Attempting to maintain a frame of optimistic idealism seems rather heroic in this age of absolute consequences. It is not that the idea of contemplating utopia serves only as denialism is new. That has always been the case. But with stability comes the real work of getting there though continued scholarship. It is not just the scholarship that suffers in darker political times, but there is the very real potential for morbid scholarship to surface and be given credence. This has all happened before.
What I do not see is a greater interest in critical studies as being the natural conclusion of book bans and oppressive educational economies. The potential for a dark age is real. There are never any promises that we will walk out of another dark age.
The humanities had already been suffering nationwide for years with slow but steady and increasing funding cuts. Some universities will claim they maintain a gold standard that did not forget history, but those very same schools will be under administrations bowing the pressure.
Now more than ever is a time for open access scholarship. Now more than ever is a time for independent research. If any segment of the utopian scholarship can be salvaged, it will have to be done openly, freely, and without the reservations of being under the scope of someone else’s permission. In an age of consequences, the public at large will weave this way and that as no true leader will surface to help be a guide to sobriety of conscience. Without public leadership, private stewardship could very well crumble. Those who were fortunate enough to have been blessed with one form or another of what we call education are duty-bound to share ideas and build communities of learning so that, at least in some part, growth can still continue.