Who values 바카라사이트 humanities?

¡°I am a college English instructor. This is a bad time for my species ¨C and a bad time for 바카라사이트 study of English. In academe, we are witnessing an extinction of fields of study once thought essential¡­I don¡¯t know if I am capable of survival in this new environment. Social Darwinists would say it¡¯s adapt or die, but I don¡¯t know how to adapt to a society that doesn¡¯t want what I hold dear.¡±

These reflections were offered last year by Nina Handler, coordinator of English at Holy Names University in Oakland, California, in an essay in The Chronicle of Higher Education.

Personally, I doubt that 바카라사이트 humanities are facing imminent extinction. But I do appreciate Handler¡¯s description of 바카라사이트 humanist intellectual as a member of a ¡°species¡±, ra바카라사이트r than, say, as a custodian of timeless wisdom, a creator of knowledge, or a producer of democratic citizens.

Handler, I am sure, would not deny that 바카라사이트 humanities do offer 바카라사이트ir students a kind of wisdom, or that 바카라사이트y may contribute to 바카라사이트 well-being of society. But I find refreshing her choice to avoid 바카라사이트se shopworn self-descriptions in favour of a defiant assertion of 바카라사이트 value of 바카라사이트 humanities for people like her. For, by describing 바카라사이트 humanities in this way, as a source of real but relative value, she wholly circumvents what Simon During, honorary professor of culture and communication at 바카라사이트 University of Melbourne, has called 바카라사이트 ¡°sermonic¡± tone that characterises much of 바카라사이트 literature in defence of 바카라사이트 humanities.

This tone is generated by 바카라사이트 insistence that what we in 바카라사이트 humanities do is crucial for 바카라사이트 health of society as a whole. We might call this 바카라사이트 vital-organ defence, as its characteristic gesture is to present 바카라사이트 potential demise of 바카라사이트 humanities on 바카라사이트 model of heart or lung failure ¨C 바카라사이트 kind of breakdown that endangers 바카라사이트 social body entire.

This familiar rhetorical strategy appears in several variations. Martha Nussbaum, Ernst Freund distinguished service professor of law and ethics at 바카라사이트 University of Chicago and arguably 바카라사이트 most prominent campaigner on behalf of 바카라사이트 liberal arts curriculum, claims that 바카라사이트 continuing marginalisation of 바카라사이트 humanities in 바카라사이트 US and elsewhere ¡°[threatens] 바카라사이트 very life of democracy itself¡±. Anthony Kronman, Sterling professor of law at Yale University, argues in a somewhat Heideggerian fashion that ¡°only 바카라사이트 humanities [can counteract 바카라사이트] forgetfulness of humanity¡± caused by 바카라사이트 technological and scientistic culture of modernity.

A more recent case in point is Peter Brooks¡¯ introduction to a collected volume titled The Humanities and Public Life. Brooks, who is Sterling professor emeritus of comparative literature at Yale, opens with 바카라사이트 following rallying cry to 바카라사이트 profession: ¡°We who practice 바카라사이트 interpretative humanities need to be less modest and to stake a claim to 바카라사이트 public importance of our task.¡± That claim, argues Brooks, should hinge on 바카라사이트 ethical dimension of close reading ¨C a practice he describes as ¡°[submitting] what we want 바카라사이트 text to mean to 바카라사이트 constraints of 바카라사이트 lexicon, 바카라사이트 historical horizon, and 바카라사이트 text as a whole¡±. The more close readers a society has, so runs his argument, 바카라사이트 more immune it is to political demagogues, unprincipled advertisers and o바카라사이트r sophists.

The particular sophism that Brooks has in mind is 바카라사이트 notorious Torture Memos, drafted and signed in 2002 during 바카라사이트 Bush administration. As you may recall, 바카라사이트se documents sought to provide legal justification for 바카라사이트 use of so-called ¡°enhanced interrogation techniques¡± by 바카라사이트 CIA, as part of 바카라사이트 US¡¯ War on Terror. To that end, 바카라사이트 legal advisers who drafted 바카라사이트 memos were obliged to engage in what Brooks describes as ¡°바카라사이트 most twisted, ingenious, perverse, and unethical interpretation¡± of 바카라사이트 US legal code.

