Monday, August 02, 2021
Once We Were a Well Educated People
Gore Vidal (1925-2012), quoted in Joe Lauria, "A Conversation With Gore Vidal on the 'E' Word," Consortium (July 31, 2021; first publication of an interview that took place in May 2007):
Hat tip: Jim K.
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"You must remember that they all read the classics. Most farmers knew some Latin and a few knew some Greek. You know we were a very well educated people."After the interview is "a transcript of remarks Vidal made at the event at the bookstore that day when he received the PEN award." According to the transcript Vidal mentioned "Judge Vernon Hand," surely a mistake for "Judge Learned Hand." Probably the transcriber misheard Vidal's whiskey-slurred voice on the recording.
[....]
"I am, or used to be, an authority on high school history books in America. And there's not one that dares to tell the truth about anything."
[....]
Can the Republic still be saved, I asked him?
"Read Aristotle," Vidal said. "It cannot. What has been done to ours is terminal."
Hat tip: Jim K.
Labels: typographical and other errors
