Western Civilization as Dialogue, Not Rupture, with the Past

In his recent article “What Do Conservatives Mean by ‘Western Civilization’?”, Providence editor James Diddams notes how contrasting remarks from Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez reveal a tension: there is no firm definition of “Western civilization,” yet the concept enables people with different philosophical precepts to unite around policy goals defending said civilization.

I propose instead that a definition of “Western civilization” exists, one firm enough to ground the multiplicity of projects aimed at its defense while still loose enough to contend with its myriad opponents—thinkers who, as Diddams illustrates, were rooted in European history and culture yet defended ideas that seem inimical to any coherent or defensible notion of the West. It is my contention that Western civilization is best understood as a mostly unbroken dialogue of ideas and their embodied application.

That mostly is important. I’ll return to it presently.

This idea of Western civilization as a dialogue was articulated by Robert M. Hutchins in his essay The Great Conversation , written initially as the introduction for the Great Books of the Western World collection published by Encyclopedia Britannica in 1952. Hutchins writes:

The tradition of the West is embodied in the Great Conversation that began in the dawn of history and that continues to the present day. Whatever the merits of other civilizations in other respects… no other civilization can claim that its defining characteristic is a dialogue of this sort. No dialogue in any other civilization can compare with that of the West in the number of great works of the mind that have contributed to this dialogue. The goal toward which Western society moves is the Civilization of the Dialogue. The spirit of Western civilization is the spirit of inquiry. Its dominant element is the LOGOS. Nothing is to remain undiscussed. Everybody is to speak his mind. No proposition is to be left unexamined.

As in any lengthy dialogue, when the Great Conversation is distilled to its essence one will find recurring themes and ideas. These ideas recur as later authors engage with those who come before them: Bertrand Russell engages with René Descartes; Descartes engages Hobbes; Hobbes, Aquinas; Aquinas, Aristotle; Aristotle, Homer. Elements of the ideas put forth by earlier authors find their proliferation, expansion, and sometimes refutation in those who come later.

Hutchins’ conception of Western civilization is not perfect (by his own admission), but expanding that conception as “a mostly unbroken dialogue of ideas and their embodied application” does a lot of work to resolve the tension that Diddams expresses. Embodied application casts a wide net to include not just literature, but also art, architecture, government, religion, and any other cultural artifact of the West. Each field is a dialogue with its predecessors, ultimately grounded in a dialogue of ideas. This also leaves plenty of room for individuals with different philosophical precepts to propose widely differing policies, united around the theme of continuing the dialogue.

Here’s where that mostly comes in.

For the second edition of the Great Books of the Western World , Mortimer J. Adler, general editor of the Great Books of the Western World , penned a follow-up to Hutchins’ essay. In The Great Conversation Revisited , he makes this ominous observation:

…we must call attention to a striking fact about the 20th-century additions to the second edition of Great Books of the Western World. There is a clear break between this century and the twenty-five centuries that precede it in the tradition of Western civilization. There are signs of discontinuity that do not show themselves in any of the preceding centuries. The unbroken continuity of the great conversation from Homer down to the end of the 19th century nearly stops there…innovations, departures, and novelties occur, discrepancies become marked, denials and dissidences are stressed that had not surfaced in any other century.

Adler defends his claim by referring to the vast number of revisions that had to be made for the second edition of the Syntopicon , the index of great ideas that is the cornerstone of the Great Books of the Western World. Unfortunately he does not name specific examples, nor detail what the discontinuities are.

Yet we can infer perpetrators. Take Heidegger, one of the authors mentioned by Diddams, who was also one of the authors Adler and his team added to the second edition of the Great Books collection. In his essay On Metaphysics , Heidegger takes a radical departure from previous philosophers in defining “Nothing” as ontologically prior to being:

Does Nothing “exist” only because the Not, i.e., negation exits? Or is it the other way about? Does negation and the Not exist only because Nothing exists? This has not been decided–indeed, it has not even been explicitly asked. We assert: “Nothing” is more original than the Not and negation.

And the way we know “Nothing” is through dread (Angst):

Does there ever occur in human existence a mood [so particularly revelatory in its import] through which we are brought face to face with Nothing itself? This may and actually does occur, albeit rather seldom and for moments only, in the key-mood of dread (Angst)…Dread reveals Nothing.

In short: Nothing is ontologically prior to Being, and we know Nothing not through rationality, but through mood.

These are staggering departures from preceding conceptions of nothingness and rationality. Even the epistemically uncertain Descartes refused to reject them: Cogito ergo sum , “I think, therefore I am,” is a rational argument for the existence of the mind. Even if nothing else exists, there is something doing the thinking, and we have direct access to it.

The social implications of Heidegger’s dread are equally staggering, with the last decade of transgender madness in law and policy only its latest form. Like the sense of dread acquainting one with Nothing, only one’s sense of “true self” is valid for determining one’s gender.

But Heidegger’s (and others’) departure from their predecessors also draws a sharp line between those we read “for pedagogical purposes” versus those we “lionize as integral to our civilizational self-understanding,” to rephrase the question Diddams asks in his article. The line is between those who continue the dialogue of the past and those who break from it. Continuing the dialogue requires a disposition of humility: as we develop answers to the questions of our day, we are obliged to engage with the thinkers who came before us, recognizing when their insights into reality can shape our own.

Neither the radical left nor the radical right possess such a disposition. Both represent a twofold break from the past: first by claiming that the fundamental questions of reality have been solved, and then in asserting that ultimate reality is nothing but a reflection of power dynamics. For Marxian-influenced thinkers, the only legitimate political goal is thus the pursuit of equality across not only economic classes, but any group where there is a perceived disparity in power. Critical Theory is necessary to determine which group identity (sexuality, race, indigeneity, etc.) is the most oppressed, and therefore the most entitled to the spoils of redistribution. The far right draws the opposite conclusion: that the strongest group (defined in terms as equally dubious as those of Critical Theory) must unapologetically dominate all others. To do so is not good or evil, but beyond such categories. The emergence of ideas purporting to “solve” reality with reference to power left in their wake a century of destruction by breaking from the continuity of the moral and political dialogue that defined the West.

Understanding Western civilization as a dialogue is a highly flexible and (with respect to ideas) ecumenical way to account for the history of the West and its future propagation. It begins amid pre-Christian paganism, continues through the inestimable influence of Christianity, and is questioned by postmodern revolutionaries. In all cases the dialogue persists. Just as those who came before us passed their hard-won wisdom to us via the dialogue, we can continue the dialogue of Western civilization with clear-headed reasoning, humble correction, and faithful Christian stewardship.