What liberal arts education is for (2024) • Hacker News Board

Re: What liberal arts education is for (2024)

#21

Post by defrost » Sat, Aug 01, 2026, 6:42 AM UTC

photios wrote: post #16

Animats wrote: post #11

> The class turned out to be more or less “A Letter (singular) of Paul:” we spent the semester reading Paul’s letter to the Romans, at a rate of about 3 sentences per week. Per week! That's not a liberal education. That's religious brainwashing. It's the kind of thing madrassas and yeshivas do - obsessively school students on a very few texts said to be sacred. Liberal education was traditionally broad. There are cur…

St. Paul's writing has this effect on people. It's either a burst of love and joy or seething hatred. Never in the middle. :D > There are curricula based on the Great Books. List not including the greatest book of them all... What did they mean by this?

> List not including the greatest book of them all...

The linked list included both the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament in the Sophomore year section.

If it was The Bhagavad Gita you were jonesing for, that appears later in the Junior section.

Re: What liberal arts education is for (2024)

#22

Post by alephnerd » Sat, Aug 01, 2026, 6:46 AM UTC

WalterBright wrote: post #19

mdp2021 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Students can gain such things just fine in a STEM field As long as you do not claim that "living only on proteins or stones and without carbs or leaves would be a good idea".

Those with a liberal arts education do indeed look down on STEM educations as merely a trade. What they miss is the joy of understanding how the world works. I remember many "aha!" moments like somebody turning on the lights in a dark cathedral. Like when I found out how jet engines really worked, not the handwavy cartoons one usually sees. Or when suddenly all the pieces fit together and I knew how a computer worked…

> Those with a liberal arts education do indeed look down on STEM educations as merely a trade

Maybe it's a generational thing, but I haven't noticed this amongst my peers and those younger than me, but I do agree that there is some degree of ressentiment amongst humanities majors to STEM because of the earning trajectory.

Re: What liberal arts education is for (2024)

#23

Post by imtringued » Sat, Aug 01, 2026, 6:50 AM UTC

vineyardmike wrote: post #9

WalterBright wrote: post #4

I took and engineering and science program in college. The education was in learning how to learn, learning how to solve problems, and how to distinguish fact from fiction. It's served me well. To make a living, it is necessary to learn a skill that people are willing to pay for.

> The education was in learning how to learn, learning how to solve problems, and how to distinguish fact from fiction Sounds pretty close to a liberal arts education. That said, not everything is about a job or work. Sometimes (usually) education is itself a goal.

If education is the goal then it is a form of consumption and there is nothing wrong with consumption, but why should the government give out subsidized loans for consumption to young people?

If people want to have an education for the sake of an education they should stop arguing in favor of maximally inflated tuition.

You want the benefits of the consumer good while paying the least amount of money for it.

Meanwhile the standard narrative is that people should be allowed to get into massive unpayable debts that trap them in deadend jobs while people who focus on money end up using their freedom to do the very thing the people who got into debt claim you can only do by getting into debt.

Re: What liberal arts education is for (2024)

#24

Post by mlsu » Sat, Aug 01, 2026, 6:52 AM UTC

The liberal arts education was originally conceived to educate the leaders of society. That is where the free-minded pedagogical angle comes from, it's explicitly privileged. The idea was that if the leaders of society learned what it means to have values, integrity, what it is to be virtuous, etc, then they would diffuse those values into society and create a just world. Society would transcend in the image of the great works. Books from 500 years ago can teach us what being ethical means because human values are transcendental and totally outside of technological or vocational fads.

Unfortunately, at some point in the last 30-40 years, we've totally abandoned this idea. The most powerful people in society are not just indifferent to the liberal arts but are actively hostile towards it. They see it as a frivolous waste of resources. Why waste time studying a great work of literature when you could be "building" instead?

Of course, it's predictable where this leads. We did all this building, but forgot what justice means, what it means to have values, what it means to do right. So now our society is ugly, corrupt, and rotten. Hey, at least we (the leaders) are rich!

