I have said many times. University degrees in the maths and sciences, engineering etc should be free and the humanities and arts degrees should cost a bundle. I one is going to spend like at the government trough, they should pay a little up front.

That is called streaming and I am sure it's against someone's human rights.

maybe they have "Anthropology of Women and Victims"

Gotta get those bird courses somehow,

I have a daughter who spent a few years getting an arts degree with a mAjor in Sociology. Once she had that she wondered, "now what"? I suggested that in order to make herself EMPLOYABLE she should take a business course at SIAST. She obtained her business diploma, got a job with a big bank and for the first time in her life I got to stop taking my wallet out. I used to call the constant money requests the 'GIANT SUCKING SOUND FROM SASKATOON"!

I'm speaking as a software engineering professor. I have no problem with students majoring in sociology, or anything else - as long as they don't come out of school expecting their degrees to open doors for them to achieve financial security.

John V.
Given the context of your post (i.e. attacking Liberal Arts and Humanities), do you think it might have been a reasonable idea to proofread your comment before sending it? Either you so strongly value "the maths and sciences" that you really don't care that you present yourself as semi-literate, or you are performing the postmodern tendency to deploy irony and, thus, suggesting to readers that should we go down the path of neglecting the Classics & Liberal Arts, we do so under threat of expressing ourselves as you do.
p.s. I get that we all screw up when posting hastily, but an attack on the Arts launched with such disregard. Please. You remind me of the guy waving the flag bearing the word "MAVRICK" during McCain's speech last night.
BTW, it's so lovely to read sentiments expressing that a person's worth be measured exclusively in terms of contribution to the GDP. I'm assuming the pure parasitic form known as "the human fetus" mustn't have much worth in CC's world.

How are they doing for community organizers?

"Social Scientists" have brought us to the current state of pathetic reliance on the state teat.

One of my favorite t-shirts reads "I have a Sociology degree...do you want fries with that?"

Last week I couldn't spel engineer, now I are one.

Sorry,couldn't resist. Honestly, the light is finally shining on those with the Barely Able (BA) and they are now lining up at technical colleges. Check it out, the waiting list for Com colleges is longer that the universities. A lot of university courses in the Arts world are fine for helping folks get a well rounded education but unless you are planning o teaching said same subject, they are useless for bringing home the bacon.

And let's not forget the tradespeople and craftsmen: a qualified plumber in Alberta can write his own ticket.

Ah yes ... sociology. Many years ago an intrpeid psychologist did a study of IQs of university faculty. Well, philosophers, mathematicians, and physicists came out at the top - I recollect that the philosophers were right at the top. Sociologists came dead last, edging out education faculty and ... psychologists; and even politiccal scientists and English faculty members.

Not long after that, IQ testing was declared irrelevant, culturally biased, and generally worthless ...

Sociology is just less filling "Marx Lite" for those who want "to make the world a better place".

Yes, yes, most people should become cogs in the machine. However, I humbly submit that if the liberal arts were taught properly and to a high standard, then people might not be so easily led astray politically and culturally. Technical schools--and here I include even doctors--teach people to memorize and recite, not to think critically and examine ones' assumptions. Our world is in desperate need of critical thinking skills.

Also, artists can do a lot to motivate and sustain repressed peoples. The frustrations of the artist under Stalin helped to keep resistance alive. And certainly writers shape perceptions of the world--look at Gov. Palin's speech.

I have no defense of "Art" of the western elite today. Just don't diss all art because of the sick few.

Critical thinking is important, sure. But not as important as learning to do something.

No sociology? Heck, the Chinese do have better: Feng Shui.

bill stewart - the question is about the economic productivity of a people - and a social science or humanities degree does not enable you to be productive. You may think that you can do without the economy (GDP)..but..that shows your ignorance of reality.

I'm assuming that your background is in the social sciences or humanities. But what has it enabled you to do?

Your attempt to set up some kind of analogy between the productivity of a person, as measured by GDP, and the non-productivity of a fetus, is totally and completely false. Why? Because one person is ACTUAL, the other is POTENTIAL. You can't compare the potential with the actual. If you'd taken a science degree - you'd know that.

malaskan - I completely agree. I think that critical thinking skills are the most important skill possible - and teaching and using these skills is almost totally lacking in our schools. The social sciences, particular sociology, are filled with courses where all that's required are your 'personal opinions'. What you learn in those courses is sophistry -

I don't know that you can teach 'art'; a repressed people need hope and that can come from many actions.

