Here's some further food for thought.
On how the humanities (and the texts and intellectual methods we teach and value), might in fact be seen as essential to a healthy civil society:
http://www.truthdig.com/arts_culture/item/troy_jollimore_on_why_democracy_needs_the_humanities_20100423/
Snippets
[The claim that democracy needs the humanities, that the crisis in humanistic education leaves “the future of the world’s democracies hang[ing] in the balance,” is a strong one, and more hardheaded readers may respond with skepticism. As much as the humanities may enrich the lives of those privileged enough to devote themselves to them, they continue to strike many people as, essentially, frills. As long as a majority continues to see them this way they will be among the first things to be jettisoned when times get tough. Nussbaum’s contention is that this view is precisely the opposite of the truth: As the subtitle makes clear, the main part of “Not for Profit: Why Democracy Needs the Humanities” is devoted to substantiating the claim that the skills taught by the humanities are “skills that are needed to keep democracies alive.”]
...
[socratic pedagogy, then, is meant to produce an ideal citizen, one who is 'active, critical, curious, capable of resisting authority and peer pressure'—the kind of citizen who poses a threat to authoritarian regimes but who enables democracies to function.]
Or a shorter, slightly more critical take on Nussbaum's argument here:
http://www.newstatesman.com/books/2010/06/value-democracy-nussbaum-arts