The other thing I'm having a bit of a problem with is the idea that if someone doesn't know Blake, or Newton, or Shakespeare, or Alcot, that automatically means all they know is Barbie and Ninja Turtles.

That's pretty one-track thinking in my opinion. I don't know Blake or Newton. I don't know a lot of the people mentioned in this thread who are deemed to be crucial to having a rich cultural experience.

I don't think my experience is any less rich for having focused more on Beckett, Ferlinghetti, Salinger, Stoppard, and Kafka than people who focused on what some people in this thread think is important. Different strokes for different folks.