Culture Matters More Than Politics
October 28, 2010
R.R. Reno
Ours is the age of misplaced priorities. Instead of art and culture, we focus on politics and punditry. Chatting over lunch, we talk about the upcoming elections or Sarah Palin’s significance for the conservative movement or the effects of the Chinese trade surplus. Imitating news analysts, we speculate about what it will mean for the future.
These days, the ability to talk about politics in a knowing way is treated as a mark of sophistication, so much so, I think, that we’ve come tacitly to regard political analysis as the rightful domain of intelligence. If George Stephanopoulos were to make passing reference to John Milton or Henry James, the TV host would very likely treat it as a joke. But his slightest speculation about Barack Obama’s latest public statements are treated with high seriousness.
Ordinary conversations follow the same trajectory. Everyone wants to be Michael Barone. We do the “inside politics” commentator in different voices.
It was not always so. Far from indicating effete and irrelevant erudition, the capacity to talk about Jane Austen or T.S. Eliot or James Joyce was once seen as clear indication of a highly developed and socially relevant mind. Literature, theater, film, the visual arts—a certain acquaintance with and command of these domains made people intellectuals. For Lionel Trilling and Jacques Barzun and their readers, debates about novels and poetry seemed more fraught with public significance than the ins and outs of current electoral politics.
It’s hard to know exactly why things changed. Some say our media have dumbed-down popular culture. But that’s not true. TV is in a certain sense far, far more sophisticated today than it was when I grew up. The irony of the Colbert Report would have been inaccessible to mass audiences in 1970.
The CBS show “60 Minutes” made a big splash because it often gave twenty minutes to a single story. Today news shows devote hours and hours. A plane makes an emergency landing in the Hudson River, and immediately switchboards light up as newsrooms call experts. Retired pilots, safety experts, and airline executives offer expert analysis. Aeronautical engineers and oceanographers provide deep background.
So, no, things have not been dumbed-down. Instead, our interests have shifted. The post-war years saw a flourishing market for the “great books.” I remember, for example, the bookshelves of the homes in my neighborhood. They almost always featured the collections of classics that middle class Americans bought to bring culture into their newly purchased suburban homes.
The impulse to buy the Harvard Classics (known as “The Five Foot Shelf”) undoubtedly stemmed from class anxieties, but it also reflected a real desire to rethink modern identity. The traumas of the Great Depression and World War II profoundly disoriented Americans, as did the rapid growth in income and increase in status so many experienced, and many felt the need to answer basic questions about society and human destiny. Some turned to the classics of the past, others sought answers in Marxism or Freudian psychology, and still others drew inspiration from the cultural experimentation that culminated in the 1960s.
In this atmosphere, the pressing question about politics was not “Who is going to win?” but instead the question “What is politics for?” It was a question that required examining our more fundamental views of what human life is for, and what role society plays.
Today as we shift toward a seemingly ever-increasing interest in the machinery of partisan politics, we’re becoming Marxists by default. Marx held that economic realities are fundamental, and questions of culture are epiphenomenal.
To use the technical terms of Marxist theory, the struggle for economic power functions as the base of social reality, while literature and poetry, music, and the arts are part of the “superstructure” that is determined by the base. Thus the primacy of politics, for whoever controls the levers of state power can influence and guide economic affairs, and thus control everything.
Not every controversial political issue boils down to economics (though it’s amazing how much passion gets invested in whether the top marginal rate is 35% or 39%). The question of who controls the Supreme Courts also looms large. Yet across the board we assume that politics is about power—getting it and wielding it. The question, asked by Plato and Aristotle, as well as Augustine and Aquinas, “What is politics for?” is irrelevant, and indeed uninteresting.
This tacitly Bolshevik mentality is mistaken. Yes, of course people vote their pocketbooks. “It’s the economy, stupid,” as Bill Clinton reminded his campaign in 1992. But we also vote in order to forestall what we fear, and to achieve what we hope for. We’re only likely to put our shoulders behind political causes we believe necessary or desirable, which isn’t a matter of syllogisms, surveys, or social scientific analysis.
This is why the most potent force in political life is the human imagination, not control over the levers of state power. Utopian fantasies and exaggerated dreams of national greatness agitated millions in the twentieth century, providing legitimacy to communist and fascist regimes.
Nightmares about cancerous aliens made Nazi anti-Semitism seem plausible. And today it is the cultural imagination of the Islamic world—not its oil wealth or official foreign policies—that makes the region so volatile.
At the end of the day, elections don’t shape or influence our cultural imaginations. On the contrary, our imaginations influence our elections, as the naive nation builders who thought that bringing elections to Iraq would transform the country discovered, much to their dismay.
As the midterm elections approach, it’s worth remembering that the future of America will turn on culture, not politics: the poetry of our moral and social imaginations, not punditry. So by all means vote, but don't neglect the real and deeper sources of public life.
R.R. Reno is a Senior Editor of First Things and Professor of Theology at Creighton University. He is the general editor of the Brazos Theological Commentary on the Bible and author of the volume on Genesis. His previous “On the Square” articles can be found here.
Comments:
10.28.2010 | 3:50am
Don Roberto says:
This may be too deep for me, but my sense is that culture and politics are, or should be, closely intertwined. Without a grounding in culture, politics comes down to petty squabling over the inconsequential. And economics is meaningless without culture to determine utility. We end up with the ludicrous notion that more spending on anything—even things like pornography, kidney replacements, jail cells and armaments—is seen as good, merely because it increases overall eceonomic activity. And unfortunately, what most think of as voting their pocketbooks is the short-term road to long-term cultural and economic ruin.
10.28.2010 | 6:20am
Stuart Koehl says:
I agree largely with Don Roberto: in the broad Aristotelian sense, all human activity is political. Culture shapes politics. Politics shapes culture. The process is continuous and iterative.
