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Originally Posted by pbradley

Of course, though, I don't want to pardon anything on count of placing business on a mystical pedestal but I think the answer lies there more than with the neurotic state(s) of the humanities.

that is true, i did say however that what you call "the neurotic state(s) of the humanities" was partially responsible as well.

regarding your observation on business above all-- it is true, but that is a fact of life, isn't it? i mean-- survival comes first, all the accoutrements of wealth come later. not sure if you've ever read "the theory of the leisure class"-- it's an ancient sociology treatise that reads more like a science fiction novel written by an alien. thorsten veblen (the author), who at heart was a socialist, discusses the intrinsic "barbarism" of human societies and how the more money you have the more you waste through "conspicuous consumption" (he coined the term)-- we regard this waste as honorific-- the more we waste the higher we place on the social scale-- you can look for example at the relative prestige of a sport according to how many resources are invested into it-- say, golf is more prestigious than billiards, polo (which requires the keeping of stables) even more so than golf

anyway, somewhere in the book (i confessed to having skipped parts) he talks about training in "useless" professions as a sign of status. the more money a society has, the more artists, philosophers, writers, and thinkers it's able to afford. the renaissance exploded in a handful of italian city states for a reason-- they were fucking loaded. same thing with athens. the enlightenment was propelled by the rise of capitalism that was fueled by gold and silver from the americas, as well as the slave trade. wherever you find intelligence , there is money backing it up.

the thing is, those of use who studied or study or work in the humanities have been told that we're essential to keep alive a number of ideal without which society would collapse, etc-- but it's not true-- we serve a pecuniary function-- in other words, it's how the rich show off-- by funding poetry chairs and philosophy departments. it's sad, hilarious, and true.

in previous times, the people we think of as philosophers and writers were usually the byproduct of theology faculties or law schools-- which required the study of philosophy, rhethoric and other various "liberal arts" for its function. and artists and thinkers since the time of the greeks required the patronage of the rich-- aristotle had alexander the great, roman poets had mecenas, the monks in the middle ages were funded by the church, the renaissance had the borgias and other families, and the pope, and the french court; the elizabethan poets, i don't know but it was someone who was loaded; descartes had some swedish princess or something, new york had peggy guggenheim, and so on and so forth. when you run out of rich people, or corporate sponsors, or government or church funding, the arts and humanities are run into the ground.

i'm not saying that the humanities have no value, or that it's ok to kill them, but it's been proven over and over that having a good education will not make you a better person. this is a tired argument, but germany was a highly educated nation when they embraced the nazi ideology, many of its leaders were art connoisseurs, highly literate people, well versed in music... and then they happily cooked jews. heidegger was a fucking nazi, strauss was a bit of a nazi ass-licker (ok, he had to survive, but still), leni riefenstahl was goebbels's intrument, there were a bunch of other names of people i don't know who were professors, scientists, philosophers, who happily contributed to this mad enterprise.

so the whole argument about the improvement of humanity is shaky at best.

then you have the humanities people committing suicide-- terry eagleton for example, though he may have changed his mind since, claimed in his most successful and widely read book that literature was a social invention that deserved no special status. sure, his job was probably safe, but by that logic, a lot of teachers of literature should have been terminated. and i'm sure they were. fuck you, eagleton.

anyway, i'm slapping together a half-assed devil-advocate's argument here, not one that i wholeheartedly support, but this is only to say that maybe the economy of middlesex cannot afford to train a bunch of unemployable critical theorists at this particular juncture, and since the critical theorists haven't made a case for their importance to the society at large, and fast food workers and clerks do not require university educations, the fucking dean, or whoever it is, decided to drop the axe.

interestingly enough though, there is an explosion in the demand for librarians these days-- though they deal more with corporate and institutional archives and that sort of thing.