Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community - View Single Post - Humanities Academia

Zar · 03-02-2006, 08:50 PM

If this should be moved somewhere else, mods, do so. I'm not really sure about the appropriate place for this.

I'm in my fourth year of college. I've interacted with a wide variety of professors and students. I was originally a Physics major, but I switched to English because I am a good writer (or so my peers and teachers tell me) and because (at the time I switched) I had vague ideas about becoming a journalist or author. The idea of influencing masses of people with my ideas via fiction (ala Kurt Vonnegut Jr., J.D. Salinger, Ayn Rand, etc.) held great appeal to me. However, now I feel disenchanted. I've taken three years of literature classes, and I feel jaded and uninterested.

We debate the thematic and critical approaches in class, and the characters, and what they represent, and the context ad nauseum. In the end, it all just seems like so much mental masturbation to me. I suppose it's a problem of my personality, and I tend to think, "These people debating the relative merits of these texts will have no impact on human society. They will read the appropriate works and become experts in their 'field'. Which means they know a lot about something that will really have no impact on the course of human events."

I know I sound cynical, because I am. I can understand how reading a certain work can alter one's perspective on the world, or society, because I have done that. But in the end, I think, what does it matter? There are six billion of us. Perhaps one can feel smarter because they are aware of many divergent approaches and ideas and such. But does it really make a difference? Are people like this, who know the true causes of wars, who understand psychology (as we understand it today), who understand the socioeconomic factors that dictate today's society -- do they really make a difference in the real world? They may know much, but what do they do? They seem like glorified movie critics to me.

I guess I'm an empiricist at heart. I'd like to hear opposing points of view. I know that learning these things can help your critical thinking skills, etc., and thus prepare you for a "real job". But many of these "real jobs" also seem pointless to me. They were constructed by human society to fulfill a need also constructed by human society.

Okay. I've rambled enough. I should not have switched majors, basically.

03-02-2006, 08:50 PM	#1 (permalink)
Zar Tilted Location: St. Louis	Humanities Academia - what's the point? If this should be moved somewhere else, mods, do so. I'm not really sure about the appropriate place for this. I'm in my fourth year of college. I've interacted with a wide variety of professors and students. I was originally a Physics major, but I switched to English because I am a good writer (or so my peers and teachers tell me) and because (at the time I switched) I had vague ideas about becoming a journalist or author. The idea of influencing masses of people with my ideas via fiction (ala Kurt Vonnegut Jr., J.D. Salinger, Ayn Rand, etc.) held great appeal to me. However, now I feel disenchanted. I've taken three years of literature classes, and I feel jaded and uninterested. We debate the thematic and critical approaches in class, and the characters, and what they represent, and the context ad nauseum. In the end, it all just seems like so much mental masturbation to me. I suppose it's a problem of my personality, and I tend to think, "These people debating the relative merits of these texts will have no impact on human society. They will read the appropriate works and become experts in their 'field'. Which means they know a lot about something that will really have no impact on the course of human events." I know I sound cynical, because I am. I can understand how reading a certain work can alter one's perspective on the world, or society, because I have done that. But in the end, I think, what does it matter? There are six billion of us. Perhaps one can feel smarter because they are aware of many divergent approaches and ideas and such. But does it really make a difference? Are people like this, who know the true causes of wars, who understand psychology (as we understand it today), who understand the socioeconomic factors that dictate today's society -- do they really make a difference in the real world? They may know much, but what do they do? They seem like glorified movie critics to me. I guess I'm an empiricist at heart. I'd like to hear opposing points of view. I know that learning these things can help your critical thinking skills, etc., and thus prepare you for a "real job". But many of these "real jobs" also seem pointless to me. They were constructed by human society to fulfill a need also constructed by human society. Okay. I've rambled enough. I should not have switched majors, basically.