How We Live Today
October 4, 2010
Joseph Bottum
Imagine an organization—a bowling league, say, formed by a group of people who get together simply because they like to bowl. And imagine that, over time, the demands and rewards of being the organizers of a bowling league begin to grow, particularly as the members are drawn into organizing leagues for other sports: badminton, ping-pong, trapshooting, skeet. The social pressure on the bowlers is always to move up the chain to administration, so the actual bowling declines. And declines. And declines, until, one day, a few of the league bowlers realize they aren’t bowlers any more. Interest begins to fade away. New members aren’t found; old members slip away. And the great administrative project is left with little to administer—except the left-over investments made in the league during the old, fun bowling days.
Or imagine, for a more complex image, the ecosystem of a pond. Down at the bottom is a thick mud of nutrients, feeding the microorganisms that feed, in turn, the small plants and insects that bring the pond to life. Eventually, over the surface of the pond, there appears something—whether as beautiful as a carpet of water lilies or as fetid as a layer of pond scum—that has the best of all worlds: the warm sun above and the rich water below. But the rewards of the surface layer are too great. The covering spreads; the underlayers die of inanition. Without that support, the surface layers can’t support themselves. They die, too, falling to the bottom to form part of a thick mud from which, naturally, something new arises.
I like the first image, the one of the bowling league, because its subjects are all the same species, the same people, as it traces a small society’s generation and corruption, a rising and a falling. I like the second image—the one of the pond—because it expresses the way the surface dwellers aren’t in a direct line with the other plants in the pond. They influence events, but they don’t act directly—for their exuberant flourishing has only as a secondary effect the choking off of the underlayers and, thereby, the decay of the upper layers.
Still, neither image quite captures what I’m out after, so let me try a third. Imagine a valley culture, surrounded by mountains. Early attempts to climb the mountains end in catastrophe, but eventually the people learn a way to bottle a rich, oxygenated air in clay pots, and explorers begin to climb the mountains. Some of them settle on the high ranges—where they see new sights, discover new plants and minerals, and invent new techniques for the hunting and smelting industries of the culture.
The information flows back to the valley, where the benefits of the explorers’ bravery are so extolled that many more people move up the mountain. A few of the valley dwellers still denounce the sacrilegious breaching of the mystical mountains, which maintains a little of the otherwise faded frisson attached to the project, but, really, the trek up the mountain paths quickly becomes routine. And who wouldn’t want to live up there? The mountain people have the best of both worlds, the oxygen of the lower levels and the vision of the peaks.
Eventually, of course, too many people have moved to the mountains. The remaining valley villages can’t support them and don’t, in truth, much want to support them. And the high people discover that they can actually keep alive without the constant stream of air from below. Yes, their lives are a little thinner and less active. Their breath comes a little harder, and the things for which they went to the mountains grow more difficult to do. No one decides to cut back, but when their individual actions are added up into cultural trends, the totals reveal that they have ceased to bear children. Ceased to make any art, other than a few last gasps of self-congratulation at having defied the valley’s old conventions. Ceased to believe in any long-term goal for what the people do. Ceased, really, to believe in much of anything. In the thin air that surrounds them, with all the rest they have to get done just to survive, it’s just too much work.
Perhaps one day, there arrive explorers from a different valley, still breathing a strong air, who see these weak, starved creatures—and sneer, perceiving how easy it will be to push them from their mountain homes. Or perhaps the elevated people just slowly dwindle, commanding the heights for a few generations but gradually losing control of both the valley and their own mountain fastnesses. Or perhaps, in one last effort to find a purpose, the mountain culture redefines itself entirely in terms of opposition to the valley people it left behind, and, in an orgy of self-righteousness, precipitates civil war by ordering the valley to behave as though it were the mountains—childless, thin-aired, stripped of long-term goals.
There is no perfect metaphor, no absolute image, for our own cultural situation today. But the pattern is clear enough: Out of the religious there has emerged the irreligious—who always end up, whether they will it or not, working to destroy the religious faith that gives them life.
Joseph Bottum is editor of First Things.
