Slogging through the Anticulture

     Some time ago the man whom I call The Boss -- not Bruce Springsteen, nor a Connecticut Yankee, but Pope Benedict -- observed that it takes only a brief acquaintance with history to notice that moral and intellectual progress is not inevitable and continual.  Taking nothing away from the pastoral wisdom of Gregory the Great, nor from his staunch fidelity to doctrine, nor from his thorough knowledge of and devotion to the word of God, his intellectual achievement is simply not comparable to that of Saint Augustine.  The soil was too thin.

     I've long thought that the cultural soil right now is thin, and laced with battery acid or rat poison, to boot.  I could be persuaded that it's a good time not for Level One cultural achievement -- original art, music, philosophy, theology; the creation of new and vibrant political and cultural institutions -- though it may be a good time for Level Two achievements -- historiography leaps to mind.  Set aside the question of technology; it's a thorny question, because any new technology will be hailed as an "advance" if it performs some specified function more quickly or efficiently than did the old technology, though in fact it may produce shoddy goods.  Anyway, set that question aside -- and with it, the painful and embarrassing fact that as our technology advances, more and more of us become technological idiots, unable to tell our adze from an awl in the ground.  Which cultural institution right now is actually healthy, or is properly described as "cultural" at all, rather than the product of an industry to peddle slop to the masses?

     Newspapers?  Written by snotty eighth-graders for bored fifth-graders.  Schools?  Not when the typical English teacher cannot parse the words in a reasonably simple sentence, nor when geography and history have been swallowed up by Social Studies, itself swallowed up by Current Events.  We could go on a long time with that one.  There may never have been a Golden Age of Public Schooling, but there might have been a Copper Age anyhow; at least that's what my old textbooks are a witness of.  (And then there was the Age of Schooling before Compulsion, but that is another story, told brilliantly by John Taylor Gatto.)

     Music?  Who plays it?  In Canada, it's hard to find a reed organ -- a harmonium -- to buy at an antique store.  That's because the people can't sell them.  They're really pretty pieces of furniture, and they never go out of tune, and even if one or two keys no longer work, the bass or treble couplers can "cover" for the missing keys, and you'll still have something to play with.  People can't sell them, because nobody can play a keyboard, or almost nobody.  A kid on a porch with a guitar?  Haven't seen one in years.  Cole Porter, move over for the 5-note squash of wailing "performers" and their canned background.  Art?  For cliques in the city; as poetry is for people too timid to leave the faculty lounge.  Sports?  Lots of people watch them on a screen; some watch in person, in big stadiums.  It is not part of the daily life of a town.  The churches?  They don't fight one another now, because they don't believe in things strongly enough to fight for them.  Toothless dragons don't fight.

     What cultural institution now is genuinely cultural, as springing from a people's deeply held beliefs and traditions, and is thriving?

Comments

[Steve Nicoloso]

What cultural institution now is genuinely cultural, as springing from a people's deeply held beliefs and traditions, and is thriving?

Climate Change Alarmism.

[thomas]

Internet/Blogs

"It's worthwhile to pause to appreciate this phenomenon, which I'd like to call the Greek Isles Effect. It isn't perculiar to Greece. We can find it among the Christian monasteries in the Middle Ages, the fledgling states in America, and the Italian republics of the Renaissance. We can find it, though disincarnate, on the Internet. In all these cases there is some form of unity, more cultural than governmental, coinciding with great freedom to experiment" - Esolen, PIG to Western Civilization, p 13

[Maureen]

Um... why would anyone play guitar _on a porch_?

Who has a porch? If you did have a porch and were a kid, surely your parents would want you inside or in the backyard, not in front where people would see you and either complain about you making music, or try to steal you. Finally, your guitar will stay in tune a lot longer if you're inside in controlled air temperature and humidity, and you're a lot closer to your computer for recording or sharing your music with friends.

In point of fact, I think you'd be better off looking to the Internet to find out how many kids play casually. How many have links "MY NEW SONG OMG!!!" on their MySpace page, or claim that they have started a band with a bunch of other kids from school?

However, there's also a substantial number of college, post-college, and middle-aged new musicians. If you're a kid who's not obviously super-talented in music or in a band instrument, or if your parents don't want the squawk or expense, you will very likely be directed away from music "until you're under your own roof". I know a LOT of people like this, particularly in science and engineering fields; but a lot of English and language majors dealt with the same stuff. As adults, we learn music for pleasure, for church, or for an absorbing study that's not our job.

Don't be so depressed! Forty years ago, I surely would never have read the entirety of Gerusalemme Liberata out loud, and if I had, nobody else would have wanted to listen to it. Now people have the ease of download and the frustrated curiosity about epic poetry to listen the whole flippin' thing. Yes, cultural jeopardy stinks. But it's also made culture seem more desirable.

[Maureen]

Re: Gerusalemme Liberata

In an old public domain translation, of course.

[Bill R]

This may come as a surprise: poetry, with the cultural institution being (of all things) the National Endowment for the Arts, under the leadership of my fellow Stanford alumnus, Dana Gioia.

(Hmmm...an articulate Italian-American Roman Catholic, deeply interested in poetry. Sounds like somebody we know!) ;-)

[Peter Gardner]

"more and more of us become technological idiots, unable to tell our adze from an awl in the ground."

Best sentence I've seen all week.

[William B]

The traditions of math and science seem to keep slogging along, although I suppose they tend to stay apart from the rest of the culture, drawing new members into their various institutions from other nations and from the few US citizens not intellectually maimed by the educational system.

