THE ROBERT W. WHITAKER ARCHIVE

I STEAL LIBANON'S STUFF AGAIN | 2006-03-17

This is another comment that I simply insert -- or steal -- for Bob's Blog:

Scurvy was another Great Leap Forward from the Renaissance."

LOL! Well, there go your Maoist admirers. The liberals are still here, though.

I think the Renaissance was more like the Cultural Revolution, myself.

I've seen interesting analyses that see the Renaissance as the culmination of the increasing

influence of Islam on the West. It began with the cult of chivalry and the troubadour,

imported from Islam by the Crusaders. The technological revolution that emerged from the

Renaissance was the result of the rediscovery of algebra, the source of which is indicated

by the fact that "algebra" is an Arabic word. Finally, the political event that marked the

beginning of the Renaissance was the Ottoman conquest Constantinople in 1453.

I don't hold with this theory myself, but it is popular with many who don't like the modern world very much and who would therefore like to prove that it's all due to Asiatic, anti-Western

influence. The most prominent supporters of this theory today are, of course, the neoconservatives.

COMMENT:

You see, I can not only write, I can COMMENT, too!

I would call myself a Renaissance Man, but in this case I will desist.

It is interesting how the Renaissance was popular with the conservative professors of Europe

and nineteenth century America. They used it, in fact, Walter Pater INVENTED it -- to show

how the masses were in a thousand years of stagnation and misery throught the Dark Ages-- in

which they included the Middle Ages --until the Scholars discovered Civilization again in the

Renaissance.

There was no civilization when the Scholars were lost inthe Fall of Rome (a term that always

confused Constantinople). So for exactlya thousand years all was darkness and dirty until

the Scholars of the Renaissance rediscovered the Scholars of Classic Times.

This unmitigated crap was Official Doctrine when I was in shcool in the 1950s. Nobody put

it into the bald and perffectly correct English I stated it in above.

We are, in fact, being destroyed by overcomplicating things that are, stated in English,

plainly absurd.

What is interesting is that the academic bureaucracy that calls itself The Intellectuals

today have taken on the old Tory view of the Renaissance without any interruption. Once

they, the Scholars, take over, all will be well.

Walter Pater and Mao Tse Tung would have agreed perfectly that it is not the PEOPLE who make

a society. They would agree that it is a set of BOOKS that will make all peoples what they

should be.

I will end by repeating LibAnon on this aspect of the Renaissance:

"I don't hold with this hteory myself, but it is popular with many who don't like the modern world very much and who would therefore like to prove that it's all due to Asiatic, anti-Western influence. The most prominent supporters of this theory today are, of course, the neoconservatives."

COMMENTS (4)

#1 LibAnon | 2006-03-18 00:09

"Walter Pater INVENTED it"

For the record, Walter Pater did NOT invent the Renaissance. The French did, and the word was already established in the English language when little Walter was still in swaddling clothes.

More importantly, Walter Pater is our FRIEND in the fight against scholars and priesthoods. He championed individual knowledge and experience instead of the "great books", formulae, abstract definitions, and absolute codes of "virtue". In other words, he was the precise opposite of a neoconservative.

Besides, what was so great about the Middle Ages? They were the Golden Age for scholars and priesthoods. The official philosophy of the Middle Ages wasn't called "scholasticism" for nothing. Overthrowing the dominance of these "schoolmen" was precisely what the Renaissance was all about.

"To burn always with this hard, gemlike flame, to maintain this ecstasy, is success in life." -- Walter Pater, "The Renaissance" (1873)

#2 Elizabeth | 2006-03-18 12:19

There was a lot going on in the "Middle Ages" that made it great. And scholasticism

was by no means the official philosophy of the Middle Ages: not only was it not formulated

until the 1200s (a hundred years before one of the _official_ beginnings of the

"Renaissance"), the guy who formulated it was routinely attacked as a presumed heretic

during his lifetime.

The "Renaissance" was full of effeminate men in tights, copiers of Greece and Rome,

and the First Wave of Wordists. In most of Europe, it was over by 1500.

The beginning of the Little Ice Age in the 1200s spelled the end of the glory days

of the Middle Ages. Women who had had real power, such as the Episcopal Abbesses of

western and central Europe, who had had enormous secular power, even going to their

kingdom's parliaments, were shut up in their convents; women who had inherited their

fathers' and husbands' places in the trade guilds were kicked out; women who had had

opportunities for real education were lucky to be able to learn to read and write,

and men and women Wordists responded to challenges with quotes from ancient texts

instead of cogent arguments.

#3 LibAnon | 2006-03-19 01:50

"men and women Wordists responded to challenges with quotes"

And you're quoting Regine Pernoud, as far as I can tell.

But the difference between the Middle Ages and the Renaissance is, like anything else, best judged not by reading and quoting books but by individual experience. Listen to Gregorian chant, and then listen to Palestrina. Look at Merovingian art, and then look at a painting by Raphael.

#4 Shari | 2006-03-19 09:13

I wish that Elizabeth had more time to comment on what she knows. A REAl education for women, sounds great. My daughter got a degree in history from a Catholic women's college in St.Paul. Alas. with a big dose of feminist poison. She's chucked that though. I think that most women aren't meant for "real power" but of course some are, and those, along with many more, should enjoy a true education