The Community of Culture

La Soledad, Carlos Saenz de Tejada

When we speak of "culture", we are often referring to a sort of status quo, the condition of education, technology, science, and the arts that we experience in our daily lives. We often refer to "culture" as if it is something without agency, something "out there", without considering our own participation in its formation. It may be for this very reason that we often fail to challenge our own actions, our own way of life, our stock viewpoints -- we see culture as an accumulation of practices and values that may be verbally dispensed and objectively discussed, but which have little interrelation with the manner in which we order our existence. 

Notwithstanding, the word "culture" carries certain connotations. We make judgements about culture because it may contain positive or negative elements. It may be a "culture of death", which is an oxymoron for, according to the frighteningly powerful Google machine, our usage of "culture" derives from

• Middle English (denoting a cultivated piece of land): the noun from French culture or directly from Latin cultura ‘growing, cultivation’; the verb from obsolete French culturer or medieval Latin culturare, both based on Latin colere ‘tend, cultivate’ (see cultivate). In late Middle English the sense was ‘cultivation of the soil’ and from this (early 16th cent.) arose ‘cultivation (of the mind, faculties, or manners)’; sense 1 of the noun dates from the early 19th cent.

Hence, we comment upon practices that are retrogressive for culture, that facilitate the accession of the inhumane, the violent, the brutish, the ignorant. (Recently, Brett McCracken commented upon the attitude in American culture (another oxymoron? not always) of "fame for fame's sake" and the prostitution of art for recognition of the ego (e.g. Lady Gaga, Jay-Z, etc.).)

If we make assertions of value in reference to culture, then we recognize that humanity is responsible for culture, and thence that we are individually responsible, for our part, for the state of culture. We recognize, too, that "culture" is not merely a label for what is, but a concept defined by continual movement toward excellence in all things human (e.g. education, technology, science, the arts).

Matthew Arnold, the 19th century British critic, describes culture as "the pursuit of light and perfection", and explains that "light and perfection consist, not in resting and being, but in growing and becoming, in a perpetual advance in beauty and wisdom" (Culture and Anarchy).

Immediately great names come to mind: Plato, Homer, Virgil, Dante -- the list goes on. The list goes on indeed ... but why do these cultural monoliths stand so solitary against the dark background of history? Why does not a great host of luminous figures swarm around them, equal or greater to the tide of human depravity and squalor?

The modern world is not devoid of cultured minds: Karol Wojtyla, Walker Percy, Arvo Part, Krzysztof Kieslowski. Yet they stand in almost diametric opposition to the crass flashing of famous names in headlines and on the little black boxes of misinformation that constantly invade our homes. Their names are not heard so loudly nor so very often as those which strive harder and harder not to be forgotten like  the finite novelty of autumnal leaves.

Perhaps because they are taproots, hidden and essential. One must dig to find them, and one must get dirty. And one must not leave the soil disturbed.

Why is the community of culture small? The community of culture is the community of the human. The human calls these facets of himself "culture" in order to distinguish them from the spoiling diction of faddism that pervades postmodern society. The human must constantly distinguish himself from that which fades. The human does not fade.

You often hear older people, when they mention the names of actors, films, musicians that no one else knows remarking upon how this particular knowledge dates them, how it is a sign of aging, a movement toward obscurity, disconnection from youth. But the youth are equally old if they speak of what their parents do not know or do not care to know.

The old betray their youth by not caring about Kardashian or whoever's next on the altar of sensationalism. The youth betray their age by caring. To be human is to learn and cling to excellence. That is a perpetual youth, a perpetual becoming, an ever-widening beauty.

And so our culture may be called a "culture of death" in many ways, one being that it clings not to the excellent, which is universal and enduring, but to the ephemeral, which is just that.

If you find yourself lonely in such a milieu, consider this.

Are you infatuated with the esoteric (pride)? Do you wrap yourself in fantasy to deny reality (e.g. the infamous MMORPG, niched obsessions, etc.)? Do you choose to be? Or are you lonely because the way of enculturation is difficult -- the road obscure, the company often silent, the goal something as seemingly unattainable as sainthood?

It is not merely the place of cultural icons to effect culture. It is the way of culture -- the way of the human -- to come out and speak, to stand one's ground among others and assert whatever merited authority one may possess. To share and to accept, certainly, but to be firm in the right.

At the base of the mountain is the battle against physical endangerment, which allows no possibility for culture. The battle against the enemies of culture (e.g. sloth, sentimentalism, political platforming, etc.) ranges in a thicker wood at a higher tier. It is even more essential to the becoming of humanity. Undoubtedly, it is a gift to be here. But it is a curse if we fail our nature and submit to the mediocre strummings, cooings, and ooings of pop folk or the abstract unartistic assertions of obscurantist "postmodern" writers or directors. They wrap the status quo in mysterious trappings and bring despair in the unveiling. Artist's shit (Cf. Duchamp).

There is always a subculture trying to be avant-garde. It is always subculture.

So let your heart be abused. Seek the shifting sifted community of culture that wants to be as best it can. People of culture see the world in its wholeness. They decry and forgive and bring in lost sheep. They acknowledge their own silly sheepishness. But they never stop striving after every ounce of unounceable eternity. They are sometimes artists, sometimes laymen, sometimes clergy, and often on low salaries. But they always try to get the world to listen with the lovingest things. At the same time, they do not reduce truth, beauty, goodness. They do not put pearls forth to be trampled by swine.

Critics called director Eric Rohmer's La Collectioneuse boring. They could not see it.

