I think that's basically another facet of what I was trying to express.

When I was little, I wanted to be a scientist. To me, that meant someone like the characters in Real Genius or people like Nikola Tesla. As I went through undergrad and into grad school, I realized that I could be a scientist after all; just of a different kind. (Of course, that didn't work out for me either...)

I feel that degree of softness in this sense correlates strongly to applicability of qualitative methods. Humanities requires a lot of quantitative work, but must be combined with qualitative work. I think a lot of people don't think about or know much about the rigor , value, and necessity of qualitative research, while at the same time not realizing how much quantitative work is involved in the humanities, and devalue it in comparison to 'hard' stuff. It's a shame.