When Fish suggests that we give up trying "to alter the world by forming moral character, or fashioning democratic citizens, or ... anything else," he implies that no answer is needed to the question of why, if we merely did the work before us instead of offering society something it wants, society should continue to spend good money on us. It's as if there always have been academic jobs, and there always will be jobs. So why worry? But since universities in general and literary study in particular are not self-sustaining Platonic essences but social institutions requiring a social mandate, the real question is not whether we should aim to change the world or not. Whatever our political preferences and commitments as individuals, collectively speaking we cannot afford not to make claims to some sort of social value or purpose and to back up those claims as convincingly as possible. The question that must be debated is which claims — which legitimizing statements or strategies we scholars should choose to adopt, which of these extremely different projects of change deserve or deserves our allegiance.