any training for that at all is needed, trade schools at 1/10th the price can handle it.

Tokie
 
Nogbad said:
I assumed it was an ongoing love/hate thing carried over from previous threads - the history to which I am not party.

The position you hold is not uncommon and I think, to a degree, it is one that we all hold. I would look askance at a four year degree in media crocheting and feminist hanging baskets. However, I would not consider, as the opening article seems to suggest some might, Classics, History, English Lit or Modern Languages as money wasted - FFS! business needs translators and most multi-nationals look for some people with modern languages.

Cultural capital is alive and well and to my mind is the difference between civilisation and returning to the trees. The notion that business is neutral and exists separately from the history and culture of the society it springs from is erroneous in my view. Obviously, a society cannot afford to have 90% of its people studying Peruvian nose flutes to Doctorate level but is that likely to happen?
Click to expand...

The point is not whether it's "likely" to happen, the point is whether taxpayer subsidized colleges and unis. should be dabbling it what amounts to an employment program for people who have doctorates in Peruvian Noseflute.

Yes, it's nice for a culture to have folks who know what Portia means thematically, or whether this shade of magenta was or was not a favorite of Picasso's....and we have many private institutions of higher learning that (outside research) r'cv little taxpayer funding, if any. They can churn out Peruvian Noseflute Ph.Ds to their heart's content!

But I am taxed (quite heavily) and a big chunk of that change goes to state colleges and universities, and I don't see any reason why I should be paying people to study for 4 or 6 or even 10 years to then become one of the top three best educated waiters in my favorite eatery.

Tokie
 
Stone Island said:
When law schools were asked to rank the most desirable major for their perspective students they said it was a tie between philosophy and physics.
Click to expand...

Goody.

Then let THEM subsidize philosophy majors. And a lawyer can get his BA/BS in ANYTHING...So, let them get it in Business, or Geology, or Physics, or anything else that will not, if they fail in law school, or fail the bar, lead them to be asking me whether I'd like guac and sour cream on my nachos.

Tokie
 
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