Skip to main content

The Contemporary Crisis of the Humanities: The Attack on the Western Canon and The Long Arm of Nietzsche, Marx, and Foucault

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
  • 283 Accesses

Abstract

In a recent article for the New York Times Columnist Ross Douthat declares “Technocracy is Crushing the Life Out of Humanism.” Citing data on the declining position of the humanities in American education he writes:

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.

Buying options

Chapter
USD   29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD   29.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Hardcover Book
USD   37.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Learn about institutional subscriptions

Notes

  1. 1.

    Ross Douthat. “Oh the Humanities”, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/08/opinion/oh-the-humanities.html August 8, 2018 (Accessed August 29,2018).

  2. 2.

    Richard Bernstein “In Dispute on Bias Stanford is Likely to Alter Western Culture Program.”(Jan 9, 1988 –- https://www.nytimes.com/1988/01/19/us/in-dispute-on-bias-stanford-is-likely-to-alter-western-culture-program.html (accessed April 11, 2018)).

  3. 3.

    Erika Kreeger. Op-Ed https://www.stanforddaily.com/2016/02/22/the-white-civs-burden/ (Accessed April 11, 2018).

  4. 4.

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2016/12/13/students-remove-shakespeare-portrait-from-english-department-at-ivy-league-school/?utm_term=.2e3c0c214bd7 (Accessed April 11, 2018).

  5. 5.

    Wright, J. H. “Classical Education in the United States.” The Classical Review 3, no. 1/2 (1889): 77–80. http://www.jstor.org/stable/690992.:78

  6. 6.

    Paul Shorey. The Assault on Humanism . https://archive.org/stream/assaultonhumani01shorgoog/assaultonhumani01shorgoog_djvu.txt (Accessed June 13, 2018).

  7. 7.

    Stray, Christopher A. “Culture and Discipline: Classics and Society in Victorian England.” International Journal of the Classical Tradition 3, no. 1 (1996): 77–85. http://www.jstor.org/stable/30222253: 83.

  8. 8.

    Ibid. 85.

  9. 9.

    http://www.chronicle.com/article/We-Need-to-Acknowledge-the/64885 (accessed 5/3/2017).

  10. 10.

    Frederick Heer. https://www.aei.org/publication/still-at-risk/ (accessed 5/3/17).

  11. 11.

    Friedrich Nietzsche . “Truth and Lie in an Extra-moral Sense”. http://oregonstate.edu/instruct/phl201/modules/Philosophers/Nietzsche/Truth_and_Lie_in_an_Extra-Moral_Sense.htm (Accessed April 11, 2018). I believe this is the Walter Kauffman translation.

  12. 12.

    The antinomy of Socrates and Nietzsche on this and other points was an important theme for Leo Strauss and his pupil Allan Bloom .

  13. 13.

    Karl Marx . Theses on Feuerbach. https://msuweb.montclair.edu/~furrg/gned/marxtonf45.pdf (accessed 5/4/17).

  14. 14.

    Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. The Communist Manifesto. https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/ch02.htm (Accessed April 11, 2018).

  15. 15.

    Idem.

  16. 16.

    Michel Foucault. “Political Function of the Intellectual” https://www.radicalphilosophyarchive.com/wp-content/files_mf/rp17_article2_politicalfunctionofintellectual_foucault.pdf (Accessed 4/11/2018).

  17. 17.

    Edward Said . Orientalism (Routledge&Keegan, 1978):13 in https://sites.evergreen.edu/politicalshakespeares/wp-content/uploads/sites/33/2014/12/Said:full.pdf. (accessed April 14, 2018).

  18. 18.

    The terms “left· and “right” are somewhat protean and arbitrary, but in the American context “the right” is often associated with classical liberalism – a support for the free market or capitalist system of political economy with minimal state interference, while the Left is association with egalitarianism particularly around issues centered on race, class, and sex.

  19. 19.

    Justin Stover. “There is no Case for the Humanities”in American Affairs. (Winter 2017/Volume I, Number 4) https://americanaffairsjournal.org/2017/11/no-case-humanities/?utm_content=buffer23ea4&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer. (accessed 1/3/2017).

References

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2018 Springer Nature Switzerland AG

About this chapter

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this chapter

Rosenthal-Pubul, A.S. (2018). The Contemporary Crisis of the Humanities: The Attack on the Western Canon and The Long Arm of Nietzsche, Marx, and Foucault. In: The Theoretic Life - A Classical Ideal and its Modern Fate. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-02281-5_16

Download citation

Publish with us

Policies and ethics