This revolution the information revoultion is a revolution of free energy as well but of another kind: free intellectual energy. It's very crude today yet our Macintosh computer takes less power than a 100-watt bulb to run it and it can save you hours a day. What will it be able to do ten or 20 years from now or 50 years from now?
In the end the humanities can only be defended by stressing how indispensable they are and this means insisting on their vital role in the whole business of academic learning rather than protesting that like some poor relation they don't cost much to be housed.