In the current economic climate, many corporate and political leaders seek to reform public education through entrepreneurial efforts that reflect a managerial approach. Similarly, several academic scholars are busily marketing their research. To counter these trends and improve one's own standing, the author suggests that those who are in the humanities must explicitly rededicate themselves to promoting collective flourishing. He discusses the function of the humanities at the present time. He proposes that the market's current strength follows from its "cultural" success, its depiction of society in a way that often deeply resonates even with those it disadvantages. He believes that the humanities' canniest response is to keep offering alternatives to the prevailing market culture--a task for which the current marginality conveys a unique advantage. At the very moment when the university is yielding to the same cooptation that has overwhelmed the government, the legal system, and medicine and other professions, the humanities can speak powerfully for a counter-ethos of collective human flourishing.