The Politically Incorrect Guide to Western Civilization (Politically Incorrect Guides)

The Politically Incorrect Guide to Western Civilization (Politically Incorrect Guides) | Anthony Esolen | History is relevant from the context it was written

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The Politically In...

	The Politically Incorrect Guide to Western Civilization (Politically Incorrect Guides) Anthony Esolen Blackstone Audiobooks, Inc., 2008 - 7 pages average customer review:based on 16 reviews view larger image
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This new installment in the bestselling P.I. Guide series is not just a refreshing road map of Western civilization but also a guide to us: who we were, who we are, and where we are going.

Tightly argued, lively, and erudite

In the latest offering from Regnery's PIG series, Dr. Anthony Esolen takes aim at politically correct interpretations of Western Civilization. Esolen believes that those who peddle this way of thinking seek to "dissolve the foundation on which American and European culture had been built." This book seeks 1) to expose the flaws in these arguments and 2) to defend the noble Western tradition against this way of thinking.

Esolen's method involves the steady chronicling of the successes and failures of Western Civilization, the current relevance of which he explains at every opportunity. Moving from Greece to Rome to Israel and through the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, Enlightenment, and finally to the 19th and 20th centuries, Esolen presents us with summaries, quotations, and analyses that show how politically correct interpretations of history ultimately belittle religion, family, and tradition, and in so doing, degrade our current place in civilization.

Several themes emerge along the way. One is the endurance and primacy of Natural Law, despite its changing enemies. Another is the way in which each succeeding culture views man's perfectibility: we go from the belief that moral training can perfect man, to God's grace doing so, to education and the Arts, to nature, to the State and politics--no coincidence is it that the further removed from God and virtue we get, the bloodier the period is.

Esolen presents us with many heroes, including some well-known names like Sophicles, Dante, Aquinas, Shakespeare, and Burke as well as some not-so-well-known names like Clement of Alexandria, Girolamo Savonarola, Romano Guardini, and Leo XIII.

We learn why Washington was called the Cincinatus and not the Pericles of his time, why Romans held little esteem for Homer's Odysseus, and why guilds and craftsman were the driving forces behind the High Middle Ages.

We are treated to many wonderful historical anecdotes, two of which - one involving St. Thomas Aquinas and the other Dr. Samuel Johnson - promise to warm the hearts of all truth-loving readers out there.

At one point in this romp through thousands of years of history, theology, philosophy, literature, architecture, music and art, Esolen praises Dr. Samuel Johnson: "How could one man possess so much learning, discoursing so easily about Aeschylus and Milton, without sounding like a dusty academic?" After reading this book, we are tempted to ask the same question.

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History is relevant from the context it was written

As a history major at Millsaps College, Jackson MS, I was taught that history must be judged in the context from which it was written, not from the bias du jour of a later time. Much of the commentary written today reflects the bias of many writters today with an antiChristian and "anywhere but in American at her best" attitude. This book, THE POLITICICALLY INCORRECT GUIDE TO WESTERN CIVILIZATION, calls attention to this tendancy better than any other source I have recently read
and should be required reading in many colleges to even out the educational lopsideness so prevolent today.

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A good idea, one brilliant chapter but the rest was disappointing

"The study of the Classics teaches us to believe that there is something really great and excellent in the world, surviving all the shocks of accident and fluctuations of opinion, and raises us above that low and servile fear which bows only to present power and upstart authority."

That's what William Hazlitt wrote in "The Round Table" (1817). The study of the classics and ancient history is of itself politically incorrect in an era when even conservatives pretend to be revolutionaries. So in a sense any book that encourages us to examine the deep roots within western civilisation of those values that even the most "progressive" amongst us profess to defend is itself both valuable and politically incorrect.

Today's politically correctness is strangely one eyed. It pretends to be culturally relativist when comparing the west with other cultures but dogmatically chauvinist when comparing contemporary culture with it's antecedents. If medieval Christendom were a foreign country it would get a better hearing. This attitude is, I suspect, rooted in the adoption by both the right and left of the 19th century idea of progress and it's idea of perpetual improvement, rather than the more empirically sound, but discomforting idea, that cultures oscillate between advanced and backward.

Still all that being said I found this book mixed. I was, at first, disappointed with the average quality of the book.

