When I was little, my “astronaut” was “a writer.” It’s what I wanted to be when I grew up, which means I’ve had to answer for my impractical dreams since I blew out my candles on my sixth birthday, because I never grew out of them.
Eventually, you get used to your impractical dreams. I was on the phone with my old roommate last night and I told her I still needed to write this blog post by morning. She laughed, saying this was “such a humanities thing to write.” She’s a nurse—said she’s never had to write a blog post about why we need her. She makes a pretty fair point. But right now, we need the humanities more than ever.
Humanities Preserve Culture
Especially in America, we appreciate and celebrate fast-paced living. We worry about the next big thing, what’s trending, who’s trending, how we can make money, and we chase success but forget what lasts. We become so consumed with achievement and wealth that we’ve lost the idea that there’s more to life than what can be quantified. When we die, what’s left of us is what we’ve created. Relationships, art, music, literature, film.
Think of Peggy Guggenheim’s radical style, how Björk’s band The Sugarcubes started as a joke, or the performance art in Alexander McQueen’s F/W 1998 collection, “Joan.” If you know what I’m talking about, here’s a kiss on the forehead—we’d get along. If not, go look them up. These expressions of individuality and creativity—this is what lasts.
Creativity Drives Progress
The humanities don’t just preserve culture, they shape our future. On an individual level, making something tangible like a novel or quilt or song feels like proof that we exist. That’s important in itself. On a societal level, it sparks reform. Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe got people talking about the horrors they ignored for so long. The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan changed how women saw their lives. The humanities don’t just document progress; they drive it.
Meaning in an Automated World
With increasing technological advancements and no sign of slowing down, our society has become hyperfixated on immediacy, and this ironically often leaves us feeling isolated or disconnected. The humanities help us slow down and connect. James Baldwin put it best: “You had read something which you thought only happened to you, and you discover that it happened 100 years ago to Dostoevsky. This is a very great liberation for the suffering, struggling person, who always thinks that he is alone.” Art makes us feel less alone. It connects us across time and place.
There’s a brilliant film by Peter Weir, Dead Poets Society (if you know me, I have it on VHS or DVD if you’d like to borrow). There’s a line in it that feels so on the nose it’s practically corny, but I cry every time: “Medicine, law, business, engineering, these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for.”
Imagine if we only existed in office cubicles, or had nothing hanging on the walls of our homes. Art literature, music, film—this is how we process the world, how we make sense of it all. It’s how we stay human.
Why Not Do What You Love?
I think there’s an upside to living in an automated world. As AI continues to evolve, no job feels “safe” anymore. So all the more reason to study what you love. (If that’s accounting, then by all means, be an accountant.) Technology can replicate processes, but it can never recreate the human experience. That’s why the humanities are so important now, more than ever, for they offer us a way to live completely. As for me? My plan is simple: move somewhere pretty, work a minimum-wage job, and write until I run out of money. It’s more than impractical, but I’ve wanted to be a writer since I was six, so I’m used to the questioning.
By Regan Roberts, Inscape Staff
Header image by Gül Işik, pexels.com
