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I explain once more.
Through the ninth century, Europeans continued to understand their political & cultural forms in terms of the classical Roman past. They aimed to regain what had been lost, & assessed themselves against the attainments of classical civilisation.
Through the ninth century, Europeans continued to understand their political & cultural forms in terms of the classical Roman past. They aimed to regain what had been lost, & assessed themselves against the attainments of classical civilisation.
https://twitter.com/eugyppius1/status/1665813823599550466
Sometime after A.D. 900, they began to look forwards instead, & created a new civilisational tradition that incorporated elements from the past, but that was fundamentally its own thing, a purer expression of European temperament and ideals. What they created we call 'the West.'
We now stand in a similar relationship to 'the West,' as Europeans in the tenth century did to the classical world. The answer to many problems is not to recover what has been lost and continually imitate the forms of prior centuries, but build the next tradition.
That, at least, is the roughly Spenglerian view I intended to reference here. I don't buy all the particulars of Spengler's argument but I think his basic frame is correct and a helpful way to think about the future.
...and, I would add, it's no accident that the proper cultivation of the classical literary legacy began with the ninth century, precisely as Europeans began to realise that the classical world was a different, past thing that needed preserving.
Similar attitudes to the monuments of the West will only emerge when we can understand it as a distinct, past tradition. Right now the achievements of the West are being torn to the ground, because they are considered to have cultural/civilisational immediacy.
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