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The meaning of "civilized"

by
Anthony M. Ludovici

The New English Weekly 33, 1948, pp. 201–202


- p. 201 -
Limit the notion of civilization to the way of life evolved in Europe and especially in England from the Hellenic Age onward, which is not an uncommon form of narrowmindedness, and Sir Ernest Barker's latest book, Traditions of Civility * will be found to contain some interesting and helpful contributions to your knowledge. But it is no exaggeration to say that, in proportion to the size of the book — 355 Demy 8vo pages — these contributions are far from being dealt out with an evenly generous hand. For, by the time we are half way through the volume, they are almost exhausted.
        Nevertheless, it is as well to be reminded occasionally of the manifold signs of ancient Greek influence even in our latter-day ideas and customs; for, as Sir Ernest rightly observes, "It is not only the theory of Greece which still lives and acts upon us. It is also the history of Greece . . . which, like all the memories that live in our minds and colour their nature, is still a part of our life and an influence on our action."
        The truth is the majority of modern people do not know the extent to which they are Hellenes. In their latent Puritanism, always ready to burst out under suitable provocation; in their emotional and therefore frequently irrational humanitarianism as well as in their unconscious cruelties; even in their taste in female beauty of face and figure, they all display, often without any adulterating ingredient, their subjection to the pure (or impure?) values of Creek antiquity.
        Sir Ernest does not, however, probe too deeply. He keeps strictly to the more or less obvious, palpable and, above all, mentionable features of Greek thought and action which still rule our lives. In discussing even these aspects of our Greek heritage, however, it may be questioned whether at times he does not read a good deal of our own problems and our solutions of them into Greek ideas. For instance, in his discussion of leisure and the use of it, is he aware of the extent to which his thought has probably been coloured by the attitude to "Work" created by our modern industrial system? It seems only yesterday that Principal Jacks was considering the necessity of founding "Schools of Play" and "Colleges of Leisure-Craft" for the new leisured classes.
        For centuries there has, however, been a large leisured class in this country, not one of whom has ever bothered his head about any rules or precepts respecting how they spent their leisure. But now that a new and larger section of the population is expected soon to be able to enjoy idle hours, there is this sudden concern about training them in the use of their spare time, or at least about helping them to an uplifting use of it.
        Neither Sir Ernest Barker nor Principal Jacks seems to have appreciated that the idea of having to learn how to use leisure is really the outcome of the kind of "Work" from which one has to recover, from the effects of which one has to heal or cure oneself, mentally and physically. No artist, no craftsman, who enjoys his work and who needs no period of recovery from it is ever bothered about leisure or how to use it.
        Sir Ernest writes penetratingly about the Renaissance and the Reformation and ably describes the cross-fertilization that occurred between the two movements. He also gives due weight to the mercenary or niggardly motives which probably had their share in determining many of the religious reforms. But, since his story reaches back into Classical times, we should have liked his views on the processes which led to the "shouldering of its duties" by the modern State and the adoption by the Church in the first place, and by the State subsequently, of the old liturgies whereby the more prosperous were expected by ancient wisdom to restore to the community that portion of their wealth which the ancients rightly assumed was contributed by society as a whole. For, after all, he who speaks of the State "shouldering its duties" conceals an assumption. Why does he assume, under the influence of a modern and arbitrary solution of the problem involved, that these duties are the State's? The ultimate resort to both taxation and charity necessarily followed the "shouldering." But why and how were the prosperous so foolish as to relinquish one of the buttresses of their privileges?
        One of the best chapters deals with the Education of the English Gentleman, and in it we learn how relatively late in English history "prowess remaining in one stock" was considered a sine-qua-non of gentlemanly rank.
        A gifted Frenchwoman, mother of Cosima Wagner and the descendant of one of the oldest aristocratic families of France, Marie de Flavigny, argues that the decline of the aristocracies of Europe was due to their failure, in the post-Renaissance world, to acquire the spiritual leadership of the peoples they had formerly led by their prowess and skill at arms.
        She may be right, but she nowhere explains the failure. Sir Ernest shows that as early as the late 16th century, ideas were beginning to cluster about gentlemanliness which contained the seeds of deterioration and decay. Already at that time, wealth, idleness and ostentatious and wasteful spending (in Veblen's sense) were regarded as essential to the gentleman. But there is no mention of liturgies or anything resembling them. One can only wonder that the rank of gentleman survived as long as it did. But these are interesting sidelights on Marie de Flavigny's problem.
        Turning to another matter, it is difficult to see more than a chance connexion between our present-day boarding-school and what Sir Ernest calls "our traditional devotion to it," and the older custom of placing the sons of gentry in the homes of their fathers' equals for training in the arts of life. For the older method is so different from and superior to ours that only the factor of absence from the paternal roof seems common to both.
        But it is not possible to dwell on all the interesting topics dealt with in this chapter. It is packed with information and stimulating comment. Let no one miss, for instance, the passages on Cranmer and the striking modernity of his views on individual endowment. No one having read these with care could ever again misquote, as it is constantly misquoted, that part of the Catechism which answers the question, "What is thy duty towards thy neighbour?"
        The chapter on Cromwell, though less absorbing and more often antagonizing, also contains good things, above all the description of the "Hebraic exclusive nationalism in the Puritans." We are also reminded here of a fact often overlooked in the treatises on civility and culture, which is the late survival in England, and Europe in general, of the notion that "a single political society . . . ought to be a single religious society." Nietzsche was one of the few nineteenth century thinkers who revived this point of view and denied the title "civilised" to our society because it failed under this test.
        What follows — i.e., the remaining 163 pages — is so poor in comparison that it is hard to understand how Sir Ernest came to include the chapters on Paley and His Political Philosophy and Natural Law and the American Revolution in his book. Some facts of interest are, of course, revealed in the former chapter, because no man's career is wholly without interest to people of a later century. But I confess that had I obtained Sir Ernest's book from a public library I should have returned it on

        * Traditions of Civility. By SIR ERNEST BARKER. Cambridge University Press, Price 21/-.

- p. 202 -
reaching page 192. Indeed it might be doing him a service to try to persuade him, if ever he should re-issue his book to fill the 163 pages in question not only with other matter but, above all, with matter more germane his title and the subject of his early chapters.

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