Defining "Culture" | Episode CVII

Send us Fan MailDownload Ekho: ancientlanguage.com/ekho/Subscribe to New Humanists+ for bonus episodes: buzzsprout.com/1791279/subscribePop culture. Cancel culture. Judeo-Christian culture. Everyone likes to talk about "culture," but what actually is it? One of the greatest writers of the 20th century, the poet and essayist T.S. Eliot, wrote a short book, Notes Toward the Definition of Culture, attempting to answer exactly that question. Written in the latter days of World War Two, as the Allied nations began to realize that Germany's surrender was imminent and that it was up to them to rebuild European culture, Eliot's Notes Toward the Definition of Culture was part of a broader anxiety among European and American elites about what the postwar world would look like. In Chapter One, Eliot proposes three necessary ingredients for the existence of high culture: the durability of social classes, regionalism, and the balance of unity and diversity in religion. He also gestures towards two possible definitions of culture: first, simply that which makes life living, and secondly, the incarnation of the religion of a people. Jonathan and Ryan discuss Chapter One, as well as related matters, such as California cuisine.Alan Jacobs's The Year of Our Lord 1943: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780190864651T.S. Eliot's Notes Toward the Definition of Culture (in Christianity and Culture): https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780156177351Richard M. Gamble's The Great Tradition: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9781935191568C.S. Lewis's Mere Christianity: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780060652920Matthew Arnold's Culture and Anarchy: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780199538744H.I. Marrou's A History of Education in Antiquity: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780299088149Ayaan Hirsi Ali's "Why I Am Now a Christian": https://unherd.com/2023/11/why-i-am-now-a-christian/Charles Taylor's A Secular Age: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780674986916New Humanists is brought to you by the Ancient Language Institute: https://ancientlanguage.com/Links may have referral codes, which earn us a commission at no additional cost to you. We encourage you, when possible, to use Bookshop.org for your book purchases, an online bookstore which supports local bookstores.Music: Save Us Now by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.comSupport the show