i hear the humanities are dying...

     It always puzzles me that we commend the study of one or another of the humanities, not because of the discipline itself, but for the sake of some ancillary benefit. So, study history, not because the study of history is worthwhile for its own sake, but because it instills something called 'critical thinking'. In fact, 'critical thinking' seems to be the universal yield of all the varied humanistic disciplines. It hardly matters which one you choose, for no matter how arcane it may seem, you will nonetheless obtain, develop, or somehow find yourself with 'critical thinking', or, even more impressive, 'critical thinking skills'. (What, after all, is a degree worth if you don't develop skills?) As a sales guy, let me tell you, that is a bad pitch, because it takes attention away from the discipline(s), and places it on some 'skill' abstracted from any particular course of study, a skill moreover that one can probably attain through the study of mathematics, say, or economics. What, one might reasonably ask, is the point of studying history, or classics, or neo-classical architecture, and not finance or mechanical engineering, if one can get 'critical thinking' from them all, and the later might just yield gainful employment in the bargain? I studied history all those years ago, because I found that I liked studying history in a particular place with particular people and that was that. The result is that I learned how to study history, which was the point.