Redefining human value

“Medicine, law, business, engineering, these are all noble pursuits, and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for.”

This famous quote comes from Robin Williams’ portrayal of English teacher John Keating in the 1989 film Dead Poets Society. Mr. Keating inspires his students — and the audience — to embrace the art of living, urging them to consider whether their academic ambitions can co-exist with their deepest passions.

This quote also captures the ongoing tension between STEM fields and disciplines rooted in the humanities. 

In today’s world, students are frequently pressured to prioritize fields and careers tied to economic prosperity, such as in STEM, as capitalism and technology play an alarming role in devaluing passions in the arts and humanities that fall outside the ideals of financial success. 

Why is the most value not placed on the things for which we “stay alive?” And how meaningful are lives lived not for passion but for endless pursuit?

How ‘hard’ should we study science?

I study political science, which is a ‘social’ science: often considered part of the so-called ‘soft sciences.’ 

While ‘hard sciences’ often bring to mind laboratories, test tubes, and coding language, soft sciences might conjure stacks of essays, dense theoretical texts, and notes scribbled in the margins of books. When it comes to scientific prowess, one type is often seen as more ‘valuable’ than the other — and it’s not the soft sciences.

In my second year at U of T, I took two data science courses with political science objectives. In the first, I learned basic programming skills to analyze and visualize data, such as mental health statistics across various demographic groups. The second course built on this foundation, teaching me to navigate statistical programming software.

I had never felt more confident in my academic career than during this period. By steering my political science studies towards more ‘tech’-based methods, I felt I was making my degree more valuable and practical.

Upon reflection, I realize that balancing my perceived ‘informal’ political science skills with ‘formal’ computational skills did not inherently legitimize my field of study. Political science — with or without programming or data science — was never inferior, and never will be. 

Soft sciences, like any hard science, also rely on scientific values and methods, such as objectivity, experimentation, algorithms, critical thinking, and analysis. Hard sciences often rely on math-based or empirical evidence, while soft sciences often use more subjective methods to analyze information. 

Skills often associated with the hard sciences can complement those of soft sciences just as well. However, the competitive rhetoric in academia — often wrapped in debates about what counts as a real science will real proof — pits different skills against each other. This rhetoric made me believe that academic legitimacy requires hard science-related skills.

Strategically maneuvering the capitalist climate

Much of the debate framing different fields of studies as inherently unequal stems from the competitive hierarchy that pervades U of T and the wider world. Within academia, competition revolves around getting research grants, while outside it, the focus shifts to a well-paying job that lasts in this economy.

Employability is often the primary metric of value applied to academic study. At several points during my university years, I have questioned how — if at all — I could translate my work as a political science student into a financially rewarding career. Though many of us feel a burning passion for studies that involve artistry, this is often extinguished by the reality that such pursuits are unlikely to offer adequate financial compensation.

Unlike other fields under the humanities, social sciences can sometimes lead to high-paying careers, as individuals studying political science may go into law or public policy. In fields like public policy, hard science skills like statistics and math are often necessary.

In contrast, disciplines like religion or art history under the humanities tend to be less financially rewarding. Primarily focused on historical and theoretical learning, I feel that humanities foster skills that are harder to translate into the current tech-driven job market.

In an era where technology rapidly shapes daily life, tech-focused fields, like computer programming and engineering, are seen as the most valuable. They are associated with job stability and high salaries — though the market for these jobs has become more competitive in recent years. 

Artificial intelligence’s (AI) recent surge further emphasizes the value of tech-related fields and careers. Popular AI chatbots like ChatGPT and Google Gemini offer corner-cutting capabilities: tasks like writing an email, following a recipe, and answering everyday questions have become effortless with just a few clicks. AI can also quickly and conventionally tackle even the most complex issues, from step-by-step mathematical problem-solving to critical analyses of literature and comprehensive coding solutions. 

However, AI chatbots disrupt individual thought, connection-making, and the meaningful analysis of academic material that students are meant to engage with. They also replace humans in creative, imaginative thought by centering themselves and decentering human participation.

Our hypervaluation of AI reflects a skewed sense of value: we prioritize what works at optimal speeds, delivers optimal results, and offers optimal convenience. Anything that doesn’t function like AI — such as the slower thought processes in the humanities or our own human work ethics — is deemed low value. AI threatens to render humans obsolete.  

Technophilia, and its roots in capitalism

In her book, Karl Marx on Technology and Alienation — an interpretive reflection on Marx’s theories of labour, productivity, technology, and capitalism — Amy E. Wendling proposes an alternative perspective of our ideas of value, particularly revolving around technology and labour.

Wendling acknowledged the transformation of human-machine relationships, explaining that warped valuations of human and machinery roles lead to a “devaluation of human beings and a hypervaluation of scientific and technological advance.” 

She wrote about this phenomenon in 2009 — today, I believe it remains the same, if not worse. Where human-made technologies were once secondary to the humans who designed them, technology now precedes humans. 

This transformation in human-machine relations can be attributed to what many scholars term ‘technophilia.’ 

In a 2017 article from the journal Technology in Society, titled “Assessing technophobia and technophilia,” researchers at the Tallinn University of Technology define technophilia as “strong attraction and enthusiasm for technology, especially new technologies such as personal computers, the Internet, smartphones, and/or other devices.” 

It is unsurprising then that alongside the universal rise in the development, innovation, and access to technology, technological fanaticism has also risen. However, these researchers argue that technology’s prevalence in our daily lives has also gone so far as to make us unable to live, work, or communicate without consulting it. 