Comments:
10.4.2010 | 8:16am
Bangwell Putt says:
Now Joseph Bottum is "cooking with Crisco" (as he once said when thinking about Martians and legal counsel). Josef Pieper also thought about this subject, at greater length, in his "Tradition: Concept and Claim". His concluding paragraph might be of interest to those interested in the point of view that Joseph Bottum is exploring.
Josef Pieper writes: "Another aspect of the catastrophe that threatens the intellectual community of mankind because of the loss of knowledge of sacred tradition was expressed by one of the last essays written by Gerhard Kruger.
The essay contains the frightening sentence: 'The only reason we are still alive is our inconsistency in not having silenced all tradition. ...We are facing the radical impossibility of a meaningful common existence, although no one can imagine what this end would be like.'
Anyone who is inclined to consider this statement as an excessively gloomy cry from a modern-day Cassandra should reflect that we are dealing with a very precise assertion, which has nothing to do with the literary genre of uncivil criticism of the present or a vague philosophy of decadence.
Kruger is alluding with complete seriousness to the unifying power of tradition. He is pointing out that the decisive unity of the human race cannot be based on or guaranteed by realizing a political 'One World' or any kind of unannimity of 'cultural wills,' no, not by a shared respect before art and science, not by the technical possibilities of communication throughout the planet earth, nor by a universal world language ..., not even by international organizations for athletic competition.
Rather, real unity among human beings has its roots in nothing else but the common possession of tradition in the strict sense - I mean, our sharing in common the sacred traditiion that goes back to God's words."
Josef Pieper writes: "Another aspect of the catastrophe that threatens the intellectual community of mankind because of the loss of knowledge of sacred tradition was expressed by one of the last essays written by Gerhard Kruger.
The essay contains the frightening sentence: 'The only reason we are still alive is our inconsistency in not having silenced all tradition. ...We are facing the radical impossibility of a meaningful common existence, although no one can imagine what this end would be like.'
Anyone who is inclined to consider this statement as an excessively gloomy cry from a modern-day Cassandra should reflect that we are dealing with a very precise assertion, which has nothing to do with the literary genre of uncivil criticism of the present or a vague philosophy of decadence.
Kruger is alluding with complete seriousness to the unifying power of tradition. He is pointing out that the decisive unity of the human race cannot be based on or guaranteed by realizing a political 'One World' or any kind of unannimity of 'cultural wills,' no, not by a shared respect before art and science, not by the technical possibilities of communication throughout the planet earth, nor by a universal world language ..., not even by international organizations for athletic competition.
Rather, real unity among human beings has its roots in nothing else but the common possession of tradition in the strict sense - I mean, our sharing in common the sacred traditiion that goes back to God's words."
10.4.2010 | 9:20am
Anton says:
I really don't see anybody pressuring people of faith to give up their faith. The secular people I work with regard my Catholic faith with indifference, sometimes bemusement, but no hostility that I can perceive. In my opinion, this kind of self-pity does very little to "rally the troops," as it is apparently meant to do. It has much more the effect of making people of faith look like weak, self-absorbed losers, which is a genuinely horrible way to preach the Gospel.
10.4.2010 | 9:58am
Bangwell Putt says:
Overt pressure is not needed. Lack of respect, marginalization, will do nicely. As Josef Pieper explains, the faith, the tradition, because it is living, not dead, is "handed down" in addition to being taught. It cannot be simply explained, viewed historically, studied from the outside, so to speak. By living it within a community of others who are living it, we find it. When this living context disappears, the transmission is interrupted, rendered more difficult to find. In some places, it goes underground or temporarily disappears.
10.4.2010 | 10:39am
Mike Murray MD says:
This is such a wonderful metaphor that I hope I do not cheapen it by extending it to medicine and the therapeutic arts. Doctors, psychotherapists and such are trained to deliver their therapeutic skills to patients. Often the most successful will be induced to enter administration, thus depriving the therapeutic field of some of its best practitioners and at the same time creating administrators who may or may not be competent. The skill sets are not necessarily transferable.
10.4.2010 | 10:44am
MacGabhann says:
So is this supposed to be an image of the truth of reality or is it an image of the inside of Mr Bottum’s head: fearful, confused and precious, all at the same time. If the irreligious arose from the religious what does that say about the religious? This is a real question that demands a real answer, not a story.
