basquavita: 10 ‘Useless’ Degrees...

Monday, October 3, 2011

10 ‘Useless’ Degrees (Bullshit): zakzawaduk:

Okay, I need to rant a bit.

The understanding that a degree is only worth the job it gets you afterwards is extremely problematic. It creates an influx of students at universities, negatively influencing the teacher-student ratio. It also perpetuates the notion that being in university is merely a necessary step to something better and not an amazing experience in and of itself.

Most importantly, this understanding perpetuates the notion that certain degrees are “worthless”: the idea that if you don’t have a job because you have an art history degree, then it’s your own damn fault. Unemployment is a problem of choice then: why the hell didn’t you just do engineering? There’s tons of jobs in biochemistry, why didn’t you study that?

Typically, it is arts degrees that are constructed as ‘worthless’. Proponents of this view clearly have things backwards. It’s not an art students fault that she can’t get it a job. We live in a philistine world where arts are completely undervalued; that is, they are considered useless only because we live in a world that values profit, overproduction, and globalization. Art does not lend itself to these capitalist processes; hence, it’s apparent ‘uselessness’. The art history major is unemployed not because of her skills, personal qualities, professionalism, ingenuity, or level of knowledge. The art history major is unemployed because people don’t give a shit about museums, art, or creative processes. They don’t mesh well with the capitalist paradigm we find ourselves in.

So again, I turn back to the concept of ‘uselessness’. Is the argument here really that the art history grad should have done engineering because they could have gotten a societally valued job? I believe the argument needs to be shifted: everyone else needs to get their shit together and recognize the value in these professional areas. Our world is seriously lacking.

The Philistine not only ignores all conditions of life which are not his own but also demands that the rest of mankind should fashion its mode of existence after his own.

-Goethe

despite having spurred some very interesting and on point discussion (see above) this article is off of a site called Holy Taco whose insignia is an angry taco… I’m loathe to take anything they say too much to heart

am i really going to have to be the one who points out the irony of someone criticizing literally the entire world and the nature of a global industrialized economy, asserting that “everyone else needs to…recognize the value in [the things i value],” followed by a quote from goethe which indicts the foolishness of one person demanding that the whole world bend to support his own views?

also, there’s a difference between “useless” and “valueless.” if you want to go to school to learn an obscure language or to better understand the significance of an artist’s work, then you have enriched your person and there is inherent value in that. but if you graduate school with tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt and no skills or knowledge that make you employable in the modern workforce, explain to me how you have done something useful? if you can’t use it, then it’s not useful by definition.

also, i’m not sure what makes you think that our age is so loathe to value art. we have more working artists, more museums, more galleries and boutiques now than any other time in history. modern industry has made it easier than ever for the masses to experience artwork from around the world and from all of history. the very fact that you were able to go to school to get a degree in art or art history reflects a support for the value of art at one of the most important levels of society: education. zakzawaduk is clearly an intelligent writer and a strong critical thinker, but in this instance he/she has totally missed the mark.