10.28.2010 | 7:02am
Bangwell Putt says:
Before "the world lost its story" or at least the West did - the "story" having its roots in Judaism and Christianity - life was not seen by most people as just one thing after another. To live as an "acting person" had a dynamic aspect; one participated in an original form of a timeless narrative arduously achieved through trial and horrendous error. This provided a frame of reference which did not require advanced academic degrees. It was "handed down"; one breathed its air.
If I am not mistaken, this inheritance (which was far, far from perfect but capable of correction) was available to all who sought it. City and town libraries provided extensive collections available to all. A person so inclined could read himself into it; others accessed it simply by living in its atmosphere.
Pope Benedict referred to our loss when speaking at Regensburg. The "self-limiting" of reason, severance of faith and reason, relegation of faith to subjective status has severed people from themselves, "In losing God we lose man." What is left then but politics and the economy.
If I am not mistaken, this inheritance (which was far, far from perfect but capable of correction) was available to all who sought it. City and town libraries provided extensive collections available to all. A person so inclined could read himself into it; others accessed it simply by living in its atmosphere.
Pope Benedict referred to our loss when speaking at Regensburg. The "self-limiting" of reason, severance of faith and reason, relegation of faith to subjective status has severed people from themselves, "In losing God we lose man." What is left then but politics and the economy.
10.28.2010 | 8:06am
Douglas Skinner says:
Maybe the reason why politics and economics has displaced cultural subjects is due to the expansion of the state? As the state expands, private life recedes. The state's priorities become paramount because more and more people are affected by them. One of the blessings of limited government and the liberty that attends it is that people can afford to think about something else. I think the evidence of the last century shows that as the state expands, even the church itself has given way and for this to be turned around, we must simply pray.
10.28.2010 | 8:52am
Brian LeCompte says:
The content of political discussion is Dr. Reno's point, not the discussion per se. Even Jonn sewart hinted at this when he asked the president why healthcare was accomplished by the same backroom dealing the president campaigned to change. Stewart questioned the system of politics, not the policy itself. No news analyst picked up on the difference.
Whether the subject is ballet or ballot stuffing, its the lack of abstract thought in the conversation one finds disturbing. Yes, today's youth appreciate irony and obscure pop culture references. But they don't consume comedy with discernment. They can't understand the difference between Abbott and Costello and Homer and Bart. The capacity to enjoy comedy, rather than just consume it, is lacking.
Great books programs are excellent training for cultural literacy. But they are better if they train for cultural criticism, which in turn leads students to the question, "What is politics (this life) for?"
Whether the subject is ballet or ballot stuffing, its the lack of abstract thought in the conversation one finds disturbing. Yes, today's youth appreciate irony and obscure pop culture references. But they don't consume comedy with discernment. They can't understand the difference between Abbott and Costello and Homer and Bart. The capacity to enjoy comedy, rather than just consume it, is lacking.
Great books programs are excellent training for cultural literacy. But they are better if they train for cultural criticism, which in turn leads students to the question, "What is politics (this life) for?"
10.28.2010 | 9:06am
Mark says:
Excuse me, Don Roberto, but isn't that essentially what R.R. wrote? And Stuart, it is economics, not politics, that is the study of human activity.
10.28.2010 | 9:19am
T.B.Root says:
My local public radio station recently canned all classical music programming in favor of all day NPR news talk. Among their reasons was that these times call for for good in-depth information. Culture can wait.
I'm not convinced that this is not a dumbing down. Robert Siegel is fine, but he's no Beethoven.
I'm not convinced that this is not a dumbing down. Robert Siegel is fine, but he's no Beethoven.
10.28.2010 | 9:30am
Bangwell Putt says:
True cultural literacy, in my opinion, leads to cultural criticism as surely as night follows day. Also - those who asked the question, "What is politics ... for.") and found answers within Jewish and Christian culture participated in shaping our cultural milieu. This provided ground on which all could stand, perhaps in agreement, perhaps in denial, but still solid ground on which all could stand. Can a culture having no common ground continue to exist and be criticized at all. (question mark out of order).
10.28.2010 | 9:35am
Assistant Village Idiot says:
I agree with your analysis of current shallowness of thought, but disagree that it was ever very different. The last generation had Jacques Barzun, but it did not have an army of them. If one picks up old newspapers or magazines, one does not find a nascent intellectualism spreading through the culture, but only a similar shallowness, focused on different celebrities and different news. Even the ephemera of the first centuries of printing show no better. The few things that endure from previous ages are a highly unrepresentative sample. The life of the universities was as much Wodehouse as it was CT Onions.
I might even venture that the opposite is true. For many centuries, even up to a few decades ago, Christians might read the Bible or devotional material, but few read any theology or church history beyond a few scattered saint's stories or highly partisan accounts of historical events that had some religious aspects. Now, at least, many attempt it, which is why First Things has an audience at all. That the great mass of humanity does not seek depth is of course distressing - but it is hardly new.
I might even venture that the opposite is true. For many centuries, even up to a few decades ago, Christians might read the Bible or devotional material, but few read any theology or church history beyond a few scattered saint's stories or highly partisan accounts of historical events that had some religious aspects. Now, at least, many attempt it, which is why First Things has an audience at all. That the great mass of humanity does not seek depth is of course distressing - but it is hardly new.
10.28.2010 | 10:05am
Bop th rant says:
Who was it who said of Henry James that he chewed more than he bit off? Maybe he should have been a First Things contributor. James, that is. But look at the cultural figures cited in the article: James, Milton, Austen, Eliot and Joyce. Only two were American and both appropriated Englishness with a vengeance because as Americans they did not possess a culture in the meaningful sense of the word. America has never cultivated a reflective historical sense that can carry her deeper than slogans. She is all about means without ends, and deceives herself about this by tarting up means as ends. Her wars always serve her politics, never what politics should serve. After Britain took the floor against Hitler it took Canada all of 15 days to declare that she would join her. How many days, months and years did it take the Americans to follow suit? And when did she ever express shame at her unforgivable tardiness? And when did she ever express shame at the absolutely militarily useless act of dropping a second atom bomb that incinerated tens of thousands? The answer is never. And do you know why? Because you need to possess a culture before you can experience shame, let alone express it.