[Michael]

>>Music? Who plays it? In Canada, it's hard to find a reed organ -- a harmonium -- to buy at an antique store. That's because the people can't sell them. They're really pretty pieces of furniture, and they never go out of tune, and even if one or two keys no longer work, the bass or treble couplers can "cover" for the missing keys, and you'll still have something to play with. People can't sell them, because nobody can play a keyboard, or almost nobody. A kid on a porch with a guitar? Haven't seen one in years. Cole Porter, move over for the 5-note squash of wailing "performers" and their canned background. Art? For cliques in the city; as poetry is for people too timid to leave the faculty lounge. Sports? Lots of people watch them on a screen; some watch in person, in big stadiums. It is not part of the daily life of a town. The churches? They don't fight one another now, because they don't believe in things strongly enough to fight for them. Toothless dragons don't fight.<<

Do I just hang out with the wrong people? During my 10th grade year, there were nine--nine!--of us who played the guitar out of a class of 25, and on any given day of the week, at least three of those brought their guitar to class to play at lunch, in between classes or (given I had a great junior high/early high school environment) during free class times because my humanities teacher had the audacity to trust us to pursue that which we thought best. During our senior year, my friend Daniel and I skipped school for a week (call us irresponsible) to go into Seattle and busked our way towards lattes and used albums on the docks. The pianists outnumbered the guitarists in that class, granted with some overlap. What's more, several of my classmates played for the Tacoma Youth Symphony. Lois on the cello, Joanna on the violin, Evan on the viola, Zach on the violin also, Gavin on the bass.

My grandparents had an excellent reed organ before they moved into a smaller house, and alas it is to my great regret that I never learned to play. They donated it to a small church that didn't have a dedicated organ and couldn't afford the space, but could take the (relatively) small footprint of the organ.

Poetry? Dr. Esolen, are you familiar with the web communites Urbis? (At the risk of coming off as a little conceited:

[Michael]

Okay, I don't know how TypePad so mutilated the end of my post...

Web communities: Urbis or deviantArt, where you can find my poetry.

I concede the point on sports. Though I follow my local professional teams, and enjoy the sporting events for the atmosphere of the crowd, the stadium, the smell of stale beer and hot dogs, community teams are next to ignored. I've played on little league, school and community rec teams for years, and this is apparent.

On churches: toothless dragons can still breathe fire. Or at least a whole lot of hot air. ;-)

Now that my "crew" is scattered to the four corners of the Lower 48 for college and further (Valerie moved back to Hong Kong), the shared culture experience is significantly dampened. Up until this year, once a month we'd gather around a bonfire in a friend's backyard to simply share life--someone brought a guitar, someone had their poetry journal in the car, Dane could be relied upon to have a small pack of cheap cigars. I have not seen most of these friends since Christmas. All the same, I do wish that I could have recorded the typical week for me between ninth grade and my freshman year of college. It might give Dr. Esolen more hope.

[Michael]

>>The traditions of math and science seem to keep slogging along, although I suppose they tend to stay apart from the rest of the culture, drawing new members into their various institutions from other nations and from the few US citizens not intellectually maimed by the educational system.<<

Science? Here's what I have to say about that.

[Rachel]

Ideally I think the church should fill this void, but it frequently doesn't. My own parish does an admirable job--our small congregation is fairly bursting with artists, musicians, philosophers and writers. Now that I think about it, though, I realize that that's probably at least in part because many of us graduated from a Great Books program (The Torrey Honors Institute) that seeks to intentionally create culture. (A first rate music program and excellent teaching don't hurt either!)

I guess culture of the sort you are describing doesn't happen accidentally--but it flourishes when people band together to create it on purpose.

[Matt J.]

Guitars continue to sell like hot-cakes.

[Wonders for Oyarsa]

Folk music in the Appalachian mountains.

[Orthodox music fan]

Condemning today's popular music because it is a "five-note squash" and looking back to some better time is unrealistic. The folk music traditions of some traditionally Christian peoples have much less melodic variety or harmonic development than even the most banal top-40 tune in the US.

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>The folk music traditions of some traditionally Christian peoples have much less melodic variety or harmonic development than even the most banal top-40 tune in the US.<<<

I dunno. I've heard Rusyn Prostopinje, as well as Bulgarian, Romanian, Serbian and Georgian liturgical and devotional music. It's got huge variety. And then there is Byzantine, Macedonian, and Melkite chant, to say nothing of the really weird Coptic, Ge'ez and Syriac stuff. I recently attended Vespers at an Armenian Apostolic church, and found their music very different from anything else I have heard.

[Jill C.]

I used to play my guitar out on our back porch steps when I was a young teen living at home in West Michigan. That's where I taught myself how to play "Horse with No Name," and other assorted 2 and 3 chord gems. (Of course it was summertime and that usually lasts, oh, about a month up there!)

We also knew our neighbors by name and kept track of what they were up to -- often conversing with them or inviting them over for coffee, or borrowing a cup of sugar. We rode bikes and went to school with their kids. Today in the Dallas, Texas suburb where my husband and I make our home we rarely see our neighbors. We have rear entry garages. People go to work and they come home. Nobody cares what anyone else is doing and because it's 100 degrees out there is no one playing their guitar out on the porch. (They are indoors most likely watching the tube, playing video games, or having dinner and dancing in Second Life!)

By the way, I play a pretty mean keyboard (88 keys even!)
And, my husband and I are going to one of the Ft. Worth art museums this weekend to see an exhbit of Impressionist paintings.