We should also be aware that the 'developing economies' such as in China, are more and more, no longer sites of cheap labour and cheap products for the west to import. More and more of the citizens of China are becoming consumers of their products; they are developing large middle classes - China will start to develop political policies to support its own consumers rather than exporters.

china has the fastest aging population in the world - good for the next decade or so - a nightmare from that point onwards.

The yuan has been far under-valued for years now. The trend upwards has nothing to do with sociology degrees. And the Chinese have lots of productivity-sapping distractions of their own. Traditional medicine and feng shui being just two.

Hey, when the Chinese go shopping it is known as: FENG SHOE!

Cheers

Hans-Christian Georg Rupprecht, Commander in Chief

Frankenstein Battalion
2nd Squadron: Ulanen-(Lancers) Regiment Großherzog Friedrich von Baden(Rheinisches) Nr.7(Saarbrucken)
Knecht Rupprecht Division
Hans Corps
1st Saint Nicolaas Army
Army Group “True North”

Please don't make fun of touchy-feely college degrees like sociology, psychology, etc. The slough classes I took for my Psychology degree allowed me to drink prodigious amounts of alcohol and still maintain good grades. Also, the degree has been a big help in my subsequent jobs in construction and mining.

Scientology has become popular with many of hollywoods most far out in left-feild crack-pots i mean its just another false relgion

ET, you're one of the reasons I keep coming back here. Aside from a little sarcasm and the occasional barb, I attempt to speak from a defensible position, allowing that others will adhere to differing positions as faithfully as I, and remaining open to the possibility of having my position changed.

Gratefully from you I've learned that there is a monolithic inscrutable reality out there, that humans have an immutable human nature, and lots more about fact and fiction etc. Incidentally, all of which I had remained ignorant about, but thankfully you have access to that truth and I'm ever thankful that you can impose it on me.

I think I understood the question the first time, I was simply questioning the question itself. On the contrary, as a democratic socialist I tend to overestimate the importance of the economy in shaping social relations.

Your questioning of the value of a supposed background in social sciences on the basis of what one is able to "do" with it only repeats the gesture that I was questioning to begin with. You seamlessly and self-evidently equate "doing" with the accumulation of money. Surely education isn't solely geared toward finding a job. One is formed and transformed by education. Ideas, theory, knowledge, I don't believe to be only mental. Rather they can be wholly transformative.

The whole fetus thing was done with tongue in cheek. But I could have used the homeless instead to make the same point. When we measure people by their "productivity", it also makes it possible to dehumanize people by virtue of their lack thereof.
However, I am glad that there seems some common ground between us. It appears we're both pro choice, but I don't want to be too presumptive. The quip about science, logic would have just as easily done the same.

Needless to say, many with degrees in the 'social sciences' expect and do get 'jobs' in which salaries are purely the product of taxpayers.

That's not to say that many of these jobs are not of value or importance (though lots are not). But within the public sector, advanced degrees are obtained not for their value to the 'client' or to society, but because they bump one up the salary ladder.

My daughter is a social worker and many of my friends are teachers (mostly retired). Lot's of them have admitted to me that their Masters degrees added little or nothing to their ability to do their jobs, but rather added tens of thousands of dollars a year to their pay packets - and of course, increased their pensions for the thirty plus years they expected to be retired.

Such is the progressive mind of entitlement.

In the private sector, one takes additional training in order to undertake more difficult. challenging, dangerous or technical tasks - for which one is paid accordingly by an employer who will ONLY pay for additional value/production.

One thing that might help with your productivity, Bill Stewart, is being able to sum up that droll you said into a few sentences.

However back at you, I don't care what you studied at university/college/trade school. I just don't see why I should pay for it. Especially if I am forced to pay for someone's go-nowhere degree like Sociology that won't make a return on my investment. That's the point, prove me wrong.

As to Malaskan, I have a Medical degree and have to use critical thinking daily. Facts and theories provide a fundamental basis for critical thinking.

Poorly educated or well-indoctrinated people tend to vote for the left. Why would any left wing gov't, and the unions it supports, have any compulsion to improve it?
Our kids are not even taught the basic adult requirement of doing their own taxes.
They seem know a ton about our two saviours Pierre Elliot Trudeau and David Suzuki.

