Mia Lasic-Ellis

I feel we’re living in a rather defensive age. I remember being an 11-year-old defending my beliefs that someone who “grabs women by the pu**y” should not be president. I remember being a high schooler defending my stance that we should all get vaccinated. And I’ll always defend my belief that gymnastics is the hardest sport in the world. This isn’t surprising because as more people have access to information, they’ll form their own opinions. More opinions means more disagreement and eventually more defense. This is nothing new. What is new, and rather frustrating to me, is why we (as Americans) are constantly wasting our breath defending the study of our humanity.

During my time at Bowdoin I recall a myriad of speakers and workshops marketed as “In Defense of the Humanities.” I understand why such conversations are relevant. Government funding of the humanities is being torched, roles at hedge funds guarantee salaries over $250k right after you graduate and I’ve felt a growing consensus that because scientism got us here scientism is the only way forward. Instead of trying to pull at your heart strings and convince you that making $45k in a big city will fill your soul and act as a valid substitute for the material treasures you would accrue with a fat paycheck, I’ll start from the end and work backwards.

As I write this article some of the richest, most powerful people in the world are Xi Jinping, Donald Trump, Elon Musk and Larry Page. I hope that we would make wiser and kinder life decisions than these men, because many young people aspire to hold similar positions of power. Because of that, young people study STEM or adjacent lucrative fields! ALL OF THIS MAKES SENSE!

One thing we ought not to overlook is how each of these people leverage the humanities. Think to yourself: is Trump a better businessman or commentator? Was the rise of Tesla due solely to the superiority of the product, or the peculiar founder behind it? Instead of thinking about quantitative standards like, “If I score the highest, I’ll get in,” or “If I make the most efficient product, it has to sell,”—I implore you to consider this: no one really cares about optimization. If our economy ran on who created the most optimized solution to the world’s problems, none of us would be using Apple devices or driving in gas cars. I believe aesthetics and histories of the institutions around us are valued more highly than their function.

An additional reason why I’ve grown so tired tolerating conversations about “defending the humanities” is because, despite the STEM-filled world we live in, all of us use the humanities now more than ever. Literally every person reading this article will send and receive tons of emails. You’ll gloss over most of these, but those that are most impactful will remain on your mind days or weeks after they’ve been delivered. Every day most of us open Instagram to see pictures. These pictures aren’t just seen, they are evaluated, judged and commented on—doesn’t that sound like an art history class? Lastly, consider all the times you’ve complained about someone’s obvious humanistic ineptitude. Leaving a party due to the bad music curation, yelling at the TV since Joe Biden couldn’t form a coherent sentence during his last presidential debate or immediately disregarding an advertisement since it’s obviously AI slop. All of these frustrations are increasing, and it’s because people place less and less importance on reading, writing and contemplating (some of the tenets of the humanities).

Finally, I’d caution anyone looking down on the humanities. I understand how easy it is to clown someone who just reads fiction all day, but have you considered the Bible? Isn’t it a work of fiction? Think of all the bloodshed, upheaval and revolution that it and other religious texts have inspired. Maybe it’s because these texts are so omnipresent that we are quick to dismiss them. However, I hope we can all agree by now that ignoring or pushing the humanities aside is as easy as pulling the sword from the stone.

Neiman Mocombe is a member of the Class of 2026.