Ask Lemmy

I think Western capitalist culture has slowly eroded the value of thinking in favor of doing and, through gradual financial coercion via the International Monetary Fund, this has slowly become the global dominant worldview.

In other words, you were born a few centuries too late for philosophy to be valued. Even in the past it was often met with scrutiny (though often commanded respect).

Nowadays thinkers are expected to ascend corporate ladders and embed themselves within instituions with the ultimate goal of extracting excess capital beyond ones needs from said institutions. That is what the current global value system supports.

BUT HOW DO JOB WIF HUMAMBNETEES DUGREE?

That's basically why.

I think it's cool as hell. We all need to read philosophy. I really wish I'd had the bandwidth to do something similar along with my own chosen path. Mad respect.

Philosophy gets a bad rap, even by fellow academics sometimes. Commonly cited criticisms are that it has become too prosaic and detached from society at large. Maybe that's true of some philosophers but I don't see a problem with people studying something purely for the joy of learning and there are philosophers who do an excellent job of explaining philosophical ideas to lay audiences, Alain de Botton immediately springs to mind. Status Anxiety is among my favourite videos.

The reality is that we have too few people who think about what it means to live a good life and make a wholesome society

anymore than English or History is

It'll be the same for them too.
Nobody appreciates learning for the sake of learning anymore, learning is strictly for getting jobs. Although if you have the money to spend on getting many degrees worrying about paying off loans, then there may be another aspect to the resentment, considering the cost of university these days

I personally think anybody here saying your negative response is because people hate thinkers or anti intellectualism or whatever is totally missing the point. Those things are certainly true. But probably not why you get weird looks.

Probably it's a combination of 2 things:

1. In 2025 philosophy, English, history, poetry, etc are to greater or lesser extents "hobby degrees". People enjoy the topics generally but don't see a way to repay loans using that degree, because if you're not going to go teach it or write the next book, there's no money in it. These are things we do with our free time for the love of it.

2. By extension of 1, if you CAN have one of these degrees you either a) have a boatload of money, b) you must be naive of the fact (according to people you are talking to) that your job prospects are very limited, or c) you have extreme aptitude to be part of the small group that can make it, but everybody will still limp you into b.

I have a friend who majored in music in college, but not to teach: it was specifically to play timpani. He also was perplexed at the negative reactions he would get. Unfortunately right before he graduated someone told him that there are only like 10 professional concert timpanist positions in the country that provide a salary you can live from, and the rest just moonlight and have other jobs. After 1 year if hunting a good position he sold his drums and got a job in marketing selling windows and siding.

Of course the world would be less vibrant without professionals in these areas, but there are a lot more philosophy majors working in, say, marketing than there are Humes, Kants, Socrateses, Hegels, and so on.

Basically it doesn't look practical so it seems like either a bad financial choice or that you're a spoiled rich kid unless you mention "double major" type stuff.

I think a philosophy degree is cool as hell. Fuck anyone who thinks otherwise.

Quality of life wise philosophy is the best. Its the basis of most everything. I would be scared as heck to be looking for work with just that though. When I had an opportunity to get a masters I picked up education partially because I was interested in it but also because its largely a mix of philosophy, psychology, and statistics. Likely as close as I could get to philosophy while still being sellable on my resume.

Just imagining the wasted time and brain power makes me uncomfortable

I have a degree in philosophy and a degree in therapy and i promise the therapy part makes people way more uncomfortable than the philosophy part. I never really encountered weird attitudes about philosophy tbh. maybe it's how I own it. I very earnestly live like a Socrates - Diogenes hybrid and try to make smart stuff sound dumb and safe to engage the community neurons. and my general excitement about it, if my philosophy background comes up, it's from a place of passionate curiosity where we're already talking about interesting shit and me using the ph word just makes them think "oh we're about to get into it".

it could also be the context with which ppl get to know me is more receptive to philosophical conversations. I genuinely believe that therapy is literally just a modern philosophy practice.

I've spent hundreds of hours outside a university course studying epistemology. It's one of the most valuable skills I've ever learned.

I spread epistemology like a virus. Thank you philosophy, for the vessel you lend your brother.

There's a philosopher/history of philos on the bowling team I've just joined. I'm philospically inclined so I asked him if Descartes was ripping off Socrates' "I only know that I know nothing" which could be interpreted as "I doubt everything except my existence". It's a topic that came up the other day on Lemmy. He said no, Socrates was just saying he was wiser than everyone else because he wasn't deluded about his abilities.

I asked him about Descartes' relationship to solipsism reply: Descartes wasn't a solipsist because his god wouldn't deceive him like that, Descartes' god is real because of the ontological argument. Which one's that again?...

I kinda just felt like I was making him do his job...

it makes me sleepy

If you never had a crisis when studying philosophy during which you were wondering wether it is worth studying at all, did you even really study it in depth?

So, where do you work?

Because religious people are raised with a flawed worldview that they can't waver from or they're going to hell and also made to feel extremely shameful about regular human emotions like curiosity and horniness

I find philosophy fascinating. I'm especially fascinated by logic and logical fallacies.

