[PDF][PDF] Fear of being useful

P Jay, G Graff - 2012 - ecommons.luc.edu
" When the going gets tough, the tough take accounting." With those succinct words in a
June 2010 op ed,[1] New York Times columnist David Brooks summed up the conventional
wisdom on the current crisis of the humanities. In an age when a higher education is
increasingly about moving quickly through a curriculum streamlined to prepare students for
a job, the humanities have no practical utility. As Brooks observes," when the job market
worsens, many students figure they can't indulge in an English or a history major," a fact that …