[labrialumn]

Why did you drop your awl in the ground, and why are you intent upon dulling your adz?

We can all be cranks, but what's the point?

What can we -do- about the situation?

The churches can't fulfill that role when the pastors aren't educated in such matters. What then, add another year to seminary, and teach the Western Tradition and Culture of Christendom? Perhaps what C. S. Lewis was taught in grammar school?

This sort of thing has to come from the home and from networks of families, hopefully some churches.

As to churches not fighting each other, maybe it is due to apathy, but there might be an element of obedience fo Jesus Christ in John 17 and 1 Cor. !, perhaps some are finally listening to St. John Chrysostom.

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>"Horse with No Name,"<<<

When we consider that this is a top candidate for dumbest song ever written ("Riders on the Storm" is a close second, in my book), it's kind of hard to say that the music culture has gone significantly down hill since then.

[Bobby Winters]

>>>("Riders on the Storm" is a close second, in my book), <<<

But it rhymes. You've got to give it that.

[Jenny Islander]

Do I live in a time warp? We have community theater that has done everything from Lysistrata and The Second Shepherd's Play to Annie Get Your Gun, high school theater that receives critical notice, community choirs, community bands, Labor Day and Fourth of July parades, several published authors, several published poets, and a perennially popular winter performing arts series that has brought us artists ranging from Dave Brubeck to Bo Diddley, a troupe of Zuni clowns to commedia dell'arte. Not to mention the evening lectures on everything from the Dead Sea Scrolls (we financed one of the volumes) to the survey of a newly discovered seamount that appears to be important to a major crab fishery. And there are about 14,000 people in the entire borough, mostly lower middle class. Oh, and I live on an island. Is this community really so rare anymore?

[Gina]

Um, where you at Jenny? :)

[Jenny Islander]

Alaska.

[Jenny Islander]

And now for something completely different: I feel like arguing about "Riders on the Storm," so I will. It's a decently crafted lyric about living in an atmosphere saturated with alienation and anxiety. Unpacking the imagery, we get, "We are impelled by forces beyond our control and must continually struggle simply to keep going on instead of falling and being lost; we are born into situations we did not choose and for which we are not prepared; no pleasure lasts/we are afflicted with needs we cannot easily fulfill; we simultaneously ache for attention and fear attack; we are surrounded by strangers whose motivations we cannot possibly know; we never know when seemingly innocuous, spur-of-the-moment decisions could wreck our lives/hurt our loved ones in ways we cannot amend/cause us to fail our responsibilities irrevocably; our only immortality/security is found in being passionately loved/affirmed as worthy of love." It's "Dover Beach" for a generation that wouldn't get the allusions in "Dover Beach."

It's adolescent stuff and even so probably the best thing he did in his short life, but I think that if he hadn't self-destructed, Jim Morrison might have developed into a great modern poet. (Lyric poetry is alive and well in the U.S.; it's just usually set to music these days. And the ratio of dreck to decent is about the same as it always was IMO.)

[Michael]

>>Lyric poetry is alive and well in the U.S.; it's just usually set to music these days. And the ratio of dreck to decent is about the same as it always was IMO.<<

Amen!

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>Lyric poetry is alive and well in the U.S.; it's just usually set to music these days. <<<

All poetry was originally set to music. The Homeric epics originated as oral compositions meant to be sung or chanted (hence the rigid tyranny of the meter). Lyric poetry, as the name suggests, was also sung. The combination of meter, rhyme and alliteration all push poetry towards the sung rather than recited, yet for some reason, "serious" poetry these days is never sung, which might be why so much serious poetry these days stinks.

On the other hand, so much "serious" music these days has abandoned both melody and rhythm, which is why modern music also stinks, and would be of little help to modern poetry.

[Joe Long]

"What cultural institution now is genuinely cultural, as springing from a people's deeply held beliefs and traditions, and is thriving?"

-The internet discussion forum.

-You-Tube.

-Cowboy Action Shooting and other firearm sports. (Google "Single Action Shooting Society".) Where there are pockets of culture with deeply held beliefs and traditions, they emerge in surprising ways.

- Your local martial arts school. A combination of media-driven fantasy, old-fashioned desire for heroism, our cross-cultural religion of physical fitness, and a sort of spiritual least-common-denominator of generic discipline and platitudes. These places are as safely non-Western, as the Cowboy Shootists are defiantly Western (in two senses of the word).

But more practically: you set an impossible standard, when culture itself is so fragmentary; how can something springing from "a people's deeply-held beliefs" be widespread when the beliefs are not?

[Tony Esolen]

You sure are right about that, Joe -- which is why I can't call what is out there "cultural" at all.

What do the following things have in common?

Shakespeare's Henry IV, I and II
Frost, A Boy's Will
Michelangelo's Last Judgment
Chartres Cathedral
the music of Scott Joplin
baseball in a vacant lot
the Odyssey
the Psalms

Popular culture....

[Francesca]

Perhaps "a people's deeply-held beliefs" get richer and more composite, rather than fragmented?

When YoYo Ma first met with the people from many countries that would become the Silk Road Ensemble, he found that many of the group didn't play the same scales or even speak the same language. He describes how their differences, rather than dividing them, deepened their curiosity about one another, and how their shared love of music cemented friendships that have lasted for years as they learned from one another and "reveled in their sound world". The result has been some hauntingly beautiful music in which traditional western strings instruments harmonize with Chinese free-reed flutes, Iranian hammer dulcimers, and Indian bowed fiddles, while combining, for example, Persian scales and Azeri modes.