When you repeatedly call out a theist for faulty logic, its so satisfying.

Those crappy old chairs in the classrooms have no lumbar support.

In this dissonant world people are afraid of logic as they may be vexed by what is discovered.

I have nothing about people choosing to study whatever they want.

I get a little bothered when people suggest philosophy majors as the "moral compass of society". For instance, I've been hearing more and more on how "philosophy is central to society because we need philosophy majors in ethical committees everywhere". And while I agree that ethical committees are important, I disagree that studying philosophy makes you more fit for a ethical committee than any other person. As moral of a society derives from the whole society, those ethical committees should follow more a popular jury structure imho.

My point is that when people follow this position they are, inherently saying "a philosophy major is more moral than you" which is the thing that ultimately bothers me.

What do you work as?

Frankly because everybody knows somebody in that line of academic study, or knows somebody that knows somebody. And it's generally regarded as a waste of time with no practical outcome. My BIL studied philosophy for 10 years and ended up starting his own treadmill repair company, leveraging his previous skills as a mechanic. You just wasted 10 years of your life and $300,000 of money/opportunity-cost, basically, when most people can't pay their rent, afford food, or have basic comforts.

Here is a quote, taken slightly out of context, that I believe speaks to what you are experiencing:

"The clinical picture of a person who has been reduced to elemental concerns of survival is still frequently mistaken for a portrait of the survivor's underlying character." - World Health Organization. (May 31, 2016). ICD-11 Beta Draft (Joint Linearization for Mortality and Morbidity Statistics).

Extrapolating from that in this other context, we can assume more and more people are simply losing their capacity to entertain "loftier" ideals than immediate survival. For all too many, there was never any other choice.

I studied philosophy at university in the 80's, and remember the endless jokes about what restaurant job I would be able to get with my degree, etc. It speaks to the hidden framework of capitalism that confines us all. It's only gotten worse in my lifetime.

I look back at my parents, who were able to buy their own house and raise two kids with a single earner, blue collar wage. My mom did eventually work as well, which allowed us children to go to college.

Now I am close to retirement, and I have nothing to show for it. No house, no car, no big retirement payout waiting. I 'squandered' my money and time being an activist and humanitarian, living in the moment and refusing to produce or hoard wealth for the capitalist machine just because.

I try to use my philosophical insight as a practical methodology to remove myself from the clamor for crumbs. I am a minimalist, an environmentalist, a gardener, a handyman and helper, a teacher - a papa smurf to my community and philosopher to my peers. I wouldn't trade it for all the money in the world, but I would be remiss to ignore the looming economic circumstances that threaten the future of humanity, myself included.

But I will forge ahead into this wilderness. As Deleuze and Guattari would say, forget reading someone else's map, become your own cartographer. Philosophy is a great basis for profound understanding of the human condition. It won't make you rich, and it certainly won't be respected or understood in this modern world - but it will enrich you. If you follow your heart it can show you a path through the madness that does not require that you shed your humanity or reduce yourself to that of an economic survivor, victor, or victim, and can serve as a beacon for others less fortunate to have been afforded such a perspective.

I often share the story of Taigu Ryōkan, the Zen Master, who perfectly illustrates both the value of philosophical introspection, and it's liberating effect from the confines of the material world.

https://laspina.org/the-thief-and-the-moon-a-zen-tale-in-ryokans-haiku/

Anti intellectualism.

Just speculating here, but I think the economic situation becoming much more difficult for many people might be a factor. When it's hard finding a decent job even after studying something "good", spending years of your life and possibly lots of money on a degree with no immediate economic benefits might seem like quite a ridiculous luxury.

For a layperson, philosophy doesn’t have an obvious practical application. They think philosophers just sit around pondering esoteric topics and can’t imagine why anyone would pay them for it.

"The arts are useless and will make you a poor stupid leftist... Do a trade" <----- type of statemet that has been doing the rounds on the far-right since at least 2014.

I don't think it makes them uncomfortable, I think they just don't get it.

Most of us are told to go to school to get the job you want, and philosopher really hasn't been a high demand job since ancient Greece.

Hey, almost-same boat here! I’m guessing in your late 20s/early 30s, you were likely surrounded by people who were in the same environment (higher ed), or who were sussing out your potential. But when you’re out of the ivory tower, it doesn’t mean shit.

Humanities degrees are critical thinking in a way that people generally don’t want to engage in. There’s no neat solution, and it will eventually make you confront your own ideology, or the one you’ve been in the grip of, and people really don’t want to think about that. Even more simply, higher ed is a stand in for “liberalism,” and in the last couple years, a thing to outright and wholly reject.

I don’t tell people that my English Ph.D. primary list straight up said “communist theory” at the top. I’m happy to let everyone think I just proofread stuff after 16 years of school, and I’ll say I should’ve been an electrician every time. I think a rich inner life and infinitely more nuanced understanding of the world is better than whatever my neighbor’s got going on.

Philosophers are always the first targets of anti-intellectuals. People genuinely believe that studding what's true about the world is a waste of time.

You can tell that this is a prejudice because the same people who think you shouldn't get paid for having useless knowledge will still hire economists.