10.28.2010 | 10:23am
michael Currie says:
There is a line from a song of several years ago that this topic reminded me of; "there's no way back from here, the birds have eaten all the crumbs". This in turn made me think of Alasdair MacIntyres' "After Virtue" where he writes that we have lost our basis for moral language and that we do not know it. He refers to emotivism as our ages functional equivalent. My take on this turn is that it found
a fertile ground in our developing and developed notions of rights and slights which can only,now, be expressed in political language, a strident languge to say the least. This language is about power and power is not served by the more considered and docile expressions of literature, poetry and the arts to say nothing about Religious language. To be sure these forms can be strident at times and advocacy is not beneath them but typically these take place in communities whose purpose is not power but expression. Even here though the snake is in the garden fed by the influx of government monies and influence.At almost all levels of government, local, state and federal bureaucratese
has won the day with an ever growing list of rules and regulations crowding out the everyday idiocyncracies of its' citizenry. This being said, all is not gloom and doom, there are many avenues available for the growth of culture though in a disjointed almost underground way. The great danger is that there will be a huge increase in groups that will find ways to function away from the all seeing eye of governments and this necessary distance will create antipathy and conflict.If this doesn't happen the alternative is to become "Eloi".
a fertile ground in our developing and developed notions of rights and slights which can only,now, be expressed in political language, a strident languge to say the least. This language is about power and power is not served by the more considered and docile expressions of literature, poetry and the arts to say nothing about Religious language. To be sure these forms can be strident at times and advocacy is not beneath them but typically these take place in communities whose purpose is not power but expression. Even here though the snake is in the garden fed by the influx of government monies and influence.At almost all levels of government, local, state and federal bureaucratese
has won the day with an ever growing list of rules and regulations crowding out the everyday idiocyncracies of its' citizenry. This being said, all is not gloom and doom, there are many avenues available for the growth of culture though in a disjointed almost underground way. The great danger is that there will be a huge increase in groups that will find ways to function away from the all seeing eye of governments and this necessary distance will create antipathy and conflict.If this doesn't happen the alternative is to become "Eloi".
10.28.2010 | 10:57am
Chuck says:
The problem is not that politics follows culture. In a very broad sense that is certainly true. But what happens when there is no unifying culture for the politics to follow? What happens when one subset of the society views the self-evident truths of another subset to be mere self-evident nonsense and vice versa, when there can be no true dialogue because there is no longer any common basis on which the dialogue can be based?
10.28.2010 | 10:58am
Triple347 says:
Dr. Reno,
I have long appreciated your work, and I must admit this excellent article is something which I have been pondering for some time now. To wit: the compass of the 'political' is increasingly dominating every other possible sphere of investigation, where 24 hour news cycles dominate any sort of cultural literacy or grammar, education is reduced to mere instrumental utility/rationality, inter alia. I have also been pondering its rather Marxist understanding of the world, and how it is inculcating us into the 'world' of Marxism, unbeknownst to us though it may be. So many continue to rail against "Marxism", without even realizing they are perpetuating a kind of 'philistine' Marxism. Paraphrasing MacIntyre, at the very end of After Virtue, "We find ourselves not waiting for Godot, but another, very different St Benedict. For the barbarians are not at the gate, but have been ruling us for many years."
I have long appreciated your work, and I must admit this excellent article is something which I have been pondering for some time now. To wit: the compass of the 'political' is increasingly dominating every other possible sphere of investigation, where 24 hour news cycles dominate any sort of cultural literacy or grammar, education is reduced to mere instrumental utility/rationality, inter alia. I have also been pondering its rather Marxist understanding of the world, and how it is inculcating us into the 'world' of Marxism, unbeknownst to us though it may be. So many continue to rail against "Marxism", without even realizing they are perpetuating a kind of 'philistine' Marxism. Paraphrasing MacIntyre, at the very end of After Virtue, "We find ourselves not waiting for Godot, but another, very different St Benedict. For the barbarians are not at the gate, but have been ruling us for many years."
10.28.2010 | 11:13am
Michael says:
I was in Paris last week, during the various strikes and demonstrations. Passing the Sorbonne, I saw that someone had painted some sort of slogan on the wall.
Assuming it related to the current upheavals, I crossed the road to read it.
« Le futur n’a plus d’avenir » [The future has no future]
Political or cultural?
Assuming it related to the current upheavals, I crossed the road to read it.
« Le futur n’a plus d’avenir » [The future has no future]
Political or cultural?
10.28.2010 | 12:10pm
Albert says:
What you are saying here resonates strongly. Thanks for the excellent article.
10.28.2010 | 12:32pm
Mike says:
I think Mr. Reno provides great food for thought, which leads me to the questions “does our culture have things backwards? Are we trying to drive culture via politics when it should be the other way around?”
For of many examples – life issues. Thirty-seven years ago 7 of 9 Supreme Court justices effectively declared the pre-born to be “non-human,” and we end up with the most divisive cultural battle since slavery. In the mean time almost 50 million pre-born human babies have been legally destroyed. Many of us have been working for decades to try to work with the political establishment to try to restore justice and the right to live to the pre-born, which is very important.
However, is the core problem with politics or with the culture? If the American public collectively demanded freedom and equality for all, from conception to natural death, this demand would have long since been reflected and implemented by the political establishment. As we know, being pro-choice is the kiss of death to many politicians who run for office in South America. So, abortion is illegal there. The right cultural attitude seemed to correct the situation.
Perhaps if we focused on a developing a better, more thinking and forward looking culture, we would give more consideration to the greater issues of existence in this world and the next, and we might develop a better person. In this case politics would take care of itself, which would include protecting the right to life for the whole populace.
