Who would have guessed that the elementary school war concerning intelligences would continue all the way into post-secondary? Within universities all over, there is a definitive struggle between contrasting teams—the sciences and the humanities.
Since the scale of knowledge is tipped towards the sciences, quite an uneven set of opinions has been formed on the helpless opposing faculty—humanities.
Comparing intellectual worth in terms of literacy and science, or literacy and math for that matter, is about as relevant as comparing a burger and fries.
They are both great, and in the same way math, science, and language each complements each other well.
Imagine learning fractions without someone being able to speak and explain the process. Imagine trying to live any day without numbers or math, without money or calendars. It’s inconceivable.
In our society, a student’s parents begin impartial to anything other than their child’s happiness until media, bias, and even third party bystanders manipulate their opinions. Parents tend to gradually form the nonsensical opinion that the sciences are greater than the humanities, and they act upon it by sharing and unknowingly influencing the choice of their child.
“Be a doctor,” becomes a commonly heard statement by parents and within society. “Whatever you do, stay away from becoming a musician or writer.”
The idea of a “poor musician” and a “struggling artist,” so often portrayed in movies and other media, is sometimes true.
But there are also a high number of university students who drop out of their chosen field because they lack passion for it.
The all-famous Marshall McLuhan, a communications theorist, actually started university as an engineering student, but realized in his studies that he was truly meant to specialize in English. A lot of the engineering students today find that they love English, the arts, music, or linguistics but are further pressured into something that they don’t love.
Some tolerate it, however, because of the assumption that a pay cheque is of greater value than happiness.
In this case, those who publicly judge others on their intelligence are actually just passing on the negative energy from their own insecurities. The war of intelligence is an internal, rather than external, war. But does calling someone stupid really make you feel any better?
Neither humanities nor any other faculty is necessarily smarter or better off than the rest. Each person, not only in university but also in all areas of life, is intelligent in a different way yet still each is equally important to society.
The truly important thing here is that people should do what they really love, rather than what they believe will leave them with the most material wealth. Not only should university students realize this, but all of society.
