“Culture” is Young

It startled me to discover today that the concept of culture, as we now use it, arose, why, just the other day. As we know from “agriculture,” it is rooted in the systematic cultivation of the land. And in that sense the word is already present in the Latin cultura. Cicero is said to have used the phrase cultura animi, thus cultivation of the soul—but the word was not in use as it is with us. That began around 1500, thus in what for me is the Latter Days. Then it meant cultivation through education. It had grown up to mean “the intellectual side of civilization” by 1805. By 1867 it had reached maturity and had come to mean the “collective customs and achievements of a people.” In 1909, W.B. Yeats gave it the following interesting meaning:

For without culture or holiness, which are always the gifts of a very few, a man may renounce wealth or any other external thing, but he cannot renounce hatred, envy, jealousy, or revenge. Culture is the sanctity of the intellect.

     [W.B. Yeats, V. III of Collected Works, a journal entry dated March 7, 1909]

Yeats here is returning to Cicero’s sense, but as that word continued to be used by ever more people, it has expanded on the 1867 meaning more and more and, in our day, has endless tributaries of which pop culture is one and innumerable subcultures yet others. Yeats anticipated something of the kind when he wrote about the “widening gyre” in his “The Second Coming” and observed that “Things fall apart; the center cannot hold.”

It strikes me as interesting that in secular times, which look outward rather than within, the collective becomes visible and needs all kind of words to describe it. And culture is one of those.

An Old Raj Quartet Note

Pondering yesterday Yeat’s dark view of the Second Coming brought some additional associations, most notably memories of reading for the second time Paul Scott’s The Raj Quartet. I had a post on that here back a couple of years. Something, something was there, a memory. Well, it surfaced finally. I had written a note on the subject of cultural despair—the same kind I now first noted in Yeats. It was a private diary entry. I dug it out, and it follows here. Apologies to those who do not know the story—and haven’t seen the television series (The Jewel in the Crown).

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Nothing like entering a subject fully. One of the truly dark chapters in this opus, at least when read, is Sarah’s seduction by Major Jimmy Clark or, rather, the Major’s disquisition as they pause between two musical events in a fancy private Calcutta club. Now that harangue is mild, “lite,” almost inconsequential in comparison with, let us say, Hari Kumar’s interrogation by Nigel Rowan. But what Jimmy’s discourse shows is a despairing view of civilization even though it is presented with a cynical aggression by a young man from a very privileged position in society.

In this vignette as everywhere else Paul Scott is devastatingly honest. He is one of the very few twentieth century authors able to depict that time realistically yet without phony saving graces, thus without a gloss of idealism. That sheen is usually based, by others, on humanism or progressivism; in the first case, still-present traces of religious thought tend to be exploited with careful finesses—thus the emotional tonalities of it are borrowed without the cosmological structure on which they rest; in the second, collectivist idealism about “the people” provides a signal of hope, at least in novels; the people are seen as somehow embodying something greater than a person does. In Scott’s novel we never really penetrate the cloud bank above and the outcome,consequently, is an existentialist stance: there are those who know; but their knowledge cannot save them. The heroic figures are Aunt Mabel, Lady Manners, Sarah; but all three live without genuine light or hope.

I find this fascinating. This dark view of humanity is already present in Shakespeare, I would submit; but it is rarely put so honestly, exhaustively, so plainly as by Scott. His version at least is honest; but it doesn’t break the clouds. The taste, smell, texture of this culture explains why I’ve maintained a cultural distance from the Anglo-Saxon world, despite spending a lifetime living in its midst. The Celtic—and the culture that it has inspired—now that’s another matter. It has always had a transcending dimension. There is Paul Scott. And there is also Tolkien.

Science and Poetry Meet

Today was my annual eye exam and I was off to our splendid Henry Ford Eye Care clinic where my doctor, Dr. George, approved of all that he saw. (As an aside: I’m probably one of the very few people who have two doctors with the last name of George. The other one is my urologist. Something of an achievement for someone called Arsen.) The clinic is splendid because it serves fresh coffee and cookies, is pleasantly furnished with comfortable couches and armchairs overlooked by huge prints in frames holding good art. And, crowning glory for people like Brigitte and me, there is a large shelf full of books. These are contributed by patients. We’ve made our donations there. You can pick up a book and read it—and take it with you, for that matter. A large container will hold your donation if you care to make it.

Well, today, I found there a thick volume entitled The Norton Introduction to Literature. I picked it out from among a rich array of popular paperback novels. It looked decidedly uncomfortable. Third Edition, 1981, obviously a textbook, but its contents wonderfully rich. The routine at these eye exams is that the young lady takes me through the eye examination charts and then drips a chemical into the eyes to cause my pupils to dilate. Then twenty minutes are allowed for this process to take place. So… So, while I sat in my comfortable armchair sipping coffee and munching cookies, the art work grandly observing me from the nicely papered walls, I was studying Yeats’ poetry as my pupils grew ever larger, sailing to Byzantium, you might say, science and poetry magically conjoined.