Critique of Modernity, Nicolas Gomez-Davila
Great article: It's not a long one but here are a few excerpts.
"The world of post-modern man has become corroded by vulgarity, and aesthetic and moral ugliness, the source of what he considers to be man's explicit inability to practice common sense: "Modern clatter deafens our soul." The corrective to the eradication of traditional values is to take refuge in the implicit knowledge supplied by history and tradition."
"Genuine thought, the Latin American thinker suggests, is the shepherd of dignity and man's ability to cultivate the soul. Gómez-Dávila's reaction to post-modernity is fueled by man's pathological desire to become God. Philosophical reflection, he cautions, cannot be found in academic institutions precisely because thought is an act of salvation that is encountered and practiced by individuals: "The only possible progress is the inner progress of each individual. A process that comes to a halt with the end of each life." Thought is a solitary business that education cannot assuage, for, "There is an illiteracy of the soul which no diploma cures.""
"post-modernity is a tragic, self-consuming spectacle. It is a spectacle because the post-modern is oblivious of what he has destroyed, and thus, how to make life pure and meaningful once again, for "principles are bridges over the sudden overflows of life." How many today even suspect the truth of the latter truism?"
"The world of post-modern man has become corroded by vulgarity, and aesthetic and moral ugliness, the source of what he considers to be man's explicit inability to practice common sense: "Modern clatter deafens our soul." The corrective to the eradication of traditional values is to take refuge in the implicit knowledge supplied by history and tradition."
"Genuine thought, the Latin American thinker suggests, is the shepherd of dignity and man's ability to cultivate the soul. Gómez-Dávila's reaction to post-modernity is fueled by man's pathological desire to become God. Philosophical reflection, he cautions, cannot be found in academic institutions precisely because thought is an act of salvation that is encountered and practiced by individuals: "The only possible progress is the inner progress of each individual. A process that comes to a halt with the end of each life." Thought is a solitary business that education cannot assuage, for, "There is an illiteracy of the soul which no diploma cures.""
"post-modernity is a tragic, self-consuming spectacle. It is a spectacle because the post-modern is oblivious of what he has destroyed, and thus, how to make life pure and meaningful once again, for "principles are bridges over the sudden overflows of life." How many today even suspect the truth of the latter truism?"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IwFn0...
~but I notice how it's being accessed by a deluge of dumbed-donw millennial electronic game players.
Good one Herb.
Even if it's not a word...I think I spelled it correctly just the same. Let's put it this way, It Is Now! (©)!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Modernity and post-modernism are not the same thing, unless we differentiate "modernity" from "modernism"' which creates new problems in communication and understanding.
As for the crux of it, all of those great old ideas were once new and challening. Even Plato, wrong as he was, was a radical departure from the tradition of his time. It is not an accident that the priest in Oedipus has the same name as the priest in the ILIAD. Literacy, philosophy, coined money, mercantilism, and democracy were all aspects of the same revolution c. 550 BCE. That revolution was not settled 150 years when Socrates was condemned. Oh, they liked coins all right. It was the questions they could not accept when they democratically voted on the charge of impiety.
Capitalism rests on an implicit individualism, but Atlas Shrugged made the Me Generation. A common complaint is that unlike the so-called "Greatest Generation" of the Depression and World War II, we baby boomers were self-centered and raised another self-centered generation which is now raising a third. Traditionalism wouild crush that. And not just here.
China's one-baby generation is now an aging generation of people who grew up being the center of attention. They didn't see that comin'...
I know that you like Intellectual Take-Out, and I agree that the essays can be thought provoking, good for starting discussions such this one. But over all, if you want to delve into ideas worth investigating and debating, look to The Atlas Society and the Ayn Rand Institute. Even when they are wrong, they start from the right premises.
The article does mix up Modernism and Post Modernism which I think the crux of the article was the problem with the latter.
In terms of today, the lack of ethical/moral values and the value of "Rational Celf interest" certainly is a problem.
Translations do seem to be a problem and I have hints upon previous readings that Spanish aphorisms and metaphors are a challenge unless one has lived that language and culture. Not so straight forward would be my take at this point.
(I wonder sometimes just how much Muslims/islam have infected that culture).
Thank you for the commentary.