"Cultivating our historical imagination."

Peter Wicks on liberal education:

The question of what the humanities are for has no simple answer, but if I had to sum it up in 60 seconds here is what I would say:

The best time to have a midlife crisis is in college. I don’t mean that anyone should expect to graduate feeling as if they have life all worked out, but by the time they graduate they should be in the habit of thinking seriously about what gives life meaning and value.

The humanities equip us for such reflection by cultivating our historical imagination. By studying the literature and ideas of those who came before us we learn that, like them, we are living in a particular historical period, and we come to recognize its prejudices and blind spots. We also discover that our sense of what is obvious has a history, and that what now seems obvious once seemed revolutionary. We don’t just learn to quote the great thinkers of the past; we learn that we have been quoting them without realizing it for a long time.