Daily Times

Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains. One man thinks him the master of others, but remains more of a slave than they are,” said Social Contract thinker J. Rousseau.

21st century has been the era of rapid change and unabated flux in multilateral and subaltern cultural levels and both technological and social spheres. There is a huge shift witnessed in our living styles, professions, education and technology as compared to our ancestors’. Inventions and discoveries are swarming across and becoming part of our daily lives. People want advanced technological tinge in everything. So in order to survive in this era and to cope with competitive times of future, people think opting science subjects is the only option. A good quality education is equated with medical or engineering.

Taking Pakistani society as an example, every year, around 55,000 students appear in medical entry test while there are only 3,400 seats in (Punjab) public sector. This means that the remaining students either consume one more year of their life and repeat the test or spend thousands of rupees to study private medical. This is the result of the over emphasized importance of science and technology. Both parents and children tie a promising, prosper future with sciences.

Even if the student has interests in arts, literature or social sciences, he thinks these subjects as mere hobbies. Advancement in science and technology, no doubt, has revolutionized the society but it has created a sense of anarchy. There is a race going on. Everybody is running without knowing where this path is leading them. This anarchic condition has ignored the importance of social sciences and arts in our society. Social sciences and humanities play a great role in forming societies. They focus on the deeper understanding of the man. Alexander pope says, “The proper study of man is man”. Humanists study man, but not as an animal who has risen as a result of an evolution. The creation of art and literature as reflections of interpretations and imaginations give us an insight into past and emotional responses people had to different events. This helps us understand ourselves better in the light of a universal cross-cutting common experience as being human, all too human. History connects us with the great minds of the past. Other humanities subjects have important values as well. These subjects make an individual wiser and better able to understand the outer world. Science and technological education create inventors and space explorers but the subjects like social sciences and humanities create good leaders that explore humanist quests and social issues. They broaden the horizon of understanding of an individual. Social sciences encourage a more accepting behavior towards complex concepts such as feminism, world peace, social movements and much more, while helps us understand these in new ways and explore different possibilities. Alyssa Walker says, “The opposite of humanities is ignorance.”

If humanities and social sciences are of this grave importance then why are we as a society not accepting these subjects and not encouraging students? This is because these subjects will not provide anyone with real vocation. There are no job ads for a poet, a philosopher and an artist. That is why parents and children alike think, a proper designated job with good social status will only come their way by studying science and technology. This is resulting in the ignorance of personal satisfaction of the individual, stagnancy in the development of the individual as a human being and having aims like just accumulating wealth and social status.

It is not wrong to look for a good job which is financially stable, after all an individual’s survival depends on it. But ignoring social sciences and humanities completely and running towards the accumulation of a handsome amount of income have left our society in a ball of tangled yarn. And the sad part is that our future generation will waste their whole lives to untangle the anarchic situation we have created. This over-emphasized focus on science and technology is forcing children to leave their passions and interests. Their parents force them to study what will help them financially only. This has resulted in a number of undirected, unhappy people working like machines who are hollow and devoid of human feelings. Young lot is wasting their lives to be a part of the 24/7 working machines wearing white coats.

This culture is leading young generation to depression and alternatives such as suicide. The pressure they felt from a young age will ultimately burst out at a certain time and either they will harm themselves or others. It is said that a student’s hard work is directly proportional to his interest. Maxim Gorky says, “When work is a pleasure, life is a joy! When work is a duty, life is slavery”. Einstein could never be a world renowned scientist if he were forced into arts. Similarly no one would have known Picasso if he had opted for engineering.

Need of hour is to be more accepting towards the social sciences and humanities subjects. Students should not be forced into running a blind race leading nowhere. Parents should focus on their children’s satisfaction and interest and not only on his/her future social position. If we will stop running this race of accumulating just the wealth and focus on understanding ourselves more deeply, only then we will be able to develop as an individual as well as a society. Social thinkers and reformers and leaders would come afloat with buoyant ideas of transforming social clutches, preceding ‘being human’ over other social roles and expectations of the ordinary, of mundane. In this time, human beings cannot afford being aloof to the social thought process if they want to get themselves out of this quick sand of self-inflicted anarchy.

Published in Daily Times, January 27^th 2019.