For of many examples – life issues. Thirty-seven years ago 7 of 9 Supreme Court justices effectively declared the pre-born to be “non-human,” and we end up with the most divisive cultural battle since slavery. In the mean time almost 50 million pre-born human babies have been legally destroyed. Many of us have been working for decades to try to work with the political establishment to try to restore justice and the right to live to the pre-born, which is very important.
However, is the core problem with politics or with the culture? If the American public collectively demanded freedom and equality for all, from conception to natural death, this demand would have long since been reflected and implemented by the political establishment. As we know, being pro-choice is the kiss of death to many politicians who run for office in South America. So, abortion is illegal there. The right cultural attitude seemed to correct the situation.
Perhaps if we focused on a developing a better, more thinking and forward looking culture, we would give more consideration to the greater issues of existence in this world and the next, and we might develop a better person. In this case politics would take care of itself, which would include protecting the right to life for the whole populace.
10.28.2010 | 1:04pm
Ben Embry says:
Reno is right. Ours is an age of misplaced priorities. Imagine the person who is, for example, divorced and then remarried, practicioner of artificial contraception, never having lived in the same locale for more than a decade, overly fond of digital communications, and groomed to eschew practical skills involving sweat. When confronted with the question of "what human life is for", something in this person recoils. Of course this person, or any other in a similar situation, would prefer to talk about Sarah Palin's eyeglasses than about Aquinas's thoughts on virtue.
In our home, we don't claim to be cultural highbrows. Our children (7,5,3,and 1) have grown up without television. We don't receive any dailies or weeklies in the mailbox, although we do get a few monthlies. We have very little time for any communications on the Web. (Just an aside, I recommend Roger Scruton's article on digital communications in the current The New Atlantis.) Rather, we have a relatively agrarian lifestyle; we do our own home remodels; we grow blueberries; we watch the wind pass over the hayfield while all six of us squish into the porch swing; we have campfires. We teach the children poems and scriptures. Everyone in the house is singing throughout the day. And we try to have a brief time of Bible reading and prayer in the evenings. We go to the annual crisis pregnancy fund raiser; go to the occasional lecture in the big city; write to the editor of a newspaper.
If that is culture, I suppose we prioritize it over politics. If it isn't, then maybe a priority on an abstraction called culture is itself too paltry a goal.
In our home, we don't claim to be cultural highbrows. Our children (7,5,3,and 1) have grown up without television. We don't receive any dailies or weeklies in the mailbox, although we do get a few monthlies. We have very little time for any communications on the Web. (Just an aside, I recommend Roger Scruton's article on digital communications in the current The New Atlantis.) Rather, we have a relatively agrarian lifestyle; we do our own home remodels; we grow blueberries; we watch the wind pass over the hayfield while all six of us squish into the porch swing; we have campfires. We teach the children poems and scriptures. Everyone in the house is singing throughout the day. And we try to have a brief time of Bible reading and prayer in the evenings. We go to the annual crisis pregnancy fund raiser; go to the occasional lecture in the big city; write to the editor of a newspaper.
If that is culture, I suppose we prioritize it over politics. If it isn't, then maybe a priority on an abstraction called culture is itself too paltry a goal.
10.28.2010 | 2:01pm
Gregory K. Laughlin says:
I agree with Stuart Koehl's comment above, but would add that culture influences politics more than the other way around. The great mistake of conservative Christians over the past three or four decades has been to invest relatively too much time, energy and money into politics and relatively too little into culture. Those seeking to overturn tradition, on the other hand, invested heavily into changing the culture decades before they invested heavily in the political process. The result is that they were able to change how people (who are or will become voters) think and, once that change had reached a critical point, they were then able to use that changed way of thinking to implement policies reflecting the new way of thinking. It has occurred time and time again. It is how the "progressives" succeeded in changing the laws related to contraception, divorce, abortion, and sodomy and how they are succeeding in changing the laws related to who may marry.
Time, energy and money spent on influencing politics has been, for social conservatives (of which I am one), a defensive action; time, energy and money spent on influencing culture by social "progressives" has been an offensive action. It would serve social conservatives well to learn from what has worked for progressives rather than to continue to pursue a strategy that has failed in the past, is failing now, and is likely to continue to fail in the future. It is not that progressive do not resort to politics, of course, but that they invest even more in preparing the culture to support their desired political changes decades before they actually begin what is for them the mop-up phase of political change.
Time, energy and money spent on influencing politics has been, for social conservatives (of which I am one), a defensive action; time, energy and money spent on influencing culture by social "progressives" has been an offensive action. It would serve social conservatives well to learn from what has worked for progressives rather than to continue to pursue a strategy that has failed in the past, is failing now, and is likely to continue to fail in the future. It is not that progressive do not resort to politics, of course, but that they invest even more in preparing the culture to support their desired political changes decades before they actually begin what is for them the mop-up phase of political change.
10.28.2010 | 2:20pm
Stephen M. Barr says:
Rusty, I agree with the basic point that there are more important things in life than elections and politics. But I have several reservations about what you say here.
First, I wonder whether you are conflating two senses of the word culture. There is culture in the sense of high culture: the fine arts, poetry, and so forth, and there is culture in the anthropological sense of the way of life of a society, its manners, mores, customs, and beliefs. The health of the culture (in the latter sense) of the mass of the population is certainly of the greatest importance. Whether people have sound ideas about morality, for instance, how children are raised, how women are treated, how family life is lived, how people care for their neighbors, and what they believe about God. How vital the "high culture" may be, though important, is less so. Nor does high culture have as much social influence as perhaps you imagine. I suspect that even in the 1930s, 40s and 50s, not many people talked over lunch about Proust or Milton --- even I daresay professors. I have listened to lunchtime conversations among academics for about thirty years, and they more often talk about restaurants, politics (both national and academic), and the latest headlines than about subjects of high seriousness. Indeed, the level of political discussion is usually very shallow. I suspect it was ever thus.
