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149

Why does philosophy education make people uncomfortable? (lemmy.world)

submitted 1 week ago by TubularTittyFrog@lemmy.world to c/asklemmy@lemmy.world

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I have two degrees in philosophy. I quit my PhD with an MA after I realized academic life wasn't for me.

When people find this out about me... they rarely react positivity anymore. Most are confused, some look upset, others get defensive or crack cliche jokes about how I got a job with a useless degree like that or if I work at McDonalds.

It seems to have gotten way worse the past few years. In my late 20s/early 30s people seemed to react a lot more positively to this fact about my life? People would ask me about it and why I did it and what I studied specifically. I really liked those conversations.

I feel naive as to why philosophy is so controversial for the average person, anymore than English or History is? I really enjoyed my studies and still do them as a hobby now.

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[–] tuckerm@feddit.online 2 points 1 week ago

^ this is probably the right answer here. Philosophy became the token academic discipline that is used to mock the idea of being educated. It had been going around for a while as a joke, but then became a more serious cultural wedge at some point, like around 2014 as you said. To me, it looked like it accelerated and became mainstream when Marco Rubio said "plumbers make more money than philosophers" in a Republican debate in 2015. (That is false, too: https://www.forbes.com/sites/katiesola/2015/11/11/rubio-welders-philosophers/)