WHAT'S SO GREAT ABOUT THE GREAT BOOKS?

Beauty and morality.

The idea of “Great Books” was conceived by 20th-century public intellectuals, designed to affirm the values of Western culture in the wake of wars, both world and cold. Most were written by white men. Most were written long ago, from Moby-Dick to War and Peace. Why should they matter now? Kanakia, a novelist who writes a literary blog, Woman of Letters, argues that they matter irrespective of who you are. The Great Books fill us with ambition to achieve, she writes. They take us to worlds we’ve never seen. They give us insight into the kinds of people we may meet. Kanakia makes the case that some books really are better than others. And what makes them better is their moral center. They have an “aesthetic sense,” which is not so much beauty in the writing as it is “the ability to make fine moral distinctions.” Working from the philosopher William James, Kanakia avers: “If we believe there is no universal morality, then we are adrift and our life is meaningless. If we do believe in universal morality, then we live happy and peaceful lives.” This is less a book about the Western canon or the goals of college than it is a personal journey of reading in search of that happy and a peaceful life. The author affirms values shared by all: straight and queer, cis and transgender, white and of color. The cultivation of taste and the appreciation of beauty are not, then, socially excluding practices. They are what gives us common ground. The Great Books don’t offer simple answers. They provoke complex reflections. In that act, we become, perhaps, not better people, but more accepting ones.

A convincing case for Great Books as the road to self-discovery and moral action.