10.4.2010 | 11:01am
A Lyttle says:
Mr MacGabhann,
Have you ever notice that all your posts sound very angry? I think you tend to demand an entire dialectical argument out of a single short column, which is meant to be a meditation on one aspect of a problem. Why don't you, oh, offer a further perspective, or raise an interesting question? Why do you snap like a vicious turtle at whatever passes through the murk before your eyes?
Have you ever notice that all your posts sound very angry? I think you tend to demand an entire dialectical argument out of a single short column, which is meant to be a meditation on one aspect of a problem. Why don't you, oh, offer a further perspective, or raise an interesting question? Why do you snap like a vicious turtle at whatever passes through the murk before your eyes?
10.4.2010 | 11:09am
Tony Esolen says:
Some years ago I thought I was being original when I asserted that we no longer possessed what could justly be called a culture. Oh, we think we do, in part because there is no convenient single word to describe what we do have, by way of mass entertainment, mass education, mass sports, mass politics, and mass marketing. But Pieper had already asserted it, as did Romano Guardini -- who, I think, was the one who originally used the term "mass man." Recently I came upon a similar diagnosis in Philip Rieff's posthumously published work, Charisma; Rieff said that we were entering a world without culture, a world he was happy that he did not have to live in.
A long time ago, I said to several of my students that we could not any longer have literature of the highest rank, because the cultural soil in which such work could grow was too thin. We lacked any rich vision of man and his world that could sustain such a work. The apparent exceptions in the twentieth century only proved the point: the Christian vision is central to understanding Faulkner's greatest novels; Tolkien had to reach back behind the latter centuries for his inspiration in the middle ages; and so forth. One might make the same point by taking a look at the movies of John Ford or Frank Capra, and ask why no such movies could now be made.
Sometimes a thing is too big for us to see -- too close to us, or we are so used to it that it fades into the background. The secular world cannot produce art of the highest rank, because its premise smothers such work in the crib -- or its premises: the Baconian project of dominating nature; the view of the natural world as inert or merely mechanistic; the view of the individual as either a member of a herd or as purely autonomous (and those views go together nicely); the confusion of "society" with the mass phenomena, etc. Where is the 20th century Dante? Or Shakespeare? Or Michelangelo? Or Bach? Or Chartres Cathedral? I drive past a prison built in the 19th century that is more beautiful and more human than any school built in the last sixty years.
All of this requires a thought experiment: what would our lives be like, if we really had a culture?
A long time ago, I said to several of my students that we could not any longer have literature of the highest rank, because the cultural soil in which such work could grow was too thin. We lacked any rich vision of man and his world that could sustain such a work. The apparent exceptions in the twentieth century only proved the point: the Christian vision is central to understanding Faulkner's greatest novels; Tolkien had to reach back behind the latter centuries for his inspiration in the middle ages; and so forth. One might make the same point by taking a look at the movies of John Ford or Frank Capra, and ask why no such movies could now be made.
Sometimes a thing is too big for us to see -- too close to us, or we are so used to it that it fades into the background. The secular world cannot produce art of the highest rank, because its premise smothers such work in the crib -- or its premises: the Baconian project of dominating nature; the view of the natural world as inert or merely mechanistic; the view of the individual as either a member of a herd or as purely autonomous (and those views go together nicely); the confusion of "society" with the mass phenomena, etc. Where is the 20th century Dante? Or Shakespeare? Or Michelangelo? Or Bach? Or Chartres Cathedral? I drive past a prison built in the 19th century that is more beautiful and more human than any school built in the last sixty years.
All of this requires a thought experiment: what would our lives be like, if we really had a culture?
10.4.2010 | 11:39am
Brian says:
Anton: "I really don't see anybody pressuring people of faith to give up their faith. The secular people I work with regard my Catholic faith with indifference, sometimes bemusement, but no hostility that I can perceive."
