One moment in history that haunts me is the death of the great scientist (proto-scientist), Archimedes (287-212 BC). Archimedes was one of the most brilliant humans ever to live. He famously solved a volume displacement problem in the baths an ran through the streets shouting "Eureka!" He also uncovered physical laws about and speculated about things like levers, screws, mirrors, and a whole lot more. He said to have said, "Give me a place to stand and I'll move the earth," referring to his law of levering. 

I'd always heard that Archimedes was killed by a drunken Roman soldier. Maybe the soldier wasn't drunk. Either way, he was killed by a soldier. The armed man was either angered by Archimede's refusal to follow him to the king because the thinker was working on a problem in the dust. "Do not disturb my circles," he said. Or the soldier thought Archimedes's instruments were valuable plunder and killed for them. Either way, one of history's most brilliant men died at the hands of a man with limited education, who by a sword and by the state, weilded power, and who did not appreciate the genius before him.

("Death of Archimedes" 1766, by François-Philippe Charpentier, after Ciro Ferri, in the National Gallery of Art)

Well, the world has gone on and Archimedes has slipped into historical legend along with many greats in our intellectual history. However, one wonders what brilliant thing might he have envisioned if he lived longer. Does it matter? Does the life of any one man matter? Maybe it does, maybe it doesn't. But what if history and human flourishing is contingent on nodes of development and insight that spur new ways of thinking? A special insight at just the right moment in history could change the course of peoples, nations, public health, public education, science, international policy, ethics, etc. We would never know. But to have such hope die because of common rage feels like throwing pearls to swine.

(Btw, who knows how many Archimedes, Einsteins, Da Vincis, are dying or suffering or being turned away at the border; or wasting away in impoverishment. To be clear, each and every life wasted and underdeveloped is a crucial opportunity cost for the world.)

The elite class (intellectual and cultural elites, not the societally and financially wealthy class), I see as a version of Archimedes. They are arrogant and perhaps too self assured. But human history is driven by these people because ideas have consequences. For instance, it is not an exaggeration to say that Alexander the Great changed the course of world history . . . with his sword. Yet, the lesser know fact is that he was the pupil of one of the greatest philosophers, Aristotle. Christianity flourishes because educated elites (Paul, Luke, Matthew) wrote things down. Karl Marx, some say, "lived" in libraries studying and writing, and the world has been shaped to dangerous effect (but some good) by his ideas.

The populist purging of intellectual elites (scientists, academics, artists, writers, etc) makes for a good talking point. Idea factories and concept generators produce nothing tangible. But eliminating the intellectual and cultural elite destroys a certain kind of hope. We all live in the present, struggling to meet our daily needs. These elites live in a different world, anticipating the forms that structure reality and that determine the future. To be sure, elites are dangerous (see Marx), because they are unaware of the power of their ideas, nor do they seem able to see the world but in the way it appears to them. And they quickly lose touch with what it means to not live in an ordinary world because their heads are in the clouds. They should circumscribed with means that prevent them from directly pouring their ideas and notions into general society (easier said than done). Nonetheless, it is vital that the intellectual and cultural elite flourish in the institutions designed for them. In our day, these are universities and other academic or intellectual outlets.

It does no good to human and societal flourishing for enraged drunken soldiers to yet again, disturb elite circles written in dust and again, kill Archimedes for his insolence. Without Archimedes' fulcrum, we don't move the earth. 

Inside Higher Ed has a story about U of St. Thomas in Houston which looks like it's forcing out its English and Philosophy faculty to make way for new STEM faculty. They say there's increased demand in the STEM fields and not enough demand in Humanities fields to justify the faculty distribution.

The usual reason given for these moves is financial. Liberal Arts don't seem to offer value, i.e., for what a university spends on the liberal arts, it doesn't see commensurate gain. This sort of reasoning is not new but it is gaining ground among Catholic universities. Catholics schools appeared to be the one bastion of the liberal arts since Catholicism was endemic to the Catholic mission. This meant every Catholic education would have a foundation of theology, philosophy, and courses like English and History.

What it all comes down to is measurement. How do we measure university success? If a university measures success in terms of employment rates then it stands to reason that you reapportion your resources to maximize student employment. 

The ancient Greeks were interesting in that it was not uncommon for what we consider professional tasks like engineering, architecture, etc, to be left to slaves or even foreigners so that the Greeks to could focus on what was really important--philosophy, mathematics, culture, etc.

As long our culture is driven by economic concerns and is framed in economic terms; as long as the contextual societal debates are about how to be a real capitalist or Smith versus Marx, then the liberal arts will lose. As long as value is measured in terms of economic output, then there's no where for the liberal arts to go. 

It is disappointing when Catholic schools inch toward or flat out run from the Catholic idea of education since Catholic education has the opportunity to be counter-cultural on this front in a good way. Catholic education can define value in its deep, comprehensive way and eschew the move to the economic frame of defining human lives.