Wilfred M. McClay escreve um excelente ensaio no The Wilson Quarterly sobre a situação e o futuro das humanidades.

“The humanities are among those unquestionably nice endeavors, like animal shelters and ­tree-­planting projects, about which nice people invariably say nice things. But there gets to be something vaguely annoying about all this cloying uplift. One longs for the moral clarity of a swift kick in the ­rear.”

E não tem medo de ir direto ao ponto:

“The thing most needful is not more money, but a willingness to think back to first principles. What are the humanities, other than disciplines with “humanistic content”? What exactly are the humanities for, other than giving pleasure to people who enjoy playing inconsequential games with words and ­concepts?“

 O ensaio na íntegra, que recomendo, pode ser lido aqui.