I do not see people as more political today. Until the current economic crisis jolted people (except for a brief period after 9-11) people have been relatively apolitical in the last few decades, as far as I can tell. Think of the Civil War era and the agitations over slavery and the Union, or the depression, or WWII, or the threat of communism, or the agitations of the 1960s. Voter participation trended down, not up, for decades. Students today are far less ideological or politically passionate than they were in the 1960s.
Yes, there is much more chatter about politics and elections. But that is partly a function of the 24-hour news cycle of cable news networks. It is partly boredom. It is partly just something to talk about, like sports, the weather, celebrities, and airplanes falling into the Hudson.
The real problem, it seems to me, is not that we live in a political age, but in a frivolous age.
Finally, while politics is not the end all and be all of life, there are times when it becomes of surpassing importance. It really mattered who was elected to the presidency in 1860 and 1864. It mattered who was the British Prime Minister in 1938. It matters, I think, who will be elected in 2012. On this, I am sure, you agree. There is a season for everything: a time to discuss John Milton, and a time to discuss the candidates. About this I know you also agree.
Then again, there is William Butler Yeats's wonderful poem Lapis Lazuli, which had some powerful reflections on political excitements (and even disasters) and the deeper currents of life and culture.
First, I wonder whether you are conflating two senses of the word culture. There is culture in the sense of high culture: the fine arts, poetry, and so forth, and there is culture in the anthropological sense of the way of life of a society, its manners, mores, customs, and beliefs. The health of the culture (in the latter sense) of the mass of the population is certainly of the greatest importance. Whether people have sound ideas about morality, for instance, how children are raised, how women are treated, how family life is lived, how people care for their neighbors, and what they believe about God. How vital the "high culture" may be, though important, is less so. Nor does high culture have as much social influence as perhaps you imagine. I suspect that even in the 1930s, 40s and 50s, not many people talked over lunch about Proust or Milton --- even I daresay professors. I have listened to lunchtime conversations among academics for about thirty years, and they more often talk about restaurants, politics (both national and academic), and the latest headlines than about subjects of high seriousness. Indeed, the level of political discussion is usually very shallow. I suspect it was ever thus.
I do not see people as more political today. Until the current economic crisis jolted people (except for a brief period after 9-11) people have been relatively apolitical in the last few decades, as far as I can tell. Think of the Civil War era and the agitations over slavery and the Union, or the depression, or WWII, or the threat of communism, or the agitations of the 1960s. Voter participation trended down, not up, for decades. Students today are far less ideological or politically passionate than they were in the 1960s.
Yes, there is much more chatter about politics and elections. But that is partly a function of the 24-hour news cycle of cable news networks. It is partly boredom. It is partly just something to talk about, like sports, the weather, celebrities, and airplanes falling into the Hudson.
The real problem, it seems to me, is not that we live in a political age, but in a frivolous age.
Finally, while politics is not the end all and be all of life, there are times when it becomes of surpassing importance. It really mattered who was elected to the presidency in 1860 and 1864. It mattered who was the British Prime Minister in 1938. It matters, I think, who will be elected in 2012. On this, I am sure, you agree. There is a season for everything: a time to discuss John Milton, and a time to discuss the candidates. About this I know you also agree.
Then again, there is William Butler Yeats's wonderful poem Lapis Lazuli, which had some powerful reflections on political excitements (and even disasters) and the deeper currents of life and culture.
10.28.2010 | 2:58pm
Nicholas Frankovich says:
"Culture matters more than politics." A couple of analogous dichotomies: philosophy and rhetoric, joy and pleasure.
Philosophy, or love of wisdom, is the pursuit of truth. Rhetoric, or persuasiveness, is the pursuit of power. Plato had a good deal to say on all this.
Then there's joy and pleasure. Pleasure, or at any rate what creates the conditions under which we can enjoy it -- think wealth, material comfort, amenities, the ability to exercise some control over your destiny and environment, the satisfaction even of your thirst for justice -- this is the object of politics.
Joy, what we experience when we find something that creates in us a strong desire for something that takes us outside of ourselves and makes us forget our egos -- think, for example, of the conversion stories of Francis of Assisi or Ignatius of Loyola, or of Saint Paul, for that matter -- that's what culture can provide, although I think that what we categorize as religion does a better job of it. Culture doesn't always yield joy, that rare commodity. But it does every once in a while. Joy tends to elude us if we try to capture it. It's something that, in C. S. Lewis's formulation, catches /us/, not vice versa -- and catches us by surprise. The best we can do is take care to spend as much of our mental life in places where we know it's most likely to seek us out.
It may be an object that only what we categorize as religion can really provide.
Philosophy, or love of wisdom, is the pursuit of truth. Rhetoric, or persuasiveness, is the pursuit of power. Plato had a good deal to say on all this.
Then there's joy and pleasure. Pleasure, or at any rate what creates the conditions under which we can enjoy it -- think wealth, material comfort, amenities, the ability to exercise some control over your destiny and environment, the satisfaction even of your thirst for justice -- this is the object of politics.
Joy, what we experience when we find something that creates in us a strong desire for something that takes us outside of ourselves and makes us forget our egos -- think, for example, of the conversion stories of Francis of Assisi or Ignatius of Loyola, or of Saint Paul, for that matter -- that's what culture can provide, although I think that what we categorize as religion does a better job of it. Culture doesn't always yield joy, that rare commodity. But it does every once in a while. Joy tends to elude us if we try to capture it. It's something that, in C. S. Lewis's formulation, catches /us/, not vice versa -- and catches us by surprise. The best we can do is take care to spend as much of our mental life in places where we know it's most likely to seek us out.
It may be an object that only what we categorize as religion can really provide.
10.28.2010 | 4:53pm
kirk says:
Maybe we talk about politics so much because everyone votes; the original electorate in the US was property-owning men only. Now they let anyone vote except those under 18.
