How to win the culture war

CERC ^ | Peter Kreeft

[Desdemona]

What are you talking about, no one will read this?

I'm not going to argue that prayer isn't important, because it is.

One thing that has to happen is the gatekeepers need to either change or go. There's too much filtering of information and the good stuff isn't getting through.

[Romulus]

How to win the culture war

May I respectfully suggest that one starts by having a culture?

That doesn't necessarily mean High Culture (though high culture certainly embodies any society's most ambitiously imagined and evolved understanding of itself), but it does mean that the culture emanating from authentic bonds of family, faith, and country (especially when that country is a reflection of family and faith, writ large) is the most reliable protection against political and ideological tyrannies, which view humanity as something to be reduced, molded, re-formed, and exploited in the service of a lie.

[NYer]

Novena Prayer to Saint Michael the Archangel

Glorious Saint Michael, guardian and defender of the Church of Jesus Christ, come to the assistance of His followers, against whom the powers of hell are unchained. Guard with special care our Holy Father, the Pope, and our bishops, priests, all our religious and lay people, and especially the children.

Saint Michael, watch over us during life, defend us against the assaults of the demon, and assist us especially at the hour of death. Help us achieve the happiness of beholding God face to face for all eternity. Amen.

Saint Michael, intercede for me with God in all my necessities, especially {mention special petition}. Obtain for me a favorable outcome in the matter I recommend to you. Mighty prince of the heavenly host, and victor over rebellious spirits, remember me for I am weak and sinful and so prone to pride and ambition. Be for me, I pray, my powerful aid in temptation and difficulty, and above all do not forsake me in my last struggle with the powers of evil. Amen.

You should be aware that the word "angel" denotes a function rather than a nature. Those holy spirits of heaven have indeed always been spirits. They can only be called angels when they deliver some message. Moreover, those who deliver messages of lesser importance are called angels; and those who proclaim messages of supreme importance are called archangels.

Whenever some act of wondrous power must be performed, Michael is sent, so that his action and his name may make it clear that no one can do what God does by his superior power.

from a homily by Pope Saint Gregory the Great

[Desdemona]

"...That doesn't necessarily mean High Culture (though high culture certainly embodies any society's most ambitiously imagined and evolved understanding of itself)..."

Just to stick a hot needle in here...I saw a production of "Tosca" over the weekend. Grand Opera. In music, considered to be the highest form of art. This particular one has a murder, an execution AND a suicide. One of the few Romantic period ones where no one dies of consumption. Not to mention, it's every Shakespearian tradgedy rolled into one. So what does something like this say about Italy?

Just to ask...I'm just curious.

[Romulus]

So what does something like this say about Italy?

Well, it's been a few years since I last saw Tosca, but as I recall, it says: "Artists and political dissidents, Good; Papal police chief, Bad."

And since you bring it up, who, apart from Mimi and Violetta, dies from consumption? Butterfly takes her life, for love of an American cad. Aida and boyfriend are buried alive; Gilda is stabbed, There's a certain lady in Otello who's strangled, is there not? And in L'Elisir the happy couple discovers True Love.

But you're right that consumption does loom disproportionately large in the imagination, and that fact is worth pondering. I view it as a convenient plot device, a death-dealing deus ex machina that arrives on time to ensure a tragic end to a doomed love, thus ensuring that the bourgeois audiences who pay the freight are sent home properly chastened for their unprogressive views toward courtesans and bohemians.

[Desdemona]

"And since you bring it up, who, apart from Mimi and Violetta, dies from consumption?"

Hmmm...it does seem to stick in Paris doesn't it? And Carmen is murdered in a jealous rage. And Manon...let's not go there. I was assigned a couple of scenes this fall.

"And in L'Elisir the happy couple discovers True Love."

Technically, this is not Romantic, though. It's classical. The classical ones, generally, have happy plots.

Anyway, back to the purpose of art...so in the modern sense, then, as dischordant and ugly as the music is...? Not to mention 20th century theater. Massively depressing stuff. I realize most of it was a leftist social statement, and very anti-religion, but...

