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For A's writing class, which I am virtual-auditing, I wrote a response to this article written by Patricia Cohen
and published on February 24, 2009 in The New York Times.

Here it is:

This article raised a few questions in my mind about the state of the humanities at universities today, and about the way people in the humanities are thinking about the state of the humanities at universities today.

A formal criticism that could be leveled at the article concerns purely informational content: we learn that humanities departments are having to cut back on hiring and classes, with the implication that these kinds of trends are not observed in the natural sciences. It is possible, though unstated in this article, that all departments at all universities are in fact having to reduce their resources due to hiring freezes and economic constraints.

If we accede that these shifts relate only to the humanities, there are in any case a couple of points worth disputing.

I am not convinced that the humanities are better equipped than the sciences to answer ethical questions. Science answers questions about the meaning of life and the nature of man just as the humanities do. The two approaches have distinct assumptions about the gravity of certain questions, and about the appropriate methods of seeking answers. To my mind, there is no (perhaps can be no) absolute evidence that one avenue of pursuit is more effectual than the other.

I am convinced, however, that the humanities are more relevant today than they ever have been. It struck me as a singularly odd proposition that the humanities are less relevant to the modern world than are the sciences. If anything, the problems we encounter due to globalization demonstrate that, in fact, we need a better understanding of other humans than we have at the moment. This kind of understanding does not come from technological or industrial progress. What we bring to the markets we expand into may be determined by hard science, but the success or failure of that expansion, on a global scale, will depend on what we know about those markets. We may help build or rebuild nations using knowledge and knowhow from medicine and engineering, but the quality of life for those nations depends on the accuracy of our knowledge about them. The societies we watch develop will be predictable to us—and form partnerships with us—only insofar as their perceptions of the rate, direction, and ultimate goal of that development match ours.

We need to focus on those areas of study that distinguish what is human from what is not; what we have in common from how we differ—and why. Fields such as cultural anthropology, linguistics, religion studies, cultural studies, history—these are the fields most critical to understanding the Other. Our ability to communicate with people different from us hinges on both obvious issues such as language and less explicit, more nuanced prerequisites such as religious and cultural understanding. This ability in turn will improve the match between our expectations of others‘ behaviors and their actual actions. Which seems to be a key to our continued survival.