Quote some Homer. I dare you.

For what seems like years, I have been reporting opinions and surveys of the diminishing value of design professions and similar artistic endeavors. In our related professions, Architects and Graphic Designers have been pushed aside in favor of virtually every kind of Engineer. Through the last recession, staggering unemployment percentages have been cited by many sources.

Now, we have non other than the New York Times reporting on some consequences of this trend. To see their article on the reduced interest in humanities studies, go to http://goo.gl/PskAvi. There you will see comments about such places as Harvard University, which has "... had a 20 percent decline in humanities majors over the last decade."

In my case, I came out of an Architecture School which was considered to be Engineering-oriented - my School of Architecture was part of the "Faculty of Engineering". During my class reunions, it's not uncommon for us to laugh about the group antagonism we had for mandatory "dance" class intended to make us aware of human movement though space. Over the years, however, many of my peers and co-workers have had more diverse and broad-based experience than I. As a consequence, I have developed a great respect for someone who is equally adept at quoting both William Shakespeare and I.M. Pei.

Where will we be as a society if we become dominated by technicians and scientists? The pleasure of the arts, the appreciation for history, the impact of emotions, the value of discourse and contemplation - will these all be lost? I hope not.

My suspicion is that this trend - which is no doubt real - is cyclical, related to the miserable economy we may be coming out of. Perhaps, in thirty years we'll be advocating that our children become philosophers. Now wouldn't that be fun?