Why do we continue to invest massively in STEM while treating the Humanities as an intellectual luxury?
From Gramsci’s concept of hegemony to Edward Said’s critique of Orientalism, many of the ideas that transformed how we understand power and society emerged from the Humanities.
In an age obsessed with data and productivity, the Humanities remind us that critical thinking is not a luxury—it is a democratic necessity.
Why the Humanities Matter in an Age Obsessed with STEM
Why should we invest in the Humanities in an age when STEM disciplines promise technological breakthroughs, economic growth, and solutions to almost every human problem?
Today, STEM subjects dominate academic prestige, funding priorities, and public imagination. If STEM occupies the commanding heights of knowledge production, the social sciences often follow close behind — offering data-driven insights into society through statistics, graphs, and measurable outcomes.
The Humanities, however, stand awkwardly on the margins.
In an academic world increasingly driven by data, metrics, and “concrete findings,” disciplines like Philosophy, English Studies, or Cultural Studies often appear unproductive or indulgent. Doctoral research today is frequently expected to culminate in something tangible: datasets, models, measurable outputs. Within this environment, Humanities scholarship is often dismissed as abstract reflection with little practical value.
This hierarchy of knowledge reveals something important about our intellectual culture.
It reflects what sociologists call instrumental rationality — a way of thinking that values knowledge primarily for its immediate utility. Since the early twentieth century, capitalist modernity has conditioned us to measure the worth of ideas in terms of productivity, efficiency, and market value.
Knowledge becomes meaningful only if it can be commodified, quantified, and marketed.
Within such a framework, the Humanities appear inconvenient. Their questions are slower, deeper, and often resistant to quantification. They ask not only how things work, but why they exist, who benefits, and what ethical consequences follow.
In a world obsessed with products, the Humanities insist on thinking.
The Stereotype of the Humanities Scholar
This instrumental view of knowledge shapes how Humanities scholars themselves are perceived.
Whenever academic communities come together, a familiar stereotype circulates: scientists and social scientists are imagined as producing “serious” knowledge, while Humanities scholars are caricatured as comfortably seated in armchairs, reflecting on abstract ideas that supposedly have little relevance to real-world problems.
Yet global intellectual history tells a very different story.
Some of the most transformative ideas that have reshaped our understanding of power, society, and culture have emerged from the Humanities.
Without the work of Antonio Gramsci, for example, we might never have fully grasped how power operates through consent rather than coercion. Gramsci’s concept of hegemony revealed that domination is maintained not merely through visible structures of control but through the subtle shaping of common sense, culture, and everyday beliefs.
Similarly, discussions of colonial power cannot proceed without Edward Said and his landmark work Orientalism, which exposed how knowledge about the “East” was systematically constructed to justify colonial domination.
These insights did not emerge from laboratories or statistical models. They emerged from interpretation, critical thinking, and philosophical reflection — the core practices of the Humanities.
Thinking and the Left: An Unavoidable Relationship
This becomes particularly significant when we consider Left politics.
One of the greatest paradoxes of the twenty-first century is that many who identify with progressive or Left political traditions simultaneously marginalise the Humanities — the very intellectual tradition that has historically nourished radical political thought.
Karl Marx himself emphasised the importance of critical thinking in political transformation. In his famous eleventh Thesis on Feuerbach (1888), he wrote:
“The philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways; the point, however, is to change it.”
This statement is often misunderstood as a rejection of philosophy. In fact, it underscores the importance of thinking that leads to transformative action.
Similarly, in his Prison Notebooks (1971), Gramsci reminds us:
“All men are intellectuals, but not all men have the function of intellectuals in society.”
For Gramsci, political transformation requires organic intellectuals — individuals who emerge from within social struggles and articulate the aspirations of their communities.
Organic Intellectuals in the Kerala Context
Kerala’s political history offers powerful examples of such intellectual figures.
One of the most significant is E. M. S. Namboodiripad, a central figure in the Communist movement in Kerala and India.
EMS was not merely a political leader but also a thinker who connected Marxist theory with Kerala’s specific social realities — particularly caste hierarchies, agrarian relations, and linguistic identity. Through his writings and political interventions, he translated abstract theoretical ideas into a locally grounded political programme.
Another compelling example is K. Ajitha, whose work with survivors of domestic violence transformed lived experiences of women into feminist political consciousness.
These figures illustrate how intellectual work emerges directly from social struggles.
The Role of the Public Intellectual
Alongside organic intellectuals, democratic societies require public intellectuals who intervene in public debates and challenge dominant narratives.
The role of the intellectual, as Edward Said famously argued, is to “speak truth to power.”
Kerala’s intellectual culture has produced many such figures, including M. N. Vijayan, whose lectures and essays connected literature with social critique and political reflection.
At a broader level, writers like Arundhati Roy have used essays and public interventions to question state power, corporate expansion, and environmental destruction.
Public intellectuals ensure that ideas circulate beyond academic institutions, shaping democratic discourse.
Self-Reflexivity: The Lifeblood of Critical Politics
But critical thinking must also include self-reflexivity — the willingness to examine the contradictions within one’s own ideological framework.
For instance, when Ramachandra Guha wrote The Past and the Present of the Indian Left (2013), he was not abandoning his progressive commitments. Rather, he was critically examining the cracks that had appeared within Left political traditions in India.
Similarly, Yogendra Yadav continues to articulate Left-leaning political perspectives while engaging in self-reflexive critique as a public intellectual.
Such interventions demonstrate that genuine intellectual engagement does not mean blind ideological loyalty. Instead, it requires the courage to interrogate the limitations of one's own political traditions.
Dalit writers in Kerala, including C. Ayyappan, have performed a similar role by exposing caste hierarchies not only within society but also within progressive political movements themselves.
This kind of critique prevents political traditions from becoming intellectually stagnant.
Why the Humanities Still Matter
What these examples demonstrate is that the Humanities do far more than interpret texts or reflect abstractly on culture.
They help societies understand how power operates, how identities are constructed, and how hierarchies are maintained or challenged.
They produce organic intellectuals rooted in social struggles.
They nurture public intellectuals who challenge power.
They cultivate self-reflexive critique that prevents ideological complacency.
In an age obsessed with technological progress and measurable outputs, the Humanities remind us that the most important questions remain fundamentally human:
Who holds power?
How is consent manufactured?
Whose voices are silenced?
What kind of society do we want to build?
Without the Humanities, we may continue to produce more sophisticated technologies and more complex datasets.
But we may gradually lose the ability to ask the questions that truly matter.
And without those questions, even the most advanced society risks becoming intellectually impoverished.
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