Back to the field. Different aspects of the humanities may help with articulating a given field, but the humanities aren't a homogeneous suite. Even the disciplines themselves aren't internally homogeneous (at least Psych is very much like this; undergraduate psychology is mostly a poor preparatory program for graduate psychology). Philosophy is the easy go to for broad applicability, particularly ethics. Your interest in speculative fiction obviously has potential relevance for Silicon Valley. But that leaves out a lot of the humanities. Learning a foreign language to expand a business internationally is technically utilizing the humanities, but I don't think that's exactly what STEAM proponents are talking about.
I know the humanities aren't a homogeneous suite. This is one of your favorite points to make, I feel like, but it usually doesn't actually respond to the discussion at hand. When I say "intellectual discourse," I'm not implying that all academia, or even the humanities, are the same. I'm using it as shorthand to suggest that very particular facets of academic discourse often come in contact with society's pragmatic interests, and that various interdisciplinary measures can be found at various institutions.
I'm not saying that all academics' opinions are valuable in every aspect of society. An urban planner's knowledge is going to be more valuable than a literary critic's for a city council or committee discussing plans to build a casino; but a literary critic's knowledge is more valuable for a committee discussing high school curricula, or board discussing ad language. My argument has never been that race theorists are as valuable as urban planners or public policy experts in every possible context.
"As long as accusations keep flying". Accusations aren't worth the carbon dioxide they come with without proof. This "believe accusers" stuff that's come along with the poundmetoo movement is social cancer. There's an important difference between "listening to" and "believing".
Completely disagree. Your entire perspective on proof here is batshit.
A. You want proof but also acknowledged that proof can't come into play here. If it did--i.e. if she showed up with a taped recording, like one of Weinstein's victims did--you'd accuse her of inviting harassment in order to catch Kavanaugh in the act. Therefore, even though she has "proof," she's of disreputable character. No way for her to win that argument.
B. "Proof" is for juries and legal cases. We're not discussing Kavanaugh's criminality. We're discussing his fitness to serve on the supreme court. You don't need proof for this because it's clear, as you've already said, that "something happened." If that's clear, then we don't need to know exactly how long he held her down for, what kind if liquor he drank, how drunk she was, etc. etc. Something happened, and that's enough to question his nomination. It's not enough to put him in jail, however.
C. You seem to buy into this notion that women just be comin out the woodwork to accuse him because they don't like his views on abortion, or some such. If this was true--i.e. that we can dispose of public figures whose views we don't like--it would be happening way more than it does. The fact that it's happening more now speaks to our society's attempt to make up for years of shutting down accusers. That's not liberal weepy bullshit, it's what has actually been happening in this country for a long time. For too long it's been the accused who have the benefit of the doubt, when (also for too long) that's because accusers were actively dissuaded, if not prevented, from coming forward. Why would there be "proof" from that time when it was an era in which accusations like hers would have been disastrous for her? (although, of course, she did tell friends and colleagues, as several have testified) She made a conscious choice, so I'm not saying she had no agency; but her choice, due to circumstances at the time, shouldn't prohibit consequences for Kavanaugh now.
Your complete distrust of women in this case is more suspicious to me than the fact that more are coming forward. You've set up a case in your own mind in which there's no viable position for an accuser to take. I find your diagnosis of the "social cancer" to be the more serious "social cancer."
The SCOTUS is a final arbiter, but they hear very few cases.
And yet their decisions set precedents for innumerable cases down the line.
. I agree that the very dispersed structure of academia can create these disconnects. That should be a point of reform, but of course then we run into the perverse incentive issue - furthermore this is another example of the disconnect between the "real world" and academia. Academia has no good mechanism for self-monitoring/cleaning. On the other hand, there can be very visible persons who could be held accountable; various High Modernist academics listed in Seeing Like A State are good examples.
