Ironically, though Vargas decries the rise of specialized thinking, he succumbs to it time and again. Seeing the world through the writer's prism, he credits literature for all that is right and good. At heart, he says, literature shows us what might be. The notion that literature forges better societies is ludicrous. Literature, of course, confers many benefits.
Problem is, they are impossible to pinpoint.
It raises questions but offers few conclusions. It offers possibilities, not prescriptions. Love, anger, war and peace, community and individualism, each has its own bard. Because literature's target is not the mind, which is subject to logic and reason, but that roiling realm of subjectivity called the soul, its results can never be predicted. They are created by individuals and they are read by individuals, who vary enormously in the conclusions they draw from their writing and their reading.