But I do protest too much because I was referring to conceptual though outside of the literary sense.
By the way, what the french call litteraire is arts in English, I think, or more generally humanities.
When I was in my last year in high school, two people came from the university to give us a presentation about the access examinations. It turns out they were husband and wife, him a mathematician and she from the humanities. At one point she said something to the effect that "of course" writing well was not that important for a math exam. You should have seen the man's face. guaranteed to evoke a violent reaction from police is to challenge their right to "define the situation." --- David Graeber citing Marc Cooper
The idea of teaching philosophy to 18 year olds would make a lot of heads explode here. What possible relevance could philosophy have to the corporate job market? (And so on.)
And yes, a lot of what we take for granted intellectually is socially maintained and not intrinsic. And that makes it terrifylngly fragile.
