Defending the teaching and study of the humanities, Joanna Bourke writes:
What about the conception of the humanities as fulfilling the job of "worrying" society? The humanities help develop a critical, questioning attitude towards the world. It is engaged in debunking the commonsense of its time. It is fundamentally about critique of the given, and resistance to what makes life unjust and ugly.
Apart from the fact that the humanities are worth studying just because the world is worth studying and the humanities encompass different 'regions' of the world - its history, its literature, its music, ethical and other philosophical ideas as thought by its most interesting thinkers etc - I half agree with what Bourke says. A 'critical, questioning attitude towards the world' is very much worth cultivating. It is part and parcel of educating people in the importance of trying to get at the truth of things, whatever those things are, since the best way of doing this is not to receive unquestioningly what one is told, what one has merely on someone else's authority.
Where I don't agree with Bourke is over her claim that this must involve 'debunking the commonsense' of the time. Yes, when there are reasons for thinking that the common sense of the time is wrong; but not if it's right. And common sense sometimes is right, while those who debunk it aren't always. Some examples that spring to mind... It's common sense that there's a human nature, and many people, probably most, think so as a matter of common sense. Some people - often arts graduates, social scientists or postmodernists - debunk this belief, but when challenged, can only defend their debunking of it by retreating to a more feeble and boring claim, such as that some traits which are claimed to be part of human nature aren't. It is part of the common sense of the citizens of many countries today that democracy is a better form of political order than non-democracy is. There seems to be good reason for not debunking this thesis. Bourke presumably wouldn't want to debunk the view, common within academic life, that the humanities are worth studying. And so on.
That common sense should generally be debunked is one-sided in the same way that 'speaking truth to power' is. Of course, one should speak truth to power, but this is because one should speak truth more generally. There are plenty of people, though, who don't have power, or much power, and who need to hear the truth. I've got a little list: conspiracy theorists of one stripe and another; individuals permanently aggrieved but without good reason; the SWP; people who make excuses for terrorism; people who make excuses for torture; those who think that because they've succeeded in life through their own individual efforts, everyone else is equally well-placed to do the same. I could go on but I won't.