Shakespeare is Awful, Jefferson was a Rapist, and Pi is Useless

I get it, but he might be pretty upset when he finds his children falling in love and fooling around with higher maths or literature. Or even, god forbid, some useless skill like programming. I mean, when was the last time anyone ever had to program anything?

Delight directed education is powerful, but failing to recognize that pi can be delightful or that Shakespeare can make children excited seems to not be the best first step.

This is pretty typical Know Nothing American Populist anti-intellectualism. This is just part of a constant undercurrent in US thought that's gone on for the last 200 years. It surfaces every once in a while, causes some troubles by ruining a few academic's careers, and then disappears.

But, even a blind pig finds an acorn once in a while: "we all take it as an obvious fact now that any history you learn in public school you have to completely relearn as an adult in order to get the real history". This is only too true. Altucher goes on to negate the insight behind this by bringing up Charlemagne in some ignorant context.

all we need to do is teach kids how to open and run a business. that'll get things turned around ...