In praise of English majors

Over the past few years there has been a huge increase of attention to math and science in our schools. That’s all well and good, but it seems like it’s been to the detriment of the humanities, the red-headed stepchildren of education.

Colleges have even struck at the backbone of a traditional liberal arts education, dropping majors in English, theology and philosophy while boosting resources for science and business.

There should be room for everyone in a well-educated society.

School, whether it’s grade school, high school or college, should be more than just learning a trade. That’s important, of course, but we also need to learn how to get along with each other, and how to communicate effectively.

Every profession would benefit by more insight into the humanities. Whether you’re a reporter or a cop, doctor or lawyer, we could all use better understanding of history, sociology, theology, anthropology and the arts. Unfortunately, all of these areas are on the chopping block today at all levels of education.

Without English majors, philosophers and musicians, we become a society of mere bean counters focused only on the bottom line.

You can see it happening every day. Some postings on Facebook and X — by supposedly educated people — are nearly unintelligible. Writers string out messages without capitalization and punctuation. You can’t figure out what they’re trying to say.

Our Senator Chuck Grassley is an example. His social media posts use “2” for “to”, “two” and “too” (your guess as to which he means), “4” could mean “for” or “four”, “r” could mean “are” or “our.” This is from the senior member of the United States Senate.

President Trump tends to USE ALL CAPS SO YOU CAN’T EASILY READ HIS SOCIAL MEDIA POSTS AND THEN HE THROWS IN A WHOLE BUNCH OF EXCLAMATION POINTS AND IT DRIVES YOU CRAZY!!!!!!!!!!!!

Trump is a business school graduate, which reinforces my argument.

I proclaim this as a proud liberal arts graduate with a degree in American Studies — basically a glorified English major.

Whenever bean counters take over a company, things tend to go south. American auto makers are a good example. They ruled the world until the bean counters, intent on maximizing profits, dictated cheaply made products a couple decades back. After the Japanese car makers started eating our lunch, Detroit put car people like Lee Iacocca back in charge. He’s the guy who fought to produce the Mustang at Ford. The rest is automotive history.

It’s infested our government today. Federal programs are being hacked for short-term gains with no concern about the long-term consequences. Why are we feeding starving people in Africa? There’s no return for that! We don’t like the plays they’re staging at the Kennedy Center! Off with their heads!

We need some clear-thinking common-sense English majors who can see beyond the ends of our noses.

If we really want to Make America Great Again, we should elect an English major as our next President. Make Common Sense Great Again!