Who Will Defend Homer?

Not Simpson, but the author of the Iliad and the Odyssey. We have a rich patrimony of literature, art, and thought in the last three millennia. Are we abandoning it for Grand Theft Auto? That most high school graduates need to learn skills to get a decent living seems fair enough. But what about the ten per cent or so who will go on to positions of leadership in our society: the lawyers, doctors and so on?

If our leaders are out of touch with our own history and the riches of our culture, then we are being led by amnesiacs. The will to power of our leaders might turn us all into hedonistic philistines, the easier to be led.

So I justify my old age search for knowledge of the humanities, so that I might be less easily bamboozled by our plausible, but ignorant leaders.

Steynianism 151: "~ REBUILDING THE FOUNDATION: ‘A pretty good summa of the humanities’ …. (worldontheweb)"

(Via Free Mark Steyn!.)