In Defense of the Humanities Again and Again and Again

And Yet Again

NOT!

Over at Crooked Timber they've been hassling yet another Martha Nussbaum defense of the humanities. Though I know of her defense work, I've not read any of it, so I don't really know whether the hassling is just.

But I'm going to believe it is. 'Cause I'm tired of these defenses of the humanities. They're so lame and predictable. In fact, I'm wondering whether or not it's the humanities that're IN FACT being defended.

Maybe the defense of the humanities has been USURPED INTO defending olden times. So, the defender doesn't really like any of this new-fangled stuff, including the internet and all, but they don't want to go after that directly. Instead, they defend the humanities.

And then . . .

One notion you find in defenses of the humanities is that we need to see the world whole. I agree. We need DO to see the world whole. Now more than ever. The arts do this in a way. So can the discursive humanities.

But we don't need the old discourses. We need new discourses. 21st century discourses. Beyond postmodern discourse, etc. And it seems to me that the defense of the humanities genre is pretty much owned by people who want to stave off the creation of new whole-cosmos discourses.

That ain't right.