> “There are certainly reasons to believe that the current crisis of the humanities owes partly to the poor job they do of explaining and justifying themselves.”

Especially when they accept that the argument must exclusively be about a discipline’s alleged usefulness to the economy. Last week the Belgian vice-president said Latin should be replaced as a high school subject with programming classes, because they are more useful. It’s been picked up, even by prominent intellectuals: http://woutersoudan.be/20150405/