Madam, - Danny O'Hare's article in your edition of May 9th - "Humanities must fight back or face terminal decline" - contains, for all its urbanity and good sense, some highly questionable points .
Of course all subjects must "fight back": there is no subject, however popular today, which has not had to "fight back" against misconceptions, prejudices and folklore about its difficulty, usefulness and cost. Academics believe in their subjects and will fight for them, but they naturally assume that the State and society support subjects on which both depend.
Literacy, a historical sense, proficiency in the languages of the European Union seem to fall into that category. As does mathematics. Should the State and society merely stand by and watch the continuing decline in mathematics at secondary level, and should Irish Times readers wait for an article headed: "Mathematics must fight back"?
The "opposition to recent organisational reform in the universities" has virtually nothing to do with a conflict between the humanities and science. Apart from the all-too human elements of those reforms (opportunism, inefficiency and ignorance), the element which worries most colleagues in the humanities is the inappropriateness of current approaches to science - not only when applied to humanities, but within the natural sciences themselves. The short-termism in "results-driven" science (to say nothing of its commercialisation in the way advocated by Dr O'Hare) is as likely to destroy proper science as to damage the humanities. The fear is that such distortions of true science are a response to previous calls for science to "fight back".
For as long as education is run solely by the market, with competition and "spin" as its principal instruments, there is a danger that it will both fail to meet national needs and fail to offer individual students an intellectually and personally satisfying formation. Worse still, it will not understand that the two goals are inseparable.
If the State were to stand idly by and allow short-term market trends to damage long-terms needs (again I offer the provision of modern languages as an example), it would be the planners as well as humanities departments who would have to take the blame. And the price would be paid by us all. - Yours, etc,
HUGH RIDLEY, Professor of German, UCD, Belfield, Dublin 4.