The other day I was able to play a Japanese game (Go), while eating Italian food, listening to South American music, drinking Australian wine, surrounded by Chinese artworks, with people derived from three continents.

What a wonderful world!

[Joe Long]

"When YoYo Ma first met with the people from many countries that would become the Silk Road Ensemble, he found that many of the group didn't play the same scales or even speak the same language..."

Indeed. A disparate group may develop shared traditions around a common activity, as a music group or a French Foreign Legion regiment can...and a common, driving deeply-held belief, such as "making pretty music is good", or alternatively, "I am willing to kill whomever they tell me to, for money and immunity from extradition", can lead such a group to do impressive things indeed. Still, they are in debt to their actual, coherent and comprehensive cultures of origin.

[Jenny Islander]

OK, here's an answer to the original question:

Public libraries.

There are good ones and bad ones, ones that are patronized mostly by the vacant-eyed and smelly and ones that are community centers, but they're pretty much everywhere.

[Scott Walker]

"What cultural institution...is thriving?"
Football. Starts in a few weeks. Thank God. Go Seahawks. Go Beavers. Go Ducks.
Next question?
Seriously, music does pretty well hereabouts, (Portland, Oregon) with well-attended community concerts in parks all over town.

[Michael]

>>Football. Starts in a few weeks. Thank God.<<

Is this a response to an absolutely dismal baseball season for the Northwest? I've been waiting desperately for kickoff since late May...

>>Seriously, music does pretty well hereabouts, (Portland, Oregon) with well-attended community concerts in parks all over town.<<

As a fellow Northwest guy, I have one word for this board: Bumbershoot. Not just music, but also theatre, comedy, ballet, photography, painting, literature...one weekend, 19 stages...hundreds (literally) of acts. Awesome.

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>Football. Starts in a few weeks. Thank God. Go Seahawks. Go Beavers. Go Ducks.<<<

Let's think about ancient Rome, and the popular culture there. Literature? Mainly for the elite, who could read. Theater? Open to all, but the most popular works were very low comedies based on slapstick and scatology. Fine art? Paintings were mostly for public spaces, like temples or basilicae, or for the homes of the elite. Same for moasaics (which later went on to decorate Christian churches). The predominant form of art was sculpture, and sculpture was not done for its own sake: it was either to provide idols to be worshiped in temples, or as a form of advertising and self-glorification for elite politicians (a statue of Marcus Tiddlediwinks was intended mainly to remind you to vote for Marus come election day. In other words, statuary was commercial art.

So what was the popular culture of the day? Then as now--sports. The arena and the circus (hippodrome) were the big draws. Just look at the seating: the Coloseum (technically, the Flavian Ampitheatre) could seat upwards of 50,000, while the Circus Maximus could seat almost 100,000. Games and chariot races--football and NASCAR. We're not as different from the Romans as some fear and others would like to think.

[Bobby Neal Winters]

>>So what was the popular culture of the day? <<

Commercials! "Where's the beef?" "I can't believe I ate the WHOLE THING!" It's art, I tells ya, art!

[W.E.D. Godbold]

Plop, plop, fizz, fizz...
:-)

[Francesca]

>>Still, they are in debt to their actual, coherent and comprehensive cultures of origin.<<

True, and to those of one another. In YoYo Ma's case, his ensemble integrated selected aspects of one another's musical culture into their own, thus expanding their shared musical universe. Culture is alive and dynamic.

[DGP]

>>Culture is alive and dynamic.

I think you're missing the point: "Culture" here means something more than artistic achievement. I'm putting words in his mouth, but if I read him correctly an epiphany of culture must be pandemic to fit Prof. Esolen's usage. Yo-Yo Ma doesn't qualify.

[Joe Long]

Yes, I think Yo-Yo Ma is largely an elite phenomenon; unless I'm even more out of touch than I think I am, he (?) is anything but "common culture".

Sadly, I think that public libraries are increasingly in the same category; we have very fine ones, but the proportion of the population they serve is quite small. And between big bookstores and the Internet, the public library's "common culture" role may not be on an upward trend.

[Francesca]

>>"Culture" here means something more than artistic achievement.<<

My example is relevant in a literal sense in response to the pitifully sorrowful lament, "Music? Who plays it?" As others have pointed out, today's music scene is alive and well.

However, I was actually using Yo-Yo Ma's example of expanding his musical universe through contact with other cultures as a metaphor for the benefits of multiculturalism in general. It's something we've all gained from since pre-Neanderthal times.

[Michael]

>>"Music? Who plays it?" As others have pointed out, today's music scene is alive and well.<<

Dr. Esolen knows recording artists and virtuosos play music. The "cultural" issue is that it's not something practiced, but merely consumed by the populace. His question wasn't meant to be answered with someone like Ma or people signed to record labels. His question was for the little folk like us. Who plays music? I would argue that the music culture is probably as strong as it ever has been, but Ma is hardly an example of that, and multiculturalism has nothing to do with it.

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>Commercials! "Where's the beef?" "I can't believe I ate the WHOLE THING!" It's art, I tells ya, art!<<<

Plop, plop, fizz fizz,
O, What a relief it is!

[Stuart Koehl]

Whaddaya mean! The man appeared on "Arthur" as a Chinese moose, for crying out loud! You don't get any more middle brow than that.