I wish I lived where you live, and worked where you work, because such is not the case for me. For many years I worked in Boston (and Cambridge) and very often was confronted by very direct anti-Catholic sentiments. It was unpleasent to say the least. I've since worked in quieter environments away from Boston, and can say though the environments are quieter, the anti-Catholic sentiments lurk all around. The nastiest usually coming from "fallen away" Catholics. I have actually had fingers waved in my face telling me how foolish or bad the Catholic Church is. I've also had a few non-Catholic Christians try to tell me a thing or two over the years. And always these folks come from groups too young to have any culture, often they come from groups that reject the Christian culture of the past just to show how new, hip, and smart they are. So, sadly for me, I get the bad stuff from both sides of the fence, Christian and non-Christian.
I wish I lived where you live, and worked where you work, because such is not the case for me. For many years I worked in Boston (and Cambridge) and very often was confronted by very direct anti-Catholic sentiments. It was unpleasent to say the least. I've since worked in quieter environments away from Boston, and can say though the environments are quieter, the anti-Catholic sentiments lurk all around. The nastiest usually coming from "fallen away" Catholics. I have actually had fingers waved in my face telling me how foolish or bad the Catholic Church is. I've also had a few non-Catholic Christians try to tell me a thing or two over the years. And always these folks come from groups too young to have any culture, often they come from groups that reject the Christian culture of the past just to show how new, hip, and smart they are. So, sadly for me, I get the bad stuff from both sides of the fence, Christian and non-Christian.
10.4.2010 | 11:39am
Ross Howard says:
Something similar was said in 1770, by the Scottish History Professor, Alexander Fraser Tyler, who wrote that a democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury, and from that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury. The result is that democracy always collapses from lousy fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship.
He wrote that nations progress in this sequence:
From Bondage, to Spiritual Faith, to Great Courage, to Liberty, to Abundance, to Selfishness, to Complacency, to Apathy, to Dependence, back to Bondage.
He wrote that nations progress in this sequence:
From Bondage, to Spiritual Faith, to Great Courage, to Liberty, to Abundance, to Selfishness, to Complacency, to Apathy, to Dependence, back to Bondage.
10.4.2010 | 12:21pm
Bangwell Putt says:
In the absence of contributions from Pope Benedict XVI - or from someone possessing his academic and theological richness - to this comment blog, we will have to accept its limited possibilities. Its purpose seems to be to offer subjects for consideration to people of good will. Readers begin to think about the subject and sometimes write a comment. This is all to the good, for the most part. The post from Mr. MacGabhann, however, asks for an answer to his question which is beyond the scope of this site. Yves Congar, O.P., does provide a substantial answer in, "The Meaning of Tradition". (See also Josef Pieper in "Tradition Concept and Claim") An internet search would undoubtedly lead readers to other fine works, including those of Pope Benedict. These are invaluable resources for those seeking to understand our cultural situation.
10.4.2010 | 12:59pm
greggo says:
When the bowlers forget to bowl, they continue to collect lane fees and shoe rentals. They continue to make strict rules about who may bowl and exactly which style of bowling that must be followed. The original bowlers, who no longer bowl at all issue statements against and even condemnations of any adaptations of bowling. Then the founding bowlers whine that no one bowls anymore
10.4.2010 | 1:09pm
MacGabhann says:
A Lyttle,
Yes, no doubt, you must be right about the angry tone. But if I do snap like a vicious turtle at what passes through the murk, it may well be because what is offered up is so often murky. And such murk, far from being a meditation that attempts to open on to actual insight, tends to nothing so much as delusional cosseting for entrenched wishful thinking, something which many may easily mistake for Tradition.
Besides, I thought I did raise an interesting question: If, as Mr. Bottum says, the irreligious emerges from the religious, then what does that say about the religious?
Perhaps a fruitful meditative line in addressing this question would consider the possibility that the irreligious irruption expresses an authentic spiritual revolt against debased cultural forms of the religious; cultural forms that have not only ceased to nourish the spirit but which actively thwart its expression? Perhaps Mr. Bottum or anyone else at First Things might try to compose a story where the irreligious irruption is seen to express a spiritual need and not a contempt for the Spirit?
Yes, no doubt, you must be right about the angry tone. But if I do snap like a vicious turtle at what passes through the murk, it may well be because what is offered up is so often murky. And such murk, far from being a meditation that attempts to open on to actual insight, tends to nothing so much as delusional cosseting for entrenched wishful thinking, something which many may easily mistake for Tradition.
