Cultural decay has been a theme of cultural pessimists for centuries, and in this episode Jeff Rich surveys prophets of cultural doom from Matthew Arnold, Max Weber, Stefan Zweig, and the more witty and balanced Felipe Fernandez-Armesto.
You seldom see Arnold or Zweig mentioned, which is sad as both have a lot to offer. "Study of sweetness and light" what great description of literary culture and the life of the mind. I don't think Arnold's tenets are old fashioned, out of fashion maybe, but that is a corollary of the cynicism of current values. I visited Bad-Ischl in Austria before covid and saw a blue plaque with his name on it. It was where he'd written some of his works.
The Yeat's poem, "The Second Coming", has been part of my brain furniture for decades, and I have returned to it frequently. You can understand how his state of mind would bring out this poem after all WWI had just ended.
Your 4 aspects were so pertinent. We've had professors sacked for upsetting there students because of them studying literature but were being "triggered" by certain classics. Instead of telling the youths to change course, the University sacked one particular female professor left and is now teaching in the US. Technology operates now as a commercial enterprise more interested in gathering our details to sell to other companies and to sell us stuff, rather than culture. Sad that the Internet, invented for free exchange of information between academics has been transformed into a selling tool.
I've now added these books by Fernandez-Armesto to my tbr. I'm loving his Civilization.
You seldom see Arnold or Zweig mentioned, which is sad as both have a lot to offer. "Study of sweetness and light" what great description of literary culture and the life of the mind. I don't think Arnold's tenets are old fashioned, out of fashion maybe, but that is a corollary of the cynicism of current values. I visited Bad-Ischl in Austria before covid and saw a blue plaque with his name on it. It was where he'd written some of his works.
The Yeat's poem, "The Second Coming", has been part of my brain furniture for decades, and I have returned to it frequently. You can understand how his state of mind would bring out this poem after all WWI had just ended.
Your 4 aspects were so pertinent. We've had professors sacked for upsetting there students because of them studying literature but were being "triggered" by certain classics. Instead of telling the youths to change course, the University sacked one particular female professor left and is now teaching in the US. Technology operates now as a commercial enterprise more interested in gathering our details to sell to other companies and to sell us stuff, rather than culture. Sad that the Internet, invented for free exchange of information between academics has been transformed into a selling tool.
I've now added these books by Fernandez-Armesto to my tbr. I'm loving his Civilization.