I have read the dumbest fucking sentence in the English language this morning, and, SHOCKER, it's in the National Review:

"Without Greece there is no beauty. Without Rome there is no language."

Just tens of thousands of years of silent humans, all over the world, until Rome comes along. Ignore all of the writing absolutely everywhere.

Oh shit y'all it just keeps going:

"But believe it or not, even before the whole world spoke Shakespeare’s language, the great imperial language of the West was Latin."

EVERYONE SPEAKS ENGLISH, DIDN'T YOU KNOW? EVERYONE. EVERYWHERE. WHOLE WORLD.

Intellectual gems like "As for Greece, without a doubt, their greatest contribution was the ideas. Yes, there were good ones and bad ones; but the Greeks imbued them with an important novelty: They made it fashionable to reflect upon which ideas were good and which were bad."

You see, no one ever reflected on ideas before the Greek city states! MY GOD! WHAT INNOVATION!

Before he goes straight into transphobic nonsense.

Mostly though, let's be very, very, very clear that what this particular NR piece is doing is trying to bolster a specific notion of the humanities that comes out of Trump's little history conference:

"Whatever the case may be, if today Humanities spark contempt from the Left, it is because they often refute their latest occurrences backed by immutable ideas that have matured for almost 30 centuries."

The Left has contempt for the humanities? Huh.

The humanities are big on immutable ideas? Huh.

The gems keep coming: "Titus Livius compared this ideal with the customs of his time, becoming a prophet of Roman decadence. If he were our peer, with his ideas, it is likely that he would have had to seek refuge within the pages of National Review, while receiving...

...daily attacks from CNN, the New York Times, and other mass media, raised in mass captivity."

I... just... but...

LIVY WAS FRIENDS WITH THE IMPERIAL FAMILY.

"I do not know if it is too bold a statement to claim that Roger Scruton was the Titus Livius of our day, but in any case, he was the most important defender of the Humanities in the worst conditions." It absolutely fucking is too bold. FFS.

"It is philosophy, ethics, and morals, the immense legacy of classicism, that raise their voices against injustice or against an affront to human dignity." Yeah, philosophy, ethics, and morals exist in a lot of contexts in a lot of regions, not just Greece and Rome.

"This is why the Democrats have become suspicious of the Humanities. Philosophy is a very dangerous discipline because it could teach schoolchildren how to think for themselves."

Oh for fuck's sake. No please, tell me about the great Republican defense of humanities departments.

So many years of joyful defenses on the part of the right for liberal arts schools that value the humanities. I know I've read tons of "Oberlin saving the children from the left" pieces. Wait. I haven't? Oh right. I haven't.

"After all, some people may argue that the Humanities discourse is beautiful but not very pragmatic if what you want is to reach the end of the month with food in the fridge." THIS IS AN UNENDING REPUBLICAN TALKING POINT ABOUT COLLEGE WHAT THE HELL.

I... I... now he's defending the humanities as a source of jobs. In the National Review. Which is great but also... the cognitive dissonance here is...

We should and must absolutely defend the humanities. But the actual humanities, not the weird caricature of white supremacy via obsessive love of Greece and Rome that the NR piece is selling. What the damn hell.

...what a relief it must have been for the Greeks to be conquered by the Romans, have cities torched, independence seized, many sold into slavery, so they could be made to learn Latin and have a language to debate ideas and discuss beauty in finally.

(Let's not forget that "Greco-Roman" is a really cute way of saying "Romans conquered Greece by force")