Re: What liberal arts education is for (2024)

#25

Post by creesch » Sat, Aug 01, 2026, 6:53 AM UTC

ThrowawayR2 wrote: post #8

Yet another dubious claim that "skills of close reading and critical questioning" are the products of a liberal arts education. Students can gain such things just fine in a STEM field if they care enough and aren't the sort who are just doing the bare minimum to get the sheepskin.

> a STEM field if they care enough and aren't the sort who are just doing the bare minimum to get the sheepskin.

That's the thing though, part of it is about caring. Part of it is being exposed to other things in order to realize there is more out there. I honestly think that STEM field education would benefit from including Liberal Art related courses exactly because of that. Basically as a way to broaden students world view and the way they might interact in it.

The same is probably true the other way around as well btw.

Re: What liberal arts education is for (2024)

#26

Post by photios » Sat, Aug 01, 2026, 7:01 AM UTC

defrost wrote: post #21

photios wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

St. Paul's writing has this effect on people. It's either a burst of love and joy or seething hatred. Never in the middle. :D > There are curricula based on the Great Books. List not including the greatest book of them all... What did they mean by this?

> List not including the greatest book of them all... The linked list included both the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament in the Sophomore year section. If it was The Bhagavad Gita you were jonesing for, that appears later in the Junior section.

I stand corrected. I probably went through the Freshman list only.

> The Bhagavad Gita

Well memed, sir!

Re: What liberal arts education is for (2024)

#27

Post by defrost » Sat, Aug 01, 2026, 7:03 AM UTC

photios wrote: post #26

defrost wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> List not including the greatest book of them all... The linked list included both the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament in the Sophomore year section. If it was The Bhagavad Gita you were jonesing for, that appears later in the Junior section.

I stand corrected. I probably went through the Freshman list only. > The Bhagavad Gita Well memed, sir!

I have Krishna riding shotgun on the stagecoach of my life.

Re: What liberal arts education is for (2024)

#28

Post by Brian_K_White » Sat, Aug 01, 2026, 7:07 AM UTC

WalterBright wrote: post #4

I took and engineering and science program in college. The education was in learning how to learn, learning how to solve problems, and how to distinguish fact from fiction. It's served me well. To make a living, it is necessary to learn a skill that people are willing to pay for.

When I was an infant first couple years of college, us engineers knew we were the useful smarties. Art is nice and all but it doesn't grow crops or cure cancer. So the arts are just this luxury that we can only afford thanks to us non-luxury necessary engineers & scientists.

Sometime later I realized that stem only tells you how to build a bridge or a bomb etc. The humanities are what tells you whether to build a bomb or a bridge etc.

Stem is actually merely the brawn for the humanities brain. Stem without the humanities is a baby with a gun.

Re: What liberal arts education is for (2024)

#29

Post by SanjayMehta » Sat, Aug 01, 2026, 7:11 AM UTC

vineyardmike wrote: post #9

WalterBright wrote: post #4

I took and engineering and science program in college. The education was in learning how to learn, learning how to solve problems, and how to distinguish fact from fiction. It's served me well. To make a living, it is necessary to learn a skill that people are willing to pay for.

> The education was in learning how to learn, learning how to solve problems, and how to distinguish fact from fiction Sounds pretty close to a liberal arts education. That said, not everything is about a job or work. Sometimes (usually) education is itself a goal.

A STEM grad can learn history, literature etc fairly easily.

The other direction is possible but not so easy.

Re: What liberal arts education is for (2024)

#30

Post by WalterBright » Sat, Aug 01, 2026, 7:14 AM UTC

Brian_K_White wrote: post #28

WalterBright wrote: post #4

I took and engineering and science program in college. The education was in learning how to learn, learning how to solve problems, and how to distinguish fact from fiction. It's served me well. To make a living, it is necessary to learn a skill that people are willing to pay for.

When I was an infant first couple years of college, us engineers knew we were the useful smarties. Art is nice and all but it doesn't grow crops or cure cancer. So the arts are just this luxury that we can only afford thanks to us non-luxury necessary engineers & scientists. Sometime later I realized that stem only tells you how to build a bridge or a bomb etc. The humanities are what tells you whether to build a bom…

I haven't noticed that liberal arts majors are better at deciding whether to build a bomb or a bridge. Just look at all the boneheaded decisions by government.