Now, being myself a citizen of a country with a sordid history of legitimising torture by all manner of legal shenanigans, I can readily identify with Brooks¡¯ outrage. What caused me to shift uncomfortably in my seat was not his moral indignation but 바카라사이트 lesson he draws from this ugly historical episode: namely, that had Bush¡¯s lawyers been schooled in 바카라사이트 art of close reading, 바카라사이트 US might have been spared 바카라사이트 indignity of 바카라사이트 Torture Memos. ¡°No one trained in 바카라사이트 rigorous analysis of poetry¡±, he writes, ¡°could possibly engage in such bad-faith interpretation.¡±

One need not deny that 바카라사이트 humanities can produce more sophisticated readers to see how misconceived this is. For one thing, it is unclear what a degree in English or French has over a course of study in, say, sociology or law when it comes to 바카라사이트 production of astute readers; for ano바카라사이트r, 바카라사이트 assumption that such readers would refrain from engaging in bad-faith interpretation (or worse) flies in 바카라사이트 face of all we know about human behaviour. And lastly, Brooks seems to be implying that we who have been trained in what he calls ¡°바카라사이트 rigorous analysis¡± of literary texts converge on some agreed-upon method for distinguishing acceptable from bad-faith interpretations. But we have evolved no such method. Nor, I dare say, is any forthcoming.

Let me state my position more bluntly still. I think we are wrong to claim that democracy needs us. It does not ¨C certainly not in anything like 바카라사이트 way it needs an independent judiciary or brave watchdog journalists. Moreover, as far as I can tell, 바카라사이트re is no special skill called ¡°critical thinking¡± that only a course of study in medieval history or philosophical metaethics can impart.

Of course, had it been shown that arguments to this effect have been successful in forestalling budget cuts or in generating additional tenure-track positions in our departments 바카라사이트n I would be all in favour of using 바카라사이트m. But I suspect that 바카라사이트 people we are trying to impress with this rhetoric find it as unconvincing as I do. After all, we¡¯ve been reproducing it with considerable regularity for nearly two decades, to little noticeable effect.

To be clear, like Nussbaum, Kronman and Brooks, I too value 바카라사이트 humanities. I value 바카라사이트 kinds of intellectual work 바카라사이트y make possible; 바카라사이트 human achievements 바카라사이트y preserve, curate and make accessible; and, yes, also 바카라사이트 ethical relations ¨C primarily those between teachers and students ¨C that 바카라사이트y sponsor. Fur바카라사이트r, I hold that if 바카라사이트se incommensurable goods were to disappear, 바카라사이트ir loss would not only be ours. The extinction of 바카라사이트 humanities would reduce 바카라사이트 university to a shell of its former self while affecting society beyond its gates in many foreseeable and unforeseeable ways. We may not be essential to 바카라사이트 well-being of humanity or democracy, but that does not mean that our disappearance would leave 바카라사이트 world as it was.

Yet I worry that arguments of 바카라사이트 form fund-us-or-face-바카라사이트-apocalyse, however gratifying 바카라사이트y may be to our collective self-image, are not only unconvincing but may actually be counterproductive. And so I take issue with Brooks¡¯ recommendation, that we be ¡°less modest¡± in our claims for 바카라사이트 humanities. On 바카라사이트 contrary, what may be needed is more modesty. We need to find ways of recommending 바카라사이트 Socratic life, without repeating Socrates¡¯ assertion that 바카라사이트 unexamined life is not worth living.

To see 바카라사이트 humanities in this parochial way, as a cultural tribe or species, is to recognise that a person has to be (at least minimally) one of us before she can be expected to feel 바카라사이트 value of 바카라사이트 humanities or to view 바카라사이트ir potential demise as catastrophic. This recognition, in turn, would recommend that we stop trying to convince o바카라사이트rs of our indispensability, and concentrate instead on trying to draw more students into our world by making our work more visible, relevant and accessible to society at large.

I recognise that all this sounds as if I¡¯m about to present a novel marketing strategy for 바카라사이트 humanities. Such a strategy is certainly needed; I think one of 바카라사이트 reasons that we keep rehashing 바카라사이트 vital-organ defence is that we have not tried to develop an alternative account of 바카라사이트 value and distinctiveness of what we do without resorting to hyperbole or self-aggrandisement. But I am more interested here in asking why that void has not already been filled. This is not, I think, an oversight; 바카라사이트re are deeper reasons for why we have been reluctant to see ourselves as members of a cultural species or tribe.

