Humanities degrees are good actually but working for Rupert Murdoch is not!

A posh person wrote something enraging in the Times newspaper? Stop the press but still i write lol

(if your boss is widely regarded to be the basis for Logan Roy, shut the fuck up!’)

Getting annoyed at something written in the newspaper, particularly one Rupert Murdoch owned, is so futile. They are not interested in furthering societal progression but rather in their economic, cultural or whatever power. But whatever, here I am in my sick bed, seething about the words written by Emma Duncan, an alumnus of Wycombe Abbey and the University of Oxford, those bastions of social change. 

In her piece ‘We should cheer decline of humanities degrees’, published on 16 June 2023, she argues that it’s good that the Humanities are becoming less and less popular because it means that young people can focus on getting better-paid jobs and stop getting into debt for their silly little artsy degrees. First of all, why are you not advocating for more funding and less unpayable debt? Yes, I know it's because you are a stooge who makes a living writing tripe for middle Englanders to read while tutting about racial minorities living their lives, but seriously, get a life or some sense of shame!

Secondly, the reason why young people hate the government is not just because we are saddled with debt. While you might not be wrong about that, we also hate the government because they are a load of self-interest cunts only concerned with their careers, enriching their own pockets, selling off public services to their mates and just generally not doing anything to tackle the vast crises affecting this godforsaken country concerning everything from climate, housing and healthcare….

Thirdly, if you were a good journalist bothered about what was happening in the world and not what your little social circle of the worst people in the world, you would know that STEM sectors are just as hard to get a break in. The pay rate is slipping, and the job is being taken over by Artificial Intelligence, a tool that will ruin your life, not because it will become sentient, but because it will make your job obsolete and make crappy pop songs and books from stolen intellectual property.

Fourthly, I want to be nothing like you, Emma. My BA in Politics from Goldsmiths taught me, a fellow ex-public school girl, that the world was big and vast and the only people worth anything and who did anything good were people who didn’t care about having a high-flying job. People like that have destroyed the world, seeking profit over everything else. Capitalism, not human nature, caused the climate crisis. Capitalism, not human nature, created the housing market we have. Capitalism, not human nature, made the gender division of labour. Capitalism, not human nature, dismantled the NHS.

Your worldview, the notion that creative pursuits are just a plaything for the rich and powerful, is shitty. Along with being elitist and snobby, traits you probably don’t care about, it just leads to bad art, the same stale messages seen again and again. Aren’t you bored of Marvel reboots too? Aren’t you fed up with nepo baby discourse? Don’t you like ‘Seinfeld’, a sitcom which unites me and every old person I come into contact with regardless of class and life background, created by Larry David, living in subsidised housing for artists?

Like, I know you don’t care! I know many people like you, and they think these things and believe them wholeheartedly and really, that’s why it’s so maddening. Emma Duncans are everywhere, telling me that I’m an idiot, that I’m wasting my life, when really, what does that mean? Is it not a complete waste of life to just sit in the Baby Shard and pump out copy that makes the world crappier? Is it not a redundant consumption of oxygen to profit from misery, to pretend your work matters, even if it’s very well-read when really it’s just a soft power exercise for a billionaire? All my favourite bits of being alive, whether writing this stupid newsletter or yelling about or watching films, are products of humanities degrees. And all the worst bits are propagated by you and your mates, getting in the way with your ideological commitment to making everyone have a Bad Time.

Again, I’m wasting my breath and my excellent typing skills and should just be looking at funding for PhDs in film studies, but again, a wave of motivation to write is a wave of inspiration to write, you know!