I therefore encourage you, my friends, not to forget the unity of all things, and how what is separate must be brought together, how the world fights itself but nevertheless tends to communion. To wait is not so bad as to despair and lose oneself to postmodern animalism. Do not fall to easy emotions. Be vigilant. If it were easy it would not be itself. Increase in the virtue of finding loneliness -- beauty awaits the contemplative and forbearing mind. Find and give the lovingest things. You may die cold, quiet, and alone like God.

I Am Suspect

For all who decry the modern state.

We sell ourselves as subversive, incisive, even revolutionary, the new intelligentsia. And there is yet a grain of truth.

When we take to the blog interface, we know we have something to argue, something to condemn, some flag to hoist in triumph. We pound and eviscerate the dreadful, outrageous falsehoods of contemporary culture, raging to get to a point. We clash and bang and make a scene. But what is left after all of our brilliant syllogisms have been arrayed upon the Thyestean table for us and our friends to feast upon.

We are more of the judge and less of the critic, more of the hangman than the priest.

We all agree it is easier to find a problem than to solve it. We even agree to solving it. We come to council, say "Aye, this can't go on", and go our ways to fill the world with justice. But sensationalism and vituperation usually take its place.

Marc Barnes writes of an ubiquitous internet humor that compromises the agency of our statements: "The Internet-writer gathers page-views by writing in the ironic, depersonalized spirit of anonymity that characterizes the online aesthetic, as if his work was simply burped up from the bowels of the Internet itself, bearing no relation to a subjective personality." This humor is harmful in many ways, one being that, while the outside truth or "fact" to which we refer may be valid, its manner of presentation is usually flippant, caustic, provocative, rude -- funny only to those who agree with us. We say, "Oh my gosh, look how stupid this is", and go about our day as if everyone has now reached a consensus from our ability to strip someone naked and leave them there in shame. Moreover, we assume that we offer up an absolute, that for a challenge to arise would be ignorant and insulting -- "What do you MEAN you don't agree? Are you stupid?"

While such antics may be cloaked in the trappings of the most witty and popular social commentary, and while the presentation may involve excellent turns of phrase, incomparably precise diction, infallible logic, the result remains the same: a great and terrible fallacy has only been disproved (occasionally, one adds a final line to the effect of "don't be like this").

But what are these social ills? What is the object of our fast-flying fingers over cacophonous plastic keys a million miles away from the source of our righteous glee? Do we lurch in our seats, sighing, wishing we could be present to make an end of such evil, to see it resolved? Is it not caused by humanity? Are we not responsible?

Are we gods that walk with heedless adamant heels through the stinking crowds of sniveling mortals? We are as bad as that, and not so smart and edgy as we believe. Intelligence lies in winning the opponent to love and truth. The purpose of argument is its opposite.

But the parts we often play fall short of beneficent:

• Toward our opponents -- the surgeon who removes a leg to cure an abscess. 
• Toward our friends -- the parent who so desperately desires the love of her child that she gives him cake when he requires meat.

Our unfortunate instinct drives us to crave shock and awe for savoring, horror for indulgence, absurdity for mocking, and indignation for pleasure in pride. As the mitigators of instinct, it is nothing short of shameful for us to inspire these feelings in our readers for the sake of a few more page-views. This is a sort of prostitution, where we forsake the dignity of our subjects for fickle fame or an extra buck. God knows the various exigencies that may drive one into desperation, but if we are to be genuine lovers of mankind, our word must mirror reality. And reality is not so near as we pointedly surmise in verbose denigrations of our opposition.

The reality of love is a far more difficult endeavor and a far deeper intellectual matter. To leave the flock for the lost one is to place oneself open to attack, critique by one's friends, humiliation and floundering, shame, depression, and the low esteem of all. You may find that you are wrong.

But the jewel of it is a heart won by trial -- and not "won" to our cause, but to a greater.

When we are challenged aggressively with stimulating fervor from another social force, do we not wish to respond in kind, to challenge in return with hard and fast impenetrable rebuttal? And what is gained? One may exercise and solidify his own suppositions, but have either traded any wisdom. Do we not dash ourselves to pieces against a wall?

Moreover, when we do engage debate on Facebook or in infamous comment sections, we often retreat to the blogosphere to save our pride. We present the refined oration to our friends for their praise. In doing so, we discriminate. We say that "only your opinion, your esteem is valuable to me, but as for you others, go back to the shadow". We, cowards, enhance our reputation in the dusty archives of presupposed assent, and Truth gets bored with us, until it decides to leave our intolerable company.

Subtlety, then, and not a subtlety of cleverness, an underhandedness, but a subtlety in truth that becomes an ancillary virtue to love of one's enemies -- this is to be sought. I think of no better names than Mother Theresa (who would deny her?), Ghandi even -- success lies in truth, but truth is integral to the approach, not distinct from it. Words that attempt to express some eternal verity in incendiary or even mildly hurtful language can not.

The truth is absent from self-righteous declamation, from rabble-rousing, from flag-waving. And it is not the reserved quest of poetry to seek beauty. Beauty is for the world. If what we say is beautiful, and how we say it, then who can forget us? Against true beauty there is no defense, for it, too, is love.

Therefore let us speak as we believe. Enemies are friends, and if they are not, then we are the enemy. Let friends be enemies if they choose: let them make up their minds for themselves without the distraction of glitz and furor.

Let us go about our vocation as determined as the hermit, as fastidious as the theologian, as just as the critic -- let us make his reputation so.