Besides, I thought I did raise an interesting question: If, as Mr. Bottum says, the irreligious emerges from the religious, then what does that say about the religious?
Perhaps a fruitful meditative line in addressing this question would consider the possibility that the irreligious irruption expresses an authentic spiritual revolt against debased cultural forms of the religious; cultural forms that have not only ceased to nourish the spirit but which actively thwart its expression? Perhaps Mr. Bottum or anyone else at First Things might try to compose a story where the irreligious irruption is seen to express a spiritual need and not a contempt for the Spirit?
10.4.2010 | 2:51pm
Don Roberto says:
McG: The irreligious (and quasi-part-time, lukewarm "religious") are free-riding on the good they received from those invisible antecedents who they do not understand or appreciate. I ate BBQ with some of these folk yesterday. (Nice enough, certainly, despite the odd, semi-masochistic placement of jewelry.) Religion demands that we take up our cross. The irreligious want to skip the hard thinking and just enjoy lives of complacent profanity. They don't know enough to see where their (unknowingly) idolatrous lifestyle will lead.
Bangwell: I'm just finishing "Without Roots," a brief conversation between Cardinal Ratzinger and Marcello Pera. I'll follow up with "The Meaning of Tradition" and "Tradition Concept and Claim." Thanks—to you and, as always, to Mr. Bottum.
Bangwell: I'm just finishing "Without Roots," a brief conversation between Cardinal Ratzinger and Marcello Pera. I'll follow up with "The Meaning of Tradition" and "Tradition Concept and Claim." Thanks—to you and, as always, to Mr. Bottum.
10.4.2010 | 3:47pm
Peter Leavitt says:
Following Solzhenitsyn, in this earthly plane we suffer and do the best we can with our work and love and try to enjoy our life come what may.
We live in some sort of transitional period between the obvious failure and decline of modernity and either the fall of the West or possibly, with the work of such holy people as John Paul II and Benedict, the beginning of a resurgent Christendom.
Just now in New England at any rate early Fall is a delight, to say nothing of the prospect of a conservative political tsunami come November.
We live in some sort of transitional period between the obvious failure and decline of modernity and either the fall of the West or possibly, with the work of such holy people as John Paul II and Benedict, the beginning of a resurgent Christendom.
Just now in New England at any rate early Fall is a delight, to say nothing of the prospect of a conservative political tsunami come November.
10.4.2010 | 4:06pm
Bibbit says:
MacGabhann says: "Besides, I thought I did raise an interesting question: If, as Mr. Bottum says, the irreligious emerges from the religious, then what does that say about the religious?"
Hmm, would you include Judas here? He emerged from the religious. Are you saying his Teacher and co-religionists were bad or in need of correcting?
Hmm, would you include Judas here? He emerged from the religious. Are you saying his Teacher and co-religionists were bad or in need of correcting?
10.4.2010 | 4:33pm
R Hampton says:
Japan? China? How do these countries follow the speculative model for irreligious cultures? My guess is that Joseph Bottum writes of "religion" when "unified culture" of "unified traditions" is more accurate -- an error of conflation.
10.4.2010 | 5:56pm
MacGabhann says:
Bibbit:
Well yes, if you like, include Judas. Where would we be without Judas and his betrayal? and Jesus’ acquiescence in permitting Judas’ sin by telling him to hurry to be about it? “Now the Son of Man has achieved his glory,” said Jesus once he has sent him on his way. And is there not something magnificent about the spirit that moves Judas so quickly to such remorse that he wills to hang himself? Yes, Bibbit, by all means, include Judas.
Well yes, if you like, include Judas. Where would we be without Judas and his betrayal? and Jesus’ acquiescence in permitting Judas’ sin by telling him to hurry to be about it? “Now the Son of Man has achieved his glory,” said Jesus once he has sent him on his way. And is there not something magnificent about the spirit that moves Judas so quickly to such remorse that he wills to hang himself? Yes, Bibbit, by all means, include Judas.
10.4.2010 | 8:41pm
Mark VA says:
Tony Esolen asks:
"Where is the 20th century Dante? Or Shakespeare? Or Michelangelo? Or Bach? Or Chartres Cathedral?"
