Becoming convinced that the political problem in my country is the absence of a credible opposition. Reminds me of the comedy bit about Dukakis against Bush. Bush rambles on incoherently for a bit, and then 'Dukakis,' asked for a rebuttal, turns to the camera and speaks his whole reply: "I can't believe I'm losing to this guy."
A rodeo clown distracts the dangerous forces of nature while the workers go about their business.
But like Hickey in Iceman Cometh, I have withdrawn to the grandstand of philosophical self-detachment, to fall asleep watching the cannibals do their death-dance.
If there were to be a project to save the humanities, philosophy, history, etc. from the slough of trite-minded despond into which it has lucratively wandered (to make all things new is the primary, and always necessarily frustrated ambition of the thinker -- but the present moment is slightly different than the usual), it might look to make available the most important books in each field from eighty years ago. After that point, the humanities decided to imitate the technological sciences, and see every bit of a knowledge as material progress to a more perfect machine. In fact, from Socrates to the present, every teacher has tried to teach the same things, and when it has gone well, the words were meaningful.
Germany in the second half of the 19th c. did something very remarkable with philosophy, history, the study of literature, etc. I can't imagine the present mechanism ever managing to accomplish half as much in its time.