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For a young person coming out of college today a liberal arts degree may seem a waste in light of student debt. I would offer a competing view.

Many of us who majored in STEM programs failed to take classes in liberal arts due to the load our majors required. That failure in many cases lead us to become technologists with too little understanding of humanity.

In fact IBM and other early technology companies came to understand this in the late 1950’s. They set up programs with Harvard and the Aspen Institute to provide a liberal education to their up and coming managers. The programs consisted of readings in literature and philosophy, and seminars to discuss what the participants learned.

These programs were not indoctrinations but rather learning opportunities that gave managers insight into the human condition. Generally what they learned was that humans generally desire the same things in life regardless of the culture, nationality or language. This commonality bypasses what we think of in terms of our differences.

Let me give you some example from several movies that have been produced over the years. The first one I’d recommend viewing is Akira Kurasowa’s Seven Samurai. Then watch the Magnificent Seven. Same plot different culture, language and time period. Both films were considered masterpieces because of what they showed relative to the human condition.

The second series of movies begins with the Kurasowa film Yojimbo. Follow that with A Fist Full Of Dollars. Follow that with Last Man Standing. Again same plot, three different cultures, languages and time periods.

We often put down others because they think differently from us. What I would suggest is that you look at the areas we have common beliefs in and start the conversation there.

You are living in the 50s mentally if you think a liberal arts degree today provides an understanding of humanity. I have a Ph.D in a liberal art, and I’ve watched what has happen to the liberal arts in the universities since 1970. With the exception of a handful of schools, what passes for the liberal arts in contemporary universities should be avoided. Those programs represent NEGATIVE value added.

Hot Flash: Humanity is stupid, brutal and selfish. They will kill you in a heartbeat, for no particular reason.

Liberal arts degrees are an excuse to avoid real work. They are meant for the idle rich, useless and stupid drones who pretend they are adding something to civilization, rather than indulging in social masturbation.

It's the unadmitted truth that liberal arts degrees are given to those without useful mental abilities. The stupid, who are told they are 'creative' and that IQ tests are 'inaccurate' or 'culturally biased', to cushion the discovery that they are mentally inferior.

We STEM types feed liberal arts majors, keep them warm, clothed, informed, safe. They, in turn, denigrate, test, sneer, and threaten our very existence.

The solution is obvious, if somewhat unpleasant and very messy.

I would offer a competing view.

I call your discussion excellent. I am a writer--I was an English major.

All my life, I've had to answer questions from technologically-degreed folks who are trying to do a simple task--complete a crossword puzzle, play a game of Scrabble or Boggle. Those questions were along the lines, "What is Beowulf?" Or, "Wasn't a Beowulf one of those WWII German planes?" Or. "Hey, zarf isn't a word."

I'm not being critical. I am simply thinking that their lives would be so much more enriched by literature, music, photography and art that aren't a graphic novel (or as we called them, comic books), metal Rock, snapshots, or dogs playing poker.

I was playing a Te Deum by SeÃ±or Felipe de JesÃºs de Francisco Delgado. It's breath-taking baroque Te Deum written in South America, about the same time as Haydn was composing. This friend absolutely went nuts. He has begun to explore classical music, but he missed doing so for so many years of his life. He had no idea that classical baroque was composed in the Americas.