Since we’ve split the atom, dealing with hatred is the fundamental project of the humanities. With that thought, Jim Leach, chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities, concluded his talk in the University of Virginia’s historic Rotunda. 
Soft-spoken and notably lacking exclamations or even physical gestures (he’s from Iowa), Leach delivered a clear and inviting speech on civility in public discourse as a Virginia Foundation for the Humanities event coinciding with the Virginia Festival of the Book. This concluding observation was so understated as almost to disappear under the edges of his talk. Yet what a zinger. In the context of the whole, it was less a call to arms than an endorsement of learning and listening, critical thinking, and constructive argument. That is, maybe the humanities in action are powerful antidote to the poison of narrow antipathies that could destroy us all.
