In praise of the Humanities: Addressing the Baby Boomer/Millenial Disagreement

I’ve spent my 14 years of adult life (8 within, 6 of them fleeing evangelicalism) looking into the study of humanity, which includes history, religion, philosophy, politics, literature etc and it seems to me the way the previous generation demanded a lot of us to behave, whether it was who to fight, what to buy, how to be spiritual, whatever, these projects didn’t do what they told us they were doing and we started to ask questions.

We Millenials either left or joined only on a non-committed basis to baby boomer projects.

Now boomers are upset at ex-marines like this guy, or ex-evangelicals like this woman. Boomers are upset we aren’t making as much money as them. Also, that we are heretical, blaming us for not following their instructions.

To me, we are taking principled stands.

In general, the only way Millenials can respond to the problem of our time, is to stop thinking about the big picture, simply get a job and pull yourself up by your bootstraps. Baby boomers have de-emphasized education, saying we can learn it all better outside of classrooms, the cost of a degree is way more than what it provides.

This is not wrong, many Millenials agree with this. If we do go to school, Boomers and Millenials tend to agree it should be in STEM (Science, Tech, Engineering, Math) — this is what gets you a good paying job.

And yet, if the problem is with poor direction behind baby boomer projects, the humanities are needed more than ever, not because they make us money, but because they give us direction, a sense of purpose greater than money. Our parents operated without or with only a shallow historical/cultural awareness and therefore, tended to operate based on whatever/whoever made the most private wealth in the immediate moment.

If our projects don’t understand history, culture, literature, religion (the humanities), STEM only takes us quicker down whatever path we happen to be on.

Ironically, as an ex-evangelical I have stuck with the biblical library. I think the way we understood “God” is totally heretical to the it is what it is/I am what I am (Exodus 3:14) of the Hebrew Bible. And humility before that profound mystery (“God”), is I think what Jesus was referring to when he said the most important thing was to love “God”…. as an ex-evangelical, I think I love “God” more than I ever have.