There’s a particular kind of silence that follows when you tell someone you’re majoring in English Literature or Philosophy. It’s the kind that says, “Oh… that’s nice,” but what they mean is, “So you’re planning on being unemployed?” In today’s economy, studying the arts or humanities has become the academic equivalent of showing up to a sword fight with a feather. Society worships STEM like a golden calf, while the humanities are treated like the weird cousin who brings a ukulele to family gatherings – charming, maybe, but not useful. Tess Bloxham’s call to “Stop Devaluing the Arts and Humanities” isn’t just a plea for appreciation; it’s a reality check we desperately need.
Here’s the irony: we live in an age that runs on communication, storytelling, empathy, and design, all the things the humanities teach, yet we act like only engineers and data analysts keep civilization afloat. Sure, technology builds the world, but it’s the arts that make it worth living in. Who do you think gives meaning to all that innovation? Someone had to write the copy, compose the soundtrack, design the interface, and make you feel something about it.
The problem is that we’ve been brainwashed into believing that “usefulness” can only be measured in economic terms, not its social impact or intellectual depth. A philosophy graduate might not invent a new app, but they’ll ask the uncomfortable questions about how that app affects privacy, ethics, and human connection. But of course, that doesn’t fit neatly into a job market spreadsheet, so we dismiss it.
We grew up in a world where creativity became currency, yet we’re still told that art “doesn’t pay.” We celebrate viral artists, writers, and filmmakers online, people who literally shape our cultural consciousness but then get scolded for not picking a “real” career. We binge-watch Fleabag, cry to Mitski, quote Greta Gerwig movies, and scroll through aesthetic Instagram reels captioned with poetry yet somehow still think literature and art are disposable luxuries.
What we’re really seeing is a crisis of imagination. The arts and humanities don’t just teach us what to think, they teach us how to think. They make us interrogate assumptions, understand context, and connect dots between people and ideas. You can automate coding, but you can’t automate compassion. You can program AI to write a sonnet, but you can’t teach it heartbreak.
And yet, every time budgets get tight, it’s the arts departments that get cut first. It’s as if we’ve decided that learning to think deeply, write clearly, or understand culture isn’t worth funding, even though those skills are literally what make humans human. We don’t need a rocket scientist to explain why people fall in love, start revolutions, or seek meaning. You need poets, historians, philosophers, storytellers. You need people who can translate chaos into understanding.
What’s even more dangerous is how this devaluation shapes how we see ourselves. Students in the arts start feeling humiliated for their passions, adding, “But I’ll probably go into marketing” like a disclaimer. It’s tragic that curiosity now needs a financial justification. Somewhere along the line, we forgot that art doesn’t have to “produce” anything. Its worth is intrinsic. It’s what makes us pause, reflect, laugh, cry, feel.
Tess Bloxham’s argument isn’t just about defending degrees; it’s about defending humanity itself. When we sideline the humanities, we’re not just cutting budgets — we’re cutting off our ability to understand ourselves. In a world where algorithms decide what we see and attention spans are shorter than a reel, the ability to slow down and think has become radical. The arts and humanities are not outdated – they’re the antidote to chaos.
And maybe that’s what scares people. The humanities don’t offer simple answers or neat solutions. They teach ambiguity, complexity, and discomfort, things that don’t sell well in a capitalist framework obsessed with productivity. But those are the very qualities that make progress possible. You can’t build a future worth living in without first imagining it, and imagination is an art form.
So, maybe it’s time we stop treating artists, writers, historians, and philosophers like daydreamers with no direction. They’re the ones holding the cultural compass while the rest of us chase the next upgrade. Because when the world inevitably breaks – and let’s face it, it’s already cracking – it won’t be your spreadsheet that saves you. It’ll be your stories, your songs, your sense of meaning.
The arts and humanities don’t need defending because they’re weak; they need defending because they’re powerful. They remind us that progress without purpose is just motion. They keep us honest, grounded, and human.
So next time someone asks, “What will you do with that degree?”, maybe just smile and say, “Make sense of the world.” Because that’s something no algorithm, no robot, and no spreadsheet will ever be able to do.
