DeSantis’s Revolutionary Defense of the Classics

Promoting the Western canon shouldn’t only be a Republican talking point.

As Donald Trump sides with Bob Iger in Ron DeSantis's escalating row with Disney, all three stand to lose more than they'll gain. Images: AP/Zuma Press/Shutterstock/Getty Images Composite: Mark Kelly

Gov. Ron DeSantis just gave a welcome boost to the classical-education movement. He signed legislation allowing high-school students to qualify for Bright Futures scholarships, a state fund for college education, by submitting scores from the Classic Learning Test instead of the SAT alone.

This move will likely be portrayed, wrongly, as partisan and conservative. But the greatest works of civilization have always been about spurring—not preventing—radical change. They teach us about the revolutionary ideas of the past and help us better understand the present. The richest ideas of what it means to be human are those that have stood the test of time.

Opinion

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