In defending arts and humanities from funding cuts too much weight is often put on their prosthetic function. But to defend them as a therapy or mind's Prozac feels wrong bcs yet again this defense is based on how useful they are for some external purposes. In this case the arg

ument is that they help us survive the hard times. This is not so much diff from the defense based on their contribution to the development of critical reasoning skills (arguably crucial for getting a job in the modern world). Here I would like to see us make a step further

I would say that arts and humanities make us who we are: allow us to think thoughts we did not have before, they help us reach beyond ourselves and reach other human beings in a more profound way. They help us go beyond our own limitations and transcend ourselves; reach the

eternal in a sense. I believe that none of this needs justification from 'usefulness', whether it be that they help us survive the hard times or help us acquire critical reasoning skills. Even though we can always render all of this useful if we care about everything being useful

But that kind of reductionism got us into this trouble in the first place; namely, it made all of us teaching in humanities defend ourselves by showing how useful we are.