Civilization

An artist does not cease to be an artist, nor a scientist a scientist, because some of his fellow citizens have lost a battle, or even many battles. An artistic knack, a political conception, or a piece of scientific lore may survive frommfather to son, and from one generation to another. But no civilization can subsist intact over a long period of disorder, change, or migration of peoples. By civilization we mean, do we not, a continuous and individual development of ideas?

So spake Carleton Stanley in 1936 in a book on Ancient Greece. I mention it here for several reasons, not least of which is the easy tone that this scholar published by Oxford University Press uses to converse with his reader. It is quite lovely and if only there were more of it these days, our academics might be more interested in development than declaration of knowledge.

I was also struck by the casual way in which he places artists and scientists as the basis of civilization. We take this idea so much for granted now that we are dismissive of it, as if in fact generations of humanity have not endeavored, over the cycles of history, to ensure that the artists and scientists have a space despite the efforts and battles of their fellows. Civilization can stand rude shocks, revolutions, famine, but some inventions, ideas, are not compatible with a current institution and so it undergoes a change. Sometimes a radical change. Change can appear to destroy a civilization but so long as there are a few quiet souls willing to putter away for their own satisfaction since the public will not permit it, civilization can not die.

The Church first burned Lucretius then dismissed him as a madman. One copy was found in the ninth century and over the next millennium he was slowly reincorporated into our conception of our own cultural history. A great poet, a curious scientist forgotten and recalled from oblivion. How wonderful to have found him, but I also wonder who were those silent monks who dedicated themselves to copying the manuscript, preserving it and their own creative stenography for history. Individuals develop ideas continuously harvesting from their personal and collective past, we disseminate them in recognition of some personal or collective value they contain. That is civilization.

When we are all pacified to do as another, satisfied to learn for the test, content to see only what we are shown then we can certify that civilization is ailing. We need independent thought, curious creativity, but also a passion for the past to provide our future.