Although I understand the hypothetical nature of the “life raft” situation, obviously if there was only one spot left and only one person that could be saved, the selection process would heavily depend on the time period following the disaster. For example, if it were within a year or so of the disaster, obviously basic needs would be accounted for first. As a psychology major (and noticing that you were one too), you must have been familiar with Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs.. my point being that the most fundamental needs should be taken care of first (i.e. food, water, shelter, etc). Not only would the priority of needs be emphasized in this situation, but also their importance to the act of living in the long term be underscored too. That is, we need a doctor so that we don’t die prematurely, but we don’t need a medieval english literature professor to “biologically” live. We may need a farmer who is adroit in multiple agricultural and irrigation practices (for food), but we may not need a theoretical cosmologist who used to study the origins of the Big Bang at Fermilab.

What I’m getting at here is that education itself has advanced to the point where we know so much about the world and its intricacies, that subfields of subfields of academic disciplines have been created that are progressing evermore into the realm of the esoteric. This, I believe, is also the path of the liberal arts education.

Now, please understand that I as well attended a small liberal arts college, and like you, I am grateful for going there. I feel that it has helped my thinking, writing, and general outlook on the world. However, when I chose to go to a liberal arts college, I knew that I was not going to learn practical, pragmatic skills. I, like you, chose to go there to learn how to learn. This is an important skill, no doubt, but it is nonetheless a skill that would most certainly arise later as a civilization advances. I imagine it would be increasingly more difficult, however, to begin a world anew lacking the surgical techniques and agricultural practices which took us thousands of years to refine.

In truth, I feel that certain disciplines and fields of study should be ranked higher than others according to their overall contributions to society. Now, I wrote the word “contributions,” making sure not to mistake it with the word, “value.” Many of the pragmatic disciplines, like engineering or medicine, tell us how to live (in the most optimal way possible), but they do not tell us WHY we live. This “why,” is perhaps the crux of many civilians’ lives today and is most likely best answered with religion, philosophy, beauty, and truth. Getting into if we need the “why” to live, is a whole other argument altogether, but perhaps (in my opinion) is a more contemporary view of existence; that is, I can’t imagine our hunter-gatherer ancestors contemplating this “meta-thinking” very much.

Your thoughts?