Other humanities can be anywhere from artsy fields where there isn’t even a
pretense of any sort of objective insight (not that this necessarily makes them
worthless for other purposes),
It does make them, if not worthless, at least worth less for other purposes.
I spent a lot of time in college in the humanities, art (Bachelor of Fine Art degree, eventually), Philosophy, English (beyond the basic Comp and Rhetoric classes) etc.
The less objective the standards applied, the worse the product, the less effort put into it, the less the artist/author (and yes, I’m generalizing here) put into his work.
I had one class at a very anti-objective school where the teacher (and I almost never use that term, especially for instructors at that school) was fairly strict about meeting her standards, and the final critiques were amusing. Kids who skated by in other classes on a modicum of effort, little talent and a tractor load of post-modernist bullshit (mostly regurgitated and badly understood) got hammered for not working to the fairly loose requirements.
Art is not some special case of human effort where intellect and informed taste have bearing. It currently (since the ~50s) a place where intellect and informed taste have been told they aren’t welcome so the children could keep playing with their mud. And I don’t say this out of bitterness—I have very little talent for the “high” arts, and merely wish the people producing it these days were better at thinking than they are.
It does make them, if not worthless, at least worth less for other purposes.
I spent a lot of time in college in the humanities, art (Bachelor of Fine Art degree, eventually), Philosophy, English (beyond the basic Comp and Rhetoric classes) etc.
The less objective the standards applied, the worse the product, the less effort put into it, the less the artist/author (and yes, I’m generalizing here) put into his work.
I had one class at a very anti-objective school where the teacher (and I almost never use that term, especially for instructors at that school) was fairly strict about meeting her standards, and the final critiques were amusing. Kids who skated by in other classes on a modicum of effort, little talent and a tractor load of post-modernist bullshit (mostly regurgitated and badly understood) got hammered for not working to the fairly loose requirements.
Art is not some special case of human effort where intellect and informed taste have bearing. It currently (since the ~50s) a place where intellect and informed taste have been told they aren’t welcome so the children could keep playing with their mud. And I don’t say this out of bitterness—I have very little talent for the “high” arts, and merely wish the people producing it these days were better at thinking than they are.