Partisans of Liberal Education

Vuval Levin in The Corner blog at National Review Online.

"Obviously the great books have a lot to offer the Left, but that’s because they have a lot to offer everyone and anyone. Sure, what Adam Smith says about our innate sociality could well reaffirm some things liberals argue, and what Edmund Burke says about the limits of power could reinforce modern critiques of imperialism. But don’t just read what great minds have thought when it sounds like what you think. Read Smith and Burke (and far greater minds still, who will offer you far deeper and more fundamental challenges) to learn from them what you may not already know, and what might challenge what you think and how you think."