“We are fast becoming an illiterate nation.
“Seldom do our children receive systematic instruction in what their cultures have, over the centuries, deemed important enough to preserve: the tribal dance, the symphonic idiom, Asian poetry, folk tales. These, along with our built monuments, enduring literature, music, and visual arts, define the cultures from which we come.
“Cicero warned that not to know what happened before we were born condemns us always to remain children, and in an aesthetic sense, that is the punishment to which we have condemned our own children.
“It is a mystery to me why our study of history revolves around wars rather than artistic accomplishments, around the writings of politicians rather than those of poets and essayists. To be locked out of sights and sounds, rhythm and meter, is as numbing and dehumanizing as to lack the ability to read.”
-from “Leaving Town Alive”
1 Comment
Creative Camerawork 
I was about to email you to ask for the name of the author of the statements quoted above that you had shared with me earlier today. Thank you.