'The scientific ideals of objectivity and specialization have now crept into the humanities and made themselves at home. This has happened, I think, because have come to be infected with a suspicion of their usefulness or worthlessness in the face of the provability or workability or profitability of the applied sciences. The conviction is now widespread, for instance, that "a work of art" has no purpose but to be itself. Or if it is allowed that a poem, for instance, has a meaning, then its meaning is peculiar to its author, its time, or its convention.'
Wendell Berry, 'An Argument for Diversity' in What Are People For?, p.116.
