A commenter last week repeated a common charge against Russell Kirk, which is a common charge against half a dozen great Conservatives, beginning with Burke: that he was “more a poet than a philosopher,” that he was imaginative in his wording, that, in short, his verbal talent exceeded his philosophic. To answer this charge, I call on Mr. Kirk himself, proffering his summary of the Middle Age: “Two types of humanity were the wonder of mediaeval Europe: the great saint and the great knight. In later ages, their descendents would be the scholar and the gentlemen.” That magical and masterful literary summary appears in what I regard as his masterpiece: The Roots of American Order.
There, friends, is a gift for your recent graduate. For this book abounds in such philosophic poetry as that. A young man or woman who regards him- or herself as educated may graduate knowing little of the Middle Age (this is a condition common enough to be a mark against our institutions of learning): now he or she will knowing something at least, and a precious thing, the truth.
And of course there is a whole chapter on the Middle Ages to follow. So let us have done with this notion that men of letters cannot teach because they are more poet than philosopher.
Comments (14)
"So let us have done with this notion that men of letters cannot teach because they are more poet than philosopher."
Hear, hear! I probably have learned more from the poet-philosopher types than from anyone else -- Kirk, Wendell Berry, Flannery O'Connor and Marion Montgomery come to mind. My catechist in Eastern Orthodoxy, Fr. Patrick Henry Reardon, has quite the poetic mind to go along with his philosophical bent. And Anthony Esolen is the newest addition to my list -- one of the best essayists currently writing, IMO.
Great blog, by the way!
Posted by Rob Grano | May 7, 2007 7:23 AM
The greatest wisdom is often bound up in poetry. The Roots of American Order began my own quest to understand the basis of the obvious empirical superiority of Western culture -- wealth, security, civility and tolerance -- as opposed to the "zero-sum" mayhem of cultures not partaking of the civilizing influence of Judeo-Christian ethics. I was an untrained scholar, and decided to use Post-It tags to mark significant passages. Today, my children call it my "porcupine book" because it literally bristles with hundreds of markers -- sometimes more than one per page. It remains on my shelf in this condition as testimony to the thrill I experienced in devouring it.
Posted by Jim McAlister | May 7, 2007 8:44 AM
Young men have knowledge of the Middle Ages - because of computer games. Ever play Medieval II Total War? I recommend it to Medieval history books, I learnt more about the time period than I would have in any amount of books!
Posted by ivan | May 7, 2007 8:46 AM
Mr. McAlister may want to track down a book by one Lawrence R. Brown called The Might of the West if those themes still interest him. Brown's scriptural exegesis is less-than-persuasive, but the rest of his history is brilliant and thought-provoking.
Ivan is going to have to defend his facile if intriguing remark with more vigor than mere assertion, if he every hopes to carry us on that book.
Posted by Paul J Cella | May 7, 2007 9:16 AM
'...decided to use Post-It tags to mark significant passages. Today, my children call it my "porcupine book" because it literally bristles with hundreds of markers -- sometimes more than one per page. It remains on my shelf in this condition as testimony to the thrill I experienced in devouring it.'
Mr. McAlister, this is exactly the feeling I had upon first reading Marion Montgomery's 'Why Flannery O'Connor Stayed Home.' Unfortunately it was a library copy and I couldn't stud it with sticky notes. I now, however, have a copy of my own, and when I reread it soon will undoubtedly decorate it in like fashion to your copy of 'Roots...'
Posted by Rob Grano | May 7, 2007 9:35 AM
Historically, before the advent of philosophy and written, analytical historiography, and in some respects enduring long after the emergence of these more 'rational' disciplines for the transmission of knowledge, poets were the teachers of mankind, in ballad, epics, cycles, and so on. The assumption that the poet or literary author cannot impart wisdom, or cannot be possessed of philosophic depth, is a conceit having many fathers; but it is no less a modern conceit for all of that.
Posted by Maximos | May 7, 2007 10:06 AM
Ivan's comment is silly and conceited and typical of the shallowness of our education system that Kirk wrote about so much. Ivan, not knowing anything else but MTW, cannot know if MTW is an accurate and complete depiction of the Middle Ages.
