Timothy Stanley

On Intellectual Life

April 13, 2016 timothywstanley@me.com

What is the point of studying the humanities? The question reflects the current climate among humanist educators: anxiety shading into despair... There is no danger, in our hyper-moralized, hyper-political culture, that our young people will somehow fail to be enchanted by the prospect of making a difference. The danger is quite otherwise: that as all human goods are either put to use or discarded in the struggle for social and political ends, we lose our humanity and the dignity it implies. We lose what makes life worth living, whether that is intellectual life or any of the other unutterably precious human activities that dwell in peace and holy uselessness.

Zena Hitz, "Freedom and Intellectual Life" - First Things

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