Society is like a big discussion that takes place in many different communities, groups, institutions, some using being specialists, using special language, some having more influence than others. If you can't take part in that discussion, your interests wont be represented. If many of the specialist, influential discussions can only be taken part in by people with wealth, then the interests of people without it will become marginalised. Generally people know what they need for themselves better anyone else. Not being able to voice needs leads to society not working for those people, and barriers to them gaining wealth, and doing work that is useful for themselves and all society. The humanities is not for the pursuit of the life of the mind, it is important for a functioning society.

Many topics in maths and engineering are very intuitive to pick without formal education. To understand Humanities requires discussion with others. Writing and getting feed back on a lot of essays, listening to and explaining ideas in seminars, testing out an idea in a lecture. It can take a decade to start to understand someone like Foucault. It's hard to find a community of specialised discussion outside of formal education. Just picking up humanities from a few youtube videos or whatever is what I am convinced has led us to the kind of unobjective activism that is reacted against so much recently.