Christianity, culture, compassion, camels — and their shadows too
That. btw, is the most nuanced version of the Slovakian response to the refugees I’ve seen.
Comnpassion? A conceptual radius of compassion?
Are there, should there be, limits to compassion?
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In an upcoming post on the shadows of camels, I’ll explain my overall intent in posting such items as this one — and it is not to suggest that Breivik is the same as Slovakia, or Eliot the same as Breivik, or Christianity across Europe equivalent to camels or the shadows of camels across the desert.. nor that compassion should or should not have a radius, conceptual or otherwise.
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Cheryl Rofer:
August 23rd, 2015 at 12:18 pm
I look forward to what you have to say about Eliot, Charles, but my opinion is that he’s a great poet and idiot social commentator.
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That said, his sensibilities were shared by quite a few.
zen:
August 23rd, 2015 at 9:14 pm
That European culture is heavily rooted in the Christendom period of the early to late Middle-Ages is undeniably true.
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However it is not the only influence by a long shot, starting with the Greco-Roman pagan cultures of classical antiquity, the barbarian invasions, Byzantium, a thousand years of war, trade and intellectual exchange with the Islamic world, exploration and empire building further afield and Europe’s own intellectual revolutions (Reformation, Scientific, Enlightenment) that departed from the worldview of the Church universal.
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Does a loss of Christianity undermine the culture rooted in it, at least in part?
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I don’t think this is a historical question that has a linear answer. It would be hard to say that cutting out a significant part of a civilization won’t have an impact – how would China look without Confucian thought? Or Tibet without Buddhism? Mao tried hard on both scores and failed but what if he succeeded? I think it would be hard not say that Europe without Christianity is a redefined Europe but perhaps not as different as Eliot imagined, given the other influences.
Charles Cameron:
August 23rd, 2015 at 9:44 pm
Cheryl & Zen, my thanks.
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I don’t have a whole lot to say about Eliot, except that while reaqding about Breivik I’d tended to downplay his ideas about “cultural Christianity” because it seemed unfair to blame Christianity for the actions of someone who didn’t appear to subscribe to the core doctrines of any verion of that faith, and getting the relationship between religion and violence clear in individual cases is something I believe to be important. In reading Eliot over the last day or two, however, I’m seeing “cultural Cghristianity” in a different context, ie culture rather than terror, and in that new light it interests me a deal more than previously.
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Zen, I’d have to say that Christianity as it has come down to us since St Augustine if not before seems to be an intricate braiding of Hebrew and Greek influences, with neo-Platonism a hugely important element from Patristic times right up into the Renaissance with Ficino in Florence and his Platonic Academy — and thus into more recent times.
Cheryl Rofer:
August 24th, 2015 at 2:54 am
Charles, Eliot’s cultural Christianity may be of some interest to you. I would also look at C.S. Lewis in that regard, which eventually comes around to his support for what I consider the bad guys of the 13th century. It’s an argument that has been going on for a long time.
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I think it’s not the same as what Brevik is saying, although if you flatten it out and add guns, it can go there.
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After dipping into “Mad Men” on their marathon weekend, I am convinced, although not solely by that, that it is getting harder and harder to grok the limited-group mindsets and assumptions of the past. I’m not defending them in any way, just saying that cultural phenomena like “Mad Men” make it easy to feel superior to those poor benighted savages, and that really removes any possibility of deep understanding.
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Those are just some quick thoughts, probably inelegantly expressed. My main attention has been on the Iran deal since midweek. Will have a post on War On The Rocks tomorrow.
Charles Cameron:
August 25th, 2015 at 12:59 am
And here we go — as I’ve said elsewhere, Cheryl’s piece from War on the Rocks is out:
Subtitle: