but it’s really striking to read about the role that the liberal arts played in these large-scale working class communities in the past.

Douthat: But then isn’t there an argument, a critique of the humanities, that says that intellectual mentality and the eugenic mentality could fit together pretty naturally? It’s like: OK, to be human is to appreciate Bach and Plato, and only our smartest university students do that, so only they’re fully human — and so on down the eugenicist argument.