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Strunks Elements of Style should be mandatory reading every year of high school.
No can do. That's a humanities thing and we don't want children learning skills they won't use in the real world. More STEM!
I wouldn't be surprised if that is a take away by some people. The rebuttal:
It is a book about how to write unambiguously and clearly.
Clear writing isn't useful? Think about arguments about phrases in the Constitution. Clarity would make those problems go away. I could name half a dozen STEM applications of quality writing off the top of my head:
- User Manuals
- Grant Proposals
- Research Results
- Emails to clients or coworkers
- Project plans
- Text books
I totally agree with you. To a lot of nerds who go into tech the humanities seem frivolous. (I know, I was one of them.) But thanks to some very good and patient teachers I have skills that other people in my field lack. It makes me look great because I can write a coherent email and make a decent presentation, but my life would be so much easier if I didn't have to go back and forth to figure out what the hell they mean by "it isn't working."
I was the same way. IMO, philosophy is WAY underrated. If the takeaway from intro to philosophy courses is ancient Greeks had some strange ideas about atoms and such, that is missing the point. Below is for anyone that has never touched philosophy at all.
Ethics is NOT what the corporate ethics things say about following the rules. Ethics in this context would raise the question of whether always following company rules is the right thing to do? Is right and wrong objective or subjective? Is something right in some contexts but wrong in others? Which system of thought should you be using (consequentialism, virtue, deontological)? I was just following orders when I murdered those people! By our laws it was legal, therefore right! It is a great way to persuade people and make decisions.
Epistemology is absolutely key to critical thinking. How do you determine what you know vs what you merely believe? Can you trust that error message is accurate? Can you trust your memory? Personal experience? It is a great way to build a world class bullshit detector.
Metaphysics gets you to think about things at a more foundational level. Think about a stop sign. Is it a red octogon with stop in white letters? Not everywhere. It could be a cop or crossing guard with their hand out. It could be a red light. It could be a red sign that isn't an octogon at all. It is a great way to learn to challenge your assumptions about the nature of the world and things.