By: Luke Byerly ~Copy Editor~
The sciences are studied in order to advance human manipulation, or as Descartes argued, our “mastery over nature.” We study the sciences in order to improve human life and provide a more comfortable existence for mankind. Indeed, the sciences are extremely important, which is why it does not surprise me when I hear science majors say that arts majors are useless.
As someone going for a sciences and arts double major, this upsets me. The fact is arts majors study material that speaks to our emotion, something that everyone should be able to relate to. Arts majors produce material that is meant to inspire, provoke and relate to us. They manifest human experiences, while the sciences seek to explain the world around those experiences.
Without the arts, we would have little reason to improve human life. We would be deficient in the area that makes us most human. Medicine, chemistry, biology, physics and mathematics would all become useless without a driving force behind their study. The arts give us a reason to study the sciences. The arts force us to feel emotion, which we want to prolong or amplify. Without the ability to feel emotion, we have little reason to try and improve our lives with the sciences.
Just imagine a world with no art. There would be no fiction to read, no movies to watch, no plays or musicals to see, no art to see, not even music to hear. Even those artistic representations of the cell in your biology textbooks would be gone. Televisions would have no purpose other than to educate. I think it’s fair to say life would be unbelievably dull.
By saying the arts are useless, you are basically rejecting most of the emotionally stimulating and cultural things in the world. You are denying your own humanity, and you are proving the arts majors right when we call you a robot. The fact is that the sciences and the arts are equally important. The arts give our life meaning and motivation while the sciences allow us to live more comfortably. Embracing one without the other puts humanity at a standstill. So I beg you, celebrate everyone’s passions. After all, what are you accomplishing by rejecting people’s aspirations other than being mean?
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