Well ET I would like to point out that as a father of six I never considered any of my children whether in womb or out of womb as a potential human being. The very fact that my wife was pregnant was enough for me to engage in all kinds of ways to earn extra money for the comfort of Mom and Baby.

Of course every economy is based on the premise that goods beyond basic subsistance are only worth what someone else will pay for them. If there is no one to pay for them they in effect become worthless. In effect the greatest determining factor in our economy unit is our children. Without children our ecomomy will cease to exist in very short order. So far Canada has been able to mask this truth by importing humans but as our society changes to reflect the old country values fewer and fewer people will want to come here. Without the people houses, cars, appliances, energy etc will become worthless.

Want to have a healthy economy? Have babies..

Want to have a false economy? Import people.

Want to kill the economy? Abort the babies.

Unless you go to grad school or some other more practical schooling after getting your BA you basically wasted 4 years. I knew I had to get into a masters program after my for years in History/Political science as the history factory closed down long ago and outside Ottawa the Political Science stores were also gone. The problem is too many high school guidance counselors continue to push anyone with the slightest intellectual ability toward university when most would be better off learning a trade they'd like and would be able to make money off of. They need to show them the starting wages of a skilled tradesman versus a BA recipient.

Joe - you misunderstand the difference between potential and actual. The potential can't exist as a separate entity; the actual can.

Gord Tulk - traditional Chinese medicine is nothing to disparage; there's a great deal of wisdom and experience in it.

bill stewart - your default strategy of argumentation is to rewrite your opponent's points into what they didn't say, then belittle these newly written (by you)points rather than address the original points in the argument. That's the red herring tactic and is fallacious. Stick to the original points. Not your rewrites.

You write: "Surely education isn't solely geared toward finding a job. One is formed and transformed by education. Ideas, theory, knowledge, I don't believe to be only mental. Rather they can be wholly transformative."

Education leading to a job wasn't the point, bill. Being a productive member of society was the point.
Hmm, so 'ideas, theory, knowledge' aren't 'mental'? Heck - what are they - physical?
and what does 'wholly transformative' mean? Do you actually assert that a theory about X will transform your body? Mind over matter?

And your new meme of 'homeless' is yet another red herring. That's quite the favourite tactic, isn't it? We aren't talking about 'value as a human being'; we are talking about the responsibility of a human being as a member of a society to contribute to that society. If you get a society, made up of a high ratio of people who are all focused on 'being valued as a human being' and yet, who refuse to contribute to the 'value of the society' - that society will collapse.

Being productive as a human being and a constructive member of the society is not an action of 'dehumanization' but is instead essentially what it means to be human. You call yourself a 'democrat socialist'; obviously you don't know what either term means.

I am pro-life. I think the term of 'choice' is dehumanizing to the fetus. Of course, for you, who doesn't know the difference between potential and actual, the potential has no humanity. Ah well.

" I have said many times. University degrees in the maths and sciences, engineering etc should be free and the humanities and arts degrees should cost a bundle."

I really am quite bored with the beating up on BAs. A BSc is pretty redundant too, unless you go to med school. The only degree that gets you a job straight away is a BEng, and thats because it comes with solid quantitative analytical skills. A BA in math or Econometrics is equally good in the job market.

Its really what you make of it.

"unless you are planning o teaching said same subject, they are useless for bringing home the bacon."

Notable BAs -

Ted Rogers (CEO Rogers)
W Edmund Clark (CEO TD)
Bill Downe (CEO BMO)
Ian Davis (Managing Director McKinsey)
Hans Paul Buckner (CEO Boston Consulting)

This is just a random smattering off the top of my head.

And then there are the politicians.

ET,

"and a social science or humanities degree does not enable you to be productive."

Wrong. They provide raw skills that need to be built upon- skills that come in very handy in law and graduate school (ability to engage critically with academic literature, not to mention academic discipline and methodological rigorousness). A solid grounding in philosophy gets you a long way in law school. Hell it even helps with the LSATs.

"I'm assuming that your background is in the social sciences or humanities. But what has it enabled you to do?"

