John Armstrong’s In Search of Civilisation runs two intersecting arguments. The first is that civilised culture comes into existence where material and spiritual prosperity mutually enhance each other. The second is that “any ambitious account of civilisation has to be an account of how we should live, individually and collectively.”
The emphasis there is on the “should”. Armstrong says at the outset that he is not much interested in civilisation as an historical or sociological phenomenon. What he’s after is the essence of civilisation and the essence of civilisation, he hopes, can function as a source of cultural idealism in a world in which such idealism feels like it is under permanent attack.
Out he comes and says it, with his characteristic directness: philosophy can and should be the basis of all civilised aspirations, the goal of philosophy being the realisation that the good, the beautiful and the true are one . . . Civilisation ought to make us wise, kind and tasteful. And the purpose of the economy is to promote exactly that.
Armstrong basically wants to define civilisation as whatever makes personal self-development possible. Within that limited compass, he has plenty to say. How you deal with the little things in life and how you enjoy yourself are under-recognised parts of what it is to be civilised. Healthy civilisations are those which imbue routine activities with the qualities of works of art. Civilised societies are those which help individuals develop a sense of sophistication and refinement. They support “good accumulation”, money-making with a sense of higher purpose. They even improve the quality of relationships.
As in his earlier Secret Power of Beauty, Armstrong’s strength is in condensing complicated thinking into the clearest simplest terms. In Search of Civilisation contains a topnotch 2 page summary of Freud’s case in “Civilisation and Its Discontents” and a mildly amusing modern adaptation of Aristotle’s ethics.
He’s also good at teasing out both sides of cultural conflicts that materialise partially in individual life. His chapters on “decadence” and “barbarism” genuinely do something with those over-wrought nineteenth century terms; if you thought you could do without your inner bogan or your inner dandy then according to Armstrong you mistake the way modern civilisation necessarily produces both.
Several of Armstrong’s observations have a sort of low-key reflective heft: the specialised world of art scholarship can be as culturally dispiriting as plastic statuettes of Michelangelo’s David; a bit of old-fashioned sublimation of desire is not just good but downright noble.
There are a couple of problems with tone. For one, Armstrong can sound sanctimounious when he speaks on behalf of his readers. When he assumes too easily that his own professed longing for civilisation resonates with “our” deepest needs and concerns, “our” humanity, he sounds like Tony Blair transported into a philosophy tutorial.
Though not exactly irrelevant to his theme, the grace, charm and material comfort of Armstrong’s own way of life are put on display with a mite too much self-satisfaction, gently suggesting that he himself embodies the civilised ideal his book sets out to explain.
One-dimensional expressions of ardour for civilised things are a second problem. Armstrong’s intention is clearly to avoid dry philosophical technicality. But surely he might have found other ways of doing so than avowing that he is “penetrated to the depths of his soul” by so many things? Sometimes the intrusions of authorial personality simply seem, well, a bit embarrassing. They make the book too much about Armstrong and not enough about civilisation.
“Perhaps we are inescapably marked – when it comes to ideas – by early life. . . My deepest fear is of loutish bullying and, close second, of appealing for help and being told the problem lies in me. Uncritical emphasis upon ideas like difference and equality is terrifying. . .”
There are also some broader failings related to the substance of Armstrong’s thinking about civilisation. Because he chooses not to engage with the problem of civilisation historically, he doesn’t acknowledge that the very concept might have changed radically under modern social conditions.
His stated aim is to re-make the “tarnished idea” of civilisation. But how is this possible without recognition that we live in an increasingly globalised world that has all but effaced former boundaries between cultures? How does it differ from nostalgia if it doesn’t face up to the paradoxes with which technology confronts the aesthetic and ethical ideals of old?
Because Armstrong doesn’t qualify his argument about the virtues of materialism, he overestimates the way economic success can be a neutral second pillar of civilisation alongside spiritual prosperity. The possibility he doesn’t consider is whether contemporary economic life in a high-tech globalised world has a radical potential to act as a sort of acid for dissolving the forms of culture and civility that ground the life of civilised communities.
The results are all around us. The “civilising” content of the cultural past is re-packaged as another sort of economic product. As that content is made available in relatively cheap standardised form to masses of people the world over, it is evacuated of a large part of its meaning. Nor is the high-minded re-assertion of the civilising mission of high culture likely to do any good under such conditions. High culture is well and truly catered for as a niche product within a mass market, which is ultimately where Armstrong’s work takes its place. - It is not just that the petunia in the onion patch is unlikely to convince the onions to become petunias. We’ve got to the bizarre point where the petunia’s attempts to convince the onions sow the seeds of more onions.
Armstrong’s sections on the contribution of material prosperity to civilisation represent the real weakpoint of his thought. Where the rest of his book is often psychologically canny, in the sections on culture’s relationship to money Armstrong wants to deal with a large-scale social conundrum without bothering with the detail of how societies work. His few nods in the direction of economics are unconvincing.
Nor does the book engage enough with the collective side of the enterprise of civilisation that on Armstrong’s account is supposed to be the complement to the individual side. The organisations and institutions of civilised life hardly make an appearance. But without them the book’s notion of civilisation looks more like a personal idyll than a coherent ideal.
