"The High Culture of the West," the Classic, and the Simpsons

"Carry on the high culture of the West!" The esteemed headmaster of Veritas Prep explained it as something coherent, apprehensible and nobel, and as educators we have a moral obligation to pass it on to the younger generation. Also, lets not forget the presentation was given with a theatrical flair that reminiscent of this:

 "It is your inheritance," he went on, "and we should love it, never disregarding the bad of it of course, but with that love which resembles the love of one's home." I like that. Living in a culture today that praises individuality at the expense of tradition it's nice to have a cultural home- or perhaps better described as a home base- a place where my cultural identity is constant. 


It struck me like it has never struck me before how important the literature of a society and even a unique nation is. Like a two by four in a wall that makes a house, each piece of literature that adds to the cultural identity of a nation (a piece that we affectionately call "a classic") adds further nuance to imagination of the West. 


This reminded me a lot of what John Henry Newman, whose own writing is included by many into the unwritten canon of Western Classics, said about the nature of a Classic in a culture:


"The influence of a great classic upon the nation which he represents is two fold; on the one hand he advances his native language towards its perfection; but on the other hand he discourages in some measure any advance beyond his own. thus, in the parallel case of science, it is commonly said on the continent, that the very marvellousness of Newton's powers was the bane of English mathematics: inasmuch as those who succeeded him were content with his discoveries, bigoted to his methods of investigation, and averse to those new instruments which have carried on the French to such brilliant and successful results. In Literature, also, there is something oppressive in the authority of a great writer, and something of a tyranny in the use to which his admirers put his name. [...]


There is another impediment, as time goes on, to the rise of fresh classics in any nation; and that is the effect which foreigners, or foreign literature, will exert upon it. It may happen that a certain language, like Greek, is adopted and used familiarly by educated men in other countries; or again, that educated men, to whom it is native, may abandon it for some other language, as the Romans of the second and third centuries wrote in Greek instead of Latin. The consequence will be, that the language in question will tend to lose its nationality--that is, its distinctive character; it will cease to be idiomatic in the sense in which it once was so; and whatever grace or propriety it may retain, it will be comparatively tame and spiritless; or, on the other hand, it will be corrupted by the admixture of foreign elements. [...]


When I speak of the formation of a Catholic school of writers, I have respect principally to the matter of what is written, and to composition only so far forth as style is necessary to convey and to recommend the matter. I mean a  literature which resembles the literature of the day... Our writers write so well that there is little to choose between them. What they lack is that individuality, that earnestness, most personal yet most unconscious of self, which is the greatest charm of an author. The very form of the compositions of the day suggests to us their main deficiency. They are anonymous."


In this work, The Idea of a University, Newman articulates his thoughts on pedagogy and education, specifically Roman Catholic Education in Anglican England. Though the very culture that he is a part of remained hostile to his religious heritage (see the Oxford Movement), Newman still recognized the importance for Catholic Education to work within the Anglo culture. I wonder if the Great Hearts Academies share the same predicament. Today in "post-modern America" the tradition has become characterized by hostility to tradition, hierarchy and authority. Instead, the ideas of democracy and an egalitarian society remain suspicious of a timeless authority of literature- the idea that any book could warrant the further adjective "Classic" is absurd by the modern American judgement. How then, in light of the prudence of Newman, do we answer Mr. Ellison's speech? Do we interpret the modernist culture of today- one which openly declares to diverge from the Classics- as the hoard of barbarians? (or Orc hoard if you prefer) Or does the answer remain yet unseen? Perhaps some day. the plays of Samuel Beckett will stand on the shelves along side of Arthur Miller, Shakespeare and Aeschylus.

"What is glory without virtue?"

While meandering in the library after a successful find of a resource for a research paper, I stumbled upon this collection of English essays. Being a lover of a 'quick read with a good punch' I skimmed through the essay titles and found this intriguing essay by Daniel Defoe. Daniel equates the glory of such monumental figures in history such as Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar and Augustus to dust and ash. Growing up I was an admirer of Alexander the Great in light of his courage, quick thinking and unprecedented accomplishments, but to Daniel Defoe, this glory of Alexander but ends with his death and comes to dust. What good are our actions in life if they have no bearing on eternity? Nothing. What we do during our short lived time on earth will end. Hopeless as this is, we are given the second half to this realization, that if the virtue of our soul is great along with our actions, then we indeed do have a glorious man. For, what is glory without virtue?

Daniel Defoe (1661-1731)
The Instability of Human Glory

"Sir, I have employed myself of late pretty much in the study of history, and have been reading the stories of such great men of past ages, Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, the great Augustus, and many more down, down, down, to the still greater Louis XIV., and even to the still greatest John, Duke of Marlborough. In my way I met with Tamerlane, the Scythian, Tomornbejus, the Egyptian, Solyman, the Magnificent, and others of the Mahometan or Ottoman race; and after all the great things they have done I find it said of them all, one after another, AND THEN HE DIED, all dead, dead, dead! hic jacet is the finishing part of their history. Some lie in the bed of honour, and some in hounr's truckle bed; some were bravely slain in battle on the field of honour, some in the storm of a counterscap and died in the ditch of hounour; some here, some there; - the bones of the bold and the brave, the cowardly and the base, the hero and the scoundrel, are heaped up together; -there they lie in oblivion, and under the ruins o the earth, undistinguished from one another, nay, even from the common earth.

"Huddled in dirt the blust'ring engine lies,
That was so great, and though himself so wise."

How many hundreds of thousands of the bravest fellows then in the world lie on heaps in the ground, whose bones are to this day ploughed up by rustics, or dug up by the laborer, and the earth their more noble vital parts are converted to has been perhaps applied to the meanest uses...
...What then is the work of life? What the business of great men, that pass the stage of the world in seeming triumph as these men, we call heroes, have done? Is it to grow great in the mouth of fame and take up many pages in history? Alas! that is no more than making a tale for the reading of posterity till it turns into fable and romance. Is it to furnish subject to the poets, and live in their immortal rhymes, as they call them? That is, in short, no more than to be hereafter tuned into ballad and song and be sung by old women to quiet children, or at the corner of a street to gather crowds in aid of the pick-pocket and the poor. Or is their business rather to add virtue and piety to their glory, which alone will pass them into eternity and make them truly immortal? What is glory without virtue? A great man without religion is no more than a great beast without a soul. What is honour without merit? And what can be called true merit but that which makes a person be a good man as well as a great man?
If we believe in a future state of life, a place for the rewards of good men and for the punishment of the haters of virtue, how few of heroes and famous men crowd in among the last! How few crowned heads wear the crowns of immortal felicity!
Let no man envy the great and glorious men, as we call them! Could we see them now, how many of them would move our pity rather than call for our congratulations! These few thoughts, Sir, I send to prepare your readers' minds when they go to see the magnificent funerel of the late Duke of Marlborough."

In closing, I make an appeal to us, as stewards of the Lord's earth in this present time, an appeal to virtue. If we want our deeds to be something of worth, we must be virtuous.

"The end of the matter; all has been heard. Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. For God will bring every deed into judgment, with every secret thing, whether good or evil" (Ecclesiastes 12:13-14)