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7 Law, Culture & Human. 5 (2011)

handle is hein.journals/lculh7 and id is 1 raw text is: 






Editorial


                                                             Law, Culture and the Humanities
                                                                             7(1) 5-5
Editorial                                                           @TheAuthor(s) 201I
                                                            Reprints and permission:sagepub.
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                                                            DOI: 10.1177/17438721 10386293
                                                                    http://Ich.sagepub.com
                                                                           OSAGE


The humanities are under attack in the modem, corporatized university. The humanities
seem unable to generate useful knowledge at a time when utility is the order of the day.
The humanities seem  frivolous or self indulgent in an era of high seriousness. With oil
gushing beneath the Gulf of Mexico, the crisis of sovereign debt threatening to unwind
the European Union, an unending war raging in Afghanistan, and countless other crises,
what can the humanities contribute?
   I recently read a defense of the humanities, written as if to an audience of college
students, from the conservative New York Times columnist David Brooks. Among  other
things Brooks argued that studying the humanities improves your ability to read and
write ... Studying the humanities will give you  a familiarity with the language of
emotion  ... Studying the humanities will give you a wealth of analogies. People think by
comparison - Iraq is either like Vietnam or Bosnia; your boss is like Narcissus or Solon.
People who have a wealth of analogies in their minds can think more precisely than those
with few analogies. If you go through college without reading Thucydides, Herodotus
and Gibbon, you'll have been cheated out of a great repertoire of comparisons. Brooks
went on to explain that humanistic knowledge equips people to understand human pas-
sions and drives that don't lend themselves to systemic modeling ... (and) yearnings and
fears that reside in an inner beast.
   In this issue of LCH the Commentary Section takes up a form of human behavior that
does not lend itself well to systemic modeling and that stirs up the deepest yearnings and
fears, namely sacrifice. As you read the commentaries I hope you will have the occa-
sion to think about whether law itself depends on sacrificial acts and practices, whether
law lends legitimacy to those acts and practices by state and non-state actors, and whether
law transforms sacrifice. The commentaries published in this issue take up and exem-
plify some of the most important/persuasive critical perspectives on the relationship of
law and sacrifice.
   As I read those pieces I am convinced of the utility of humanistic perspectives on
law and that humanistic perspectives are neither frivolous nor self-indulgent. But, I am
not part of the audience that needs convincing. As to how those who need convincing
would read them  ...?
                                                                       Austin Sarat

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