Comment by everforward

I wonder if our prestige has moved from having knowledge of difficult works (in difficult English, in other languages, in historic English) to having knowledge on a breadth of subjects.

Someone telling me they’ve read Virgil in Latin reads like a party trick to me. It’s certainly neat, but begs me to ask “why?” rather than inspiring awe. Someone being able to have an engaging conversation on macroeconomics, Supreme Court precedents from 50 years ago, and trends in social media is much more impressive.

That’s not to say there’s no value in acclaimed works, but the value now seems intrinsic rather than societal accolades. No one is impressed when your email about a meeting next week is a paragraph long sentence that requires a thesaurus to understand.