Next in a continuing series.
A. Must Read Articles
1) McClay, “Whig History at Eighty”
An excellent discussion of Butterfield’s The Whig Interpretation of History. “Whig history’” is now a term of disdain, indicating someone who sees history as simply a gradual march of progress leading to that best of all possible worlds, the modern world. When you see history as a fight between the Progressive, Enlightened Souls who argued that the world should look like it does today and the Enemy who fought against the Progressive Enlightened types, you are a Whig Historian. (And you don’t want to be that.) Butterfield argued that historians should spend time looking at everyone, not just the winners. McClay does a fantastic job showing that a) Butterfield helped end a really bad practice among historians, but also, b) inadvertently helped fuel the nihilistic, postmodern history we see today. Butterfield would be appalled at modern history too. Butterfield didn’t like Whig histories for their imposition of modern beliefs onto the past, because they put the historian in the place of God, evaluating everything according to the historian’s beliefs with an underlying presumption that the historian’s beliefs are the right beliefs. But, modern history has gone to the other side, abandoning belief altogether (well at least in historians’ official statements—actual practice varies). Butterfield wouldn't have liked that either—he wanted historians to look beyond the winners because God looks beyond the winners. As McClay put it, Butterfield is saying that historians should “aspire to have the mind of God rather than merely discern God’s intentions.” That is, to put it mildly, both presumptuous and a bit beyond human capability. So, in the question McClay doesn’t answer: Is it better to be an old-style Whig historian or a new-style nihilistic historian? Surely McClay would argue for a third path, but if forced to choose, which is better? And which would Butterfield choose? Given that choice, I think the Whig historians aren’t too bad.
2) Hart, “Whooshing Through Life”
A review of Dreyfus and Kelly’s All Things Shining: Reading the Western Classics to Find Meaning in a Secular Age. With a title like that, I probably would have eventually read the book being reviewed. Hart has done an invaluable service by saving me from that fate. The quick review: “An oddly empty book: It asks so many seemingly deep questions, and then provides such incandescently shallow answers.” The Western Classics Dreyfus and Kelly have in minds are Homer’s epics. And the thing we can learn from Homer: he had lots and lots of gods. Since we, in the modern world, have moved beyond monotheism, we can look back to Homer to learn how to live in a world without one God. We can live in a world with lots of gods, well, expect that we don’t believe in the gods of Homer either. So, we can live in a world where we have beliefs in lots of gods without actually believing in gods. How does this work? Well, for example, Homer’s heroes feel gratitude toward lots of different gods. So, we can feel grateful to lots of different gods, but since there isn’t actually a set of gods to whom we can feel grateful, we get a Homerian gratitude without the gods. And as long as you don’t think about that too much, maybe it will sound like an excellent idea. We can all be grateful and that is good, right? Just ignore the fact that gratitude necessarily requires both a subject and an object and we are all good. Hart’s review is nice because it illustrates another aspect of the problem with the modern world—having rejected God and gods, people still want to believe in something, anything—so why not a polytheistic world without the theist part?
B) Worth Reading Once
1) Meilaender, “The Business of Medicine”
A review of Elliott, White Coat, Black Hat; Adventures on the Dark Side of Medicine. Meilaender’s review does little to convince me that Elliott’s book isn’t sensationalist. But, I did learn something really interesting. Drug companies need people on whom to test drugs—and there has arisen a set of what can only be called professional drug testers, people who repeatedly offer themselves for drug testing. Who knew? Now, I have a new career to suggest to students who despair about never being able to find a job; I can’t wait to casually say, “Well, you could become a professional drug tester.” That will have even better shock value that saying, “McDonalds is hiring.” [And, by the way, the McDonalds line has forced many a student over the years to realize that her employment prospects aren’t really as bleak as she imagined—after all, no Mount Holyoke Student needs to descend to the depths of the McDonalds’ kitchen for employment.]
2) George, “Reading the Bible With the Reformers”
The parts of this article that were good were not really all that insightful; if I had never once thought about reading the Bible with attention to church history, then the article may have been more interesting. But, the thing that elevates George’s article to the status of being worth reading once is the incredibly bizarre part of the article. George isn’t satisfied with showing that the Reformers had a more nuanced view of Scripture than the anti-intellectual parts of 20th century protestants. Instead, he wants to wrap the Reformers up in the postmodern movement—you see, those postmoderns also reject those anti-intellectual 20th century interpretations. So Luther and Calvin, well, they are just like those postmodern scholars. Pity the poor postmodern theologians—not only is their project intellectually bankrupt, but in a desperate attempt to give some respectability to their views, now they have to claim that Luther and Calvin are really just like them. Calvin the postmodern scholar? Now that is humor.
3) Oakes, “Newman’s Ideal University”
A nice enough article, I suppose. It isn’t clear what it adds if you have read Newman, but it is a nice summary of Newman, and since Newman is interesting, the article was worth reading.
4) Howard, “The Dialectic and the Double Helix”
See the previous item; replace “Newman” with “the relationship of Church and State in European and American Politics.”
Two additional notes:
1) At last! This issue acknowledges the editorial changes at First Things.
2) My subscription ran out with this issue. But, since Reno has not yet taken the helm, I still have no idea what he will do with it. Curiosity is a powerful motive. So, I renewed for another year. May this not be the triumph of Hope over Experience.
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