As to why we don't often discuss art and literature blame the schools: a primary school principal said to me, "You don't understand the pressure we are under from business". That nugget was uttered 25 years ago and it is still rolling around my brain. Niall Ferguson, the Harvard historian, claimed everyone in school knows Martin Luther King, Jr. but no one knows Martin Luther. It's an education of sorts but it is narrow, shallow and selective.
As to why we don't often discuss art and literature blame the schools: a primary school principal said to me, "You don't understand the pressure we are under from business". That nugget was uttered 25 years ago and it is still rolling around my brain. Niall Ferguson, the Harvard historian, claimed everyone in school knows Martin Luther King, Jr. but no one knows Martin Luther. It's an education of sorts but it is narrow, shallow and selective.
10.28.2010 | 6:03pm
Kevin J Jones says:
The trouble is that politics often determines what kind of culture is possible. There will never be a good anti-feminist movie in Hollywood, so long as feminism is almost mandated by law. There will never be a for-profit media corporation with a self-consciously Christian culture and leadership, because such corporations are nigh-forbidden by law.
Christian political action failed because it did not target the laws which subtly sap Christian culture and institutions. Instead Christians went after obvious flaws like abortion.
Christian political action failed because it did not target the laws which subtly sap Christian culture and institutions. Instead Christians went after obvious flaws like abortion.
10.28.2010 | 10:49pm
winter boots says:
There is culture in the sense of high culture: the fine arts, poetry, and so forth, and there is culture in the anthropological sense of the way of life of a society, its manners, mores, customs, and beliefs. The health of the culture (in the latter sense) of the mass of the population is certainly of the greatest importance. 2010 new ugg boots
10.28.2010 | 10:54pm
Mark VA says:
Excellent article. While on the subject of "deeper sources":
I've been thinking lately about the apparent similarity between the second movement of Mozart's piano concerto #17 (KV 453 ) and the "Et incarnatus est" from his Great Mass. Is it incidental? How should one think about this similarity?
Would any musicologists among us care to weigh in?
I've been thinking lately about the apparent similarity between the second movement of Mozart's piano concerto #17 (KV 453 ) and the "Et incarnatus est" from his Great Mass. Is it incidental? How should one think about this similarity?
Would any musicologists among us care to weigh in?
10.29.2010 | 12:58am
Nimrod says:
The Naked Public Square
A Symposium - Stanley Hauerwas - Mary Ann Glendon - Harvey Cox - Alan Mittleman - Andrew Murphy - Jean Bethke Elshtain - Ralph C. Wood - Allen D. Hertzke - David Novak - Wilfred M. McClay - Richard John Neuhaus
http://www.firstthings.com/article/2009/02/001-the-naked-public-44
Excerpt:
"Take, for example, the fundamental claim at the heart of the book, which is “that politics is most importantly a function of culture, and at the heart of culture is religion, whether or not it is called by that name.”
Ernst Troeltsch could not have said it better. On second thought, that may not be true: Troeltsch probably did say it better. He saw quite clearly that if Christians were to assume the task of forming the ethos of modern societies, the “myths” once thought constitutive of the Christian faith must be rejected or reinterpreted. Reinhold Niebuhr learned that lesson well. Neuhaus, like Troeltsch and Niebuhr, wants Christianity to be both orthodox and the “form” of culture. It is nice work if you can get it, but I remain skeptical that even Richard Neuhaus can pull that rabbit out of the hat. Of course, one of the benefits of assuming the mantle of Troeltsch is you get to call anyone who worries about making Christianity a civilizational religion a “sectarian.”
It may be objected that Neuhaus never mentions Troeltsch in The Naked Public Square. You do not need to mention Troeltsch when you have at your disposal an updated existential version of Troeltsch—that is, Paul Tillich. The claim that politics is a function of culture, that at the heart of culture is religion, and that religion is meant to serve as a public source of transcendent meaning—this is, as Neuhaus acknowledges, pure Tillich (and Hegel and Plato). "
A Symposium - Stanley Hauerwas - Mary Ann Glendon - Harvey Cox - Alan Mittleman - Andrew Murphy - Jean Bethke Elshtain - Ralph C. Wood - Allen D. Hertzke - David Novak - Wilfred M. McClay - Richard John Neuhaus
http://www.firstthings.com/article/2009/02/001-the-naked-public-44
Excerpt:
"Take, for example, the fundamental claim at the heart of the book, which is “that politics is most importantly a function of culture, and at the heart of culture is religion, whether or not it is called by that name.”
Ernst Troeltsch could not have said it better. On second thought, that may not be true: Troeltsch probably did say it better. He saw quite clearly that if Christians were to assume the task of forming the ethos of modern societies, the “myths” once thought constitutive of the Christian faith must be rejected or reinterpreted. Reinhold Niebuhr learned that lesson well. Neuhaus, like Troeltsch and Niebuhr, wants Christianity to be both orthodox and the “form” of culture. It is nice work if you can get it, but I remain skeptical that even Richard Neuhaus can pull that rabbit out of the hat. Of course, one of the benefits of assuming the mantle of Troeltsch is you get to call anyone who worries about making Christianity a civilizational religion a “sectarian.”
It may be objected that Neuhaus never mentions Troeltsch in The Naked Public Square. You do not need to mention Troeltsch when you have at your disposal an updated existential version of Troeltsch—that is, Paul Tillich. The claim that politics is a function of culture, that at the heart of culture is religion, and that religion is meant to serve as a public source of transcendent meaning—this is, as Neuhaus acknowledges, pure Tillich (and Hegel and Plato). "
10.29.2010 | 11:03am
Paul says:
Political theorist though I am, I nevertheless have great sympathy for Prof. Reno's analysis here. There's a passage in Mere Christianity in which Lewis talks about the state existing "simply to protect the ordinary happiness of human beings in this life." And he then mentions things like husband and wife chatting over a fire, friends drinking at a pub, and a man digging in his own garden--"that is what the state is there for. And less they are helping to increase and protect and prolong such moments, all the laws, parliaments, armies, courts, police, economics, etc., are simply a waste of time." Since my first semester in undergraduate studies, in Intro to Politics, hearing these words read by a first rate political scientist, I have always had a fondness for them.