As we become accustomed to the ubiquity of technology, we begin to see it as the natural solution to problems that might have once been approached through non-technological means, such as once “sending a hand-written letter to a friend… instead of [now] sending [them] an email [or] message.” This shift has prompted us to approach problems from technological rather than humanistic perspectives. 

The subversion of human practices into an increasingly inhuman technological world is a phenomenon that deserves more attention than it has received thus far — both in formal research and in public discourse. From what we choose to study in university to the careers we pursue, our use of time and energy, and even how we think, major aspects of our lives have been distorted by the hypervaluation of technology. 

Optimizing at the expense of our human-ness

In her book, Wendling envisions a world in which we can “conceptualize a mode of human activity without pain, the doing of which is its own reward,” suggesting a world where work is enjoyable and a reward in itself. 

To maximize economic productivity, a capitalist society relies on people’s labour, requiring them to expend significant time and energy to create a product — leaving little room for our “instinctual drives,” such as spending time on leisure, because society deems them unproductive. 

Therefore, capitalist societies devalue fundamental human desires because they conflict with production. This is why many people sacrifice happiness for financial gain when choosing a university program or career path. 

It’s no surprise then that many workers in high-paying jobs — such as engineering and computer science — experience unhappiness, dissatisfaction, and stress, as these fields are often demanding in energy and time, resulting in poor work-life balance and disengagement in the workplace. 

It is also unsurprising then that many people view their labour as a means to achieve what truly excites their passions. Some who pursue challenging careers may do so in part to attain what they truly covet: travel, vacations, and high-quality time off. 

Maximizing economic productivity is also closely linked to time. Modern forms of labour demand that we optimize our time, expending high amounts of energy on increasing efficiency and on multitasking. 

We have come to assign value to AI as a useful tool for optimizing time and energy because of the wide variety of services it offers and the speed at which it delivers them. 

In a university context, students use AI chatbots to solve homework problems, write papers, and, in some cases, cheat on tests and exams. In response to universities confronting the issue, students’ AI use has evolved cleverly. Many engage in multi-level plagiarism by generating an essay on one chatbot site and then using another to reword it. Others ask chatbots to enhance self-written essays with academic language. 

A common justification among students is that chatbots save time and energy that they could spend on other assignments, extracurriculars, or leisure. 

The fact that many students and employees spend so much time working simply to get away from work shows that something is fundamentally wrong in how we conceptualize labour and its value. We place immense value on labour — which is inherently unrewarding — because it enables us to achieve other goals, to which we actually attribute inherent value. 

When human needs like mutual respect and work-life balance are antithetical to capitalistic labour — wherein workers are mere cogs in a machine — how can such labour be seen as sustaining any aspect of human life beyond the need for continuous financial income? 

Furthermore, when the drive for productivity causes us to increasingly spend time conversing with artificial chatbots — reducing our engagement with real people — aren’t we devaluing slower but necessary processes like critical thinking, creativity, and social engagement?

Neither Wendling nor I argue that the principle of working hard for what you want is inherently wrong. But capitalism’s dehumanization of workers urges us to reconsider existing labour and technology systems so human needs can coexist with, rather than conflict with, work. 

Subverting the subversion by revaluing artistry

In political science studies, we craft dozens of written works every year — tens of thousands of words and seemingly endless readings that push us to become proficient readers and writers. But many of us are already drawn to literary arts, and this passion only enhances our studies.

I have always loved both reading and writing because of the value they hold for me. Literary fiction, one of my favourite genres, not only explores meaningful themes of human existence but also does so through the captivating use of beautiful prose. The ability to craft both complex themes and sophisticated prose reflects the kind of poetic artistry that I, like others, “stay alive for.”

I believe the value of any form of artistry lies in itself, not in what it gives us in exchange for our engagement with it. 

Through exploring artistic themes, ideas, questions, and propositions, art ‘gives’ us inspiration. But this inspiration and enjoyment — whether from literature or other forms of art — is not a means to procure something else. Art is inherently valuable, unlike the capitalistic use of technology or the practice of labour — which are worthless unless exchanged for things like time and money. Art speaks to our souls. 

I can recall many times when I’ve felt overcome with emotion after finishing a novel or film. This passion invoked by art is so powerful because it provides a sense of understanding. Though authors like Patti Smith and Joan Didion have no idea I exist, reading their work makes it feel as though they do — that is how well they speak to themes and ideas that relate to my own life. 

We often see the value of things in their potential to reward us for our engagement — things that give us something exchangeable in return. 

Energy = value: no one expends energy to labour for the sake of labouring; we do so to ‘make a living.’ 

Time = value: we consult AI to absolve us from thinking for more than 10 seconds, saving us those precious seconds to spend on other work. 

Money = value: we come face-to-face with dozens of different screens every day, and, by coming to understand them as natural as air and water, we capitalize on their cruciality by entering fields that champion technology. 

We do our schoolwork in exchange for good grades, which we exchange for admission to a good job, where we earn a high paycheck, which we use to pay for material things. But when we engage with art, what we get in return — wisdom, inspiration, and simple enjoyment — is indispensable. It need not be exchanged for something better because nothing better exists.

Toward the end of Patti Smith’s memoir Just Kids, her lifelong friend Robert Mapplethorpe lies on his deathbed and asks her whether spending his life evolving as an artist was worthwhile. In response, Smith wrote, “Only a fool would regret being had by art.” 

Whether you are passionate about literature or other art forms such as visual arts, music, and film, always remember its value in the face of a world that tries to devalue that which speaks not to systems of division, hierarchy, or inhumanity, but to our humanity. 

It is not how fast, how well, or how much we produce, but how fulfilled we are that satisfies our humanity.