Practice Management

Cultural Literacy: Get some.

By Dan Hull

Doubtless there was an element of cultural snobbery in my initial preference for things Gallic: their Romantics seemed more romantic than ours, their Decadents more decadent, their Moderns more modern. Rimbaud versus Swinburne was simply no contest; Voltaire seemed just smarter than Dr. Johnson.

--Julian Barnes, b. 1946, in Something to Declare (Random House 2002)

Spread the word. Fly the colors. And get your head out of your ass. French school systems--with the arguable exception of the subject of history--are reputed to teach children of all social classes the Arts and the Humanities, and more. To them, a real education is not a luxury--but a necessity for life. Knowing something about the great ideas, great books, languages, dance, painting and world history should not be like an optional feature to a car--as Brit author Julian Barnes once characterized the Western view of 'an education' in Something to Declare.

A full and robust education is not just for the rich and well-born. Maybe that is what makes the French so, well, infuriatingly French.

Full post as published by What About Clients? on September 21, 2009 (boomark / email).