Antiquity Out of Fashion

9th Grade Versus 15th And The Western Tradition

========
The lack of credibility suffered by colleges and universities today might be summed up simply by the cultural Marxism which has taken root within them. But there is also their inability to actually educate the students within their walls and beyond the simple job training services they provide at high cost. And by demonizing anyone and anything beyond recent memory, and perhaps by design, they rob their students of the ability to understand their culture, traditions and the roots of Western Civilization.

Bernhard Thuersam, Director
Cape Fear Historical Institute
www.cfhi.net
========
Antiquity Out of Fashion:

“At our universities, the historians like to dump the ancient history course in the lap of the philologists, and vice versa. Here and there it is treated like a poor relation whom it would be a disgrace to let go to ruin entirely. But with the public at large antiquity is completely out of fashion, and the “culture” which is supported by this public even feels hatred for it. Various faults of antiquity serve as a pretext.

The real reason is conceit about modern communication and transport and the inventions of our century; then too, there is the inability to distinguish technical and material greatness from the intellectual and moral kinds; and finally, the prevalent views about refinement of manners, philanthropy, and the like.

But what makes it generally impossible for the present-day average “educated” man to find anything appealing in the ancient world is the total egoism of today’s private person who wants to exist as an individual and asks of the community only the greatest possible security for himself and his property, for which he pays his taxes amid sighs, and who also likes to attach himself to the community in a specific sense as an “official.”

On the other hand, the peoples of the ancient Orient, who lived tribally, impress us as races of which each individual is only a type, with the king as the highest type.

Finally, today’s “educated” men are firmly resolved to make a bargain, with whatever power, for their existence at any given time. There is an enormous veneration of life and property. There is a mass abdication, and not just on the part of the rulers! And there are numerous bargaining positions and concessions against the worst – and all this with great touchiness in matters of recognition and so-called honor.

With the ancients, on the contrary, it was all or nothing, with no fear of disaster. The fall of states, cities, and kings was considered glorious. That is something alien to us.”

(Judgments on History and Historians, Jacob Burckhardt, Liberty Fund, 1999, pp. 5-7)
========
Antiquity Out of Fashion