"Literary Studies Was Conceived Precisely in Opposition to the Specter of Demagogues"

"Seventy years ago, the architects of a new world order got much wrong, for which the last two generations have relentlessly taken them to task. But they also tried to moor the American future in the best of our national traditions. They preserved and expanded the welfare state, scoured the 19th century for a democratic canon, balanced global power to forestall another World War, advanced the ethical vocabulary in which the movements for the wide expansion of civil rights unfolded, and sustained enough of a civic consensus to shame a criminal president into resigning. These accomplishments now appear distant dreams.
"For the republic to survive, higher education must emphasize similarity as well as difference, continuity as well as rupture, collective sustenance as well as individualistic emancipation, you as well as me. It must do this without tipping into the old, real, omnipresent dangers of prejudice and bigotry. Liberal academics used to aim to thread that needle. They have long since given up but must try again. The central values of liberal arts education as presently conceived—creativity and critical thinking, originality and individuality—are all sail and no ballast. They might be the qualities of a good tech-sector job applicant or reality-show contestant, but we're in mortal need of good citizens."

At The Chronicle of Higher Education, Eric Bennett criticizes post-1960s literary theorists.