The Rutland Herald (Vt.), May 25:

Humorist Andy Borowitz has used President Barack Obama’s commencement address at Rutgers University as a springboard for satire.

According to Borowitz, Republican chairman Reince Priebus declared that Obama’s “pro-knowledge remarks” would come back to haunt the Democrats. Priebus, in Borowitz’s account, said, “This fall, we will ask the American people, ‘Do you want four more years of knowledge, or do you want something else?’ Because the Republican Party has something else.”

Obama’s Rutgers address described the importance of education, not just for launching a career, but also for promoting good citizenship and awareness of the world. “In politics and in life,” Obama said, “ignorance is not a virtue.”

In ordinary times it might not be controversial to praise the virtues of education and of knowledge. But these are not ordinary times.

Marco Rubio, the former presidential candidate, famously declared that the nation needed more welders and fewer philosophers. Earlier this year, Matt Bevins, the governor of Kentucky, argued that state funding for higher education should go to students of electrical engineering rather than to students of French literature. “All the people in the world that want to study French literature can do so, they are just not going to be subsidized by the taxpayer.”

It raises the question of what education is and why the public pays for it. Who needs philosophers? Why study French literature? In a pro-knowledge world, what is all that knowledge for?

Education has a utilitarian purpose, teaching us trades that will allow us to fit into the economy, hold down a job and support ourselves. Science and engineering are utilitarian also, in that they allow for the design and manufacture of useful products. Elevation of the so-called STEM subjects – science, technology, engineering and math – is the latest manifestation of our love of what is useful.

But even in science, the useful depends on pursuits of knowledge that seem far from useful. Scientists seek to answer questions about the physical universe, not with an idea of how their discoveries might be used, but because pushing back the boundaries of knowledge is one of the fundamental human instincts.

It is easy for politicians to make fun of scientists who study obscure topics; John McCain once mocked the use of federal funds for studying the reproduction of grizzly bears. But scientists who go where their curiosity takes them make discoveries that change the world. The study of obscure organisms leads to discoveries about evolution itself. And eventually there is a utilitarian benefit as well – a kind of bonus – because knowledge of evolution leads to the creation of drugs that cure human diseases.

But what of all those philosophers? After Rubio’s remarks, someone showed that philosophers generally make more money than welders do, so there is an economic argument to be made. But that is not the point. If education is meant to challenge and awaken the human spirit, it must allow latitude for curiosity and creativity. If those whose minds are engaged, absorbed, inspired by the study of philosophy or French literature are thwarted, if the opportunities are not there, if faculties have been laid off, if financial aid is unavailable, education and the human spirit suffer. If we are using public funds to pay for education, we are paying for people to learn in areas about which they have unique insights and deep passion. No one can dictate what path anyone must follow. Opening up a multiplicity of paths is what colleges, universities and high schools do.

The liberal arts and the humanities show us what it is to be human. If our students’ minds are not allowed to dig deep into our history, literature, philosophy, politics, social sciences, religion, arts, we will be stumbling blindly into the future.

Many people fear that the American people are poised this year to make a giant stumbling fall into a dark place, where the only value that is venerated is the value of money, where knowledge is mocked and truculent unreason rules the day. We will one day be grateful that we have been served by a “pro-knowledge” president.