In Greenville, we were blessed to have lots of youth arts programs. I changed middle schools to go to an arts middle school. Then, when high school came, I went to normal high school for a little while before auditioning for the Governor's School for Arts and Humanities.
The humanities need to be defended today against the encroachments of physical science, as they once needed to be against the encroachment of theology.
America is very decentralized in how it supports the humanities, unlike European countries where virtually everything stems from the central government.
I think most of us sense that it is a responsibility of the humanities to try to help better the conduct of human beings in their lives and manifold professional activities.
Our world is enriched when coders and marketers dazzle us with smartphones and tablets, but, by themselves, they are just slabs. It is the music, essays, entertainment and provocations that they access, spawned by the humanities, that animate them - and us.
The first months at Harvard were more than challenging, as I came to the realization that the humanities could be genuinely interesting, and, in fact, given the weaknesses of my background, very difficult.
I think this confusion leads intellectuals and artists themselves to believe that the elite arts and humanities are a kind of higher, exalted form of human endeavor.