By the way, "Arthur" can be a treasure trove of interesting stuff. I discovered the Finnish girl turbo-folk band "Vaartina" when they had a song on Arthur. I kept saying to myself, "What IS this?", then waited for the credits, found the song and the band, looked it up on line, and now I have every last CD they have issued. They are writing a musical based on "Lord of the Rings" which will premier in London next year. Fitting, when you consider that Tolkien based Quenya on Finnish and was strongly influenced by the Kalivala.

[Francesca]

>>The "cultural" issue is that it's not something practiced, but merely consumed by the populace. <<

The article bewails all sorts of things -- not merely that "almost nobody" plays a keyboard any more, but that our cultural soil is so thin and corrosive that it's "a good time not for Level One cultural achievement -- original art, music," etc. I disagree. I think we live in a Golden Age in which cultural institutions are enriched and thriving in fertile soil. As an example, music, far from atrophying into decay, is currently enjoying a wonderful period of dynamism, creativity, and innovation due to a synergetic confluence of forces and conditions such as multiculturalism, facilitation of shared ideas and themes via the Internet, technology that makes it easier to access music and to compose music (e.g. Sibelius software) and to learn to play an instrument, and cultural ideals that encourage parents to provide piano and Suzuki violin lessons, etc., for their children (music education is a thriving industry). Not only do many people play one or more instruments, but a great deal of original music is also being produced, some of it by Yo-Yo Ma's Silk Road Ensemble. Ma is an innovator, a creator and pioneer of new culture -- not "merely" a virtuoso.

[Michael]

>>I would argue that the music culture is probably as strong as it ever has been.<<

You seemed to skip a sentence or two...

Look, I get the multiple instruments and composition angle. I play two instruments. My girlfriend plays four (I'm working on catching up to her). We both have Sibelius on our computers, and David A. Austin (actor, composer, playwright) literally reworked his "A Christmas Carol" musical for our church's community theatre program because he's from the area and has worked with several people in our program on other projects.

All I'm saying is that Ma doesn't answer Dr. Esolen's challenge. Even allowing his innovation, creativity and pioneering (by the way, what was Beethoven doing, copying, imitating and following?), it merely goes along with his virtuosity. It doesn't involve the culture at the foundational level. Culture works from the ground up, not the top down.

I realize that music instruction is a thriving industry. My godmother teaches piano for crying out loud! But I sincerely doubt that this is as widespread as you think. I think it is a significant minority with money rather than a genuine cultural groundswell being actively pursued by its participants. In other words, parents pay for their kids to learn piano; the culture does not foster pursuit on its own principally because we do not value creativity and art in our educational hierarchy. It's sad, but it's true.

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>As an example, music, far from atrophying into decay, is currently enjoying a wonderful period of dynamism, creativity, and innovation due to a synergetic confluence of forces and conditions such as multiculturalism, facilitation of shared ideas and themes via the Internet, technology that makes it easier to access music and to compose music (e.g. Sibelius software) and to learn to play an instrument, and cultural ideals that encourage parents to provide piano and Suzuki violin lessons, etc., for their children (music education is a thriving industry). <<<

Actually, most music today sucks, but most music in every era sucks. Good thing nobody wrote anything down before 1600 or so.

As for software making it easier to compose, I suppose that's correct, in a superficial sense. My younger daughter, for instance, put together something that didn't grate on the ears using Garage Band. On the other hand, such software eliminates the need to understand music theory and constrains the composer to what is available among the composition tools in the package. Thus, there is a flattening and homogenizing of music, which is best reflected in "new age" pablum and "techno-pop" banality. If you go outside the U.S. and UK, you quickly discover that most popular music sounds alike, which is the result of having to market it across several continents in dozens of languages.

[Joe Long]

"Anything worth doing, is worth doing badly". Chesterton at the turn of the 20th century was decrying the tendency for traditionally participatory activities - dancing was one example he gave - to turn instead into professional presentations, consumed by spectators. As he did with many trends, I think he spotted that one early and predicted some of its consequences accurately. Now even "folk music" is often played primarily by "semi-pros" of a sort - though they are usually big boosters of those audience members who'd rather "do" than spectate.

Stuart, Ben Stein was on "Arthur" too - reprising his "Ferris Bueller" role, as a substitute teacher. But you've just claimed something was not "highbrow", and given an appearance on public TV as your evidence. Insufficient, to say the least. The people who write "Arthur" are obviously witty, reasonably civilized folks, and would like for kids to "be more PBS" - it's no surprise they'd plug this fellow. (He's good, I suppose? I like the "Silk Road" historical reference in the band name, at least.)

[Michael]

>>As for software making it easier to compose, I suppose that's correct, in a superficial sense. My younger daughter, for instance, put together something that didn't grate on the ears using Garage Band. On the other hand, such software eliminates the need to understand music theory and constrains the composer to what is available among the composition tools in the package.<<

Sibelius and Garage Band are two completely different monsters, Stuart. Sibelius isn't loaded with prerecorded tracks. Users compose individual tracks on their own, note-for-note, set an instrument to it like a digital piano with instrument effects, and add layer upon layer. You can hear what your string line sounds like over the piano line. You can hear the vocal melody (played by the piano, Sibelius doesn't actually have prerecorded voices) over a string accompaniment, or even another piano.

Sibelius is to Garage Band as CAD is to LEGO, no offense intended to the bricks of my childhood.

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>Chesterton at the turn of the 20th century was decrying the tendency for traditionally participatory activities - dancing was one example he gave - to turn instead into professional presentations, consumed by spectators.<<<

Of course, it never occurred to him to apply this principle to liturgy.

