Criteria of Excellence in the Humanities

Abstract

Originally, excellence in the humanities used to be seen as an agonistic and patrician virtue which relies on the Promethean hybris of the subject of the humanities. This hero of the spirit was supposed to embody the highest human virtues (as seen through the liberal civilizational prism): cosmopolitism, liberalism, philanthropy. However, the present-day meaning and use of the term excellence is determined by the idea of quality developed in organizational sciences, and, in addition to being invoked by corporations, it is also referred to by governments and ministries. The idea is based on the assumption that the quality of the product primarily depends on the organization of the work process. Therefore, the criterion of fulfilling organizational demands (such as the demand for networking, recognizability, dissemination, etc.) is imposed on the humanities as fundamental. In this situation, the hero of the spirit gives way to the end user as the dominant figure driving the rhetoric of corporate excellence. Thus, the humanities find themselves in a position where communication with the socially predominant, corporate-centered, paradigm is difficult.

the hero of the spirit, the humanities, excellence, end user