Maggie's Farm

Most of today's humanities professors under the age of, say, 40, are genteel barbarians.

Take the study of literature - say an English Novel of the first half of the 19th Century. To take notice of social, political and economic factors that were contemporary with such a work doesn't just make sense, it may be crucial to appreciate the work. Especially a novel, as the form is (or was) pretty much defined by psychologically complex presentations of how people from various social classes reacted to their and others' social milieus.

But today the tendency is to flatten such works into two dimensions - power and ideology - and allow no other aspect serious consideration. The possibility that a given novel might have qualities meaningful outside political considerations doesn't often merit much discussion.

Very much of what's human has been squeezed out of the humanities.