Abstract
Humanities move in a direction of controlled and politically directed disciplines. The so-called ‘corporatization’ of the sciences touches the humanities also: there is ever less free research. Where natural sciences and the health sciences are in a tightening grip of business groups, the humanities are openly approached by secret services on the one hand and held in a bureaucratic grip on the other hand. The critical assessment of these developments is called for.
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Notes
- 1.
 In a small quest I launched (through the cover of an interest group promoting ‘free research’) on these issues to Chancellors and the Minister of education in Flanders, Belgium, the reaction by all but one responsible persons was: ‘you may have a point, but we as good managers have to distribute money and hence we need a quantitative measure to decide what to subsidize’.
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Pinxten, H. (2012). The Humanities Under Fire?. In: Vanderbeeken, R., Le Roy, F., Stalpaert, C., Aerts, D. (eds) Drunk on Capitalism. An Interdisciplinary Reflection on Market Economy, Art and Science. Einstein Meets Magritte: An Interdisciplinary Reflection on Science, Nature, Art, Human Action and Society, vol 11. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-2082-4_3
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