A society that no longer transmits its foundational narratives is a society suffering from a kind of cultural Alzheimer's—still physically present but increasing unable to recognize itself.
Jonathan Swift confronted this forgetting in A TALE OF A TUB, a confrontation continued by the Scribelerians … Swift, Pope, Gay, Arbuthnot, Bolingbroke, et al. Swift confronted the deadly political consequences in such as A MODEST PROPOSAL; Gay authored a mock opera, THE BEGGAR’s OPERA (THE THREEPENNY OPERA being the modern version … “Mack the Knife” its most well known song); and, Alexander Pope’s THE DUNCIAD (in four versions) perhaps the epitome of the attack on “Dulness.” In your fight against The Great Forgetting, victory is no victory, but the continued fight against the powers of Darkness. Your essay is a remarkable call to the Light.
At the ground level I've been shocked how, without warning, I've had defend teaching books in English. But never from administration. However this isn't surprising since we long lost literature to "skills."
What Chesterton called “the democracy of the dead”—the great conversation across time in which the finest minds of every age participate—has been replaced by the tyranny of the trendy. Students encounter fragments of texts divorced from context, selected not for their enduring importance but for their alleged “contemporary relevance,” which is precisely the quality least likely to endure.
We "peer through a glass darkly", but you have enabled us more light.
Another wonderful piece -- and I'm especially grateful to it for bringing to my attention Chesterton's indelible phrase, "democracy of the dead".
A minor note on your description of rhetoric: would it be more accurate to describe it as "the noble art of persuasion through an 𝘢𝘳𝘨𝘶𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵 beautifully articulated", as it need not necessarily express something true? Or perhaps I have a misunderstanding of what rhetoric is.
Jonathan Swift confronted this forgetting in A TALE OF A TUB, a confrontation continued by the Scribelerians … Swift, Pope, Gay, Arbuthnot, Bolingbroke, et al. Swift confronted the deadly political consequences in such as A MODEST PROPOSAL; Gay authored a mock opera, THE BEGGAR’s OPERA (THE THREEPENNY OPERA being the modern version … “Mack the Knife” its most well known song); and, Alexander Pope’s THE DUNCIAD (in four versions) perhaps the epitome of the attack on “Dulness.” In your fight against The Great Forgetting, victory is no victory, but the continued fight against the powers of Darkness. Your essay is a remarkable call to the Light.
At the ground level I've been shocked how, without warning, I've had defend teaching books in English. But never from administration. However this isn't surprising since we long lost literature to "skills."
Amazing piece. Thank you.
Thank you.
What Chesterton called “the democracy of the dead”—the great conversation across time in which the finest minds of every age participate—has been replaced by the tyranny of the trendy. Students encounter fragments of texts divorced from context, selected not for their enduring importance but for their alleged “contemporary relevance,” which is precisely the quality least likely to endure.
We "peer through a glass darkly", but you have enabled us more light.
The past century has indeed witnessed the ascendence of a culture of forgetting only.
I call it Lethe, the river of oblivion, the goddess of Modernism. One sip of her constitutes a tabula rasa for the soul.
Another wonderful piece -- and I'm especially grateful to it for bringing to my attention Chesterton's indelible phrase, "democracy of the dead".
A minor note on your description of rhetoric: would it be more accurate to describe it as "the noble art of persuasion through an 𝘢𝘳𝘨𝘶𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵 beautifully articulated", as it need not necessarily express something true? Or perhaps I have a misunderstanding of what rhetoric is.
There's clearly nothing of the classical tradition in the members of the current US government.