[Romulus]

Technically, this is not Romantic, though.

If you say so, though I note GD was born 27 yrs. after Beethoven, and Puccini himself never surpassed the heart-tugging dampness of "una furtiva lagrima".

[Romulus]

And Manon...let's not go there.

I almost missed this. Very clever.

[Desdemona]

If memory serves, the classical period runs from Mozart, 1777 "Exultate Jubilate" to roughly just past Schubert, 1830's, 1840's or so. Schubert was what, 36 when he died? The Romantic period starts with Verdi, 1840's, 1850's. Donizetti was done before he was 40. He retired. SO Donizetti was born 27 years after Beethoven was born or died? He still wrote before Verdi. Bellini, Rossini, and Donizetti were all in the same two decades. "Barbiere" is 1819, something like that.

Nonetheless, there was a culture change in the mid-19th century and the art of the period reflects it.

[Romulus]

I was about to say, "Well Yahoo classifies Donizetti with the Romantics, so there" -- until I noticed that they have Beethoven with the Classicals, the fools. ;-)

This is all way off-topic. I'll try to have something more substantive to say after lunch.

[redhead]

"It did me some good to! I've started a novena to St. Philomena..and yes...I need to hit the confessional myself."

LOL! I know the feeling. I love the Sacrament of Penance. We are blessed in this area with several good, faithful priests, who spend long hours in the confessional. It is good to go frequently to a priest who understands the Sacrament. I recommend it most highly. Monthly confession, at least is so beneficial that if I miss it even once, I can visualize my soul as a tattered, dirty rag.

[JMJ333]

That is a good visualization--to equate it to something awful so as not to miss the opportunity to be cleansed. Nice to see you. =)

[JMJ333]

Who sez there's no culture? I came online and got an opera/classical music lesson from reading this thread! heh

[Romulus]

Anyway, back to the purpose of art...so in the modern sense, then, as dischordant and ugly as the music is...? Not to mention 20th century theater. Massively depressing stuff. I realize most of it was a leftist social statement, and very anti-religion, but...

Modern art is not the first international style to see its centenary - think of the gothic and the baroque, for example - but the very fact that we cling to the term "modern" betrays a subliminal conviction that we've broken with everything that came before. And for once the name fits the movement, for discontinuity, alienation, and disorientation are major themes of the movement.

Discords of one sort or another can be found at least as far back as Greek tragedy - not musically, I mean, but thematic discords, presenting a view of a disordered cosmos, violated and out-of-tune. So if it isn't the mere presence of discord that's revolutionary, it must be the role it plays in these latter days.

Until the ascendancy of an intellectual elite dominated by the disciples of Darwin, Marx, Einstein, and Freud, the cultural history of the West had always been characterised by a belief in objective truth and an orderly world in which the reasoned observer might discern natural law. Discord and "ugliness" (which signified disproportion, incongruity, grossness, and a chaotic loss of the center's ability to hold), if not momentary phenomena happily resolved by the end of the work, were received as shocking and disorienting precisely because they offered such an affront to the prevailing culture's cosmic view (you know, I suppose, that the Greek word "kosmos" implies not only the created universe, but also order and rational, and therefore beautiful. To speak of the "cosmos" is to take an aesthetic approach to creation. See The Theological Aesthetics of Hans Urs von Balthasar).

Well, times have changed. Of course with the decline in standards a lot of bad art has emerged, much of it taking advantage of the hostility to order to mask simple technical ineptitude. The 20th century was probably the first to seriously advance the notion that discord, alienation, and radical subjectivity were the natural condition. The entire century may be viewed as a gigantic "Non serviam", a protest and denial of the natural order's very existence. That was new, and IMO goes a long way to explain why discords, willful ugliness, and impenetrable obscurity are the hallmarks of modern art.

[Desdemona]

"the very fact that we cling to the term "modern" betrays a subliminal conviction that we've broken with everything that came before."

