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Frankly, this has been a long time coming and I think very little has been actually lost.
The stark reality of the liberals arts courses in most Western universities/colleges is that they have been in decline in quality for a long time, and very little is actually being taught in them. I say this from both personal experience and from data. Unless you're lucky enough to have gotten a really engaging and intelligent teacher in the arts (needle in the haystack), most students come away from a liberal arts degree with very little (or in the case of ideological brainwashing, have actually been made worse).
The quality of liberal arts graduates and how little they know is frankly quite shocking. They know little to nothing of the classics, they know nothing of the works of important figures from Socrates all they way up until modern thinkers like Dewey. For many students, they think, or are taught there is nothing of intellectual value prior to the 1970s or so. Rawls is as about as far back and sophisticated they go (well, other than Marx of course, though even this is often through an attenuated way).
I'm not completely sure why this is the case, but I think it's some combination of the postmodern intellectual brainrot that continues to infect the academy and credentialism driving everyone to get degrees (which lowers standards).
If anything, I see the drop-off in student numbers for the liberal arts as a positive development, because hopefully that means the students who do remain actually care about things like philosophy, politics and the humanities generally aren't being held back by being in a larger, stupider cohort, and in time actually will remake the liberal arts degree into something respectable again (unlikely, but a man can dream).
History and philosophy are humanities and “liberal arts” as well you know….
Yes?
Can’t paste on mobile for some reason, but your initial post was complaining about them not knowing Socrates or history etc. So it seemed like you found history and philosophy valuable.
Yes, that is correct.
My complaint is not directed at liberal arts/humanities themselves. They have incalcuable value.
My complaint is directed at the universities/colleges who have been doing a piss-poor job at educating students in the humanities.
Ahh I see. I think most History + Philosophy courses are solid (at least I hope) but I agree there are a whole host of pointless majors and courses out there.
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