While I’m somewhat sympathetic to Greg Weiner’s point in “Endurance and the Canon,” I need to emphasize a point he overlooks, namely what causes “the canon” to endure. Some ideas endure on account of their intellectual merit–i.e., because they have intellectual staying power. Ben’s examples of Thucydides and Toni Morrison’s Beloved are examples of this phenomenon; because these works tackle problems inherent to humanity, people are likely to seek them out as resources for understanding these problems as long as they’re in print. But some ideas stay around, not because they have any ideational value whatsoever, but because historically they benefit a certain part of society at the … Continue reading What Causes the Canon to Endure