Sweet, sweet screams of the humanities crowd

It’s easy to convert sustained murmurs of discontent into delicious high-pitched leftist howls — just add a few extra dollars to the overall cost of humanities degrees, writes Tim Blair.

You can tell by the screaming that the government’s decision to double the cost of humanities degrees was a perfect move.

The key to it is the tone of those screams. Your humanities crowd is essentially a very simple musical instrument, easily played with only a minimum of training.

If the government had increased the cost of humanities degrees by a third or so — say, from the current price of $6804 per year to slightly more than nine grand — the resultant uproar would’ve been a low, one-note bass rumble. Boring.

If the price was increased to $20,000 per year, complaints from the arts sector might have been so high-pitched as to be audible only to dogs.

The increase to $14,500 per year for humanities degrees delivered a satisfying mid-range response.

‘You can tell by the screaming that the government’s decision to double the cost of humanities degrees was a perfect move’

I would have gone for $16,000 per year myself, just to generate a few additional sonic peaks for variety’s sake, but that’s merely a personal preference.

Your average BA is basically a reading list with the final reward of a participation prize. As The Australian’s economics editor Adam Creighton wrote the other day:

“Students with degrees earn more than those without them, but that has little to do with what they have actually learned at university.

“Anyone can sit in university lectures, for free, but without the piece of paper at the end, it’s all, vocationally speaking, a waste of time …

“Just as printing currency devalues money, the explosion of degrees has sapped their value, which compels the brighter students to toil away at university obtaining more and more credentials — delaying their ultimate contribution to the economy and ­society.”

Or otherwise. Attempting to illustrate the value of arts degrees, Melbourne Age arts editor Nick Miller last week provided what he thought was a slam-dunk argument:

“So — humanities degrees don’t lead to jobs? Tell that to four of the last eight prime ministers — Turnbull (Bachelor of Arts, USyd), Rudd (Chinese Studies, ANU), Gillard (Bachelor of Arts, UniMelb), Hawke (Bachelor of Arts, UWA).”

‘Your humanities crowd is essentially a very simple musical instrument, easily played with only a minimum of training’

Hawke’s the exception in that field, and in any case he learned far more during any given day outside of university than he ever did within.

Turnbull, Rudd and Gillard were net losses for Australia. Pricing arts degrees beyond the range of the next Rudd would in itself prove the worth of the government’s decision.

“I studied for my arts degree at Macquarie University in the late ’70s,” ABC favourite Jane Caro mourned online. “I have since published 12 books, including three novels, and won a Walkley.”

Readers are invited to quickly scan their bookshelves. Unless your surname is Caro, none of her 12 books are there.

“My Eng Lit major taught me empathy and the value of words,” Jane continued.

Imagine requiring instruction for either of those two things. It would be like lessons in evolving. (“So, how’s the opposable thumb coming along?”)

Still musing on the great prize of a BA, Jane concluded: “It taught me to think critically and read widely. Gifts beyond price.”

Well, a mere $14,500 per year doesn’t really seem enough, does it?

“It’s ridiculous that we have this idea that Arts degrees are useless,” one Twitter gal fumed. “Arts covers sociology, philosophy, politics, law, journalism, psychology, etc.”

She’s not quite making the point she believed she was making.

Student's protest outside St John's College at Sydney University.

The same author, by the way, spends most of her time posting pornographic images of herself.

Like Caro, sooner or later just about every defender of arts degrees plays the “critical thinking” card.

This is code for “witless leftist groupthink”, the dull-minded mob mentality that has granted us such civilisational boons as gender studies, identity politics, climate panic and ­racial hysteria.

Were it not for university-decreed “critical thinking”, we wouldn’t have people seeking to ban — as they succeeded in last week — Eskimo Pie ice creams. The name is apparently derogatory.

And we wouldn’t have safe spaces, worship of the ABC and the global Greta Thunberg cult.

They’ve got the “critical” part right, but the “thinking” remains elusive. Perhaps universities aren’t beginning with the right raw material.

Back in the late ’70s or the early ’80s, the intersection at the entrance to Melbourne University became one of that city’s first to feature all-way stops.

I’m pretty sure this wasn’t because engineering or science students struggled to work out the velocity of approaching vehicles.

Your critical-thinking arts types, however, obviously needed some remedial assistance when it came to grasping the physics involved in a meeting between several hundred kilograms of car and 70kg or so of dumb postmodernist.

The university also added a pedestrian bridge at the same intersection, in the same way councils might provide traffic-avoiding tunnels for ignorant wildlife.

That was a long while ago, I guess.

Maybe today’s university students are brighter.

Then again, maybe not. Three students at the University of New South Wales’s Kensington campus have lately been bitten by foxes after attempting to pat the undomesticated creatures.

“I thought I could maybe help it. So I gave it a pat and he chomped my hand,” one student told The Sydney Morning Herald, also revealing on Facebook: “I have since been informed you shouldn’t pat a fox.”

Next she’ll be taught empathy and the value of words.

Here’s the worrying thing: she’s not in the humanities.

The fox victim is a computer engineering student. We’re in deep trouble, people.