David Brooks' latest column attempts to make the case for studying history or other humanities. I find him unpersuasive, mostly because the humanities are the areas most corrupted by post-modernism with its insistence that there is no single truth. Hence we have not just history, but black history, feminist history, gay/lesbian history, ecological history, etc. Apply the same taxonomy to literature, economics, psychology, and pseudo-disciplines like [your favorite minority] Studies. In other words, modern academia has devolved into a lot of thumbsucking, activism for dubious causes and what folks around here would call pissing and moaning.

BYU, where I went to college, has a plaque at the entrance to campus reading "Enter to Learn, Go Forth to Serve." Harvard's crest says "Veritas," Latin for "truth." Sadly, truth at Harvard no longer means what it meant to its founders. All is political now. Even science. You're nothing if you can't write grant requests.