I ll bite. I have a BA, albeit coupled with a grad degree, but then again the grad degree couldnt come without the BA. The jobs - offers from consultancies like Boston Consulting. Bank jobs, particularly in compliance, software compliance. And I dont have a law degree. The main thing they are concerned with is analytical skills - and I have them. Apparently.

" Because one person is ACTUAL, the other is POTENTIAL. You can't compare the potential with the actual. If you'd taken a science degree - you'd know that."

I think in those 2 lines you just managed to solve the abortion conundrum in the US. Well done.

"The social sciences, particular sociology, are filled with courses where all that's required are your 'personal opinions'. What you learn in those courses is sophistry"

The term science in there is meant to highlight methodological rigorosness and the use of the scientific method. I have my reservations about how useful this is - humans do, after all, change through intangible personal experience. No school worth its salt would give a degree if the personal opinions werent substantiated using quantitative evidence in primary and secondary sources. Granted, you would know this if you actually studied the courses. The only course in which you can offer a personal opinion is philosophy, and the argument there has to be put forth very carefully indeed.

mark,

"They need to show them the starting wages of a skilled tradesman versus a BA recipient."

A BA recipient can go on to become the CEO of McKinsey, better known as "THE Firm". A plumber, or a non-degree recipient, generally cannot. Bill Gates is the notable exception, but he was a prodigy. Most people arent. A tradesperson may have a high starting salary, but the wage ceiling is pretty damn low compared to the professions open to BA recipients (Law etc)

But then again, it is what you make of it.

I didn't know that all Democrats were sociology majors. Now, their policies all makes sense!

Subsequent to achieving an undergraduate degree, how many people end up working in a job that requires a concentration of the knowledge they acquired in university? How many mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology majors are there that actually do a job in which they call themselves scientists? How many engineers actually do hard-core engineering? Ask the same question for sociology, psychology, philosophy, languages etc, how many graduates are in jobs that require direct, concentrated application of their syllabus?

I don’t know the specific answers, or whether there’s been much statistical research on the matter, but in my experience with the workforce the numbers are quite low. I surmise that it would be very difficult to prove or predict productivity based on field of study, like some of the degree-snobs are doing here.

BA and proud.
If you are bored, then don't write long rebuttal posts.

No, a BSc isn't 'redundant' unless you go to med school. What we are talking about, is not the linear movement of school to job, but the capacity-to-think, and therefore, work, that is provided within each discipline. A BSc provides, I suggest, far more of a capacity to think than a BA in the Social Sciences/Humanities.

With regard to 'no school worth its salt'..if the opinions weren't back up by evidence - You obviously don't know much about a LOT of schools that do just that; give degrees in the social sciences and humanities for 'opinions'. No quantitative evidence required. None. Check out SSHRC, Canada's research funding agency, for some of the 'research' that is funded by them, if you want to see pure semantic sophistry.

Because a few BA recipients went on to achieve etc, etc..doesn't mean that obtaining a BA will lead you to such professional levels. You ought to know that from basic stats.

The question then emerges - are wages accurate representations of intelligence and knowledge, or are they more often, representations of societal roles? Socialism is a class-based ideology, and the elite professional class, who primarily work for the govt - award themselves very high salaries. Are they worth it? Do they actually 'make the economy'? No. They feed off it.

ET,

I would buy the shpeel if I didnt know better. But I do.

I am a BA - Double major - Political Science and math. From my limited experience with students from both faculties (which I suspect is much more than yours), there is very little difference between the two in terms of intelligence. Arts students, I find, are generally lazy, but have a higher capacity for self-expression - both written and oral, and are more proactive in terms of critical thinking. Science students are more hardworking, but have poor expression skills and dont think critically unless they are forced to, particularly in the early stages of their program. The critical thinking component in Science (well math, at least) only kicks in in the Grad and Honors level courses where Professors push them to challenge what are previously accepted as valid assumptions. Most Science students never take these advanced courses because they are not good enough. Ask a science student to write an Arts paper and see them flounder. I did. They all took electives assuming it would be easy. And they got caught off guard. If it was just a matter of opinion, surely the smarter Science students would have plenty of good opinions. Unfortunately, the marks rarely suggest that.

This is, apparently, lost in your self-serving sermon. Do you even have any qualifications, or are you knocking them down simply because you dont.

