There is a widespread feeling that public funds and private sponsorship should be used for what –many people think– matters in society. Economists, for example, enjoy broad acceptance as public mediators and interpreters of our contemporary world. University programs in the Humanities, by contrast, are facing a worldwide crisis. In Japan departments are closing and this also means that the Humanities are facing an identity crisis. Such a crisis is acute in the USA where, in order to maintain university programmes, you have to provide an answer to the «What for?» question and prove immediate relevance for the job market and society at large.