David Foster Wallace This Is Water Summary

Have you ever questioned your purpose in life? How have you evolved from your experiences? The humanities, also known as the soft sciences, are known to study the elements that shape human life. This includes history, art, music, linguistics, and psychology. Yet, people tend to question their importance, what they do, and how these studies are important to our everyday lives. David Foster Wallace in his speech, “This is Water,” argues to college graduates that the knowledge gained from studying humanities. Liberal arts have helped them gain the necessary skills to be able to control how and what they think in life. John Horgan in his text, “Why Study Humanities? What I Tell Engineering Freshman,” argues to engineering students that despite

Wallace also tries to gain the trust of his audience by making a contradictory statement. In his speech, Wallace tries to explain the answer to the question of how the actual knowledge gained from liberal arts education serves to escape a negative mindset, mentioning: “Probably the most dangerous thing about college education, at least in my own case, is that it enables my tendency to over-intellectualize stuff.” (Wallace 2). Wallace may have wanted to seem relatable to the audience by mentioning he studied humanities, but he has trouble as well. However, Wallace does not answer the questions the audience may have, instead, he adds another problem to the issue of escaping this natural mindset. The audience expected a speech with answers to their questions, to help them in the real world, not advice that has been given by everyone. Horgan added a counterargument, that was essentially a question from the reader, yet he refuted it, making his argument stronger. Wallace, on the other hand, never disclosed the answer to this problem, he only insisted people escape this “default-setting,” but never explained