as a certain internet wag once put it, the defenders of western civilization have never encountered it

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and, finally, this: a fixed canon can only be the corpse of a dead tradition; not in spite but *because* of my interests, I can hardly endorse such a thing.

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I say this as an intellectual historian of 17th- & 18th-century Europe who teaches the Enlightenment and has taught (and loved!) Great Books courses. Familiarity with a canon gives a shared frame of reference! It can be vital to understanding many things! It remains limited, changeable and relative!

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there are many good reasons to study particular traditions in which particular canons play outsized roles. All of these reasons are more specific and more delimited than “reading books” or “knowing history.” Every canon is constructed (over and over again) relative to a specific purpose or question

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if you are worried about reading, the list of books should be the least of your concerns

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