The myth of the University of Chicago built on humanities,
See the great classics in one volume, a text in progress!

When the concept of 'existentialism' appears in educational philosophy, the event that is also discussed is the Soviet Union's launch of Sputnik 1.
The shock of the Soviet Union's dominance of the space industry during the Cold War began to change the educational climate in the United States.
In the pragmatic climate that still represents the humanities in the United States, which was called progressivism, the need for pure scholarship emerged, and a representative example is 'The Great Books Program' implemented at the University of Chicago.
Robert Hutchins, a law student, became an educational theorist after taking office as president of the University of Chicago.
Under the slogan of "training professionals with a liberal education," he began to have all the University of Chicago students read the classics.
Hutchins believed that liberal education was not an option but a duty for democratic citizens.
This humanities project, which provoked fierce opposition within the university, given the prevailing climate in American education at the time, ultimately led to its conviction, ultimately elevating the University of Chicago, then a third-rate brand, to first-class status.

Sophocles' works are a subject worth examining along with the philosophical significance of ancient Greece in Western history.
The Greeks of that time were intoxicated with the discourse of rationality.
No matter how rational a human's attitude toward life may be, isn't human life itself not a narrative that flows so rationally?
Sophocles, following Oedipus the King, also criticizes human excessive rationality in Antigone.
It tells the story of the arrogance of the intellectual community that all problems can be solved with human reason, and the tragedy of humanity falling into the belief in rationality.
This may also be of an oracular nature, but in the distant future, Freud's most important keyword, which lowered the status of reason in the history of philosophy, was also 'Oedipus'.
--- p.35

Shakespeare's tragedies arise from the flaws of his characters.
The poet Samuel Johnson described Shakespeare's works as "a mirror reflecting life as it is."
Perhaps the flaws we carry are the main function of our lives.
In today's world, where the potential for tragedy is realized with increasing frequency, Shakespeare's tragedies may reveal our inner selves more starkly.
Othello's inferiority complex, Macbeth's ambition, King Lear's arrogance, and Hamlet's uncle and mother's lust.
Could it be that they are soon becoming our schizophrenic counterparts? And that is why we resonate so intensely with these tragedies? --- p.95

Humor and satire are grammars that awaken the vitality of life in the people while also dismantling the authority of vested interests.
This may not be limited to the Middle Ages, but the people of the Middle Ages, who were living in difficult and arduous times, were shuddering at the hypocritical power of Christianity at the time.
The indulgence and debauchery of Gargantua and Pantagruel depicted by Rabelais are simultaneously the absurdity of the powerful as seen by the people, and the free life pursued by Gargantua and Pantagruel was also the aspiration of the people.
Wasn't the sales of the Bible, overshadowed by the fantasy that aspirations reached, a phenomenon that proves this? --- p.137

The only person who offered genuine comfort to Ivan Ilyich in the face of his death was Gerasim, a servant working in his house.
Gerasim is a character who lives with the simple truth in mind that 'all men die'.
The phrase 'Memento mori' means to remember death, which is already present in life.
Death is not something that comes suddenly one day, but is the afterlife of every moment of life.
The moment we acknowledge that death is closer than we think, we are forced to reflect more earnestly on how we should live this limited life.
Death is also a part of life, as it allows us to reflect on life.
"Remember death!"—couldn't this be the message Tolstoy wanted to convey to his readers? --- p.165

To quote the Bible, God saw that everything he had created was good.
But it wasn't all good for humans.
To human eyes, it was the aesthetics of a world of difference.
More precisely, things that are good in the eyes of Europeans preempt goodness.
From the perspective that white skin represents purity, colored skin was considered a low-quality attribute.
European noblewomen bathed naked while black male slaves stood guard.
That's why it couldn't be slavery, black slaves weren't human yet.
For them, non-Europe was still nature.
The great history of 'humanity' overcoming nature justifies its domination over non-Europeans.
Any opposition to it is evil.
Islam was evil, and Indians were evil.
--- p.314

The two foundations of European spiritual culture are Hebraism and Hellenism.
The characteristic that most distinguishes Greece from Israel is humanism.
In Greek mythology, the existence of the gods is a human horizon projected onto phenomena that cannot be understood by human intellect.
In other words, it is a case of personifying the answer that humans themselves give to overcome the fear of the unknown and chance with the inevitability of the knowable.
Therefore, there are even gods who exist as answers to human emotions, and gods are also beings who love, feel jealousy, get angry, and feel frustrated.
The Greek gods are both helpers and spoilers who hold the fate of humanity in their hands.
All human honors are God's will, but all human errors are also God's fault.
If Hebraism imposed original sin on humans, in Hellenism humans were fundamentally sinless.
--- p.326

The Paris depicted by 'Old Goriot' is consistently vulgar and deadly.
For those who live in this world, materialism may be the natural state of their being.
Could the history of the humanities, built on a reflection on its sordid nature, be nothing more than empty embellishment, a mere distraction from its true essence? Perhaps this is what the title "Human Comedy," which encompasses Balzac's novel, implies.
A truly funny story about funny people in a truly funny world. Perhaps such a bare face is a more genuine humanities…

--- p.345