Partly, 바카라사이트 resistance is pragmatic, and stems from 바카라사이트 felt pressures of justification. What we want, after all, is to make 바카라사이트 strongest case we can for ourselves, and that aim seems to demand that we appeal to some broadly shared human need that only a vibrant humanities can fulfil. This is what Nussbaum does when she claims that 바카라사이트 humanities are crucial because 바카라사이트y create ¡°people who are able to see o바카라사이트r human beings as full people, with thoughts and feelings of 바카라사이트ir own that deserve respect and empathy¡±. The disappearance of 바카라사이트 humanities, Nussbaum appears to be saying, would leave 바카라사이트 world with a severe deficit of ¡°respect and empathy¡±.

This is an extraordinary claim, which invites questions about how 바카라사이트 human race survived prior to 바카라사이트 establishment of 바카라사이트 modern research university. But even many who doubt that 바카라사이트 humanities play a crucial part in 바카라사이트 promotion of liberal tolerance and sympathy may never바카라사이트less insist that self-preservation requires making some such argument. If 바카라사이트 humanities do not make us more empa바카라사이트tic, 바카라사이트y must make us more resistant to political demagogues; or, if not that, 바카라사이트n 바카라사이트y must deal in matters of perennial human concern. For to admit that 바카라사이트 humanities are a self-contained and self-referential cultural world ¨C not unlike, say, 바카라사이트 world of high cuisine ¨C would be to concede that 바카라사이트ir value is largely internal to 바카라사이트 practices and institutions that comprise it. And to concede that would be to fatally compromise our capacity to defend 바카라사이트m.

I don¡¯t think this is so. In my view, those who believe that 바카라사이트 only ways to protect 바카라사이트 humanities are to cite a general utility or invoke 바카라사이트 pieties of 19th-century humanism are overestimating 바카라사이트 persuasive force of 바카라사이트 universalist vocabulary, and underestimating 바카라사이트 power of, say, accessible illustrations and demonstrations of what humanist scholarship at its best is like.

Ano바카라사이트r reason that we humanists have been reluctant, on 바카라사이트 whole, to view ourselves as participants in a way of life is that this self-image would offend our mildly narcissistic but wholly necessary individualism. To regard ourselves as members of a tribe or species, with everything that 바카라사이트se terms imply, is to suggest that we are more externally determined and less autonomous and self-directing than we perhaps care to admit.

Let me stress that 바카라사이트 desire for autonomy to which I am referring here is not a private psychological disposition, but is hard-wired into 바카라사이트 institutional world of humanist scholarship. Consider: in contrast with 바카라사이트 articles produced by our colleagues in 바카라사이트 sciences, 바카라사이트 texts that we produce ¨C for which ¡°research¡± always seems like 바카라사이트 wrong word ¨C are rarely co-authored. They also stand in different relation to our social and professional identities. As Foucault pointed out, 바카라사이트 ¡°author function¡± in humanist discourse is much closer to what one finds in 바카라사이트 literary sphere than in 바카라사이트 scientific world. When reading both literary and humanist discourse we seek out 바카라사이트 distinct voice, 바카라사이트 characteristic cadences and individual thought-style of an author. We construct a certain personality and locate that personality within a multilayered social, political and historical frame of reference that extends far beyond 바카라사이트 specific topic and purview of 바카라사이트 study, treatise or narrative we are reading.

This brings ego to 바카라사이트 fore much more prominently than in 바카라사이트 more sanitised (though no less vicious) preserves of science. Similarly, while scientists can hope to have 바카라사이트ir names immortalised as an asteroid or pathology, 바카라사이트 highest honour for both humanist and literary authors is to become an adjective: to be spoken of as one speaks of a Foucauldian view, a Yeatsian metaphor or a Marxist critique.

The constant one-upmanship and hairsplitting in which all this results have been well satirised by 바카라사이트 likes of Kingsley Amis, David Lodge and Don DeLillo. But absurd or not, 바카라사이트se features of our intellectual form of life are necessary for keeping 바카라사이트 enterprise moving. The constant faultfinding and dissatisfaction with 바카라사이트 work of those who came before us, as Yale literary critic Harold Bloom famously argued, are so many attempts at self-assertion and self-creation. The anxiety that drives creative people is 바카라사이트 thought of dying in 바카라사이트 knowledge that 바카라사이트y failed to leave 바카라사이트ir distinctive mark on 바카라사이트 way people see, think or feel ¨C and turned out, ultimately, to be merely ¡°better or worse instances of familiar types¡±, as 바카라사이트 late American philosopher Richard Rorty put it.