[Bobby Neal Winters]

This is culture. The man singing is my Grampa Sam.

[Francesca]

Michael, at the risk of splitting hairs, my point about Ma is that he didn't simply celebrate existing culture through his skills as an instrumental musician -- he and his group created new culture by integrating (as opposed to merely applying) foundational eastern and western musical aesthetics in an entirely novel way. As Ma says, "without continual innovation, artistic traditions become lifeless."

I haven't seen the Arthur episode with Yo-Yo Ma, but I've heard that DJ kept calling him Yo MaMa:-)

[Stuart Koehl]

It;s DW. Your kids will be on your case.

[DGP]

>>Of course, it never occurred to him to apply this principle to liturgy.

Liturgy really is an example of living culture. It may be done well or poorly, but vast numbers of people (in the U.S., anyway) are familiar with at least one genre of it -- familiar enough to participate actively and appreciate some of it.

[Stuart Koehl]

Nonetheless, for most people in most places, liturgy is really a spectator sport.

[DGP]

>>Nonetheless, for most people in most places, liturgy is really a spectator sport.

Less so than real sports. How many people *actually* play football? Liturgy is still found across the culture, from inner-city praise churches to ethnic Masses to solemn suburban services to rural revivals. And more than sports, these tend to spring from deeply held beliefs (or at least from beliefs held as deeply as any other).

[Stuart Koehl]

Well, this is a matter of semantics, I suppose. I would say that for most people, in the United States at any rate, the "performers" at any liturgy are the celebrant(s), his assistants, and the choir/organist/musicians; the people in the pews are, both by their posture (i.e., "locked" into their place and unable to use their whole bodies) and their psychological inclination (conditioned by secular analogies such as theater and concerts), the audience who "watch". To the extent that there are "responsorial" parts of liturgies, these are akin to "audience participation", in which the people are invited to "help' the performers.

From my perspective, liturgical ideal is the people and the celebrants as co-equal participants--both are the "performers"--while God is the audience to whom the sacrifice of praise is offered.

[David Gray]

>Less so than real sports. How many people *actually* play football? Liturgy is still found across the culture, from inner-city praise churches to ethnic Masses to solemn suburban services to rural revivals. And more than sports, these tend to spring from deeply held beliefs (or at least from beliefs held as deeply as any other).

Well stated.

[DGP]

>>Well, this is a matter of semantics, I suppose. I would say that for most people, in the United States at any rate, the "performers" at any liturgy are the celebrant(s), his assistants, and the choir/organist/musicians; the people in the pews are, both by their posture...and their psychological inclination... the audience who "watch". To the extent that there are "responsorial" parts of liturgies, these are akin to "audience participation", in which the people are invited to "help' the performers.

But many, many people don't feel that way about it. We RCs, for example, are frequently asked about the burdens imposed by so much "audience participation," including lengthy memorized texts, several uncued posture changes and gestures, and a variety of other important but usually unwritten protocols. People unfamiliar with Pentecostal worship are often scared out of their wits, not knowing how to manage the supposedly spontaneous responses that nevertheless turn out to be recognizably patterned by those who observe long enough. Even in the apparently more reserved, reformed services there are subtleties that people consider to be an important part of the "peformance" -- dress, bearing, small talk, etc.

Only the extremely self-confident or sociopathic take it all for granted; many regulars and most strangers are deeply conscious of themselves and their participation in liturgy.

>>From my perspective, liturgical ideal is the people and the celebrants as co-equal participants--both are the "performers"--while God is the audience to whom the sacrifice of praise is offered.

Koehl also nods. "Co-equal?" Surely you don't mean that. But yes, both ministers and assembly receive and perform the Liturgy -- that is both the ideal and (in some respects) also the reality.

[Joe Long]

"People unfamiliar with Pentecostal worship are often scared out of their wits..."

Some of us who are very familiar with it, are far more frightened than any newcomer could manage.

I think Stuart had a good point about Chesterton's quote - he certainly would NOT have applied it to liturgy, for some things (war, religion, medicine) do not benefit from the amateur touch. He wrote the line "anything worth doing, is worth doing badly" in defense of hobbies, not results-oriented undertakings - and the arts, in particular, seem to reward even the un-gifted practicioner far beyond even the sophisticated consumer, if he's a mere consumer. Nothing is at stake, beyond the possible production of a bit of bad art - which admittedly must discomfit folks who are PAID to create bad art already, but for them I have little sympathy.

[W.E.D. Godbold]

Only the extremely self-confident or sociopathic take it all for granted; many regulars and most strangers are deeply conscious of themselves and their participation in liturgy.

Which one of those is Stuart?
:-)

I'll occasionally preside at a liturgy of the pre-sanctified gifts and it seems that the 1928 BCP liturgy is fairly demanding on both the minister and the assembly. (My heart rate goes up as much as when I give a lecture.)

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>People unfamiliar with Pentecostal worship are often scared out of their wits<<<

When my wife was about eight, a cousin took her to a tent revival. Yes, it scared her out of her wits, though that is not the term she used.

>>>not knowing how to manage the supposedly spontaneous responses that nevertheless turn out to be recognizably patterned by those who observe long enough<<<

And not for that reason. The word "looney" comes up a lot when she describes them.

