You extrapolate from your own experience to "the English major" to "the humanities". Studying a language (with its multiple aspects, i.e. culture, literature,

You extrapolate from your own experience to "the English major" to "the humanities". Studying a language (with its multiple aspects, i.e. culture, literature, linguistics) opens up a variety of uses, from a cultural planning and administration perspective, a way into publishing, academia, teaching, consulting etc. If you think all of the humanities is bullshitting your way through by espousing hollow phrases about "the bourgeoisie's consumerism", then you, frankly have not gotten the point. The interesting thing isn't "what the author believes" or even "what the author meant". This already shows the fundamental limitedness of the insights gained, which are the insights of "having taken a course in literature as an undergrad once". > "After you've mastered the pseudointellectual bemused sneer" Maybe this is just me being pseudointellectually bemused and sneering, however, I think we should probably think more about the bourgeois consumerism and might even come to the point where we can make the leap from "once upon a time an author wrote..." to our own life and our own time and society. Your use of anecdote is certainly well chosen for HN and will resonate with the "innovating crowd" here, most of which do not see that there is a difference in approach and method between "appreciating a book" and studying it. At the very least since the 70s (and arguably earlier, depending on place and orientation), a study of literature or language is a study of a culture. There is a good reason why many of the more eminent philosophers that are still regarded as meaningful today dedicated so much time to literature, music or the arts. Literature lets us gain a deeper understanding of the social forces at a given time, prevalent and deviant opinions, habits, everyday life and social experience. What you know as English class is a class in close reading, which bears little resemblance to research and the knowledge gained. I am well aware that this is going to be unpopular here, especially given your position. Yet I find it slightly worrying how HN brings together the arrogance of engineering with a wider disregard not just for the academy (which is fine), but cultivates a particular form of anti-intellectualism that is all to prevalent in the US (and also elsewhere, though the US seem to particularly stand out). At least I would like to voice my dissenting opinion and try to convey that things might not be quite so simple.