Here’s the best line that I’ve read in a while:
“Restaurants get eulogies. Airlines get bailouts. Shakespeare gets kicked when he’s down.”
It’s sooo true. Sure says a lot about what we value as a society. I walk a lot with a friend- we start each day off with a 1 hour walk in Earl Bales Park. It’s gorgeous and energizing and I cannot do without it. One morning my walking partner asked me “Is Covid-19 is God’s response to human kind’s hubris?” This is a deeper topic than we typically cover in our morning walks. We usually discuss distance learning/teaching challenges, why dogs should be on leashes, and how gorgeous the forest looks today...
But hubris? God? Wait up! It’s too early for this... But as you can tell, the question has stayed with me, because I think it is true: not the God part- but the hubris part.
I’m partial to Greek philosophy and the concept of our creating our own circumstances, and I often teach the nature of humankind as seen through literature. So I was delighted, though not surprised, to read the NY Times article by Opinion Columnist Frank Bruni “The End of College As We Know It?” He opines:
Shakespeare, Eliot and scores of the other writers and thinkers at the core of a liberal arts education lavished attention on the conflict between individual desires and communal obligations, on the toxic fruits of fear and on the dangerous lure of ignorance. That’s why we read them. That’s why we should continue to, especially now.
So what are you waiting for? A president to inspire calm and reassurance? Of course not. Try Aeschylus or Plato, Shakespeare or Elliot.
At least we know that they survived the test of time.
-A
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