You know, its funny - theres a school of thought that says that those who cannot write, cannot think. This is ostensibly because writing simply involves expressing one's thoughts. Those who write badly, therefore, think badly. I dont think its quite that simple, but it is worthy of some thought.

I am sure there are many schools that engage in bad research, but that cannot be allowed to detract from the whole degree. Even if one one school hands out 'bad' BA's, BAs themselves are not bad.

At the end of the day, a BA, like a BSc, is what you make of it. If you are inherently lazy, then it doesnt matter what degree you get, you will still get nowhere. If you work hard, a BA opens many doors.

In my line of work - Consulting- expression is key. My expressive skills were honed in the Arts program. When I started my job hunt, my political science degree was of a lot more interest to the interviewers than my math component - it literally put me in the compliance business, though I have moved out since.

Your last bit is particularly intriguing. Just the other day we were looking at a global software company where the executives dont know what they are doing, but are clinging onto their jobs to maintain the lifestyles they have become accustomed to. Executives rarely fire each other. And they rarely take pay cuts. Much like their public sector conterparts. How this is relevant to anything, I do not know.

ET,
In my view, in the same way that the material/ economic conditions of society are capable of creating and affecting mental worldviews of individuals, so too Ideas are capable of transforming material realities. Ideas are not merely symbolic abstractions. Ideas move bodies, ideas transform the world.

"Being productive as a human being and a constructive member of the society is not an action of 'dehumanization' but is instead essentially what it means to be human."
This is not at all what I said. In fact, here I actually agree partly with you. I do believe human beings do have an archaic and fundamental need to labour, to construct, to insinuate themselves into the world through production (this is why I find the suggestion that human nature tends towards laziness or rest to be preposterous). What I was quibbling with, was the temptation to define that production exclusively in terms of contribution to GDP. For if we do that, then it becomes possible to argue that "the homeless", in not contributing to GDP, are not fully human. And we know where the dehumanization of human beings has the potential to lead.
btw you also seem to contradict yourself here. If productivity and being a constructive member of society are essential to humans, how could you possibly end up with a society made up of a high ratio of people who are all focused on 'being valued as a human beings' rather than contributing to the "value of society"? Unless of course human nature is a construct. But we've been down that road before.
It must be self-evident that I know nothing about either democracy or socialism. For, if you've provided any evidence, I somehow missed it. Although I must say that your caricatures of socialism do seem to reveal a lack of genuine engagement with the topic.

Bill Stewart: "Ideas are not merely symbolic abstractions. Ideas move bodies, ideas transform the world."

Are you one of those guys that can bend a spoon with your mind?

ET I do understand the difference between potential and actual. Human sperm and human egg are a potential human being. A baby in its mother's uterus is an actual human being. Its environment is much more constricted than yours or mine and its method of feeding and breathing is completely dependent upon its mother's body unlike yours or mine but the baby itself is very much its own being. Yes if you take the baby out of its environment the baby will die but then again if you or I were taken out of our environment we would die as well.

The simple fact that it is possible to fertilize human eggs outside of the mother's body and even put the zygot/embryo into another person's body and/or have the gestation period cut short by several months and still have a live human being tells me that a baby in the womb is an actual human being not a potential human being.

ba and proud of it - Actually, your suspicious that with your BA, you have more experience in both realms (arts and science)..is wrong. With my four degrees, I've got a lot more experience in both realms. Now, with that stone-throwing out of the way, I'll stick to my points.

I think that the quantitative method of analysis, which is found in the sciences, is far superior as a means of developing the critical analytic capacities of students than the qualitative method, which is found in arts and social sciences.

As for ability-to-write, the arts and humanities students may well develop the capacity to write, but a great deal of it is pure empty sophistry - and over my 25 plus years of university teaching, I've read a lot of that.

bill stewart - you are obviously a Platonist. I am not. 'Ideas move bodies' - no kidding. Show me.

And there you go again, slithering. That's a common tactic of the left. Slithering. It is a strategy of diversion. You are now saying that your rejection of 'being productive' was merely and only against using the measurement of the GDP. You wrote: "it's so lovely to read sentiments expressing that a person's worth be measured exclusively in terms of contribution to the GDP."

Again, for the umpteenth time, stop diverting from the issue, which is an individual's contribution to the society. And no, you can't move from the logical statement of:

IF you contribute to the society, THEN you are a productive member of the society, to ..as you claim:
If you do NOT contribute to the society, THEN you are not human.

