There is a place for those things in our society, and indeed a much larger place in today's society than there has ever been in the past. Even 100 years ago, th

There is a place for those things in our society, and indeed a much larger place in today's society than there has ever been in the past. Even 100 years ago, the study of any of those things was mostly limited to a very tiny elite who could afford entry to the very tiny number of universities. Now, we have numerous state universities that have created far, far more paying jobs available today for someone with a degree in liberal arts or humanities than has ever been the case in the past. The problem is rather that even with this historically high number of jobs available in history, literature, and so on, the universities are now producing people with degrees in those fields at a much higher rate than there are jobs available. Each faculty member added supports the creation of that many more new degrees in the field every year. Our society currently has a place for n historians (and that's a bigger n than ever before), but there are now also n^2 (or whatever) people with history degrees competing for those slots. There is a place for professionals in these fields, certainly; but there is not a place for every single person who thinks it'd be fun to be a professional historian. The number of people interested in doing that is just far larger than the number of people our society needs to do that. Not everyone can be an astronaut or a rock star, and being a professional in the liberal arts is not different.