>>>Koehl also nods. "Co-equal?" Surely you don't mean that.<<<

No, I meant it literally. In the Byzantine and other Eastern rites, there is no such thing as "private Mass"--to celebrate the liturgy, a priest needs at least one member of the laity present. We have our job, he has his, and we both need each other. Together, conjointly, we offer the Holy Oblation. We can't do it without him; he can't do it without us. We exercise our membership in Christ's royal priesthood through our participation; he exercises his sacerdotal ministry through his. He presides, but a banquet would look silly indeed with a toastmaster and nobody else at the table.

[Stuart Koehl]

Perhaps I need to clarify. Here is my experience of liturgy, first in my original parish, and now in my Melkite one.

The liturgy, first of all, takes the form of a sung dialogue, an exchange between the celebrant and the people, sometimes with the deacon leading the people in certain prayers and petitions. Everything is chanted according to a system of tones. There are common parts of the liturgy, and then there are the propers for the day, which are determined by the Typicon and the Menaion. There is tremendous regularity in worship, since the cycles process year after year, and within a few years, everyone knows everything. If you are raised in this form of worship, you know everything by heart by the time you can read.

And reading is, for the most part, unnecessary. In my old parish, books were referenced only for the moveable parts of the annual feasts. In my new parish, there are no books at all. This was considered normal in the old world, as can be seen by this observation by the Russian musicologist Ivan (Johann) Gardner of the Carpatho-Rusyn Church at prayer in the Carpathians back in the 1930s:

"In the Subcarpathian Rus', in all the villages among both the Uniates and also among the Orthodox, there was always practiced only congregational singing of the complete services, not excluding the changeable hymns in all the varied chants. . . The numerous chants (not excluding the podobny, not even found in the Synodal notated liturgical books), were known by everyone, even the children of school age. The leader of song--the most experienced singer from the parishes--standing at the krilos sang the chant. As soon as the worshipers would hear the hymn, they would join in the chant and the entire church sang; they sang all the stichiry, all the tropars, all the irmosy--in a word, everyone sang properly according to the established canonical parts of the Liturgy. They sang in unison and whoever could, imitated or reinforced the bass. The impression proved overwhelmingly strong".

This had, Gardner notes, a powerful influence on the catechesis of the people:

"During my stay in the Subcarpathian Rus' I was amazed at the theological information of the simple peasants. It was genuine dogma, quoted by heart from any place in the sung verse".

I have to admit that I must mentally sing my way through various verses to actually recite or write them down.

Now, in this setting, everyone in the Liturgy is a participant in the fullest sense of the word, not the least because, absent pews, they are free to move throughout the temple in response to the flow of the liturgical action. Thus, during the processions, the people cluster around the central pathway; at the reading of the Gospel, they cluster around the priest or deacon who is reading; after communion, they are venerating the icons. When the liturgy requires a metania (profound bow), down to the floor go our hands; when during Lent we must prostrate, we bury our foreheads in the carpet. We engage body, mind and soul, all the senses are dedicated to the worship of God, and yes, we are performing for Him. It is hard to think of one's self as the "audience", when as much is demanded of you as of the celebrant (more, in fact, since he DOES have a book, and often a deacon to cue him along).

This is what I consider liturgically ideal, and it's a rare day when I find it. In such a situation, can one speak of "professionals" and "amateurs"? Are the people, in such a situation, not as fully conversant in the Liturgy as their pastor, which in turn makes him not their master, but their leader, who does not say "Go!" but rather, "Follow me!"?

So, I will stick by my observation that, in most places and at most times, people today think of themselves as part of the audience at Liturgy, not as key participants.

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>I'll occasionally preside at a liturgy of the pre-sanctified gifts and it seems that the 1928 BCP liturgy is fairly demanding on both the minister and the assembly. (My heart rate goes up as much as when I give a lecture.)<<<

We also have a Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts (supposedly composed by St. Gregory the Great in the 7th century), which is essentially Great Vespers with a communion service appended. It is celebrated on weekday evenings during Lent (typically Wednesdays and Fridays), and on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday of Great Week. It's a beautifully solemn and penitential service, a wonderful preparation for the glorious Feast of the Resurrection, but it is not what we would call a "Typica" service that can be led by a layman. Rather, the priest is the presider, hopefully assisted by at least one deacon (there are lots of things to carry and move around). Since it is only celebrated during Lent, the chants, particularly the moveable ones, are less familiar and the cantor must be on his toes (there are also special tones during Lent, which makes things more interesting). I used to serve at all the Presanctified Liturgies at my old parish, and yes, it's a change of pace, but no, I don't break out in cold sweats over it.

[W.E.D. Godbold]

(In case I scandalized any fellow Anglicans, I have been ordained to the diaconate.)

[DGP]

>>We have our job, he has his, and we both need each other. Together, conjointly, we offer the Holy Oblation. We can't do it without him; he can't do it without us.

That they need each other does not make them co-equal. You are capable of far more subtle thinking than this.

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>(In case I scandalized any fellow Anglicans, I have been ordained to the diaconate.)<<<

You need to become either Orthodox or Byzantine Catholic. Our deacons get to tell the priests and even the bishop what to do. Sometimes we have RC deacons come to visit, and they typically come away in awe of what our deacons get to do during the Liturgy. "How do you manage to remember all that?" is a common question.

[Francesca]

>>(He's good, I suppose? I like the "Silk Road" historical reference in the band name, at least.)<<

Ma is awesome! Endlessly versatile. If you like South American music, you might want to try his "Obrigado Brazil" -- another foray into fusion music.

