atomhjarta:

Dammit, I am SO sick of people taking the attitude that anyone who doesn’t study business, engineering or design doesn’t deserve to make any living at all. While it’s true that there are a lot of jobs to be had for people who either innovate new products, make those products look good, and/or boss the engineers and designers around, without art and music for art and music’s sake, we’re soulless. Without the study of societies and cultures, we lose sight of why we’re even trying to get ahead so damn hard. Without people to observe and tell these stories, how do we know what’s going on? We lose the ability to understand why we behave in certain ways and how to address issues that arise when those ways are mean-spirited and assholish.
 
If you’re the sort who’s made more money than you could spend in five lifetimes, good on you. I bet it was nothing but hard work and determination, and certainly wasn’t inherited or aided by public services or made by cutting corners and walking across the backs of the people who work for you. I’m not even going to address the ways in which you became wealthy and successful. But does it not occur to you that perhaps some of that money could go towards supporting people who are trying to make their living helping us understand ourselves? Or how about people who are simply trying to add a little bit of beauty? Of course this is subjective, and not all artists or musicians are appealing to everyone, but how about finding some that are appealing to you, and helping them out a little bit? The books you read, the films you watch, and the images you look at have to come from somewhere.

And what of people who devote their lives studying the effects of poverty on the brain’s neurotransmitters? Or psychologists who specialise in counseling transgender youth? Or even biologists, chemists and engineers who, instead of using their backgrounds to work at pharmaceutical companies and electronics corporations (and there’s nothing wrong with that, we need those things too) choose to put their minds to work studying the physical world around us? This is the BEST shot we have at trying to conserve limited resources and find renewable ones. It’s the best shot we have at trying to make our existence on this planet actually sustainable (hint: it is currently not), and it is also the best shot we have at getting the hell off this rock in case we completely screw it up beyond all repair. And you know what? If we’re going to try to get our shit together and explore space, we’d better get cracking on trying to understand and empathise with cultures in which we did not grow up, because it seems a like a lot of people aren’t even trying, and the more we marginalise the work of people in the arts and humanities, the more impossible this is going to be.

So the next time you want to harsh someone for studying the arts, humanities, and social sciences, remember instead to go fuck yourself. Sure, there might not be any jobs to speak of in these fields, but that is not the fault of the people who happen to excel in these areas, that is the fault of this broken-ass system of priorities that have been set up, which are only ever driven by profit.

Annie wins the internet.