There is a man I met today. He started a conversation with me about a book I was holding. The conversation went downhill in a matter of minutes.
He said, “You must be an engineer. Or BSc Chemistry or something.” He somehow concluded this from the copy of Midnight’s children in my hand. I said no, I majored Economics. He raised his eyebrows in a manner as though I told him I didn’t believe in education. He said, “Oh God. How are you holding up?” He wasn’t joking. He thought I must be struggling in life because I didn’t have a science degree to back me up.
There was a time when I used to think that this is the attitude of people from another generation. People who lived in a time when the Arts weren’t as developed; people who weren’t as exposed to opportunities as we are. Then one day, I realized that people my own age who I thought of as smart and well read also held this opinion. From what I gathered from a conversation with a rather intelligent person, it would be better to be a failing at a Science related job/degree/course then doing really well in and enjoying an Arts one.
I have lost track of the number of people who look down upon Arts subjects on principle. This same intelligent person told me that this is the thought process because the Social Sciences are easier and less demanding.
I have a lot of things to say about this. But I am going to keep mum and pretend that I didn’t meet the man who felt bad for me because I had to deal with being an Arts major.
A while ago, The Hindu had an interview with the noted historian Romila Thapar. It was about the controversial decision that the Academic Council of Delhi University took to drop A.K. Ramanujan's celebrated essay on the Ramayana from the B.A. History (Honours) course.
In this context, Thapar made an extremely pertinent point about the whole attitude towards the social sciences.
She said, “The interesting thing about this whole argument about interdisciplinarity is that the social sciences are always attacked. But the sciences are never attacked because people are scared of making a fool of themselves by saying that this is not something worthy of teaching. So nobody questions the sciences. But with the social sciences, the world and his wife are there to comment, in some cases, without any kind of background knowledge of the subject. There's a feeling that you don't need to be an expert; this is all common sense.”
I’ll just go sit in my corner now.
He said, “You must be an engineer. Or BSc Chemistry or something.” He somehow concluded this from the copy of Midnight’s children in my hand. I said no, I majored Economics. He raised his eyebrows in a manner as though I told him I didn’t believe in education. He said, “Oh God. How are you holding up?” He wasn’t joking. He thought I must be struggling in life because I didn’t have a science degree to back me up.
There was a time when I used to think that this is the attitude of people from another generation. People who lived in a time when the Arts weren’t as developed; people who weren’t as exposed to opportunities as we are. Then one day, I realized that people my own age who I thought of as smart and well read also held this opinion. From what I gathered from a conversation with a rather intelligent person, it would be better to be a failing at a Science related job/degree/course then doing really well in and enjoying an Arts one.
I have lost track of the number of people who look down upon Arts subjects on principle. This same intelligent person told me that this is the thought process because the Social Sciences are easier and less demanding.
I have a lot of things to say about this. But I am going to keep mum and pretend that I didn’t meet the man who felt bad for me because I had to deal with being an Arts major.
A while ago, The Hindu had an interview with the noted historian Romila Thapar. It was about the controversial decision that the Academic Council of Delhi University took to drop A.K. Ramanujan's celebrated essay on the Ramayana from the B.A. History (Honours) course.
In this context, Thapar made an extremely pertinent point about the whole attitude towards the social sciences.
She said, “The interesting thing about this whole argument about interdisciplinarity is that the social sciences are always attacked. But the sciences are never attacked because people are scared of making a fool of themselves by saying that this is not something worthy of teaching. So nobody questions the sciences. But with the social sciences, the world and his wife are there to comment, in some cases, without any kind of background knowledge of the subject. There's a feeling that you don't need to be an expert; this is all common sense.”
I’ll just go sit in my corner now.
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