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NationofChange / Op-Ed
Published: Sunday 14 October 2012
“Because there is not enough time to read everything good, there is a requirement for us to have a comprehensive list. Anything that you read outside of the list is still valuable, but these works best define cultural idiosyncrasies of the American people.”
The Struggle of Defining a Culture
What is the Western canon? What do we mean when we use the word canon?
The word canon here refers to a tangible standard by which to compare all works of literature by. That being the case, the Western canon is applying these standards to American literature and creating a comprehensive list of the best works. With all the works that have been, and continue to be, produced it is hard to realize what literature is a good representation of the evolution Western culture.
Why should we read this literature?
This kind of literature can teach us about ourselves and help us in our understanding of the evolution of Western literature. It helps to give us an accurate insight into Western humanity’s view of themselves as human beings and their place in such a vast universe. Reading and studying literature from different times allows us to connect with perspectives and emotions from authors from different time periods. These works both reflect the time periods they are written in and show us the universality of many human experiences and emotions. Literature is essentially a catalogue of the questions the American people strive to answer in their lives. We need a comprehensive list because if you don't have a basis to go off of then it is nearly impossible to get an accurate picture of the evolution of American culture.
Where do we find a Western Canon?
Harold Bloom is qualified to make an informed definition of the Western canon. Not only because of his life long study of the most important figure in western literature, William Shakespeare, but because even at age 82 he an incessant reader. He, like so many brilliant men before him, understands that his time on earth is very limited, and he notes across his canon of works that there is simply not enough time to read everything worth reading. These two qualities, combined with his extended education and position as Sterling Professor of Humanities at Yale University, in my opinion qualifies him to at least give us a starting place when approaching the Western canon.
Because there is not enough time to read everything good, there is a requirement for us to have a comprehensive list. Anything that you read outside of the list is still valuable, but these works best define cultural idiosyncrasies of the American people.
That being said, here is a link to Harold Bloom's list. I recommend that you at least use it as a starting place.
As Americans it is our duty to know what our humanity has encountered and conquered in our history, and the reasons those fights were fought in the first place, so that we can make informed cultural decisions. This keeps us from reinventing the wheel each generation. Literature gives us a cultural road map of Western civilization and if we have any hope to progress as a species, as Americans, and overall as civilized citizens we need to know what the next steps are to get to something as close to a civilized Western utopia as possible. That is what the canon gives us.
I hope that this article has given you the impetus required to continue, or even better start, your journey through Western literature.
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ABOUT Caleb Jacobo
Caleb Jacobo is an independent writer living in Southern California. He runs the New American Scholar Project, an orginization focused on making great works of literature accessible for everyone. You can find out more about Caleb at his blog at calebjacobo.com. You can find out more about the New American Scholar Project here thenasproject.org.
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By Aviva Shen
7 comments on "The Struggle of Defining a Culture"
October 15, 2012 6:20pm
Yes, the strength of our national culture starts from a shared 'western canon', and we all gain insights and inspiration from it. This shared commonality does not prevent us from welcoming and absorbing insights and experiences from non-western migrants and cultures, much as the English vocabulary- perhaps more than any other - is continually enriched from other languages.
But I object to the author's smug conclusion: 'as civilized citizens we need to know what the next steps are to get to something as close to a civilized Western utopia as possible. That is what the canon gives us.'
No, no body of work from the past is likely to tell us clearly and correctly what must be our 'next steps', especially if our aim is indeed a 'civilized Western utopia'. A 'utopia' is literally a 'nowhere' - a place which has never yet been. No matter how much we may want to get there, we can't expect the past to tell us clearly how to do so under present and near-future conditions. In particular, consider such masterful depictions of such Western utopias as Bellamy's 'Looking Backward: 2000-1887' and H G Well's 'Men Like Gods'. These utopias are not late-20-th-century sci-fi dystopias, but indeed have truly attractive features. But exactly which features - and which others - do we seek, and how do we get there? Reading the canon gets us only so far. Our age too, like past ages which built the canon, must do its creative share.
October 15, 2012 5:30am
Really not optimistic. We came upon one of those historic turning points a few years back, and took the wrong turn. Today, the American discussion is all about, and only about, Middle Class Workers. The public discussion consists of cliches about the glory of "Hard-working Americans" (i.e., those fortunate enough to still have jobs that pay a family-supporting wage) and the Suffering Middle Class. Well, if you still have a steady job AND are still in the middle class, what are you complaining about? This generation has been bullied out of taking a look at poverty, that elephant in America's living room. Too bad. History shows how and why it's not possible to "rebuild the middle class" (a popular slogan at the moment) without shoring up the poor. We now have a fraction of the upward class mobility enjoyed by the more advanced nations. We can't address any of these issues because every attempt to discuss it turns into a (contrived) pep rally for "Hard-working Americans." Well, you can't have a nation of Hard-working Americans when corporations keep shipping our jobs out. People then fall into poverty, and this generation addressed this issue by sawing the rungs off of the ladder out of poverty. So -- the middle class keeps shrinking, the percentage of people trapped in poverty keeps growing. We have a system now that replaces workers with super-cheap workfare labor, systematically pulling wages down, increasing poverty... And as long as we refuse to regard the poor as equal human beings, legitimately addressing poverty (surprise: The poor need aid right now, not another decade of promises of eventual job creation), we'll remain trapped in this downward spiral until the US collapses.
