Leon Wieseltier, in a speech at last month’s Brandeis commencement, had strong words about the priorities of our time — and praise for those who take a more traditional path.
You who have elected to devote yourselves to the study of literature and languages and art and music and philosophy and religion and history — you are the stewards of that quality. You are the resistance. You have had the effrontery to choose interpretation over calculation, and to recognize that calculation cannot provide an accurate picture, or a profound picture, or a whole picture, of self-interpreting beings such as ourselves; and I commend you for it.
After a rowdy meeting, the LegalTowns Board of Directors voted unanimously to endorse the humanities — but split on the topic of actual human beings.