The picture painted by Carpeaux in his essay The Idea of the University and the Ideas of the Middle Classes is impressively current. The situation, moreover, has only worsened. The “regression of an elite to the condition of a mass adorned with academic titles” is a consummate phenomenon in the West. This is largely due to this tendency toward specializations, both necessary and destructive, which has pushed high culture into limbo and curtailed the possibilities for the common individual who, as soon as he gets to know himself, finds himself more often than not crushed by the empire of necessity, which today takes up such a large part of his life that it would have seemed absurd in times past for someone called “free”. Universities, in keeping with today’s trend, teach professions and make careers possible: that is what the market demands. Cultural education is no longer part of the scope of the courses, and so the student leaves secondary school today semi-literate to spend the rest of his life without hearing a single word about history or literature. Universities grow, a huge mass of people graduate, specialize, collect academic titles and gain prestige, money, recognition; “but, in general, these masses of graduates are distinguished from the illiterate only by a professional authority that makes them less useful than dangerous.” It is a disaster.
Tag: literature
Eckermann’s Goethe
I let Eckermann’s Goethe speak while my mind is taken by a whirlwind of comments by Nietzsche, Jung, and Cioran. And I oscillate while Goethe talks about art and a thousand other subjects, sometimes enjoying his words, sometimes experiencing a complete strangeness. A complex and admirable spirit, no doubt. But a spirit from whom I think I am estranged, by inclinations and by the very conception of poetry, the poet and art. Goethe’s greatness as an artist and as a man is unquestionable. However, one could add here a truckload of reservations, which fortunately are not necessary because they are already present in Jung’s work.
Conversations of Goethe, by Eckermann
This forced, pomp-filled, literary modesty, so much to the taste of the praise-seekers, has nothing to do with modesty and looks more like vanity. Virtue, if authentic, is spontaneous. Simulated humility pleases as much as a false note. That said, the sympathy that true modesty can inspire is remarkable. Such is the case in these admirable Conversations of Goethe by Eckermann. From the very beginning, the author introduces himself to us with utterly unpretentious simplicity. He tells us succinctly and without dramatizing his origins, and conducts the work with a sincerity worthy of the highest appreciation. It is to be regretted that, even so, it has been shot through with ironies. But true virtue is inevitably envied by those who lack it. Eckermann is humble, simply humble, and his lines are pleasing, above all, because of the naturalness with which they present elevated themes. For form and content, it is a work worthy of the most sincere praise.
The Bon-Vivant Artist
Says Burckhardt, in my English translation:
Indeed, without this degree of force of character, the man of the most brilliant “talent” is either a fool or a knave. All great masters have, first and foremost, learned, and never ceased to learn, and to learn requires very great resolution when a man has once reached heights of greatness and can create easily and brilliantly. Further, every later stage is achieved only by a terrible struggle with the fresh tasks they set themselves.
“Force of character”, “never ceased to learn”, “terrible struggle”… here is a sensible view of the state of mind that produces great works. It is really a joke this romanticized view of the bon-vivant artist, so widespread these days. According to it, the exercise of art is a pleasure, a diversion for idle moments. An artist of this sort is, if anything, mediocre. Faced with the posture of a serious artist, even the much-talked “search for beauty” seems outrageously futile. All this idealization of the artist and art does not seem to define very well the real motivation of the one who devotes a huge effort, who shapes his entire existence around his own occupation, never relaxing, never satisfied, contrary to what is convenient for him. Burckhardt, like a few, gives us a prudent vision of what true greatness represents.