“Christopher Dawson insisted that the function of any educational system was to created a common world of moral and intellectual values, a common memory which helped a given culture to maintain itself. To say that such a common educational tradition has now largely disappeared is to say that our culture is under thread of dissolution. What is today called ‘multiculturalism,’ that is, the idea that a society can be built around a plurality of cultures, with no single one of them dominating, presumably for Dawson would be a prescription for culture disintegration, and one question is whether in any respect he would be wrong.”
Christopher Dawson
The Crisis of Western Educations
Glen W. Olsen – Introduction
This is why I expect a civil war to break out in the West an America in the next 10 years. If it doesn’t it will be due to the fact that the single culture of multiculturalism will have put down all contenders to the throne. Multiculturalism could prevail as the single culture as it did in antiquity with the State being the agent that all cultures must bend the knee. In this scenario the State keeps the peace among all the various gods/cultures and in essence becomes god walking on the earth. As in ancient Rome all gods/cultures are allowed as long as they all pinch incense to Caesar. It looks to me that is where we are arcing and only if one of the religions/cultures really take their religion/culture seriously could there be a possible altering of our current historical arc.
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“Christopher Dawson thought it impossible for a minority to maintain to retain rigorous religious practice in a secular culture. Within the religious minority there would be constant ‘leakage’ with only a minority actually living and understanding their religion. Therefore it was not possible for Catholics to long live in a ghetto. They constantly had to address the enveloping culture, and their constant effort should be to encourage growth in the secular culture around them of those things which make the Catholic life viable, especially the teaching of an objective form of the history of Christian culture in the public schools.”
Christopher Dawson
The Crisis of Western Education
Glen W. Olsen – Introduction
1.) I wonder if Dawson would have labeled any culture as secular given his insistence that all culture is the enfleshment of some religion?
2.) The reason for the constant leakage is found in the fact that the culture shapes the people and as, per Dawson, culture is religion enfleshed, the reason that the leakage occurs is because the Christians as living in an alien religious culture are constantly being catechized by that culture into a religion that is not Christianity.
3.) When Dawson talks about the need for Christians to “encourage growth in the secular culture around them of those things which make the Catholic (Christian) life viable,” what he is saying is that Christians must not be conformed to the world but transformed by the renewing of their minds.
4.) Of course Dawson was in error about the need for all this to happen within the public schools. Even in Dawson’s lifetime the schools were hopelessly determined to snuff out a Christianity (Catholic or Protestant) that could challenge Dawson’s “secular culture.”
Great post.
“encourage growth in the secular culture around them of those things which make the Catholic (Christian) life viable,”
Like Sunday sports and heinous evils like the WNBA because their daughters like it? “It’s good for her see what hard work can lead to and that women can be professional athletes.”
“My kid’s friends are in soccer and they play on Sundays and it’s a family and wholesome atmosphere. It’s an opportunity for us to tell people about church.”
Aren’t sports part of the common culture that we rationalize as making Christian life more viable? Like gay ESPN. Like my brother-in-law watching gay football for every weekend every fall.
I don’t know anything about Dawson, so hopefully he didn’t mean that, but that’s what I see that quote meaning.
I don’t care about common moral values, China has that. Common Christian confessions is a stronger point.
Is that the type of viable life Dawson had in mind? I doubt it, but it’s what they brethren in the pew next to me think.