In the race for the Republican presidential nomination, a large amount of rhetoric devoid of thought has advanced into the public space. One specific point regards the youth unemployment rate.
Many of the candidates assert that us youth are lazy and unwilling to find a real job. Jointly, for many of us who study the liberal arts or the humanities generally, there are no jobs available.
Are we to drop what we love just for the sensibility of work ethic? Businesses want qualified and experienced individuals, and youth are often devoid of the latter.
The real heart of the argument is this: the economy and the world are changing at a pace far faster than anyone can predict.
Those who are able to adapt their knowledge to the changing world will be better served than those who cannot. Additionally they will be happier and more productive members of society.
When we are allowed to study what interests us, we are often more motivated and successful in that endeavor.In high school, we are forced to learn a very strict curriculum: when we emerge from this we want to pursue our own interests.
The truth is that when we are educated in what interests us most, rather than what will get us a job, we are fulfilled and therefore more dynamic people.
This comes from Maslow’s Hierarchy, a concept used quite a bit in the business world. For people to be the most motivated and productive, they have to have all their needs satisfied. The highest of these needs is our desire to be self-fulfilled.
Furthermore, studies done by behavioral economists have shown that people are not motivated by money, but rather by an intrinsic need to be autonomous and further their own skills. When we study what interests us, we are more likely to be productive and motivated workers, a valuable asset to any business.
Conversely, achieving this educational self-fulfillment will reduce the amount of depressed people in our population. Many depressions occur in the later stages of life stems from the fact that people feel that they have not fulfilled their potential. Educating ourselves in order to strive for this will reduce that depression. It’s certainly possible that people who are unsatisfied with their lives are draining billions of dollars from the economy. It’s better that we have a well-educated and happy population.
Ensuring educational fulfillment within the population will ensure people are happier, but it will also prepare us for the economy of the future.
The fact that most Republican candidates are forgetting is that the economy is drastically different than it was ten years ago. And it is continuing to transform. Studying any course that teaches you how to do something will only make you inflexible.
The alternative is learning pure academic knowledge, such as the liberal arts and humanities, that we can adapt to the changing world.
There you will learn how to think and the totality of knowledge. Both of those can be adapted to nearly any situation.
The flexibility many university students are obtaining is invaluable for our developing world, and will catapult the US economy far ahead.
What someone chooses to study is their own business. Criticizing us liberal arts and humanity majors as being lazy and not having a work ethic is incredibly short sighted and a drain on the economy.
The sort of educational self-fulfillment that youth seek will promote motivated individuals who are flexible and creative enough to adapt to the changing economy. No one knows where humanity will be in 50 years, but it will need those sorts of people who can motivate change.
In the short run, learning specific skills for a job may promote employment, but in the long run it will ruin America’s place as the strongest economy in the world.
