Relevance of Arts and Humanities in Contemporary World

Education is the most powerful weapon which you can be used to change the world – Nelson Mandela

It’s very depressing to know that even in the 21st century , arts and humanities are considered inferior to the STEM subjects and are perceived to be not worthy of pursuing. But what we fail to acknowledge is that both sets of subjects play complementary roles in developing a nation. So the real question here is ; what exactly is the relevance of arts and humanities in the contemporary world? How exactly does it contribute to the development of a nation in itself ?

The word “Humanities” originates from the Latin word “humanitas” which means powers or capacities commonly observed in human beings , simply meaning” humane “. So as we can see it primarily concerns human beings. It teaches about lives of people, their histories , their cultures and moreover the prevalence of their lives. The various disciplines provided under the banner Humanities create curiosity, critical thinking and a mind to analyse. Disciplines like political science , history, sociology and anthropology apprise students with the knowledge about the various incidents that shaped the world history, the historic blunders , the evolution of the society, the influence of the social institutions and many more. All of this is equally important and handy when lawmakers create government policies which would undoubtedly shape the future course of the nation and take effective steps in effectively tackling the central problems faced by the nation and henceforth the world. Understanding the history and politics of the modern world would help the citizens in correctly rebuking and criticising the government when a wrong decision is being made ,thus avoiding the historic blunders to repeat itself.

Another set of disciplines like geography, geology, economics play a very significant role in the rat race of the nations to be the best of all. These disciplines help the authorities understand the availability of minerals and other exhaustible and inexhaustible resources and provides them with the required information to draft suitable policies for its exploitation while the citizens could craft their plans to use these resources intelligently.

Economics undoubtedly builds up a nation , helps it to stand on its own without having to compensate its sovereignty with any others and thus is inevitable for the nation building

While the above mentioned are just a few of the platters of subjects that are humanities , it is absolutely nonsensical to say they do not play an important role in nation development. And I genuinely believe that without gifting arts with its deserving respect and acknowledgement, we will never be able to create the innovative , creative and equitable societies that we dream of living in….

By Gajera International School, Utran

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