In the last 30 years, there has been a huge cultural shift in pedagogical discourse and in society in general to look for positive, directly assessable instrumental outcomes.
There are a number of reasons for this – most notably the shift to knowledge economies in Western nations driven by the rise of countries where cheap labour is abundant, such as India and China, and the idea that the economy is what a country is all about – a result of Western capitalism. The ultimate goal of education under the current model is to serve the economy.
Humanities, on the other hand, are not directly about producing skills required by the economy; the outcomes are not instrumental. Nevertheless, an understanding of the society in which one lives is not informed by an understanding of maths or physics or engineering or biology. It is informed by examining the artifacts of the society in light of the cultural constructs that led to them, be they literature, TV, movies, music, social movements or, frankly, practically anything else.
The value that is placed on an area of enquiry is determined by the society in which such enquiry is practised. I would ask you to reverse the question and ask what a trained historian can’t do.
As an example, why would a trained software engineer be better placed to understand the American independence movement or the trends and turning points that led to the revolution, the declaration of independence and the framing of the constitution? More importantly, why shouldn’t there be people who are experts in the topic?
They might not “produce” in the strict sense of the word, but any society that stops trying to understand itself is not a society in which I would like to live.
If we accept that there is no role for the attempt to understand the ineffable, we are further along the road to the Brave New World than I think any of us would be comfortable with.