The Classics in the Slums

In 1988, Barbara Herrnstein Smith, president of the Modern Language Association, authoritatively stated (as something too obvious to require any evidence) that classic literature was always irrelevant to underprivileged people who were not classically educated. It was, she asserted, an undeniable "fact that Homer, Dante, and Shakespeare do not figure significantly in the personal economies of these people, do not perform individual or social functions that gratify their interests, do not have value for them."

...

But her theory had no visible means of support. Whenever it was tested, the results were diametrically opposed to what she predicted: in fact "the canon" enabled "the masses" to become thinking individuals.

-- Jonathan Rose

"Human nature being what it is..."

If you were to count up the big-game cartridges available today, starting at .243 and ending at .45/70, you would come up with no fewer than 95. (Personally, I don’t recommend doing this, as it’s boring. You’d be better off reading Thucydides’ history of the Peloponnesian War in the original Greek, or watching some good-looking babe swallow a cobra headfirst on a TV “reality” show.)

It was not always thus.