Public radio from Western Michigan University 102.1 NPR News | 89.9 Classical WMUK
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations
Interviews with news makers and discussion of topics important to Southwest Michigan. Subscribe to the podcast through Apple itunes and Google. Segments of interview are heard in WestSouthwest Brief during Morning Edition and All Things Considered

WSW: Are The Humanities Losing To Demagoguery?

Wikimedia Commons

David Denby says if enough people in the United States had read Huckleberry Finn President Donald Trump wouldn’t have been taken seriously during his campaign. Denby, a staff writer for the New Yorker says he was thinking of the con men in Mark Twain’s classic. “Trump is a con artist.”

Denby says people would have been “inoculated” against the “preposterous lies and nonsense.” Denby says the larger point is the reading of all kinds of good books help people develop critical thinking. Denby will deliver an address called The Humanities in the Age of Demagoguery Thursday night at 7:00 in Western Michigan University’s Knauss Hall. The event is part of the Promise of Education series sponsored by Western’s Center for the Humanities

"It would certainly help to produce a new leadership class if there were more people like the founding fathers."

Denby says right now he feels like the humanities are losing to demagoguery. But he says people should look to the nation’s founding fathers. Denby says they were enlightenment intellectuals, steeped in the humanities. Denby says since they were Christian deists they believed God created everything, then left us alone. Denby says they believed that a Constitution was needed to create the rules for a good society.

“It would certainly help to produce a new leadership class if there were more people like the founding fathers.”

davidenby020118-web.mp3
Interview with David Denby - web version

Although he spent 40 years as a film critic, Denby’s first book was about classic literature. His most recent book Lit examines whether young people can still be shaped by books. Denby says “I need to renew myself by reading every once in a while. I think it’s relief to turn off the TV, turn off the radio and not look at your computer screens.”

Image from Wikimedia Commons

Gordon Evans became WMUK's Content Director in 2019 after more than 20 years as an anchor, host and reporter. A 1990 graduate of Michigan State, he began work at WMUK in 1996.
Related Content