Microsoft founder Bill Gates said in a speech to the National Governors Association that state funding for liberal arts education should be cut and more money should be put into science and technology Higher education, because the skills learned in the latter can lead people to high-paying jobs. Is it really wrong to study liberal arts?
Maybe not so Arbitrary. Most of the liberal arts students are relatively gentle. After learning culture, they have to transform their hostility and become gentle and refined, knowledgeable and wise. However, in the face of the business society dominated by high technology, this kind of erudition and wisdom is gradually being isolated and even eliminated. Just look at the cold reception of literature and philosophy to see what’s wrong with the liberal arts. The Internet dominates people’s lives. People even buy food online, and they can also purchase some services provided on the Internet. They read novels, prose, poetry, comedies, TV series and movies, and of course Lots of product placement. So, does the Internet dominated by technology no longer need people who study liberal arts? You only need to rely on big data to collect information and make comprehensive analysis to answer it. Whether it is the construction of a network platform or the data calculation of a shopping mall, science is inseparable, and medicine that people cannot live without requires knowledge of science, and knowledge of liberal arts is basically not used. So, is it really a mistake to study liberal arts?
Of course not. Liberal arts is a basic subject and has played a fundamental role. Language and writing must be learned from an early age, otherwise communication will not be possible. If a person learns mathematics from an early age, it is still only mathematical symbols and calculation formulas, and they will not be able to communicate or survive when they grow up. To start learning, we need to use liberal arts. Without language, human beings basically cannot communicate well, let alone the development of science and technology. After learning the language, people will be able to communicate fluently, and science books must use language, and they must be designed from the shallower to the deeper. Therefore, many times, science students are self-righteous, thinking that only science is the subject that dominates the development of the world, and it is also a promising subject. To say that language and characters are very important, many standard language and characters can be produced by computers, and even poetry can be composed by computers, and the poems made can be fake. Who says computers can’t replace humans?
Actually, computers are not omnipotent The solution. Human beings have distinct personalities because they have a unique growth environment and a unique language, rather than cookie-cutter norms. Although capital needs people to become obedient robots, let people do whatever they want, and they can’t ask for salary increases, but after all, people are not machines, not individuals under the calculation of big data, but living people, with temper and temperament. Have their own unique language, but also have their own hobbies. Of course, human thinking cannot be exhausted by big data, nor can it be predicted. Fortune tellers cannot predict what people will do in the next second, and big data cannot make accurate predictions.
In ancient times, people did not have too many technological inventions, and they were proud of the four major inventions. Up to now, people have learned too much Western science and technology, know what is called scientific and technological invention and creation, and also know what is called the role of science. However, the liberal arts still play a fundamental role. In ancient times, people attached great importance to liberal arts, and many dynasties only took one article in the exam, and the level of people’s essay writing was used to determine whether they failed the exam. Therefore, the liberal arts were very developed in ancient times, and just one Li Bai could be worth all the writers who won the Nobel Prize in Literature, let alone Du Fu and Li Shangyin. Up to now, people have been invaded by European style and American rain, and they have completely westernized in many aspects. It is not progress, but neglect of the development of liberal arts. However, people who study the liberal arts do not make money, nor do they live like dogs. They will independently create literary works, and they will also own part of the copyright. If the literary works are adapted into TV dramas and movies, they will make more money. Although those majoring in liberal arts do not have mastered the key technology, they can provide people with spiritual and cultural products, so that people can obtain aesthetic pleasure, gain a lot of insight, and accumulate rich experience. If there is a lack of liberal arts, society will really not be able to function. Just relying on artificial intelligence to form certain sentences, to put it bluntly, it still treats people as machines instead of treating people as real people.
After all, artificial intelligence cannot replace human brain thinking, and it is impossible to obtain all the secrets of brain operation through calculation. Just relying on information collection, sorting and classification, and after analysis, you can also get certain associations and imaginations, but it is far behind the human brain. After all, technology is cold, but humanities are warm. Jobs once said: “Technology alone is far from enough—only by combining technology with liberal arts, and with humanities, can we really make our hearts happy.”