“The precious thing about literature is its ability to show us alternative futures without having to experience them first hand.” —Arnold Weinstein
“The primacy of the Greeks in the canon of Western literature is neither an accident nor the result of a decision imposed by higher authority; it is simply a reflection of the intrinsic worth of the material, its sheer originality and brilliance."
—Bernard Knox The Oldest Dead White European Males: And Other Reflections on the Classics
“Whether white, black, Asian or Latino, American students rarely arrive at college as habitual readers, which means that few of them have more than a nominal connection to the past. It is absurd to speak, as does the academic left, of classic western texts dominating and silencing everyone but a ruling elite o[f] white males. The vast majority of white students do not know the intellectual tradition that is allegedly theirs any better than black or brown ones do. They have not read its books, and when they do read them, they may respond well, but they will not respond in the way that the academic left supposes. For there is only one “hegemonic discourse” in the lives of American undergraduates, and that is the mass media. Most high schools can’t begin to compete against a torrent of imagery and sound that makes every moment seem quaint, bloodless, or dead.”
“[ . . . ] Men and women educated in the Western tradition will have the best possible shot at the daunting task of reinventing morality and community in a republic now badly tattered by fear and mistrust. These books—or any such representative selection—speak most powerfully of what a human being can be. They dramatize the utmost any of us is capable of in love, suffering, and knowledge. They offer the most direct representation of the possibilities of civil existence and the disaster of its dissolution. Reading and discussing the books, the students begin the act of repossession. They scrape away the media haze of secondhandedness.” —David Denby Great Books
The instructor presumes that students are likely unfamiliar with most or all of these literary works, but does assume that students have a desire to learn; furthermore that students understand that work and discipline matter more than intellectual ability in succeeding academically because consistent work and discipline in your studies increase your intellectual capacity. Through regular conscientious study, your memory improves, your reasoning powers sharpen, your reading, writing and speaking skills develop and mature in the same way consistently working out physically increases strength, stamina, agility, ability, and cardiovascular health.
What John Scharr has said of other endeavors in life is equally true of our learning:
“The future is not a result of choices among alternative paths offered by the present, but a place that is created—created first in the mind and will, created next in activity. The future is not some place we are going to, but one we are creating. The paths to it are not found but made, and the activity of making them changes both the maker and the destination.”
