I've never read Shakespeare and have the ability to think, so it's obviously not essential. And people thought before Shakespeare. Shakespeare had to think to be Shakespeare, after all.
I understand why people hold it up as essential: it's how they learned to think, and they can't think of another way to learn to think. So they call it "essential." It's still wrong. But understandable. Learning to think comes from having diversity in experience, not reading Shakespeare.
I understand why people hold it up as essential: it's how they learned to think, and they can't think of another way to learn to think. So they call it "essential." It's still wrong. But understandable. Learning to think comes from having diversity in experience, not reading Shakespeare.