George Rebane
Apropos to the lively discussion at ‘True Value of Work and Caring Economics’, Harvard professor of government Harvey Mansfield contributed a telling piece about the “poor choices … students made in selecting their courses and majors.” In ‘Sociology and Other Meathead Majors’ Dr Mansfield points out the distinction between education based on facts and that based on values. And, of course, therein lays a root cause of rot in our workforce. Majors in ‘values based’ subject areas are hard to sell on the labor markets. And moreover, such majors are victims of the commercially useless leftwing ideologies that are rampant in the country’s schools. That is a double burden that no employer, save the government, wants to bear.
Mansfield opines that “Archie Bunker was right to be skeptical of his son-in-law’s opinions.”, and goes on to say –
More fundamental, however, is the division within the university today, in America and everywhere, between science and the humanities. Science deals with facts but the humanities also have to deal with values. This is where the problem of bad choices arises. We think that one can have knowledge of fact but not of values—the famous “fact/value” distinction.
Science has knowledge of fact, and this makes it rigorous and hard. The humanities have their facts bent or biased by values, and this makes them lax and soft. This fact—or is it a value?—gives confidence and reputation to scientists within the university. Everyone respects them, and though science is modest because there is always more to learn, scientists sometimes strut and often make claims for extra resources. Some of the rest of us glumly concede their superiority and try to sell our dubious wares in the street, like gypsies. We are the humanists.
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