It has been a great accomplishment of cultural Marxism and its adepts in the arts to separate in large measure our population from its heritage—a major step in the conquest of our culture and the transformation of our civilization.

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by Boyd Cathey

Who Wins the Culture War, Wins Everything!

Friends,

Most installments in the MY CORNER series, in addition to a stated concentration on the South, address deeper cultural issues: questions about what is happening in our educational system, how Western culture is being transformed before our very eyes, the attacks on the visible symbols of our past, and, perhaps more insidiously, examining assaults on our history, on our memory and on our very language, that is, how we communicate with each other.

For up-to-the-moment, blow-by-blow accounts of the latest attempt—indeed, conspiracy—by the Deep State to take down and impeach President Trump, there are such voices as Rush Limbaugh, John Solomon, and others. From time to time, I can provide such information, or a certain slant or focus, but given the nature of what is transpiring and the headlong rush, my attention is drawn to what I consider more basic, more fundamental questions that underpin and shape our current conversations and debates.

I have heard it said that it was the great English prelate and author, Cardinal John Henry Newman, who declared that “all political issues involve basic religious questions.” But while studying in Spain I read something very similar written by the Spanish traditionalist, Juan Donoso Cortes (d. 1853): “The momentous political questions of our time, when examined closely, reveal deeply philosophical and religious roots. Unless these foundations are understood, debate will be like fighting the symptoms of a disease but not the cause.”

Knowing how to fight our enemies, knowing how to react and what to say and what, finally, to do, involves as the late Southern writer Mel Bradford used to say,  first, “knowing who we are,” that is, knowing that we are creatures made and given life by a Creator, that we are given stewardship over this planet, that there are both Natural and Divine Positive Laws that govern us and our existence; and that to transgress them will bring disastrous consequences, perhaps not at once, but certainly eventually.

And that is why the cultural and essentially religious battles—the conflict over who we are and our place in Creation—are so critical. It is why I have a very poor view of much of what passes for “modern kulchur,” including much of the architecture, the so-called literature, the cinematic excrescence, the painting and sculpture, and the music that is spewed forth by our contemporary society.

Certainly such products reflect our current dominant culture, for art follows and is inspired by reigning beliefs and standards in any society, while at the same time helps to shape that society’s future vision and conception of itself. And, no doubt, most of the artists in our society today fancy themselves just like artists of the past, using their creative intelligence to create works of art. Has this not been the self-appointed role of such persons throughout history?

The arts, in their major role, reflect a society’s beliefs and aspirations—think here architecturally of the Acropolis in Athens, the incredible monuments in Rome, the great cathedrals of Chartres and Rheims in France, representing the aspirations and thought of those foundations of our own civilization. Think of the great artwork of a Giotto, a Michelangelo, a Rubens, a Gainsborough; and in music, of Gregorian Chant, plainsong and polyphony, the great symphonic and liturgical works of Bach, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven and Bruckner.

Some of you may recall the great BBC series, “Civilization,” hosted by the late Sir Kenneth Clark and then shown in American theaters (circa 1970) and later on television. Lord Clark attempted, quite successfully, to connect the dots and illustrate both the complexity and the unity of our cultural inheritance and its organic development. As Bernard of Chartres declared nearly 900 years ago, “we are as dwarfs standing on the shoulders of giants.” Our ancestors built upon and added to what was vouchsafed to and inherited by them, as a trust, as a precious legacy. And traditionally, this was thought to be the essential role of the artist: to create based on what he had received, to make it finer if possible, to enhance it, but never to disparage it or destroy it, and always to preserve it.

But since at least the early twentieth century artists have more significantly emphasized the radically transformative, even revolutionary, at times highly political element. Of course, artists throughout history have used their talent to advance new ideas with social and political import; that’s always been the case.

But, I would suggest, not with the same demonic fervor or determination, not with the same ideological commitment and involvement that we have witnessed in our time. And not with the same type of influential dominance by the Marxist Frankfurt School and its votaries in almost every field of knowledge, a dominance which fully comprehends the role of culture in the success of the revolutionary activity it advocates…

At the very base of our conflict today is this imperative: to recover those bonds which unite us to our heritage, for it is in retrieving that inheritance (and the faith which accompanies it) that we gain strength and renewal for the battles that lie ahead of us.

Be seeing you