An Intelligent Persons Guide To Modern Culture – Roger Scruton (1)

Modern science has presented us with the ‘as ifness’ of human freedom; but it could never equip us to live without the belief in it. And this deep and indispensable ‘as if’ is what Wagner seizes on in his cosmic myths. The Ring cycle shows us people living in an enchanted world – a world in which the gods roam, brimful of interest in human- ity, and in which the forces that thwart and abet us are personal- ised and prayed to.

But this enchantment, which sets the gods in Valhalla and laws in the human world, is also a usurpation. The gods spring from our unconscious needs and strivings – they are thrown off by that great explosion of moral energy, whereby the human community first emerges from the natural order and idealises itself in a common culture. They therefore bear the marks of a deeper nature – a nature which is pre-conscious, pre-moral and unfree. Examine them too closely and their cre- dentials dissolve – and how wonderfully Wagner shows this, not only in the character of Wotan, but in the narrative which con- stantly and continuously deconstructs him, needs no emphasis.

Consequently the gods stand in need of us for their redemption. The old hierarchy of theology is reversed. Only through incarna- tion in a human being, and the enjoyment of a human freedom, the freedom that comes to the contingent and the created, can the divine achieve salvation.

But the freedom that we enjoy is conditional on our mortality. Death lies at the heart of the moral community, and love is a relation between dying things. But love is also, in its highest form, a recognition and acceptance of death. Redemption, therefore, for the gods as much as for us, lies in love and in the exalted acceptance of death which love makes possible. We do not live in that way.

But the drama shows us that we could do so. A new world arises whenever humans dare to be free: the enchanted world of higher and lower, good and evil, god and devil: the world of divinity and distinction. That is the world that Wagner shows us, and if he places his dramas always in some mythic and primeval realm, this is in order to emphasise their trans-historical character.

Wagner’s dramas are symbolic representations of forces and processes that lie deeper than words, and to which we respond with a sympathy that is a deeper and darker version of our sympathy for people. The 7: Modernism Wagnerian drama creates its own religious background, its own awareness of a more than human cosmic order.

And this aware- ness shines through the deeds of god and hero in much the way that it shines through the actions on the Greek tragic stage. But we should return for a moment to the argument of Chapter 5.

Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2016 with funding from China-America Digital Academic Library (CADAL) https://archive.org/details/intelligentpersoOOroge VERMONT DEPARTMENT OF LIBRARIES NORTHEAST REGIONAL LIBRARY 23 TILTON ROAD ST JOHNSBURY VT 05819 An Intelligent Person’s Guide to Modern Culture An Intelligent Person’s Guide to Modern Culture Roger Scruton © St. Augustine’s Press South Bend, Indiana 2000 Copyright © 1998, 2000 by Roger Scruton All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of St. Augustine’s Press.

Manufactured in the United States of America. 1 2 3 4 5 6 07 06 05 04 03 02 01 00 Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Scruton, Roger. An intelligent person’s guide to modern culture / Roger Scruton. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 1-890318-47-7 (alk. paper) 1. Culture. 2. Arts, Modern. 3.

Civilization, Modern – Philosophy. 4. Popular culture. I. Title. HM621.S27 2000 306 – dc21 00-027225 oo The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Information Sciences – Permanence of Paper for Printed Materials , ANSI Z39.48-1984. What remains when disbelief is gone? Philip Larkin , ‘ Church going’. Contents Prefaces ix 1 . What Is Culture? 1 2.

Culture and Cult 5 3. Enlightenment 22 4. The Aesthetic Gaze 30 5. Romanticism 47 6. Fantasy, Imagination and the Salesman 55 7. Modernism 68 8. Avant-garde and Kitsch 85 9. Surface and Surfeit 96 10. Yoofanasia 105 11. Idle Hands 123 12. The Devil’s Work 135 13. Conclusions 149 Quite Interesting Bibliography 159 Index 169 Preface to the American Edition The English edition of this hook was criticised for making so lit- tle mention of photography, cinema and TV.

How can you write about modern culture, I was asked, if you say nothing about the most striking cultural invention of our times? I have therefore added a short chapter on the photographic image, in order to show how.

This is a short excerpt from the opening of “” by Unknown, quoted for review and introduction purposes. All rights belong to the copyright holders.

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