James Baldwin wrote the best reason for studying the humanities that I know of. I use it in my classes and it applies as readily to taking English lit as it does to studying History.

It’s so true.

He’s one of my heroes. Hopefully more read him. 💜🙌🥰

I had a father in law who disdained fiction because it was not true. I told him fiction was truth distilled into its purest essence.

Very true - bit like the idea that books can be mirrors reflecting your own experiences, or windows allowing you to see those perhaps unfamiliar to you. Students in my lit classes enjoy seeing their own experiences as a kind of validation & learning about lives of those different than their own.

Just so good. James Baldwin wrote the best [insert many topics here].

Yoinking this for when I have to retrain our guidance department on how to pitch my Latin class to HS freshmen, maybe next to the line from the Aeneid where the hero pushes down the pain in his heart and fakes courage with his face.

Baldwin was perfectly right. Our professor Antiquity and Patristics once said: "Culture changed, mankind changed, but human beings are still the same". We can recognise ourselves in old texts.

Top 2 greatest writers in American history. And one of the most versatile writers in all history. I wonder how often Baldwin is studied in American Literature courses?

The value of each of us cannot be measured in dollars. When someone says the humanities aren't worth it to them, they're saying the opposite.

this reasoning cannot apply to a parent who throws away their children's halloween candy