| Description | Part of the contemporary problem in making a convincing case for the humanities is that their defenders, despite producing blue-ribbon reports about the current state of education, often do a shockingly bad job of explaining why they are important. The real source of a desire for liberal learning is not and has never been a sense of guilt or obligation, and its reasons cannot be expressed in bureaucratic manifestos. The authentic spring of liberal learning is simple: It is love. This love often originates in an uneasy sense of having missed something important and then -- even as one is unsure of what it is -- in desiring that something. |