[Fabio P.Barbieri]

Unfortunately, Dr.Esolen, for all his merits (and as a rule, I download and keep his article), is the worst kind of laudator temporis acti. If he had lived in the early nineteenth century, he would be Joseph de Maistre. The saddest thing about this is that he will never understand me if I tell him that the greatest American artist of the twentieth century was Jack Kirby, the cartoonist. He simply does not have the openness to different ways of expression and different contents needed to realize that this barely-educated Jew towers above all other artists in any other means of expression. And, sir, I can parse any sentence you care to mention and translate Virgil and Dante.

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>The saddest thing about this is that he will never understand me if I tell him that the greatest American artist of the twentieth century was Jack Kirby, the cartoonist.<<<

That's a little bit like saying that Hogarth is the greatest British artist of the 18th century, isn't it? And your assertion, if indeed true (I would dispute it) says more about Kirby's competition for the title than it does about his merits as an artist.

[Fabio P.Barbieri]

Sir, have you ever read anything by the "King of Comics"? If not, do not pretend that you can judge what you do not understand. And if you have, and still can bring yourself to talk in this sort of dismissive tone, it says more about your prejudices than about the genius of Jack Kirby (or of dozens of other giants of the artform).

[David Gray]

>Sir, have you ever read anything by the "King of Comics"?

Charles Schultz is the Emperor of Comics...

[Stuart Koehl]

One needs to read a book to understand the comics? I knew that credentialism was rife in the world, but to be an expert on comics--or do you prefer "graphic novels"?--is really too much.

I'm not saying that comic book illustration isn't an art form, I'm just saying it's not a very important one.

[Joe Long]

Besides, you slight Charles Addams...

[Fabio P.Barbieri]

Such pitiful snobbery. You think yourself able to decide what is important. If you had the slightest knowledge of the history you claim to defend, you would know that the esteem in which the various arts are held has varied greatly. In ancient Greece, painters and musicians were no better than any other craftsman, and only poets had a certain respect. The admiration for sculptors and painters is a product of the Renaissance; that for musicians, of the romantic nineteenth century. Anyone who actually understands these things would not deliver himself of the unargued and worthless statement that comics are "not very important". And to deny that a man may be an expert in comics (as well as medieval Latin, proto-history, Indo-European culture, and a number of other things) is really a pathetic refusal to think. Your position is that of the ignoramus who disguises his ignorance behind a refusal to consider that what he knows nothing of could have any importance. And the others who posted are no better. The Addams Family has never featured in comic books. And I call Kirby "the King of Comics" because that was the title universally bestowed on him by his colleagues since at least the sixties; Kirby was "the King" like Ellington or Wayne were "the Duke", Basie "the Count", and so on. Charles M.Schulz's nickname was "Sparky", and it was justly illustrious in his profession in his time; one cartoonist once said "Just think, we shall be able to tell our children that we knew Sparky Schulz". No need to go invent magniloquent absurdities after his death. Kirby and Schulz knew each other, had great mutual esteem, and there is a wonderful, hilarious sketch authored by them both in existance. They would not have appreciated any attempt, however ill-informed, to use the one as a stick to beat the other.

Anyway, if you insist, sure, sure. We live in the worst of all possible worlds. There is no culture, no art, no nothing. There are only those of us who remember how things were, and whine about it. What did John Major call it? "Dreamers of Ages of Gold that never existed at all."

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>You think yourself able to decide what is important.<<<

Well, of course. Don't you? The only other alternative is to let other people tell us what is important. If that's what you require, I am willing to provide the service, free of charge.

[Judy K. Warner]

A comic book snob! Who'd ever have thought?

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>A comic book snob! Who'd ever have thought?<<<

Well, I once knew a comic book store owner (guy named Spike, with a store off Harvard Square), and I have to say that, yeah, there are comic book snobs just as there are wine snobs and cigar snobs. Of course, the essence of snobbery is raising one's own prejudices above those of society in general, believing one's own tastes and standards should be normative. Thing is, when challenged, the snob has no choice but reflexively to ascribe all differences of opinion with him either to ignorance or (ironically) to snobbery. Friend Fabio has already followed both approaches, first telling us we are too ignorant to understand the genius of Kirby, then following up by telling us we are raising our own standards above his.

[Fabio P.Barbieri]

Oh, you once knew a comic book owner. And I dare say that contact with that strange anthropological environment enables you to judge. Sorry, but you still are an ignoramus. And, worse, a self-regarding ignoramus; one who makes a virtue of his ignorance. If I thought for a minute that you would listen, I could say a lot more; but trying to convince ignorami that they are ignorami becomes impossible when ignorance is married to self-regard. And self-regard simply glimmers and shines from every one of your lines. You evidently never met anyone you felt you could leanrn from. To quote Dick Francis, everyone needs to feel superior, especially when they aren't. And frankly, the only thing you convinced me of is that to argue anything with you is a waste of time. In ordinary conversation, a man defers to someone whose knowledge of a field is obviously deeper than his own; your reaction, on the other hand, is to exaggerate your already ludicrous looking-down-the-nose posture. Your vanity grows as your ignorance becomes more pronounced. And what this kind of attitude is doing on a magazine whose tutelary deities are GK Chesterton and CS Lewis I utterly fail to understand.

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>And what this kind of attitude is doing on a magazine whose tutelary deities are GK Chesterton and CS Lewis I utterly fail to understand.<<<

I wonder what those two astute Oxonians would think of the notion that a comic book illustrator was the most important American artist of the 20th century? Most probably they would say, "Well, what can one expect of the Americans?"