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Maxi Gorynski's avatar

A fine schema, but for me the easiest means of justification of the humanities is to say that they are a study of the overall topography of human nature. There is no eventuality within one’s private or professional life in which a deeper knowledge of human nature is not profoundly useful. This justification completely illuminates the entire edifice – textual criticism may seem ‘the most arcane and useless field’ until one realises that the entirety of European civic and spiritual life was fostered by an institution (the church) built on it.

This also provides a highly effective shorthand for those humanities disciplines which patently don’t help, or actively impede, a closer grasp of human nature, of which there are great number of present examples.

It beggars belief that any self-avowed champions of culture or believer in an objective standard of the appraisal of art could see any value in Kinkade, but then such myopia is what it is to be without a tradition. Interested to hear more of your thoughts on Foucault also if available.

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