[Serious] Generally speaking, is philosophy a worthwhile subject of study?

[vulcanlogician]

Do you not think "food for the mind" is important? I think it is. Even for every day folks with a plateful of practical concerns. Maybe even ESPECIALLY for those folks. Maybe "food for the mind" is just another kind of nourishment that the elites horde for themselves when it ought to be available to everybody.

I dig what you are saying Brewer. I don't like intellectual elitism much at all. I agree that privileged rich men ought not be the only ones exploring these questions. But that has little to do with the value of the questions themselves.

Yes, I think food for the mind is important, but that food is found in many ways that do not need to be based in philosophy. Can a mechanic improve his skills with learning more and better techniques? Can someone learning to sew expand their mind and creativity? Or the first farmers testing how to improve production? Questions and resultant answers or acquisition of skills (mind food) do not need to be derived only from philosophy.

Yes. Those things qualify as "food for the mind." 

So does art, literature, poetry, and (sometimes) network TV. I've been watching Star Trek Discovery. How practical is a science fiction show about aliens and space fantasy exploration?

Let's say we remove a couple "impractical" things from humanity's buffet of food for the mind. Let's take away art and poetry. Is humankind better off? I'd say no. I would say they are worse off. Art and poetry enhance humankind by bestowing catharsis and sometimes creative power to those who appreciate them. It's hard to quantify what practical use art or poetry has, but it could be argued that such things are --indirectly-- of practical use. I would argue that philosophy is one of those things (like art and poetry) that enhance the human experience. Is philosophy all-important? No. But take it away from humankind, and we will have lost something immensely valuable.

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I could also argue that philosophy IS of great practical import. In America we have inalienable human rights. The concept of inalienable human rights didn't come out of thin air. Nor did it come from someone trying to found a great nation which protected its citizens liberty via the concept. 

It came from a thinker who asked the question: What is justice? 

Inalienable human rights played a crucial role in his answer to that question. He then formulated a set of logical arguments bolstering his position. An intelligent person (Thomas Jefferson) found those arguments convincing and applied those principles to his work in nation building.

The reason Jefferson was convinced is because John Locke made a convincing case that relied on few assumptions. That's what philosophers do. And that can be of immense practical value sometimes.