The Acquisition of Culture

If culture is, as Matthew Arnold put it, the pursuit of perfection, then I am at once most imperfect and in hot pursuit. To try to understand the world around, one must look to the past. And despite the advent of the television, most knowledge of our past is found in books and writings and not in terse 30-minute TV segments nor in public interest radio broadcasts. Days and weeks spent reading is the only way to attempt perfection, it is the only way to challenge one's understanding of the world and it is the only way to live.