It would be good to join the dots between your article on Thatcherism (Thatcherism is an obsolete ideology – but it’s the only one that Sunak and Truss have, 19 August) and the article on the rise of Stem (science, technology, engineering and maths) subjects and fall of humanities at A-level (This year’s A-level results in England explained in five charts, 18 August).
In times of economic insecurity, students and their parents are prioritising earning a living over deepening their understanding of their lives and larger questions of meaning. The fundamental materialism of the Thatcher philosophy rules. English literature is not in the top 10; neither is philosophy or religious studies. Psychology (ranked second) is a kind of science, hence a placeholder for the concerns of these subjects. Yet, in the end, our lives are stories and we hunger for beauty and meaning. Moral matters are complex and vital, and need thinking about. And we are spiritual as well as physical animals, who have to struggle to find out who we are and the meaning of things.
It is heartening that at GCSE level more than 400,000 children studied for an exam paper focused on a Shakespeare play. The good and true things won’t go away, however we elide them.
Stefan Hawlin
Professor of English literature, University of Buckingham
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