The urgency of this question is magnified by the facts that our (Western) population has grown by many orders of magnitude, medical science and nutrition keep us living longer, and practically all of us know how to read and write - by the sheer force of statistics and probability, we should not be asking such questions. Something stinks here.
I completely agree that the secular world is sterile and unable to conceive beauty. Its architecture and music make me want to vomit. How do we then carve out a garden out of this parking lot, and where do we get the compost to bring the fertility back?
"Where is the 20th century Dante? Or Shakespeare? Or Michelangelo? Or Bach? Or Chartres Cathedral?"
The urgency of this question is magnified by the facts that our (Western) population has grown by many orders of magnitude, medical science and nutrition keep us living longer, and practically all of us know how to read and write - by the sheer force of statistics and probability, we should not be asking such questions. Something stinks here.
I completely agree that the secular world is sterile and unable to conceive beauty. Its architecture and music make me want to vomit. How do we then carve out a garden out of this parking lot, and where do we get the compost to bring the fertility back?
10.4.2010 | 10:53pm
Tony Esolen says:
Thank you, Mark, for that comment.
Our cultural decline is another of those things that is too big to see. It is almost impossible to locate it, precisely because it can show up anywhere at all. Today I took my wife on a jaunt to a couple of antique stores, and happened upon some old books and newspapers. It is crushing enough to behold the artisanal craftsmanship of furniture makers, but to have to look at old books really hurts. I found a 400 page tome called "Connecticut's Poets." Each poet had an eloquent biography in small print, followed by a dozen or so pages of his work. Most of the poetry I'd call "derivative Romantic," but it was technically polished, and intelligent. While I was poring through that, and through an edition of Lord Acton's letters (who writes letters now?), the store was playing a CD of Frank Sinatra, singing "In the Still of the Night." And the wistful complaint of a dear friend of mine, who passed away a few years ago, came back to mind. He was a medievalist and a prodigy at the piano -- he could play, on call, in any key you liked, any of the melodies from the era of the big bands. He said that it was a shame, that a vibrant, truly popular, and musically complex tradition of composition had been swept into oblivion by three-chord rock and roll. That doesn't do justice to later rock and roll (Jethro Tull, Led Zeppelin), but hey, even the decadent breath of rock and roll has settled into its death rattle.
The question is not whether we are in cultural decline, but how deep and widespread and irreversible the decline is, and whether it was always a bit of American nonsense to suppose that culture could be based upon anything but a people's common celebration of the holy. When I think of the first part of that question -- how deep and widespread the decline is -- I run a series of thought experiments. What if Lorenzo Lotto, the local Renaissance painter-hero of Bergamo, lived now -- would he not almost immediately assume the first rank in his craft? Artemisia Gentileschi, so much praised by feminists, was a second or third-rate Caravaggio, but these days a second or third-rate Caravaggio would sweep every award in sight. Or what if Keats were alive now? Not only would he be the poet of the century -- as he would in almost any century; he would be the reviver of genres of poetry, like the ode, or the long narrative, or the mythic-epic, that have passed into oblivion. In my own field of literary criticism the decline has been sharp and painful to behold. When you read an essay by Frank Kermode or C. A. Patrides or Cleanth Brooks, whether you agree with the ideas expressed or not, you are aware that you are encountering an eloquent lover of literature, with a wide experience of art and of human culture, and a habit of thinking about man that is enriched by the religious traditions of centuries. By contrast, literary papers written today strike the reader by their narrowness, their name-dropping, their ideological crudity, and their sheer verbal dreariness.
Or perform this thought experiment. I mention it because I also read through a local high school yearbook from 1923. You have a Rolls Royce that you need to leave in a city you do not know, and your daughter, who is with you, would like someone to entertain her. You have two choices. You can pick a young man at random from Cranston High School, 1923, or from Cranston High School, 2010. Note that I specify "at random."