I won't argue that. As abstract and conceptualized as "art" is right now, it is definitely a total break. And a number of the "artists" will freely admit that it's crap, too.

I'm not sure that I agree on putting Baroque and Gothic together though. Unless one is using them in the serial sense, they don't go together.

"Well, times have changed. Of course with the decline in standards a lot of bad art has emerged, much of it taking advantage of the hostility to order to mask simple technical ineptitude."

Amazingly true, here.

"The entire century may be viewed as a gigantic "Non serviam", a protest and denial of the natural order's very existence."

If this be the case, though, with the social movements starting well before the art emerged in this fashion, why, IYO, did it take so long?

[Romulus]

why, IYO, did it take so long?

It's a good question. Demoiselles d'Avignon made its appearance in 1907; "Nude Descending a Staircase" in 1912. Sacre du Printemps had its riotous premiere in 1913. And Ulysses made its first appearance in 1918, the same year that the Dada Manifesto was published. So many revolutionary events seem to cluster around the Great War that one begins to wonder whether that too was not just another cultural expression, a work of art wrought by the new-born culture of death. And, like other seminal masterpieces, the Great War served to hasten the process, erasing cultural memory and making impossible former forms of discourse.

[Desdemona]

"...the Great War served to hasten the process, erasing cultural memory and making impossible former forms of discourse."

And yet, the cream of the great art from previous generations survives. Surely this is not as a representative sample?

[Romulus]

And yet, the cream of the great art from previous generations survives.

Well, happily technology has made it available to a great many whose tastes have not yet been corrupted. But how much of this art lives in the popular imagination, as opposed to the textbooks of specialists? As just one example within memory still living, think how many orthodox icons have been ripped from their authentic context where they served as aids to worship, to be sterilised and isolated as "cultural artifacts" to be inspected by bored and ignorant cultural tourists. Surely you know about the financial difficulties of the classical music labels, white elephants preserved for the time being on life support till the day comes when their prestige will no longer be perceived to have commercial value. And how many symphony orchestras or opera companies, anywhere in the world, can survive without massive subsidy?

Certain decencies must be observed, at least till another generation or two is extinct, their replacements conditioned to bark like trained seals for whatever is cheap to produce and distribute. I don't like to think what comes after that.

The point of this post and my others is not to play the unreconciled aesthete, nor to strike attitudes about the bad taste of the unwashed. The point is that any culture is authentic and worth preserving to the extent that it notices and honors important truths, especially truths about what man is and how he is to live. The enemy in the Culture War is not ignorance or vulgarity or impoverished imagination; the enemy is pseudo-culture, a bogus device ginned up to enrich the few and enslave the many by propagating lies about what and why man is.

[rising tide]

I don't believe there will be a conservative victory in the culture war, nore do I believe the rightious will triumph over the wicked untill the return of our Savior.The Culture War as commonly understood seems hopeless from my perspective. Conservatives are a long away from being dominate the institutions that influence American culture.What influence do we have in primary education or academia? What influence do we have in Hollywood or the popular music business.Even within our churches for the most part, which direction has the drift been?
There is a story you've all probably heard it, but I'll repeat it any way. I little boy was on the beach franticly throwing starfish back into the sea. An older gentle man walked up to the boy and asked what he was doing. The boy replied that he was saving the star fish "they have to get back in the sea or they will die.The older gentleman said "Your efort is in vain there's way to many starfish.It doesn't matter how many you throw into the sea, thousands and thousands will die. The boy replied well it matters a great deal to this one and he threw that star fish back into the sea.
I think one on one is the way to change peoples hearts and minds. Loving our neighbors and doing good for them establishes trust, then we can be a good influence in there lives. We may not win the culture war with this strategy but the positive influences of accepting Christ or even just living responsably can matter a great deal to the individual or family you help along the way.

[grumpster-dumpster]

I'm going to have to re-read this several times before I comment...Bump to myself.

Thanks for posting this.