October 14, 2012 5:17pm
I am less and less enamored with the idea that western civilization has something special to offer humanity. I support reading great literature, have read a good sprinkling of it, but the perspective of the civilization that has driven the global ecosystem off the cliff with its greed and demand for more does not uniquely hold wisdom that automatically is useful to salvaging the cascading disasters on planet earth. Many other cultures hold wisdom that the west ought to learn from equally. Western imperialism is a fact on the ground, but that does not make it a good thing for the mind.
WA
October 14, 2012 3:41pm
Hollywood-Burbank makes up Americans culture for us. They saturate their messages with emotional sugar and firmly massage it into your brains as you sit there in pleasure and ease drinking it all into your head. Marshall McLuhan's book is titled "The Medium Is The Massage", and that's mAssage, he said TV is "chewing gum for the eyes". I amended that to "chewing gum for the brain" until I realized that "chewing" involves effort, and watching television is the ultimate in effortless enjoyment, you don't even have to move your hips! But, Los Angeles show people are moving their hips, socking it to you as you sit in vulnerable hypnotized inaction. What a thrill for them, to be f***ing your mind for power and profit. You of the radical left are still living in the 19th Century, literature doesn't form our culture anymore, and one cannot really get informed about our "Western Culture" by reading old books. What you do is good, though, you create an alternative culture with all the great ideas in the old books, just don't expect the mainstream to adopt these noble ideas any time soon. (I expect they'll adopt MY ideas!) But, don't give up, there's the world that CAN be in every moment of the depressing "what really is now"! As for me, I've done quite a bit of layman study and concluded that Earth's best culture in history was the culture of the American Indian for the past 30 thousand years, whitey didn't abolish it, he merely punished and prohibited it, it still lives in the hearts and minds of Indians AND in my projections for the future!
October 15, 2012 5:43am
I disagree. Wall Street makes up American culture for us. Wall Street finances our political system, and it drives the public message, thereby creating "public opinion." By necessity, Wall Street has, for 30-some years, focused on a "divide and conquer" (the masses) message that has been powerfully successful. This is often done by emphasizing cultural and class distinctions in terms of each group being a threat to the others. Your post strongly suggests the power of this message, as you define "the enemy" in terms of skin color, seeking justification for the prejudices that so powerfully keep the "masses" divided (and conquered). Your focus on "old books" alone indicates that your mind is shut to the possibility of an evolving culture that actually can deal with the real world as it is, thereby working to make changes necessary for our survival. Of course there is much to learn from the past, especially in terms of what we need to do to stop repeating our destructive cycles, but the bottom line is that it is foolish to turn our backs on the wisdom that exists today, among ordinary people -- those things learned from actual experience in today's complex (and viciously competitive) American culture.
October 14, 2012 12:32pm
why are you lecturing us on Western Culture? This Nation is now nothing but an increaseing Tower of Babel! One third of our population is now foreign born and their off spring thanks to the Immgration Reform act of 1965 where Europeans were discrimianted against in favor of every third world immigrant type the Liberals could think of. And they are still comig in over one million per year. By 2050 whitey will be the distinct minority, So save your preaching for Europe who will probably be taken over by Muslims like France is being taken over What planet do you come from?
October 14, 2012 2:15pm
Alas, the 1965 immigration bill opened the floodgates for family members, not just the highly skilled professionals JFK and others thought it would bring. I'm in complete agreement with you that US culture cannot sustain itself against the wave of poor people from all over the world who take the Statue of Liberty at her word...The bill holds us to our values, but maybe it's time to worry about how we can remain who we are or who we think we are. I live in S. Florida where Cubans (and Creoles and assorted non-Cuban Lationos) rule, using their experience in Batista's Cuba and other dictatorships. The rule of law is a joke; not only are traffic laws not enforced, corruption (long a problem in S Fla before the Cubans became its chief beneficiaries) is rampant and engulfs black, non-Latino white and Latinos. Florida's governor, though CEO of a chain of hospitals that he founded, professed ignorance of massive Medicare fraud, took his fat golden parachute and bought the governorship. He's Caucasian from some place like Indiana. Once criminality becomes common and accepted, it spreads to everyone. The Cubans have a massive underground economy that contributes nothing to the US treasury, though Cubans get every government dole imaginable. Get lost in Miami, and you wont' find an English-speaker to give you directions. At least half of Comcast's channels in Miami are in Spanish, many presenting half-nude women, raucous , vulgar "comedians" and Spanish versions of Fox News. Taxpayers foot the bill for bilingual education, for translators for Latinos who are called to testify in court but don't speak English, on and on. More than half of drivers in Miami have no license and no car insurance; vehicle insurance fraud (staging of accidents to get a payoff) are so plentiful that the GOP Legislature passed legislation to try to stop it. And Latinos, most of them poor and unskilled, have pushed into all parts of the country. How can US culture sustain itself against the force of millions who've never heard of the First Amendment and whose idea of "democracy" was formed in a dictatorship?