So you’re 10th board examinations are finally over, hooray, but wait, out of nowhere your school has handed over to you a form, a form which asks the following question, ‘Science, Commerce or Humanities’?, (some people like calling it Arts as well), and now you’re in a dilemma because on one hand you want to choose Humanities, and on the other hand Sharmaji ’s son is opting for Science, on one hand you want to study Psychology, but on the other hand your Mausaji says “Psychology mein koi scope nahi hai”, first of all, these are the kind of people who should actually consider consulting a psychologist, but coming to the crux of the whole issue, at the base of it sits uncertainty and confusion caused by utter societal disregard for humanities subjects, I remember, even during my childhood, I would frequently hear phrases like “ Arts wale padhta nahi hai” or “Jinka kuch nahi hota who arts lete hai”, notice the binary thought here, if not ‘this’, then ‘that’, I would hear these phrases and think to myself, that arts is actually a bad field, cause when you’re a child, everything your parents say is seen as the epitome of truth, because you view them as “undiluted creatures of intelligence and wisdom”, when in reality, all they are is a couple who had kids, but its inferred to mean that they are now somehow the most intelligent creatures on the face of the earth, and that they’ve never committed a mistake in their entire life, this type of social conditioning is what completely brainwashes us and makes us become a slave to a thought, which wasn’t even our own thought in the first place.
This disregard for a particular subject also unfortunately has a colonial reason, you see, as the Britishers, only needed clerks, policemen, accountants, managers and lawyers, they never really paid any sort of heed to developing fields like humanities, as it was of no use to them, what would they has done with a sociologist or a psychologist, and so the humanities subjects felt prey the British’s ignorance not because it was unnecessary but because Humanities was not particularly useful to the British, so they rather only focused on teaching Science, Mathematics, Accountancy and Law, and as the amazing and awesome creatures we Indians are, we continued along with this bullshit system without questioning it even once, and so it became almost an unsaid rule that Humanities is for the weak students who are incompetent, when in reality Humanities is equally important and essential as the Sciences, this ignorance fueled with illogical social conditioning led to complete modelling of the brains of a generation of Indians ( mostly the baby boomers), who even till this day, force their children to pursue a career which they 'think' has more scope, mostly in the STEM fields.
This entire train of thought led to the formation of almost a sort of caste system, where the god's own children and noble people who descended straight heaven choose Science, the middle-class strata filled with dull people, choose Commerce, and all the good for nothing horrible monsters of hell choose Humanities, there’s an unsaid rule that follows this ideology, if you get a good percentage it's assumed that you would opt Science if you perform in a mediocre manner, you must choose Commerce and if you have just scraped by and passed the exams, you must choose Humanities, this entire philosophy is based on a nonsensical stereotypical ideology which has no scientific or psychological backing but has gone unchecked for decades now and is being followed blindly almost as a norm.
Now that we’ve got out of the way this nonsensical stereotype and how it's unrelated to a person’s intelligence and merit let's focus on whether you should choose Humanities.
Hope that this blog cleared out your doubts, next blog coming soon so stay tuned.
Today’s Quote:
“An education in the humanities is as valuable today as it was in Plato’s time.”
-Peter singer