Lost purpose of Liberal Arts

“The arts are not a way to make a living. They are a very human way of making life more bearable.”
– Kurt Vonnegut 

In the labyrinth of modern education, we often forget what the thread was meant to trace. The purpose of learning, ideally, is twofold: first, to raise an informed, introspective, and harmonious citizenry—capable of reasoning, empathizing, and governing; and second, to fuel the economy by refining human potential into meaningful labor. Civilization and contribution—both are the twin suns around which the educational galaxy should revolve.

Yet, in practice, only one of these suns shines. The liberal arts—the ancestral heart of education, once held sacred in the temples of Athens and the academies of Florence—has been relegated to the shadows. While liberal arts excels in cultivating civility, critical thought, and conscience, it finds itself abandoned at the altar of employability.

Where do the students of liberal arts go, after mastering history’s truths, philosophy’s provocations, and sociology’s structures? They exit universities with minds sharpened but pockets empty, not for lack of intelligence, but because the market deems their knowledge untranslatable. Their CVs are heavy with ideas but light on “hard skills.” They drift into underpaid roles or unrelated industries, watching the very disciplines that scaffold society be dismissed as indulgent or obsolete.

But is this the fault of liberal arts? Or is it the blindness of an economy that can quantify code but not conscience?

The current system appears to conflate demand with value. Tech is in demand, so tech is valued. But politics, economics, law, philosophy—these are not industries. They are inheritances. They are the ancient ligaments of the body politic, the compass for collective existence. Long before a line of code was ever typed, societies were debating governance under banyan trees and in Greek agoras. Without understanding justice, no software can solve social inequality; without political wisdom, no innovation can protect peace.

And yet, here we are—treating the liberal arts as ornamental in a house that is crumbling.

Plato, in his Republic, did not envision a society run by technocrats. He dreamed of philosopher-kings: leaders who could marry reason with power, virtue with vision. Today’s global leadership, however, is often more Machiavellian than Platonic—marked by failed diplomacy, narrow thinking, and a tragic divorce from wisdom. Wars erupt not just from greed but from a deficit of understanding.

The world needs architects of thought as much as builders of code. Yet, we liberal arts students are left scouring the edges of job portals, our education deemed “impractical,” our ideas too complex for the commodified world of KPIs and deliverables. It is not that our education has failed us—it is that systems have failed to imagine where we belong.

The education system, ironically, teaches liberal arts in the most illiberal way: rote memorization, clerical assessments, and outdated syllabi. Where are the workshops on public policy drafting? The labs for philosophy in action? The think tanks for applied sociology? We are taught to think deeply but not to act practically. We are trained in revolutions but offered only routine.

This is not a lament—it is a call to arms. A society that silences its thinkers will eventually lose its soul. If we are to survive not just as an economy but as a civilization, we must reweave the liberal arts into our future.

What can be done?

We must reforge the curriculum.

Let it be dynamic, responsive, interdisciplinary. Blend Aristotle with AI, Gandhi with governance. Equip students not only with texts but with tools: communication strategy, data ethics, urban planning, conflict mediation. Let internships in NGOs be as valued as stints in startups. Let liberal arts be not the “other” choice, but the first step toward enlightened citizenship.

Education is not merely a production line for employment—it is the crucible in which societies sculpt their conscience.

As liberal arts students, we do not seek pity. We seek purpose. And we offer something indispensable in return—context. A code without context can build an empire or a surveillance state. But a society that knows its stories, its struggles, its philosophies—that is a society that endures.

In a world obsessed with speed, liberal arts teaches us why we are running.

And that question—more than any algorithm—is what might save us.