Matthew Walther, The New York Times; The Enemies of Literature Are Winning
"Banned Books Week is, or should be, eminently mockable. Its proponents trade on the moral currency of defiance (“See how brave we are, inviting people to read these daring books!”) but in practice they are doing the opposite — attempting to reify a consensus."
"“We are drowning in information, while starving for wisdom.” That epigram from E.O. Wilson captures the dilemma of our era. Yet the solution of some folks is to disdain wisdom... So, to answer the skeptics, here are my three reasons the humanities enrich our souls and sometimes even our pocketbooks as well... First, liberal arts equip students with communications and interpersonal skills that are valuable and genuinely rewarded in the labor force, especially when accompanied by technical abilities. “A broad liberal arts education is a key pathway to success in the 21st-century economy,” says Lawrence Katz, a labor economist at Harvard. Katz says that the economic return to pure technical skills has flattened, and the highest return now goes to those who combine soft skills — excellence at communicating and working with people — with technical skills... Third, wherever our careers lie, much of our happiness depends upon our interactions with those around us, and there’s some evidence that literature nurtures a richer emotional intelligence."
