I think history and the softer social sciences / humanities can, if taught well, definitely improve your ability to understand and analyze present-day media and politics. This can improve your qualitative appreciation of works of art, understand journalistic works on their own terms and context instead of taking them at face value, and read and write better.
They can also provide specific cultural literacy, which is useful for your own qualitative appreciation as well as some status things.
I had a pretty shallow understanding of a lot of political ideas until I took a hybrid history/philosophy course that was really excellently taught. It allowed me to read a lot of poltical articles more deeply and understand their motivations and context and the core academic ideas they built around.
That last part, seeing theses implicitly referenced in popular works, is pretty neat.
It allowed me to read a lot of poltical articles more deeply and understand their motivations and context
How do you know that you understand motivations of political articles better? Are you able to predict anything politically relevant that you couldn't have predicted beforehand?
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