That's a logical fallacy. Did you ever take logic? The error is called: The Fallacy of Four Terms. Can you figure out what you've done wrong?

Your subsequent paragraph is making yet another logical error: the Error of Either-Or. You are setting up a framework of Either being productive OR being human.
I suggest you read up on logic and logical fallacies.

No, human nature is not a construct. For you, as a postmodernist leftist, I'm sure it is. I'm a realist and reject that viewpoint.

When you criticize someone (caricatures of socialism), you ought to provide examples - and discuss. Otherwise, it is just an empty cliche. Yet another fallacy.

ET,

This is a website and you call yourself ET. You expect me to believe you have four degrees, and that you teach at university. No mention of what degrees you have, or what field they are in.

I ll take it at face value. What exactly do you teach that applies to both Arts and Science students? My own experience says there are precious few courses that cater to both, which suggests that either you teach a subject in that particullar niche, or you have some preconceptions of students you have never actually taught. I am particularly intrigued by your claim that you have participated in both Arts and Sciences- this tends to be the exception.

I find your faith in a general "quantitative scientific method" quite amusing - I can guarantee that 70%, maybe more, of Science students know little more than the formulas they need to know to pass. Your extensive experience has probably shown you that too. You know, the kind that never make it into honors or grad level courses and wander off with a 2.0 - 2.5 that will get them so much further than their arts counterparts.

If you are, in fact, an academic, then you sound like someone who has been blinded by his discipline - a truly ivory tower trait, epitomised by a refusal to acknowledge that other disciplines are useful. Which again, raises questions about your claims of being multidisciplinarian in both Arts and Sciences.

BA - my web name is my initials. What's wrong with that?

I agree, that there's litte mixing of the arts and the sciences in teaching the undergrad realm, but in the graduate and research realm - there is a great deal, and particularly in Europe and the US. Particularly in the information realm, where robots and computers are being modeled on biological principles so that they can learn; and in the economic realm, which also uses principles of complex adaptive networks.

Don't be smug and amused about 'faith in the quantitative method in students'; they aren't, at least in the sciences, as dumb as you suggest. I'm not talking about the dumb ones...

I'm not in the habit of lying; I'm an academic with a lot of experience - and my field is totally interdisciplinary. I work with people in the social and natural sciences - particularly people in economics, societal infrastructure, biology, physics and computer science. You may not believe it but I can do nothing about that.

ET, I hope you speak on behalf of science much better than you than you do on behalf of philosophy, postmodernism, and socialism. Somehow deducing that I'm an a Platonist based on my suggestion that discourses move bodies or based on my repeating the "poststructuralist" position that there is "nothing outside the text" is mind boggling. In fact, I'm not able to think of a position more opposed to mine than Plato's discussion of Forms/Ideas.
I don't see what's so contentious in what I've said. The discourse of patriotism gets people to enlist in the military. Ideas move bodies. In fact, a purely materialist understanding of human behaviour seems to me absurd. Similarly, I've seen students' worldviews either completely upended and redefined (as well as buttressed, in cases where students reject the theory) from a course on poststructuralism, feminist theory, queer theory, etc. I've seen students come out of these courses and not be able to see the world the same way as they did before the course. Theory can be transformative.

You "slither" no less than I. Both of us are fighting to frame the issue, because, of course, he/she who gets to frame the issue determines how it will be decided. I wasn't originally setting up a syllogism. I was contesting what I saw as a very dangerous way to define "productivity". If productivity were to become viewed solely in terms of contribution to GDP, then those who don't contribute to GDP become defined as in no way productive. If productivity defines humanity, those who are not seen to be productive can be construed as less than human. I maintain that the visceral hatred some people have for "the homeless", stems from this way of thinking.
Having said this, perhaps there is a syllogism here. You say that the essence of humanity is productivity. Then, If all humans are productive and all homeless are unproductive, then all homeless are not humans. Actually, I'm rusty on my Aristotelian logic. Am I way off here?
As for my not detailing my problems with your characterization of socialism, that's well beyond the scope of what can be done in someone else's comments section. I'll just say that for starters you're resorting to the all too common misapprehension that all socialism is reducible to Soviet style totalitarianism.