Personally, I think in principal humanities, have a purpose, and a very important purpose. That said, at least as actually practiced in the west they haven't been serving that purpose since at least the dumping of the Western Canon in the 1980s. I'm not sure if Japan has similar problems, but if it does this is a reasonable move.
As for social "science", I think this is part of the problem. Namely, attempting to apply the scientific method in areas where there isn't enough scientific evidence to draw any conclusions. Thus, the fields end up getting filled with non-replicable BS backed by dubious statistics.
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