More Signs of the Apocalypse
Posted on October 31st, 2013 in Uncategorized | 2 Comments »
At universities across the country, the humanities are in decline, a function of the job market and university-sanctioned reverence for tech entrepreneurs who can subsequently donate their fortunes to their alma maters. The NSA is secretly tapping the servers of Google and Yahoo. Russia continues its crackdown on political expression.
Oh, and the Red Sox won the World Series.
2 Responses
10/31/2013 6:53 am
If you set the time=0 point back a little further, the trajectory of the humanities looks more like reversion to a norm that existed before a bubble in the 1970s than like a decline from a golden-age plateau. It is probably also relevant that not many humanities faculty have adjusted to the socioeconomic trends in the student body, tending to obscure scholarship even as more students come to college from families without a lot of books in their houses. (RT is exceptional.)
The Red Sox are quite another matter.
10/31/2013 9:40 am
Well, I can’t in good faith congratulate the Sox, but they certainly deserved it and I respect the way they rebuilt after a disastrous 2012. It’s a good time to be a Harvard/Boston sports fan!