Anti intellectualism.

Philosophers are always the first targets of anti-intellectuals. People genuinely believe that studding what’s true about the world is a waste of time.

You can tell that this is a prejudice because the same people who think you shouldn’t get paid for having useless knowledge will still hire economists.

“The arts are useless and will make you a poor stupid leftist… Do a trade” <----- type of statemet that has been doing the rounds on the far-right since at least 2014.

Because everyone hates moral philosophy professors, Chidi.

Well, there’s an anti-intellectual streak in the world. And, given the cultural trends of the last 20 years, it’s not getting smaller. So there’s that. Deep down some people will think you think you’re better than them. Deep down some people might be touchy about touchy about their level of education and tired to being lied and condescended to by people presenting themselves as cultural authorieies.

I think Western capitalist culture has slowly eroded the value of thinking in favor of doing and, through gradual financial coercion via the International Monetary Fund, this has slowly become the global dominant worldview.

In other words, you were born a few centuries too late for philosophy to be valued. Even in the past it was often met with scrutiny (though often commanded respect).

Nowadays thinkers are expected to ascend corporate ladders and embed themselves within instituions with the ultimate goal of extracting excess capital beyond ones needs from said institutions. That is what the current global value system supports.

Hey, almost-same boat here! I’m guessing in your late 20s/early 30s, you were likely surrounded by people who were in the same environment (higher ed), or who were sussing out your potential. But when you’re out of the ivory tower, it doesn’t mean shit.

Humanities degrees are critical thinking in a way that people generally don’t want to engage in. There’s no neat solution, and it will eventually make you confront your own ideology, or the one you’ve been in the grip of, and people really don’t want to think about that. Even more simply, higher ed is a stand in for “liberalism,” and in the last couple years, a thing to outright and wholly reject.

I don’t tell people that my English Ph.D. primary list straight up said “communist theory” at the top. I’m happy to let everyone think I just proofread stuff after 16 years of school, and I’ll say I should’ve been an electrician every time. I think a rich inner life and infinitely more nuanced understanding of the world is better than whatever my neighbor’s got going on.

I don’t think it makes them uncomfortable, I think they just don’t get it.

Most of us are told to go to school to get the job you want, and philosopher really hasn’t been a high demand job since ancient Greece.

For whatever it’s worth: in my 20s I went for the obvious/easy/high-paying career and have made enough money to retire early. But I deeply regret working for soulless corporations doing pointless bullshit tasks for 35+ years.

I’ve recently started reading an introductory philosophy book and I love it.

Its because most of them don’t really know what philosophy is, so someone being a master of it makes them feel very insecure - like they’re cornered with a topic they know nothing about.

I think it’s cool! Congratulations on your two degrees. As to your question, I’m not sure why people would find it negative.

I’m sure OP knows this, but there are many branches of philosophy. On the epistemology side, there’s usually more focus on meaning and knowledge. On ethics, focus on right and wrong. On logic, it’s closer to math and science.

Many people think philosophy just means sophistry and arguing, but each branch has practical applications too. Some of my philosophy major friends ended up going for PhDs. The only career path there was writing and teaching. For those who didn’t, it was to supplement some other degree.

I wonder if its the age of people you’re interacting with now, as you’ve gotten older yourself? My first degree was in philosophy, and I still read and discuss the subject when I get the chance. In my 20s lots of peers were curious or genuinely interested, and even if they were dismissive, it was often “what’s the point of that?” and could get the interested if I started explaining a classic problem or thought experiment.

Older people however, were generally more disparaging and would openly scoff with “why would we need philosophy!” often followed by “[Science | religion | real life] tells us everything we need to know” depending on their particuar worldview.

At the time I just thought that was what that generation was like, but now I’m in my 40s and I feel like many peers are getting more and more like that. I can only speculate that middle-aged people are less curious and openminded, they’ve come to terms with the world as they see it and they’re interested in getting on with things, not questioning the nature of epistemology or whatever. But the irony is that almost all the major problems that occupy so much of our time as a culture have massive philosophical aspects to them.

Just imagining the wasted time and brain power makes me uncomfortable

I personally think anybody here saying your negative response is because people hate thinkers or anti intellectualism or whatever is totally missing the point. Those things are certainly true. But probably not why you get weird looks.

Probably it’s a combination of 2 things:

1. In 2025 philosophy, English, history, poetry, etc are to greater or lesser extents “hobby degrees”. People enjoy the topics generally but don’t see a way to repay loans using that degree, because if you’re not going to go teach it or write the next book, there’s no money in it. These are things we do with our free time for the love of it.

2. By extension of 1, if you CAN have one of these degrees you either a) have a boatload of money, b) you must be naive of the fact (according to people you are talking to) that your job prospects are very limited, or c) you have extreme aptitude to be part of the small group that can make it, but everybody will still limp you into b.

I have a friend who majored in music in college, but not to teach: it was specifically to play timpani. He also was perplexed at the negative reactions he would get. Unfortunately right before he graduated someone told him that there are only like 10 professional concert timpanist positions in the country that provide a salary you can live from, and the rest just moonlight and have other jobs. After 1 year if hunting a good position he sold his drums and got a job in marketing selling windows and siding.

Of course the world would be less vibrant without professionals in these areas, but there are a lot more philosophy majors working in, say, marketing than there are Humes, Kants, Socrateses, Hegels, and so on.

Basically it doesn’t look practical so it seems like either a bad financial choice or that you’re a spoiled rich kid unless you mention “double major” type stuff.