And yet, I think we must not forget all the passages, especially in the New Testament (but also in the Old) that employ deeply political imagery and language. Certain imagery is best understand if one has some acquaintance with ancient political philosophy and with ancient regime design for instance. St. Paul's image of the Church as a body wherein the whole takes precedence to the parts just because the parts cannot be understood apart from the whole is an imagery that appears first in Aristotle's depiction of the polis. St. Paul says that we are citizens of Heaven. Jesus of Nazareth is referred to throughout the New Testament by the political term "Lord" (kurios in Greek; Kyrie in Latin)--perhaps the commonest appellation for Caeser. N. T. Wright rightly notes that this is a way of saying that Jesus of Nazareth, the Messiah of Israel, is the world's true Lord and Caeser is but the parody of the real thing. But there's more to the imagery. In Revelations, Christ is honored as King of kings and Lord of lords. So He is King with a Kingdom--not just political imagery, but politics come in play here. And His Kingdom is comprised of Kingdoms with their own kings and lords. This Harkens to the Old Testament prophecy concerning all the nations coming to Jerusalem. I suppose Christians have long taken such imagery to be symbolic. But what if the Kingdom of Christ really is a Kingdom of kingdoms and Lord of lords is a literal rather than symbolic appellation. Well, then there will be politics (not in the pejorative sense) in the Kingdom to come--not just one polity, as it were, but a polity of polities. But even if I am wrong and what we have here is just imagery--well, Christ is still a King of a Kingdom. And surely that is political.
Of course, I believe not just in a Kingdom coming but a Kingdom now--Christ is now at the right hand of the Father. And so I believe the imagery of the New Testament also means those who rule now are presently subject to the rule of Christ. The authority they have is an authority grounded in His rule. An authority to do His bidding. The proper function of such authorities, as established by Jesus of Nazareth, is described in Romans 13--and has to do with justice in human relations. The Kingship/Lordship of the Messiah, means that the authorities have this power as a delegation from Christ and have only the authority to do that with which they have been tasked.
So I submit that politics matters because Jesus of Nazareth is this world's kurios. And He has a Kingdom. It is not just a Kingdom coming. Rather, it is a Kingdom here and now--and a reign of which we are ambassadors. None of this need lead to the sorts of conclusions reached by theonomists or the Puritans. But we who live in late modernity tend to think so much in terms of the separation of Church and State, that we assign the former to the realm of culture and the latter to the realm of politics. Having so assigned, the superiority of the Church is palpably superior. And so we tend to dismiss politics. But this misses the New Testaments constant employment of political terms from the ancient world and its revisioning of what politics means.
And yet, I think we must not forget all the passages, especially in the New Testament (but also in the Old) that employ deeply political imagery and language. Certain imagery is best understand if one has some acquaintance with ancient political philosophy and with ancient regime design for instance. St. Paul's image of the Church as a body wherein the whole takes precedence to the parts just because the parts cannot be understood apart from the whole is an imagery that appears first in Aristotle's depiction of the polis. St. Paul says that we are citizens of Heaven. Jesus of Nazareth is referred to throughout the New Testament by the political term "Lord" (kurios in Greek; Kyrie in Latin)--perhaps the commonest appellation for Caeser. N. T. Wright rightly notes that this is a way of saying that Jesus of Nazareth, the Messiah of Israel, is the world's true Lord and Caeser is but the parody of the real thing. But there's more to the imagery. In Revelations, Christ is honored as King of kings and Lord of lords. So He is King with a Kingdom--not just political imagery, but politics come in play here. And His Kingdom is comprised of Kingdoms with their own kings and lords. This Harkens to the Old Testament prophecy concerning all the nations coming to Jerusalem. I suppose Christians have long taken such imagery to be symbolic. But what if the Kingdom of Christ really is a Kingdom of kingdoms and Lord of lords is a literal rather than symbolic appellation. Well, then there will be politics (not in the pejorative sense) in the Kingdom to come--not just one polity, as it were, but a polity of polities. But even if I am wrong and what we have here is just imagery--well, Christ is still a King of a Kingdom. And surely that is political.
Of course, I believe not just in a Kingdom coming but a Kingdom now--Christ is now at the right hand of the Father. And so I believe the imagery of the New Testament also means those who rule now are presently subject to the rule of Christ. The authority they have is an authority grounded in His rule. An authority to do His bidding. The proper function of such authorities, as established by Jesus of Nazareth, is described in Romans 13--and has to do with justice in human relations. The Kingship/Lordship of the Messiah, means that the authorities have this power as a delegation from Christ and have only the authority to do that with which they have been tasked.
So I submit that politics matters because Jesus of Nazareth is this world's kurios. And He has a Kingdom. It is not just a Kingdom coming. Rather, it is a Kingdom here and now--and a reign of which we are ambassadors. None of this need lead to the sorts of conclusions reached by theonomists or the Puritans. But we who live in late modernity tend to think so much in terms of the separation of Church and State, that we assign the former to the realm of culture and the latter to the realm of politics. Having so assigned, the superiority of the Church is palpably superior. And so we tend to dismiss politics. But this misses the New Testaments constant employment of political terms from the ancient world and its revisioning of what politics means.
10.29.2010 | 1:08pm
OneTimeRenoStudent says:
And the guards read Goethe while they waited outside the gas chambers. So what's a culture for?
10.29.2010 | 2:49pm
Gil Costello says:
From reading Reno's article I immediately thought of Flannery O'Connor's works. Her concern as a great artist was with culture, and at the heart of culture I believe she recognized the fundamental conflict between the religious impulse and the impulse of human desire on its own terms separate from God, and that it is in this place that the real war of self-actualization takes place, and although at some point the lay person has to at some level participate in political life, if only in discussion with friends, culture is his/her proper place for discernment. And in reading O'Connor's collected letters in "Habit of Being" one gets a sure sense of this.
