*We need a life-support system to survive. Of the entire academy. Of the humanities. Of the university. Without it, who would we be?
We’re the kind who couldn’t survive anywhere else. We’re totally dependent. Totally pathetic. We’ve adapted to the tiniest of niches. We’d stand no chance whatsoever if we were made to live out there, beyond the university.
We’re a product of the humanities. We’re what the humanities have made. What the humanities have done. Which is a terrible indictment of the humanities.
In any sane society, we would have just gone under. We’d have thrown ourselves off some bridge. At best!
We’re maladapted. Maladjusted. We’re pure dysfunction.
We need support. Benefits. We’re that type. We were lucky. We were scooped up. Brought inside. But we didn’t deserve to be.
There are probably humanities casualties like us all over the country. The world! We were exposed to too much. Shown things.
We fell in love what we shouldn’t have. With what wasn’t for us.
We weren’t supposed to read those books. Watch those films. See that art. Listen to that music. It wasn’t for us. It should have been locked away. Hidden. Or we should have been locked away.
If it wasn’t for this – if it wasn’t for the humanities, we wouldn’t know who else to be. What else to do.
Throw us out of this, and … what?
Maladapted. Useless for anything else …
Wanting our eyes to rest on the finest paintings. Wanting to listen to the finest music – to classical music.
Elite tastes! But we’re not elite! We’re far from elite! We’re grubbers. Rats. Crawlers on the earth. And we can’t help but hate ourselves for what we love. For what we want.
We wandered too far out. We weren’t like the others. Like them.
Taste – is that what we have? We don’t trust our own taste. Is it only a desire for cultural capital? To make set ourselves apart. To lift ourselves from our class origins?
Work in Progress 