Explaining the Relegation of the Social Sciences, Humanities and the Arts in the Arab Region

Abstract

Marginalizing Arab world workers in the humanities, social sciences, and Arts is problematic. The history of the division of labor in the social “pyramid scheme” is introduced, arguing that professional status is based on its conceived service function to society. Marginalization of these workers is explained by the absence of an appropriate social function in comparison to the manipulation of power by the rulers and values by ideologues. Humanities services provides: 1- linguistic training, 2- logical skills, 3- scientific facts, 4- history of ideas, 5- philosophical, and 6- axiological aptitudes. The social researcher’s role deals with the paradigm of “ten identity carriers”, e.g., kinship, gender, and class, and the resulting search for fairness. The services of fine arts are seen in the need for narratives and audio-visual worlds that create markets for the consumption of pleasures. Marginalizing these professions contributes to fanaticism and the weakening of the modernization project.