Commens on Robert Scholes's "The Humanities in a Posthumanist World"

I read, and assigned, this piece before.  It's his Presidential Address as President of the MLA (Modern Language Association).  I assume it's the address a newly elected or appointed president of MLA delivers.

Of course, since I am reading this speech for a class for which I assigned it, I read it with the extra awareness of the teacher assigning her first reading in a new class: will this make sense to my students?  Will they find it worth the effort?  Will they find it relevant to their lives and studies?  And what can I do to draw out what I think is relevant (after all, I chose it...)

As in past readings, I find myself immediately intrigued by Scholes's clear way of addressing "the crisis of the humanities," in other words: the current (and it seems longstanding) questions about their function, their value, their  academic, social, moral mission in a world that appears to have lost faith in the humanizing value and power of the "humanities."  Interestingly, Scholes doesn't mention 9/11, although he does mention the holocaust; but he alludes to 9/11 toward the end of his piece when he differentiates between the pragmatists and the fundamentalists.


While reading, I marked the text to note what I thought important, to comment, and to pose questions.  I sort of know what "humanities" refers to, nevertheless, I was glad that Scholes reminds us of the history of the term: of its roots in the Renaissance and the inception of a new world view "organized around the concept of humanity," and with that "the notion of art as concerned with the making of beautiful objects rather than icons pointing to essences or divinities" (727).
As in past readings, I find myself intrigued by his lucid summary of how the humanities aligned aesthetics (as in belles lettres) with taste and moral perfection.  Does taste entail virtue?  An interesting question, in my mind, and while I would categorically say "no", I sometimes wonder if "good" taste isn't a virtue by itself.

But what is virtue?  I guess, if we define "virtue" in terms of behavior that is good for others, then you might be able to make an argument on how beauty is a human need that needs to be satisfied and that benefits people's lives when it is satisfied.  Perhaps Scholes is too ready to dismiss Arnold's charming notion that there is a "human desire for perfection ...[which] would lead people to connect beauty and virtue"?  In other words, just because there have been people with good taste who did terrible things to other people (admittedly sometimes in the name of that taste), does it follow that taste does not, or let's say, cannot, lead to virtue?

Okay, these entries are getting too long.  A little break is needed.