Posted by Gintas | May 7, 2007 10:25 AM
Gintas - I have read many books on the Middle Ages, and they are certainly useful when it comes to discussions of culture, politics etc. I didn't mean to be so dismissive. But for raw experience of battle strategy, high diplomacy etc (even mundane things like taxation), Medieval II does a very good job.
From wiki on Medieval II:
"Swedish historian Peter Englund wrote that the depiction of battles as an art genre of its own has long existed in older media, such as films, or even older media such as tin soldiers or paintings. Englund states that these older forms have failed in the depiction of battle in some way, and Medieval II now represents the genre's most favourable medium."
I would also add that the 'atmosphere' of the middle ages is increasingly dominant in youth culture, whether it be books (High Fantasy), movies (Lord of the Rings etc) or especially computer games, where even Japanese RPG's have a medieval tinge. It shouldn't be difficult to move from fantasy culture to a realistic portrayal of the time in the culture - Medieval II is blazing the trail, not an elf in sight!.
Posted by ivan | May 7, 2007 4:23 PM
Ivan:
Let's test this theory a bit, shall we?
Does this video game convey any sense of the religious and philosophical vigor of the Middle Age? Does it give any hint as to why these men, and no others, built the institution of the University, which survives in depleted form yet today? Does it impart to the player or user any notion of why a man like St. Francis would rise up, a child of the parochial wars of those city-states, to reflect Jesus Christ unlike virtually any other man who has ever lived; or why, on the other hand, men would lead lives of such wild martial and romantic adventure as John of Birenne?
Does it, in short, really teach the user what great uncountable debt we owe to this Age?
Posted by Paul J Cella | May 8, 2007 8:47 AM
"Does this video game convey any sense of the religious and philosophical vigor of the Middle Age?"
Depends what you mean. It is an accurate portrayal of the battle and religious dynamics of the time. It does not go into philosophical depth, for sure, but 99.99999% of human beings within Christendom at the time had zero knowledge of those obscure disputes as well. You can build Cathedrals, be excommunicated by the Pope, go on crusades, and get Cardinals elected. It accurately portrays the religious fervor of the crusade, with crusaders being faster and more powerful than ordinary warriors.
"Does it, in short, really teach the user what great uncountable debt we owe to this Age?"
As I said - it is an ACCURATE portrayal of the time. Your idea of a portrayal of the time (St Francis, Universities etc), is inaccurate, because most European people had nothing to do with this, they were entirely elitist affairs, what ACTUALLY affected them was battle and taxes.
Posted by ivan | May 8, 2007 11:28 AM
I don't know about the picture this game conveys of the Middle Age, but the one you are conveying is laughable.
The notion that the mediaeval University, or the mendicant orders, were "entirely elitist affairs," is a real classic.
Posted by Paul J Cella | May 8, 2007 11:37 AM
Elitist in the sense that only the elites knew or cared about what was happening in them, most ordinary people just slugged along trying to survive.
You should read some of Razib's discussions of the differences between mass and elite conceptions of religion at Gene Expression, here
He links to his other posts on the subject at the bottom. Basically "Elite expositions of religious belief often have little relationship to the day to day mental conceptualization of the believers."
Posted by ivan | May 8, 2007 12:56 PM
" commenter last week repeated a common charge against Russell Kirk, which is a common charge against half a dozen great Conservatives, beginning with Burke: that he was “more a poet than a philosopher,”"
And Heideggar wrote "poetry may be more objective than science". When it comes to politics - which is public action for the common good (forget Machavelli, use Aristotle's defintion) ,we cannot forget that the form of the Good also includes Truth and Beauty. These three are all necessary for the individual or common human good.
A society should set standard it will likely fail to live upto - there is no social progress except that which is towards what is Good, True and Beautiful.
Posted by Kevin V. | May 9, 2007 2:08 PM
To Mr. Cella and Grano, thanks for your suggested reading -- and thank God for granting man the creativity to invent Amazon (and particularly its used book links). I'll be adding both books to my shelves. A couple of additional, recently published works that also deal with this theme are: The Victory of Reason, by Rodney Stark, and The God Who Did Not Fail, by Robert Royal. The first has a mild polemical tone, which I found surprising when I read that Professor Stark is an unbeliever (maybe he's just fed up with the Standard Line in most American universities). Royal's is more academic and, I thought, very tightly reasoned. Regards...
Posted by Jim McAlister | May 10, 2007 10:13 AM