# Doctorate Degrees in the Humanities: Exclusive Domain of the Aristocracy and Upper Class Once Again? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [February 20, 2014, 1:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doctorate-degrees-in-the-humanities-exclusive-domain-of-the-aristocracy-and-upper-class-once-again/681783 "2014-02-20T13:29:14Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Jumpin-Jack-Flash](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/c68b51/32.png) [@Jumpin-Jack-Flash](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jumpin-Jack-Flash)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2014, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doctorate-degrees-in-the-humanities-exclusive-domain-of-the-aristocracy-and-upper-class-once-again/681783/41 "2014-02-23T19:16:59Z")
> [@Bridget\_Burke](#): > > We have absolutely no reason to believe in your “lifetime of worldly experience.” And anybody here can respond to anybody else’s post. This is the _Great Debates_ forum, in which cites & evidence are usually expected. Don’t papers in the humanities require references to support opinions? > > I was going to add that many of us are not impressed by the High Class British act. (We aren’t all _Downton Abbey_ fans.) But your last response to \*\*Wendell Wagner \*\*blew your cover… You know, I never claimed to be ‘high class’, but thanks for the build up. In fact, I hear many of my colleagues think I’m rather boorish…Imagine that? As far as Wendell is concerned, I think he should stick to counting the pencils in his pocket protector. And you, sweetheart…well, you have a pretty Irish name. That is all for today’s lecture. Thank-you for your undivided attention. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2014, 1:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doctorate-degrees-in-the-humanities-exclusive-domain-of-the-aristocracy-and-upper-class-once-again/681783/42 "2014-02-24T01:46:06Z")
> [@Jumpin-Jack-Flash](#): > > That’s what peer reviewed journals and monographs are for, @$$hole. This is not a peer reviewed journal. Don’t write back, blowhard. If you would like to insult other posters, you are free to do so, (with a few restrictions), in [The BBQ Pit](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/forumdisplay.php?s=&daysprune=2&f=5) forum. This is a Warning that this post is not acceptable behavior. [/Moderating] ---
**Author:** ![Melchior](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Melchior](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melchior)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2014, 2:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doctorate-degrees-in-the-humanities-exclusive-domain-of-the-aristocracy-and-upper-class-once-again/681783/43 "2014-02-24T02:49:51Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > To quote the classicist and poet A. E. Housman, Jowett’s Plato is “the best translation of a Greek philosopher which has ever been executed by a person who understood neither philosophy nor Greek”. 😉 > > Though flippant, this echoes some of the criticisms Paul Shorey brought to bear in his (nonetheless appreciative) 1892 review of Jowett’s third edition: Houseman is a nobody who knows nothing. Translations are not for ‘serious scholarship’ and cannot be made to serve as substitutes for the originals. ---
**Author:** ![Melchior](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Melchior](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melchior)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2014, 2:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doctorate-degrees-in-the-humanities-exclusive-domain-of-the-aristocracy-and-upper-class-once-again/681783/44 "2014-02-24T02:54:16Z")
> [@Jumpin-Jack-Flash](#): > > That’s what peer reviewed journals and monographs are for, @$$hole. This is not a peer reviewed journal. Don’t write back, blowhard. the trouble is that sometimes the ‘peers’ are ignorant and unworthy of performing such reviews. ---
**Author:** ![Melchior](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Melchior](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melchior)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2014, 3:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doctorate-degrees-in-the-humanities-exclusive-domain-of-the-aristocracy-and-upper-class-once-again/681783/45 "2014-02-24T03:06:32Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > ) > > Though flippant, this echoes some of the criticisms Paul Shorey brought to bear in his (nonetheless appreciative) 1892 review of Jowett’s third edition: > “A philosopher is required to translate a philosopher, and Professor Jowett’s belletristic attitude towards philosophy impairs the value of his translation for serious students. One who reads for pleasure, inspiration and the general effect is charmed by the ease, grace and perfect propriety of the English, and accepts the translator’s dictum that nothing would be gained by a pedantic and punctilious conformity to the structure of the Greek sentence. But suppose a reader wishes to catch the exact nuance of Plato’s thought in some matter where thought and feeling surpass the subtlety of language many times at the best. He will desire either a facsimile of the original, by patient study of which he may puzzle out the meaning for himself, or a ’ compensating version made with an unerring instinct born of a profound insight into the author’s thought. Jowett’s pretty periphrases, elegant ‘compensations’ and ingenious abbreviations are a constant delight to a reader who seeks only the charm, the wit and the dramatic life of the dialogues. They will, even in this substantially correct third edition, frequently mislead the reader who wishes to follow the argument.” Every part of this statement is mistaken. ‘Serious students’ must use original texts. Translations cannot be made into a ‘facsimile of the original’ no matter what you try. I have been preaching this for years. ---
**Author:** ![Melchior](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Melchior](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melchior)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2014, 4:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doctorate-degrees-in-the-humanities-exclusive-domain-of-the-aristocracy-and-upper-class-once-again/681783/46 "2014-02-24T16:29:55Z")
> [@Jumpin-Jack-Flash](#): > > Until the Second World War, academics associated with history, philosophy and English departments at the major universities of Europe and America were almost exclusively drawn from the aristocracy and the upper classes. Even to this day, it can be argued that the humanities are dominated mainly by the sons and daughters of affluence, in contrast to those scholars engaged in STEM subjects. My question is, with all the talk about the supposed collapse of the humanities over these past five years, will all the inroads made after the war into making the humanities more socially inclusive be all for naught? Will history, English and Philosophy departments at the major universities return to being reserved exclusively for ‘old-money’ elites? Actually, this decline in British dominance started after the Great War. Many of the great scholars of the Victorian age were dead and were not easilyreplaced . [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doctorate-degrees-in-the-humanities-exclusive-domain-of-the-aristocracy-and-upper-class-once-again/681783.md?page=2)