In today’s WSJ is an editorial entitled “Not By Geeks Alone” about the need to maintain a liberal arts education in our K-12 schools. It is premised on the fact that there is a huge push by the US Government to bolster our competitiveness with Asian countries in the subjects of Science, Technology, Engineering and Math. Consequently there has been overwhelming support for the America Competes Act which will focus on funding those programs and institutions that show MEASURABLE success at increasing our STEM aptitudes.

The authors acknowledge that increasing our STEM aptitudes will have positive benefits, as our country will most likely close the gap with our Asian competitors in these aptitudes. The question they pose is an interesting one: What is the net effect of deemphasizing liberal arts?

As someone who graduated with an economics minor and has been enjoying Thomas Sowell’s Basic Economics over the past week, I am hyper aware of the laws of scarce resources. If we spend more time on STEM subjects and rigorous testing, we will have to take time away from our study of liberal arts courses. Like the authors I believe that the ongoing success of our economy rests not only with our ability to be technically proficient, but with our ability to discover non-linear economic activities. Apple, Google, Sam Adams, Starbucks…PlansForUs. America’s success derives from those who seek solutions to problems that have non-linear economic outcomes. The skills required to identify those outcomes are described by the authors as “…creativity, versatility, imagination, restlessness, energy, ambition and problem-solving prowess.”

An engineer can have these skills, but only if that engineer spent some time thinking non-linearly. Maybe it was a class on Greek Comedies or on the Rise and Fall of the Qing Dynasty, but one must be intellectually flexible enough to absorb the huge amounts of data input that our world is constantly creating. We will never match up to countries like China and India on a pure technical basis. Sheer numbers make the probability of our success impossible. The way to maintain the success of the US amidst world competition is to generate non-linear economic thinking. Solve a problem that only you have perceived and then get funded by the incredibly flexible market system that we have constructed. Have your company destroyed by an upstart and do it again. This is the reality of our global markets, we no longer have any more access then any other country, therefore we cannot engage in an intellectual arms race.

Competitiveness, technical understanding, technical skills are important…hugely important. Now overlay that with the liberal values described by the authors above and lets keep cranking.Well rounded students are our best bet at success, so lets stop trying to churn out cogs of consistent shapes and sizes…We may all be cogs, but there is no reason that our myriad sizes and shapes can’t work together in a most harmonic way.

By the way, China is feeling like they need to bolster their liberal arts education. If you have NY Times Select (worst idea ever, glad it is being removed) look up the article “Re-Education“.

by Tyler, CEO