Our cultural decline is another of those things that is too big to see. It is almost impossible to locate it, precisely because it can show up anywhere at all. Today I took my wife on a jaunt to a couple of antique stores, and happened upon some old books and newspapers. It is crushing enough to behold the artisanal craftsmanship of furniture makers, but to have to look at old books really hurts. I found a 400 page tome called "Connecticut's Poets." Each poet had an eloquent biography in small print, followed by a dozen or so pages of his work. Most of the poetry I'd call "derivative Romantic," but it was technically polished, and intelligent. While I was poring through that, and through an edition of Lord Acton's letters (who writes letters now?), the store was playing a CD of Frank Sinatra, singing "In the Still of the Night." And the wistful complaint of a dear friend of mine, who passed away a few years ago, came back to mind. He was a medievalist and a prodigy at the piano -- he could play, on call, in any key you liked, any of the melodies from the era of the big bands. He said that it was a shame, that a vibrant, truly popular, and musically complex tradition of composition had been swept into oblivion by three-chord rock and roll. That doesn't do justice to later rock and roll (Jethro Tull, Led Zeppelin), but hey, even the decadent breath of rock and roll has settled into its death rattle.
The question is not whether we are in cultural decline, but how deep and widespread and irreversible the decline is, and whether it was always a bit of American nonsense to suppose that culture could be based upon anything but a people's common celebration of the holy. When I think of the first part of that question -- how deep and widespread the decline is -- I run a series of thought experiments. What if Lorenzo Lotto, the local Renaissance painter-hero of Bergamo, lived now -- would he not almost immediately assume the first rank in his craft? Artemisia Gentileschi, so much praised by feminists, was a second or third-rate Caravaggio, but these days a second or third-rate Caravaggio would sweep every award in sight. Or what if Keats were alive now? Not only would he be the poet of the century -- as he would in almost any century; he would be the reviver of genres of poetry, like the ode, or the long narrative, or the mythic-epic, that have passed into oblivion. In my own field of literary criticism the decline has been sharp and painful to behold. When you read an essay by Frank Kermode or C. A. Patrides or Cleanth Brooks, whether you agree with the ideas expressed or not, you are aware that you are encountering an eloquent lover of literature, with a wide experience of art and of human culture, and a habit of thinking about man that is enriched by the religious traditions of centuries. By contrast, literary papers written today strike the reader by their narrowness, their name-dropping, their ideological crudity, and their sheer verbal dreariness.
Or perform this thought experiment. I mention it because I also read through a local high school yearbook from 1923. You have a Rolls Royce that you need to leave in a city you do not know, and your daughter, who is with you, would like someone to entertain her. You have two choices. You can pick a young man at random from Cranston High School, 1923, or from Cranston High School, 2010. Note that I specify "at random."
10.4.2010 | 10:58pm
TXW says:
Is this post refering to the town of Aspen, Colorado? When will they attack the Focus on the Family Headquarters down in the foothills of Colorado Springs?
But sadly, I had almost the exact same thought when I read this as did Dr. Murray above. So many things changed once the 3 button suits took over medicine, and is part of the reason we got this "reform".
But sadly, I had almost the exact same thought when I read this as did Dr. Murray above. So many things changed once the 3 button suits took over medicine, and is part of the reason we got this "reform".
10.5.2010 | 9:54am
Susan says:
Greggo,
To continue...the president of the non-bowling bowling league may actually remember how to bowl and may even try it now and again. He might even see that some of his fellow officers have really betrayed the league, but they all have been friends for so long, since the time when everyone loved the league, that he cannot bring himself to call them out on it. If he did that, and insisted that all of the officers themselves actually bowl regularly, then maybe everyone would see how much fun it is and come back from the mountains (sorry to mix metaphors) to learn how to bowl.
To continue...the president of the non-bowling bowling league may actually remember how to bowl and may even try it now and again. He might even see that some of his fellow officers have really betrayed the league, but they all have been friends for so long, since the time when everyone loved the league, that he cannot bring himself to call them out on it. If he did that, and insisted that all of the officers themselves actually bowl regularly, then maybe everyone would see how much fun it is and come back from the mountains (sorry to mix metaphors) to learn how to bowl.
