Huang Shixiu's Perspective: Your Humanities Don't Need Rescue

The Ministry of Education wants to promote cross-domain plans to save the humanities, but I disagree. I studied mathematics and physics, and after leaving the ivory tower of academia, I have spent over a decade in my career using the most economics and legal knowledge. I have long forgotten those advanced mathematical and physical theories, but I can grasp knowledge across disciplines thanks to my training in mathematical thinking. Every time there is an online debate between the humanities and sciences, I encounter the worst rebuttal: 'Science is not the truth.' Science has never claimed to be the truth; science is just a relatively reliable systematic methodology. The humanities arguing whether science is the truth only reveals their inferiority complex. A widespread inferiority complex is the biggest blind spot of the idea of 'saving the humanities.' One, the Real Comparison of Methodologies and Thinking Modes There has long been a cultural rift between engineering and humanities disciplines. Science provides a rigorous method that can be repeatedly verified, revised, and falsified. Don't the humanities have that? Yes, yes. At least I have learned it. The method of doing research, the humanities also have it. Economics, law, history, sociology, philosophy, and literature all have research skills. The 'legal interpretation and logical reasoning' of jurisprudence, the 'quantitative models and causal inference' of economics are extremely rigorous thinking training. Philosophy and history also have their own rigorous methodologies. They are not science and do not need to be science. I self-studied the framework of economics and law, which may be different from undergraduates. I saw 'optimization under constraints' and 'normative behavior and effect judgment.' The problem with the humanities is not the lack of skills, but many people mistakenly think that 'writing articles based on feelings' is the humanities. The methodology of the sciences is controlling variables, negatability, and system restoration. When encountering problems that cannot be quantified, lack logical rules, and are influenced by human nature or political factors, they tend to crash. The methodology of the humanities is contextualization, hermeneutics, and critical thinking. But if not strictly trained, it is easy to fall into vague subjective feelings, lacking the ability to quantify and operate ideas. The sciences are good at optimizing paths under given rules. Given an engineering problem, they can quickly find the best solution. The humanities should solve open system problems. The most difficult thing in the real world is what people want, how benefits are distributed, and how institutions are designed. Political attacks and defenses, business decisions, and organizational management are all games of human complexity. Recently, 'systematic thinking' and 'first principles' have become almost synonymous with the engineering community and the technology industry (such as Elon Musk). But this model should be the meta-language of the human brain, not exclusive to the sciences. The humanities can use first principles to strip away cultural habits, legal conventions, and historical sedimentation, returning to human needs or resource competition, and conducting institutional design. For example, when encountering legal and financial problems with DeFi, I will think, 'What is the essence of a bank?' Only two things, establishing trust and transferring value. If it can be completed through cryptography and distributed ledgers, then physical buildings and traditional credit conventions can be stripped away. The humanities using systematic thinking are more complex than engineering because human behavior has reflexivity. The core is to see through long-term feedback and unintended consequences. For example, to reduce the number of venomous snakes, the government announced that for every snake turned in, a bounty could be claimed. Linearly thinking, bounty, people catch snakes, snakes become fewer. However, the system feedback is that citizens raise snakes, the government discovers and cancels the bounty, breeders release large numbers of worthless snakes into the wild, resulting in more venomous snakes. This is a true story from the British colonial period in India, and there is a version with rats during the French colonial period in Vietnam. When you see the big picture, you can prevent backlash. Attempting to rescue the humanities using quantitative administrative indicators, such as how many cross-disciplinary courses were opened, how many students took a second major, how many institutes were established, may instead destroy the most core training of the humanities. Two, the Structural Dilemma of Capital Reality and Higher Education Expansion Students' choice of majors reflects utilitarian habits in a specific environment, and parents also view education as an investment in the future. Modern semiconductor supply chains, the AI wave, and geopolitics form an ecosystem dominated by technology, which is reality. Traditional university department systems, recruitment oriented towards employment, and the pursuit of high salaries in social values. If the education system becomes a place to convert cultural capital into economic capital, the public naturally tends towards the technology field. The dilemma of the humanities is similar to when I studied pure mathematics, except for research and teaching, there is no direct corresponding product value, and it is not easy to make money. Pure mathematics and humanities pursue the ultimate of intellectual activity and spiritual civilization, but in the capital market, there is no direct premium. Frankly, for poor children to turn their lives around, I recommend studying STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics). Because they don't have trial and error capital and can't afford the risk of 'cultural capital not being monetized.' STEM is connected to the global industrial