More classicists for a better Britain
Apparently due to Boris, the debate over the value of a degree is raging again. Unsurprisingly, various sorts are criticising the value of ‘academic’ rather than ‘vocational’ degrees. Also unsurprisingly, they’re wrong.
Take classics. It’s the quintessentially-cited ‘nobody even speaks this, so what’s the point?’ language. But learning classics teaches you the foundations on which all European languages (OK, except Basque, Hungarian and Finnish) were built, introduces you to the beginnings of philosophy and human thought, and teaches you critical thinking.
The same goes for nearly all ‘academic’ subjects, right down to media studies. And as a result, for any role other than a golf-course manager, I’d infinitely rather employ a classicist (or an historian, or a philosopher) than someone with a degree in golf-course management.
Indeed, if I was looking for someone capable of shaping my golf course’s strategic growth rather than just keeping the greens green, I’d prefer a classicist to a golf-course manager even for that.
The point is that knowledge is trivially easy to acquire, and carries more or less no worth: anyone who knows how to think can learn any industry-specific skill in a trivial amount of time. But someone who’s spent three years studying facts but who can’t think will never learn how to – and if the first person takes the second person’s job, they’ll be better at it than them within months.
As a digression, the degree which surprises me the most that anyone ever does is accountancy. Why the hell would you waste your university time on a qualification that you could be paid £25,000 a year plus all fees to take if you studied something more interesting and then worked for an accounting firm after graduating?
Disclaimers: I’m not a classicist, and I work for an accounting firm (not as an accountant, nor intending to become one…)
Actually, knowledge isn’t trivially easy to acquire, which is why vocational degrees have at least 3 years of material in them, and why people choose to do them.
I also dispute that things like classics or literature teach you how to think in a way that is useful in industry. It may teach you about communication and interpretation of message, but it does not teach about the interpretation of data, logic, or the analysis of arguments and propositions, and the conditions in which we can infer them to be true or false.
Paragraph 1: sure, memorising knowledge isn’t trivially easy – but it’s also almost completely useless outside of industries where, for pointless historical reasons (hello lawyers!) you’re not able to consult source material while making decisions.
Paragraph 2: I’m, err, surprised that you’re asserting that degrees in humanities, classics and literature don’t talk about the analysis of arguments and propositions. Have you ever met anyone who studied, taught, read exam papers for, or generally came within a hundred miles of, such a degree?
Without wishing to blow my own trumpet (it’s that one damn vertebra!) I was considered one of the better project managers and systems engineers in the industry I was in.
My degree? Philosophy.
Thankfully the guy who owned the engineering company understood its value. Sadly, he’s one of the few.
The point is that knowledge is trivially easy to acquire, and carries more or less no worth: anyone who knows how to think can learn any industry-specific skill in a trivial amount of time.
I think we need to differentiate between learning facts and learning skills. The first is easy to do, and not particularly useful since you can simply look it up on the Internet.
The second is less easy, and is potentially very difficult. Learning to write software, compose music, write novels or manage complex projects are not “trivial” tasks, at least if you want to do them at any level of proficiency.
“But learning classics teaches you the foundations on which all European languages (OK, except Basque, Hungarian and Finnish) were built,” ???
The slavic languages are not European now?
Fair play on music. But I wouldn’t call project management industry specific (and I don’t think that any university course – certainly no ‘management science’ course, even from good places – instills it).
Isn’t novel-writing just a subset of being able to use English effectively and appropriately for the audience you’re writing for?
“But learning classics teaches you the foundations on which all European languages (OK, except Basque, Hungarian and Finnish) were built . . .”
Latin and Greek are the bases only for the Romance languages and modern Greek respectively. Latin is no more the basis for, say, German than German is for Latin.
Dare one ask the obvious question? What was the subject of your degree?
rja – fair play, but who cares about German?
dd – politics, philosophy and economics.
“politics, philosophy and economics”
Yeees, quite so; now I’m beginning to understand …
…you mean, understand my knowledge of major political and economic issues, and the logical analysis underpinning them? Jolly good.
Of course, dear boy, of course – what else?
Dare one ask which university?
…and are you, or are you not, a hook-nosed jew?
Oxford, as it happens. You can insert an “o tempora o mores” gag below…
Wouldn’t dream of it! It has made you the thinker you are.
Surely a degree just proves one can reach a certain level of aptitude.Often degree subjects obtained rarely relate to the job one takes up in life.
This debate should focus on why it is todays degrees are worth one and two a penny. Why is it the the Institute Of Personnel Management are pushing organisations to introduce their own entry examinations? Todays graduates need retesting before entering the workplace?????
Catherine, I could give you the name of one who needs retesting!
@Marcin Tustin:
I would say that the classics provide excellent training. Between the grammar (structured logical thinking), the evolution of the language, the historical context, and the actual content of the text, the skills involve provide an excellent grounding in the types of intellectual skills required for success in industry.
Certainly, my classics-biased education stood me in much better stead when studying for my CompSci degree than my peers’ math/science-oriented educations.