Mark Bauerline: "Faculty In Denial About Own Role In Decline Of Humanities"

So, I've known that the humanities were largely full of shit basically since late in my undergrad career. Not inherently nor entirely full of shit...but currently and largely so. And basically all the "defenses" of the humanities that have been appearing over the last 10-or-whatever years have seemed to me to be decidedly lame. But somehow--and I still can't freaking believe this--I never realized that the two were linked: defenses of the humanities suck largely because the humanities suck. The defenses suck largely because they're indefensible. In their current form(s), anyway.

   This is in that vein.

   The humanities have always been a kind of dicey game--that's the nature of the beast. But on top of that, they've been intellectually/methodologically corrupted by the postpostmodern mishmash and its flip side the politicization of scholarship. In their current debased form, they may very well do more harm than good--much of the time, anyway.

   Standard disclaimer: all sorts of ideas--including crackpot ones--should be represented in the academy. And race and sex (and even "gender") are somewhat interesting topics. But they're not the most important things in the wide universe, nor even in human life. Until so many in the humanities (and qualitative social sciences) stop using the academy as a catspaw to achieve their political ends...and stop confusing politics with scholarship...and stop with the race-and-gender obsession, they're going to suck. 

   So: to defend the humanities: first, make them defensible again.