The emphasis there is on the “should”. Armstrong says at the outset that he is not much interested in civilisation as an historical or sociological phenomenon. What he’s after is the essence of civilisation and the essence of civilisation, he hopes, can function as a source of cultural idealism in a world in which such idealism feels like it is under permanent attack.
Out he comes and says it, with his characteristic directness: philosophy can and should be the basis of all civilised aspirations, the goal of philosophy being the realisation that the good, the beautiful and the true are one . . . Civilisation ought to make us wise, kind and tasteful. And the purpose of the economy is to promote exactly that.
Armstrong basically wants to define civilisation as whatever makes personal self-development possible. Within that limited compass, he has plenty to say. How you deal with the little things in life and how you enjoy yourself are under-recognised parts of what it is to be civilised. Healthy civilisations are those which imbue routine activities with the qualities of works of art. Civilised societies are those which help individuals develop a sense of sophistication and refinement. They support “good accumulation”, money-making with a sense of higher purpose. They even improve the quality of relationships.
As in his earlier Secret Power of Beauty, Armstrong’s strength is in condensing complicated thinking into the clearest simplest terms. In Search of Civilisation contains a topnotch 2 page summary of Freud’s case in “Civilisation and Its Discontents” and a mildly amusing modern adaptation of Aristotle’s ethics.
He’s also good at teasing out both sides of cultural conflicts that materialise partially in individual life. His chapters on “decadence” and “barbarism” genuinely do something with those over-wrought nineteenth century terms; if you thought you could do without your inner bogan or your inner dandy then according to Armstrong you mistake the way modern civilisation necessarily produces both.
Several of Armstrong’s observations have a sort of low-key reflective heft: the specialised world of art scholarship can be as culturally dispiriting as plastic statuettes of Michelangelo’s David; a bit of old-fashioned sublimation of desire is not just good but downright noble.
There are a couple of problems with tone. For one, Armstrong can sound sanctimounious when he speaks on behalf of his readers. When he assumes too easily that his own professed longing for civilisation resonates with “our” deepest needs and concerns, “our” humanity, he sounds like Tony Blair transported into a philosophy tutorial.
Though not exactly irrelevant to his theme, the grace, charm and material comfort of Armstrong’s own way of life are put on display with a mite too much self-satisfaction, gently suggesting that he himself embodies the civilised ideal his book sets out to explain.
One-dimensional expressions of ardour for civilised things are a second problem. Armstrong’s intention is clearly to avoid dry philosophical technicality. But surely he might have found other ways of doing so than avowing that he is “penetrated to the depths of his soul” by so many things? Sometimes the intrusions of authorial personality simply seem, well, a bit embarrassing. They make the book too much about Armstrong and not enough about civilisation.
“Perhaps we are inescapably marked – when it comes to ideas – by early life. . . My deepest fear is of loutish bullying and, close second, of appealing for help and being told the problem lies in me. Uncritical emphasis upon ideas like difference and equality is terrifying. . .”
There are also some broader failings related to the substance of Armstrong’s thinking about civilisation. Because he chooses not to engage with the problem of civilisation historically, he doesn’t acknowledge that the very concept might have changed radically under modern social conditions.
His stated aim is to re-make the “tarnished idea” of civilisation. But how is this possible without recognition that we live in an increasingly globalised world that has all but effaced former boundaries between cultures? How does it differ from nostalgia if it doesn’t face up to the paradoxes with which technology confronts the aesthetic and ethical ideals of old?
Because Armstrong doesn’t qualify his argument about the virtues of materialism, he overestimates the way economic success can be a neutral second pillar of civilisation alongside spiritual prosperity. The possibility he doesn’t consider is whether contemporary economic life in a high-tech globalised world has a radical potential to act as a sort of acid for dissolving the forms of culture and civility that ground the life of civilised communities.
The results are all around us. The “civilising” content of the cultural past is re-packaged as another sort of economic product. As that content is made available in relatively cheap standardised form to masses of people the world over, it is evacuated of a large part of its meaning. Nor is the high-minded re-assertion of the civilising mission of high culture likely to do any good under such conditions. High culture is well and truly catered for as a niche product within a mass market, which is ultimately where Armstrong’s work takes its place. - It is not just that the petunia in the onion patch is unlikely to convince the onions to become petunias. We’ve got to the bizarre point where the petunia’s attempts to convince the onions sow the seeds of more onions.
Armstrong’s sections on the contribution of material prosperity to civilisation represent the real weakpoint of his thought. Where the rest of his book is often psychologically canny, in the sections on culture’s relationship to money Armstrong wants to deal with a large-scale social conundrum without bothering with the detail of how societies work. His few nods in the direction of economics are unconvincing.
Nor does the book engage enough with the collective side of the enterprise of civilisation that on Armstrong’s account is supposed to be the complement to the individual side. The organisations and institutions of civilised life hardly make an appearance. But without them the book’s notion of civilisation looks more like a personal idyll than a coherent ideal.
"The Great Stage"! Might as well be "Merci."
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