Letter from a reader: ‘Thank you very much for your thought-provoking glosses. I find them very inspiring. I have one question for you. You repeatedly write about the need to revive industry and the associated ‘technical thinking’. Schools will produce more engineers, which will help to modify what character traits will develop in society. (I hope I have not oversimplified). I would like to ask what role you think the study of the humanities, such as philosophy, theology, sociology, psychology, plays in such a system. Can they also help the positive development of society in some way, even though they promote other forms of thinking?”
Of course! In fact, they are even more important, it’s just that they are not easy to do.
Almost all of the problems that the nations of the West solve are social problems. It’s not the climate or wild animals or the inability to smelt iron that is destroying us. What is destroying us are social trends and processes that we cannot manage. It is economic interests that seek not enrichment but impoverishment. The imbecilism of the elites that generates worse and worse trouble. An opposition drowning in fairy tales and fantasy narratives, unable to understand the roots of the current crisis, let alone contribute to its solution. The inability to reach an agreement. And, ultimately, an inability to understand why an engineering approach is so important in overcoming the crisis.
But the first hitch is who tasks, controls and takes over the work of social scientists. Once out of control, they can become a frighteningly destructive layer of society.
The second is that the study of social science changes people for the worse. They become proud, arrogant, they learn to despise normal working people, they lose their inhibitions…In an ideal world, everyone would be educated in psychology, sociology or economics, but no one would start studying it until after 10 years in a regular job.