John Paul II in his book "Memory and Identity" , pp 83-85: "Deeply ingrained in human culture, from the outset, is the element of beauty" and "Culture is that through which man, as man, becomes man....The nation exists 'through' culture and 'for' culture and it is therefore the great educator of men in order that they may 'be more' in the community..." and "There exists a fundamental sovereignty of society, which is manifested in the culture of the nation. It is a question of the sovereignty of society, which is manifested in the culture of the nation. It is a question of the sovereignty through which, at the same time, man is supremely sovereign."
For me this means that, although culture and politics are inextricably bound up with each other, it is culture that really determines how we move in history to the benefit of all, not politics, and I see this as Reno's important point. To subsume ourselves into a political life and not a life of holiness (being of this world but not of it) we are destined for torture, murder and annihilation. For the life of human desire in contradistinction to what God desires for us always has death on its mind, no matter how deep it is buried in the unconscious.
Culture's ground is beauty and truth, a place where God can engage us comfortably, whether we believe in him or not (think of the atheist filmmakers Antonioni, Bergman and Kubrick). Politics has its ground in power, whether imposed or shared. And as I've said often enough, we essentially in every second reside in power or in love. When culture is determined by politics, not the reverse, that culture is necessarily degenerate, and why, for example, students at universities in literature courses get fed Allen Ginsberg and William Burroughs instead of T.S. Eliot and Jane Austen. In fact, when I recently reread Jane Austen’s “Mansfield Park”, the person who wrote the new introduction, supposedly an Austen expert, totally misread what Austen wrote, actually claiming that Austen didn’t know what she was talking about when she wrote what the novel was about! This because the expert read the novel through a lens of power, not love.
John Paul II in his book "Memory and Identity" , pp 83-85: "Deeply ingrained in human culture, from the outset, is the element of beauty" and "Culture is that through which man, as man, becomes man....The nation exists 'through' culture and 'for' culture and it is therefore the great educator of men in order that they may 'be more' in the community..." and "There exists a fundamental sovereignty of society, which is manifested in the culture of the nation. It is a question of the sovereignty of society, which is manifested in the culture of the nation. It is a question of the sovereignty through which, at the same time, man is supremely sovereign."
For me this means that, although culture and politics are inextricably bound up with each other, it is culture that really determines how we move in history to the benefit of all, not politics, and I see this as Reno's important point. To subsume ourselves into a political life and not a life of holiness (being of this world but not of it) we are destined for torture, murder and annihilation. For the life of human desire in contradistinction to what God desires for us always has death on its mind, no matter how deep it is buried in the unconscious.
Culture's ground is beauty and truth, a place where God can engage us comfortably, whether we believe in him or not (think of the atheist filmmakers Antonioni, Bergman and Kubrick). Politics has its ground in power, whether imposed or shared. And as I've said often enough, we essentially in every second reside in power or in love. When culture is determined by politics, not the reverse, that culture is necessarily degenerate, and why, for example, students at universities in literature courses get fed Allen Ginsberg and William Burroughs instead of T.S. Eliot and Jane Austen. In fact, when I recently reread Jane Austen’s “Mansfield Park”, the person who wrote the new introduction, supposedly an Austen expert, totally misread what Austen wrote, actually claiming that Austen didn’t know what she was talking about when she wrote what the novel was about! This because the expert read the novel through a lens of power, not love.
10.29.2010 | 2:56pm
Gil Costello says:
"And the guards read Goethe while they waited outside the gas chambers. So what's a culture for?"
As I alluded to in an earlier post, even a Jane Austen "expert" who writes an introduction to what I consider Austen's most important novel hasn't a clue to what Austen intended. Because persons enjoy aspects of art, or merely want to pose as well-read, does not mean their commitment is to art and the culture that makes it possible.
As I alluded to in an earlier post, even a Jane Austen "expert" who writes an introduction to what I consider Austen's most important novel hasn't a clue to what Austen intended. Because persons enjoy aspects of art, or merely want to pose as well-read, does not mean their commitment is to art and the culture that makes it possible.
11.1.2010 | 3:57pm
Karen Winterburn says:
Maybe our passions shift from culture to politics as moral relativism becomes entrenched. The erosion of moral consensus puts even bedrock moral issues up for grabs. A critical mass of people can destabilize basic cultural arrangements and assumptions by politicizing moral issues under those circunstances.Politics these days is much more about issues we never thought we'd have to spend this kind of energy on: the value of human life and the family pair bond, sex and sexuality, infanticide. The way forward to sanity is still through culture, but now that culture is a battlefield, we can't ignore the importance of politics and strategy.
12.3.2010 | 5:21pm
Degori DDS says:
I agree with Stuart Koehl's comment above, but would add that culture influences politics more than the other way around. The great mistake of conservative Christians over the past three or four decades has been to invest relatively too much time, energy and money into politics and relatively too little into culture. Those seeking to overturn tradition, on the other hand, invested heavily into changing the culture decades before they invested heavily in the political process. The result is that they were able to change how people (who are or will become voters) think and, once that change had reached a critical point, they were then able to use that changed way of thinking to implement policies reflecting the new way of thinking. It has occurred time and time again. It is how the "progressives" succeeded in changing the laws related to contraception, divorce, abortion, and sodomy and how they are succeeding in changing the laws related to who may marry. John Paul II in his book "Memory and Identity" , pp 83-85: "Deeply ingrained in human culture, from the outset, is the element of beauty" and "Culture is that through which man, as man, becomes man....The nation exists 'through' culture and 'for' culture and it is therefore the great educator of men in order that they may 'be more' in the community..." and "There exists a fundamental sovereignty of society, which is manifested in the culture of the nation. It is a question of the sovereignty of society, which is manifested in the culture of the nation. It is a question of the sovereignty through which, at the same time, man is supremely sovereign."
