[Suppafly]

>These are books that we might not pick out to read on our own, but society as a whole is better off if everyone reads them and they are part of our common culture.

This, we already lose a lot by not being familiar with the canon that well educated students were learning in the past, we shouldn't shrug off the more recent canon that we share with our parents and grandparents. It's the same reason a lot of irreligious people still take time to learn some of the basic stories from the bible, there is so much christian influence in our society that you miss out if you aren't at least a little familiar with the mythology that things are based on or referencing.