10.5.2010 | 7:15pm
Roberto says:
A little while after reading the timely article "How We Live Today"
and, in sequence, several reader comments on the same text, I
remembered a historical essay published here in Brazil in the late
sixties. In its two volumes, the book, entitled DOIS AMORES, DUAS
CIDADES ("Two Loves, Two Cities") presents an excellent analysis of
the origins of the present problems faced by the West. Unfortunately,
this work is almost forgotten in my country. It is also a shame it
never had an English translation.
and, in sequence, several reader comments on the same text, I
remembered a historical essay published here in Brazil in the late
sixties. In its two volumes, the book, entitled DOIS AMORES, DUAS
CIDADES ("Two Loves, Two Cities") presents an excellent analysis of
the origins of the present problems faced by the West. Unfortunately,
this work is almost forgotten in my country. It is also a shame it
never had an English translation.
10.5.2010 | 9:02pm
Mark VA says:
Tony Esolen:
Absolutely, in this scenario, today, to allow the random rule to be enforced, would be nothing less than a grave dereliction of parental duty.
While we may justifiably claim that our world does excel in the application of science to everyday life, I don't think we can then conclude that this has enriched our culture. It has made our lives more physically comfortable and faster, but not truly richer. The Dantes, Shakespeares, Michelangelos, Bachs, and Chartres Cathedrals, are still missing. What we do have are LA Cathedrals, Lady Gagas, and the 24 hour news cycle.
I recall some friendly advice given by one of my professors: we (engineering students) should not consider ourselves civilized solely by virtue of our technical knowledge. It is entirely possible for us to be technically competent barbarians. Over the decades I've come to value this advice.
I would like to see beauty and intelligence come back to our everyday lives. Even the most insignificant things we use, see, or hear daily, should be beautiful. Likewise our clothes, manners, and speech should be pleasing to the heart and mind, yet without affectation. Perhaps we may even regain the notion that femininity is spicier by what it doesn't display. This is my compost recipe.
Absolutely, in this scenario, today, to allow the random rule to be enforced, would be nothing less than a grave dereliction of parental duty.
While we may justifiably claim that our world does excel in the application of science to everyday life, I don't think we can then conclude that this has enriched our culture. It has made our lives more physically comfortable and faster, but not truly richer. The Dantes, Shakespeares, Michelangelos, Bachs, and Chartres Cathedrals, are still missing. What we do have are LA Cathedrals, Lady Gagas, and the 24 hour news cycle.
I recall some friendly advice given by one of my professors: we (engineering students) should not consider ourselves civilized solely by virtue of our technical knowledge. It is entirely possible for us to be technically competent barbarians. Over the decades I've come to value this advice.
I would like to see beauty and intelligence come back to our everyday lives. Even the most insignificant things we use, see, or hear daily, should be beautiful. Likewise our clothes, manners, and speech should be pleasing to the heart and mind, yet without affectation. Perhaps we may even regain the notion that femininity is spicier by what it doesn't display. This is my compost recipe.
12.1.2010 | 7:03pm
Rhyme Auto says:
The urgency of this question is magnified by the facts that our (Western) population has grown by many orders of magnitude, medical science and nutrition keep us living longer, and practically all of us know how to read and write - by the sheer force of statistics and probability, we should not be asking such questions. Something stinks here. Overt pressure is not needed. Lack of respect, marginalization, will do nicely. As Josef Pieper explains, the faith, the tradition, because it is living, not dead, is "handed down" in addition to being taught. It cannot be simply explained, viewed historically, studied from the outside, so to speak. By living it within a community of others who are living it, we find it. When this living context disappears, the transmission is interrupted, rendered more difficult to find. In some places, it goes underground or temporarily disappears.
7.23.2011 | 10:38am
Valene Lienemann says:
But sadly, I had almost the exact same thought when I read this as did Dr. Murray above. So many things changed once the 3 button suits took over medicine, and is part of the reason we got this "reform". Bangwell: I'm just finishing "Without Roots," a brief conversation between Cardinal Ratzinger and Marcello Pera. I'll follow up with "The Meaning of Tradition" and "Tradition Concept and Claim." Thanksto you and, as always, to Mr. Bottum.
We of the Valley must pray.
Religion can be culturally handed on and culturally received, but living faith cannot. How does Pelikan's saying go? "Traditionalism is the dead faith of the living. Tradition is the living faith of the dead". Long before they climbed the mountain peaks they were Traditionalists.
We need to pray and actually know God's love. And we need to show the love of God to our children and our neighbors.
That is the real culture war.