This is a great line about John Dewey.

In fact, he believed in liberal education. This is something that has largely been abandoned in the modern debate about education. Now it is all about how we can create more STEM graduates, as if all we need is better technology and the rest of our culture can just rot.

Of course this attitude extends from the plutocratic focus of our society, but it has been fully imbibed by nearly everyone so it’s hard to see, much less question.

STEM is non-threatening (as it has no ideology, nor the real possibility of one) so that is the main reason it is championed – that, and it leads directly to profits for those already wealthy.

The humanities, however, are dangerous to the elites so there is much propaganda about their uselessness and soft-headedness.

Funny, though, I bet if you ask people what the best time they’ve had in their lives, the vast, vast majority of those experiences would be pegged firmly in the realm of the humanities.

But we’ve chosen what kind of society we will have, and that is a faux laissez faire fascistic dystopia.