Two cultures and a third: science, business, and the humanities. From the commentary:

The alliance between science and business and the prominence of both explains why the two areas of greatest pull in higher education are STEM subjects – science, technology, engineering and mathematics – and business studies. Between them they are the culturally dominant elements of the triangle, when in [C.P.] Snow’s day this role had been occupied by the humanities. In consequence, the humanities are withering. Parents and school advisers, together with the facts of life about what today’s economies need in the way of skilled workforces, between them push and pull students into STEM or business studies in large and increasing numbers. In some universities the study of modern languages, literature, history and philosophy has vanished altogether; classics vanished from almost all universities long ago. The forces at work are Darwinian, and understandable….

History and philosophy – and one might add literature, languages, the arts – give us the insights, the overview, the understanding of human nature and the human condition, and with them the experiential and ethical dimensions of both individual and social existence, that provide context for how we use science, how we do business, how we direct public policy, and most importantly, why we do what we do in these respects….

Oddly enough, a survey of what a complex modern economy requires shows that many of its arenas require precisely the sensibility that the arts and humanities offer to develop. They include journalism, politics, law, the civil service, creative industries, publishing, advertising, arts promotion and management, events, entertainment, human resources, education, performance, museology and curating, design, the tourism and hospitality industries, many aspects of retail, and more – the list is long.

And this is to leave aside one enormously important point that most thinking about training and education ignores, with the result that the idea of “education for its own sake” has so significantly diminished. This is that people are not only their careers; they are not only infantry on the economic battlefield. They are also spouses, parents, voters, travellers, lovers, gardeners, readers, neighbours, dreamers, consumers, tennis players, cinema-goers, and much else again – life is many things, and being awake to its variety and its possibilities requires much more equipment than just a training for a specific career. 

h/t Rob Townsend

For other posts on Snow and The Two Cultures, see here.