“…they are ashamed of a child who studies literature, or philosophy, or who wants to paint or dance or sing. American parents, too, are moving rapidly in this direction, despite a long liberal arts tradition. But educators for economic growth will do more than ignore the arts. They will fear them. For a cultivated and developed sympathy is a particularly dangerous enemy for obtuseness and moral obtuseness is necessary to carry out programs of economic development that carry out inequality. It is easier to as objects to be manipulated if you have never learned any other way to see them.”

I think the strongest connection between liberal education and citizenship has to do with seeing people as more than just a number, and seeing them as human beings. In the busy, bustling world we live in now it is easy to forget that other people, that you don’t interact regularly with, have feelings and lives of their own. I feel like this has been an offset of the technological and scientific boom of the late 20th and early 21st century that we are subject to living in. I think this disregard for others could be due to the way that children are being taught, and how society has viewed the humanities. Social media has created a rift in the communication, and personal skills that many young students have. This lack of skill is something that could be easily fixed through the use of liberal art classes, that encourage more than just numbers and equations on a paper, its thoughtfulness, how to portray ideas into words, getting these ideas to other people, and so much more. There are so many ways that liberal arts can further the communication skills, personal skills, thoughtfulness, individuality, life skills, empathy, cultural knowledge, historical accounts, and much more. The humanities have recently been viewed as undesirable and “bad jobs”, yeah they may not be as high paying as others, or be something that is blowing up right now. But the humanities have had a place in society for thousands of years, and will be the jobs that really can’t be easily replaced. You can show a robot how to be a data analyst, or have create new softwares, but could a robot be a phycologist, a writer, a teacher, or a social worker. The humanities are not easily replaceable skills that can be filled by machines, not that the science and technological fields would be easy to replace with machines. The main difference when it comes down to it is that the humanities are the course that teaches students the skills that are needed to be a person, understand other people, themselves, cultures, perspectives, ideas, and learn lifelong skills that will follow them forever. The humanities help to make people their own individual citizen that can understand how to be themselves while apart of a collective whole.