But we live in the world of people, and demonstrating proficiency in only one insistent cultural mode because it is the most dedicated to rationalism is an impoverished worldview.
The question is, to what extent the current shape of humanities is aligned to those principles?!
The humanities teach how to look from multiple perspectives, our values, what we believe and why, our self and our relation to society. It teaches critical thinking and analysis of complex, nonquantifiable factors, such as: should we declare war on North Korea? What does it mean to be Chinese American? Should I trust this person, website, or TV station? The humanities are about life, and virtually all the themes are immediately applicable in daily life.
For what it's worth, I enjoyed Prof. Rota's piece and didn't particularly object to his "what"/"how" distinction. I agree with commenters above that it's a misrepresentation of historical research, which can be deeply empirical. Unfortunately a huge amount of history education, especially k-12, does boil down to a rote memorization of past events, so I can't really fault him for the generalization.
Surprisingly, even Macron articulated that maybe Western world needs "great story arcs", which is code word for SHARED IDEALS.
War is always an attribute of survival and the problem is that US population is pretty insulated from acute strife on the survival front. But the risks are there and can only be appreciated once you train in geopolitics.
Court cases are won or lost, but sometimes overturned on appeal. Even Supreme Court rulings can be overturned by later rulings.
Artists create art that can win or lose in the marketplace. Art can also gain or lose status based on how it appears to critics. Artists can be popular, notorious, or obscure.
Similarly for writers. Politicians win or lose elections. Nations win or lose wars.
Winning and losing in competitive situations seems more fundamental than falsification. (Take evolution for example.)