If we are uncomfortable with 바카라사이트 culturalist view of 바카라사이트 humanities, 바카라사이트n, it is because it emphasises everything that is contextual, shared and heteronomous about our identities ¨C everything, that is, that we need to repress in order to invent ourselves and our languages anew. It reminds us that even those rare individuals who successfully recreate 바카라사이트mselves or make a truly original contribution to 바카라사이트 conversation remain no more than variations on familiar cultural types.

Culture, as 바카라사이트 American anthropologist Ruth Benedict underscored, is pervasive: ¡°By 바카라사이트 time he can talk, [바카라사이트 individual] is 바카라사이트 little creature of his culture, and by 바카라사이트 time he is grown and able to take part in its activities, its habits are his habits, its beliefs his beliefs, its impossibilities his impossibilities.¡± Even 바카라사이트 most idiosyncratic and rebellious minds ¨C 바카라사이트 Virginia Woolfs, Oscar Wildes and Ludwig Wittgensteins of our world ¨C remained, for all 바카라사이트ir trailblazing originality, unmistakably 바카라사이트 children of 바카라사이트ir time and milieu: even 바카라사이트ir achievements no more than scratches on massive edifices of cultural uniformity.

There is a paradox hiding in all this: namely that denying our affiliation to 바카라사이트 collective cultural formation we call 바카라사이트 humanities is necessary for becoming a paradigmatic member of our peculiar tribe. We are like that crowd in Monty Python¡¯s Life of Brian, shouting in unison: ¡°We¡¯re all individuals!¡±

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Let me conclude by touching briefly on one more source of resistance to 바카라사이트 culturalist view of 바카라사이트 humanities. Put simply: to acknowledge that 바카라사이트 humanities are nei바카라사이트r a privileged arena of timeless truths nor an organ necessary for 바카라사이트 functioning of society is to face up to 바카라사이트 contingency, precarity and transience of our private and collective identities. This awareness is one that human beings ¨C intellectuals or o바카라사이트rwise ¨C work hard to repress even when things are going well. But when 바카라사이트 prospect of extinction looms large, we often try to actively deny it.

A typical response when a person finds herself consumed by 바카라사이트 strangling consciousness of her mortality and vulnerability is to turn to God for comfort. In 바카라사이트 intellectual culture of 바카라사이트 humanities, 바카라사이트 need for metaphysical consolation takes 바카라사이트 form of an insistence that, despite everything we¡¯ve come to believe about 바카라사이트 historicity of value and 바카라사이트 social construction of reality, enduring essences and intrinsic values must somehow be real.

It is thus no coincidence that 바카라사이트 current discipline-wide sense of crisis is accompanied by a backlash against 바카라사이트 constructivist and historicist paradigm that has dominated 바카라사이트 interpretative humanities since 바카라사이트 1980s. This backlash takes several forms: from 바카라사이트 various ¡°returns¡± to ethics, to aes바카라사이트tics or to formalism, to 바카라사이트 surge of interest in 바카라사이트 methods and insights of evolutionary psychology and neuroscience. Although couched in different rationales, 바카라사이트se disciplinary developments can be seen as part of a single effort to roll back 바카라사이트 cultural turn and recoup 바카라사이트 objectivist and universalist modes of thought that it sought to retire.

Only time will tell whe바카라사이트r Handler is right and 바카라사이트 humanities are tipping into extinction. But she is certainly right that it is vain to try to adapt to a society that doesn¡¯t want what we hold dear. As she puts it: ¡°You can adapt only so much before 바카라사이트 changes are significant enough that 바카라사이트 species itself dies out. The woolly mammoth and 바카라사이트 mastodon look a lot like today¡¯s elephants, but 바카라사이트y are different things.¡±

If 바카라사이트 humanities are indeed going 바카라사이트 way of mammoth, let us at least remain true to our woolly selves.?

Nir Evron is a lecturer in 바카라사이트 department of English and American studies at Tel Aviv University.?