But there were positive points. Esolen's chapter on Rome and it's republic was excellent and well worth the 'price of admission'. He shows quite clearly why the framers of the American constitution saw the Roman republic, with it's rule of law and separation of powers, as a worthy model. In general most ancient history tends to praise the Greeks more than the Romans, this chapter helps correct the balance. I enjoyed the Roman chapter in particular and would recommend the English classicist Peter Jones' recent book "Vote For Caesar" for anyone interested in an even more eye opening exploration of the most important of our progenitor civilisations. Another older book to consider is Henry Haskell's "The New Deal in Old Rome - How government in the ancient world tried to deal with modern problems".

Esolen's chapter on Ancient Israel was surprisingly good too. And I do mean surprising. Frankly when I first saw it I thought this may have been a 'conservative' puff piece, soft sell for the current preoccupations of US foreign policy. Not so! The author rectifies of frequent omission from western canon. The Old Testament. Although ancient Israel had virtually no role as a progenitor of western civilisation, at least compared to Greece and Rome, the "soft power" of it's unintended and indirect influence via the Bible was, of course, tremendous. It is surprising that so few teachers are prepared to openly acknowledge this. Few thinkers,even dyed -in-the-wool secularists, for example fail to recognise the apocalyptic strain in say modern environmentalism, the Exodus-speak of Martin Luther King, or the prophet-eering of Karl Marx. Yet we seem reluctant to calmly consider the role of the underlying biblical archetypes in our culture, even if they are all plainly recognisable in these examples. Is this reluctance a fear of sounding like advocates for one or other denomination? Maybe until we recognise just how common 'religious' ideas are, and how often they gain more influence when the obvious 'religious' label is removed, we will continue to be misled by ersatz prophets.

In general I agreed with Esolen's defence of Christendom but I found it a little too one eyed in many ways. I think he confuses Christendom with Christianity. A criticism of the former isn't necessarily an attack on the latter. In a sense this is just the mirror reversal of the problem he is trying to overcome. I don't think the true genius of medieval Christendom is in any way slighted by a 'warts and all' analysis. I sympathise with his waving the flag for Old Christendom, especially when compared with our modern 'secularist' establishment and it's revolving door of "official scientisms". Indeed when one compares the brutality of 20th century wars one wonders how moderns can keep a straight face whilst sneering at the Crusaders.

This is surprising too. Despite an overly one sided evaluation of Christendom through the centuries, Esolen doesn't seem to tackle either the Crusades or the Spanish Inquisition with any oommph. These subjects are just skipped over, almost as if he is reluctantly ceding ground to his rivals. It is not so clear to me why he should have done this. There is some modern work, for example Henry Kamen's, that sees the Spanish Inquisition as 'no worse' (indeed better) than regular law enforcement of the period and, indeed, because of it's introduction of 'due process' (however harsh a process it was) as the real forerunner of the modern legal system. "(B)efore 1530 the Spanish Inquisition was widely hailed as the best run, most humane court in Europe." Prof Thomas Madden says "(t)here are actually records of convicts in Spain purposely blaspheming so that they could be transferred to the prisons of the Spanish Inquisition. After 1530, however, the Spanish Inquisition began to turn its attention to the new heresy of Lutheranism. It was the Protestant Reformation and the rivalries it spawned that would give birth to the myth." As to the accuracy of these contrarian claims I cannot say, however I'm surprised Esolen didn't give them a run.

Esolen defence of the medieval era is in general welcome but he jumps over the "Dark Ages" too quickly I think. In many ways the west was sired by both the barbarians and the Romans. The great nations of western europe are plainly derived from barbarian kingdoms. The barbarians were not without their contributions. The Icelandic Norse, "pure barbarians" if you will, seemed to have had a democratic and individualistic tradition of sorts so it's not beyond the pale to consider barbarian influences on the foundation of western democracy etc. We are all aware of Magna Carta but few know the significance of Runnymede, where it was signed. The name Runnymede seems to have originates from the Anglo-Saxon 'runieg' (meaning "regular meeting") and 'mede' ("meadow"). The pre-Norman Anglo-saxon government, the Witenagemot or the Witena gemot, sometimes just called "the Witan", was held at Runnymede during the reign of Alfred the Great, whose castle was nearby. witenagemot derives from the Old English for "meeting of wise men." The witenagemot functioned as a national assembly, advisory to the king and whose membership comprised Anglosaxon England's noblemen, both ecclesiastic and secular. Maybe this era also deserves a place in the sun too.

Still trying to compress the entire corpus of Western Civilisation into one book is a tall order, and Esolen manages to cover the broad sweep. And that is an achievement in itself.

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4

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