chain, selling clear technical value, market pricing is transparent, and does not depend on family background, connections, or the ability to please the system. For young people without resources, becoming an engineer is the path with the highest probability of entering the middle class through personal effort and the lowest risk. Next is law and business, which also have relatively clear skill-to-value correspondence or can easily connect to capital leverage to bet on the fat-tail distribution of windfall profits. Modern society has shifted from 'wealth distribution' to 'risk distribution,' and individuals must bear the profits and losses themselves and bear the risks. From the reality of class, we must be honest. Engineering disciplines are still the ladder for ordinary families to obtain middle-class tickets. The humanities are gradually returning to their essence, more like a refined pursuit for those with high talent or without worries. You can argue that education should be connected to economic development and industrial readiness. You can also argue that a talent structure gap will harm long-term competitiveness. I want to ask three questions: Do the humanities have representative figures with social influence? Does the government's investment in mass-producing humanities graduates have corresponding industries? When humanities graduates cannot find their market position, do they turn to political rent-seeking or social opposition? In the 20th century, there were many famous humanities scholars, such as Qian Mu, Yin Haiguang, and Yu Ying-shih. At that time, humanities disciplines were responsible for the mission of rational enlightenment and cultural identity. In the 21st century, higher education introduced a quantitative evaluation system. The 'public intellectuals' in Said's works are gradually being replaced by academic bureaucrats. Even, the academic community looks down on popular writing, leading to a disconnect between knowledge and the public. Humanities disciplines that have lost the public context, such as works with a grand historical view like 'Guns, Germs, and Steel,' ultimately cede the right to speak to social media influencers and political mobilization. From another angle, since ancient times, those who could study literature, history, and philosophy were social elites, often with family backgrounds or from the ruling class. In the 1990s, higher education expanded, and humanities education also became a common education. Now, out of every two college students, one studies technology, and various humanities disciplines divide the remaining one. The answer is clear: the technology industry needs a large number of technical labor, and the market does not need a million literature, history, and philosophy researchers. The fate of pufferfish eggs is that hundreds of millions grow into one giant creature, and the rest are feed. Reviewing the Han Dynasty Taixue, it initially recruited dozens of students, but later expanded to tens of thousands. 'The use of the useless cannot be realized' becomes the responsibility and revenge of society. Wang Mang's ancient reform was the historical destiny of the intellectual class to create job openings and legitimacy for themselves by promoting radical political reform. Looking at Taiwan, when humanities graduates receive relatively low salaries in the general market, political factions, social movement groups, and even professors and scholars become channels to obtain contracts and plans for power. Talents naturally gravitate towards political rent-seeking and ideological struggle. Now, let's deconstruct the essence of the humanities. The core of humanities disciplines is not in memorizing history or analyzing texts; these are exactly what AI is best at replacing. The irreplaceable foundation is human psychological modeling, dynamic gaming of open systems, reconstruction of unclear problems, and the definition of value discourse power. Traditional higher education has fallen into the dilemma of 'sustaining innovation,' continuously producing extremely fragmented and niche academic papers, becoming increasingly distant from market reality. Mass knowledge platforms plus AI are 'disruptive innovation,' satisfying the public's demand for history, philosophy, and humanities translation at extremely low cost. Don't do things like 'Humanities learn Python' courses. Humanities disciplines must be a training ground for decision-making and institutional design. AI solves 'How (how to do it),' but 'What to do' and 'Why (why do it)' require humanities insight. AI ethics, data privacy, transaction mechanisms, international gaming, these are all soft spots for high-tech industries going global. The Ministry of Education's plan cannot improve the salary expectations of humanities disciplines. Relying solely on cross-disciplinary policies has limited effect on changing students' incentives to choose majors. Resources must be concentrated on cultivating high-level cross-disciplinary talents who can 'guide and regulate technology,' so that humanities can play high marginal value. Is the cross-disciplinary plan really able to bridge the two cultures, or is it forcibly applying technological tools to humanities research? One possible scenario is that schools, in order to obtain government subsidies for the 'Deep Cultivation of Higher Education' program, will package various 'interdisciplinary degrees.' In the end, they may repeat the fate of 'Han Dynasty Taixue mass production/pufferfish eggs,' increase ineffective supply, and instead make students more anxious in the workplace. Market clearing and the true destination of humanities Your humanities do not need to be rescued. When the high-tech industry is extremely short of manpower and salaries are high, students choosing STEM is the most rational market response. Forcibly maintaining these disciplines through government subsidies is only using taxpayers' money to artificially delay market clearing. This 'rescue' creates false supply and further delays market clearing.