VIEWSrnTo Hell With Culturernby John LukacsrnChroniclesrn’sfBiUe iFM . .1J i . . . 1. : •; • :it> •- 1 •:•• • . . . ! . ”inrnAFTER LITERACYrnEDUCATION INrn^M^rnw^ ^rni, HPII’I |8lw”^^5^^^i?^^S^rnThe corruption of man,” Emerson wrote, “is followed byrnthe corruption of language.” The reverse is true, and arncentury later Georges Bernanos had it right: “The worst, thernmost corrupting lies are problems wrongly stated.” How pertinentrnthis is about so many matters present, including the use ofrnthe word culture. My conservative friends now say that with thernmonstrous perils of communism gone, the main problems ofrnthis country are cultural. They mean multiculturalism, andrnother allied matters, too: the counterculture, rap culture, poprnculture, media culture, the cultural elite, the culture of violence,rnetc., etc. They mean well (at least some of them do), butrntheir language is wrong and, consequently, so is their thinking.rnWhen people speak of “multiculturalism,” what they reallyrnmean is multicivilization, whose proponents want the coexistencernof altogether different civilizations within the same country.rnOnly: Wliat kind of coexistence? The same goes for thernother terms, which are even more meaningless. Think, for instance,rnof that current cliche: “the culture of violence.” It is notrnviolence that threatens us; it is the prevalence of savagery. It isrnnot the state of culture that we should lament; it is the breakdownrnoicivilization. This is not a semantic argument. Can onernspeak of a civilization of violence (or of savagcr)-)? No, becausernthe opposite of civilization is barbarism, whereas the opposite ofrnculture i s . . . well, nature.rn. . . The ancients had no word for culture. They had otherrnwords: civic and civility, which . . . were the antitheses of barbarityrnand barbarism. “Culture” . . . meant cultivation. For arnlong time it was inseparable from agriculture; it was appliedrnmetaphorically to the cultivation of minds. “Civilize,” in En-rn]ohn Lukacs is an historian and author, most recently, of FivernDays in London: May 1940 (Yale University Press). A longerrnversion of this article first appeared in the September 1994 issue.rnglish, appears first in 1601: “to make civil; to bring out of a staternof barbarism; to instruct in the arts of life; to enlighten and refine.”rnFor the present idea of “culture” we may thank the Germans.rnThey developed the idea that Kultur was higher thanrn7Jvilisation. German heavy thinkers such as Spengler hammeredrnaway at this: Civilization is mechanical (and artificial);rnculture is spiritual (and organic). He worked on his Decline ofrnthe West during World War I, when many Germans were convincingrnthemselves that they were a Kulturvolk, a people of culture,rnsuperior to a nation of shopkeepers, the English, who werernonly civilized. Wliere this idea got the Germans we know, orrnought to know. Wliere this notion has got us at the end of the 20thrncentury—and especially in America—we ought to think about.rnA hundred years ago, intellectuals (a distinct group of peoplernbeginning to form then) were inclined to accept the superiorit)’rnof cidture over civilization, for more reasons than we do now.rnMatthew Arnold suggested it powerfully in “Dover Beach.”rnWliat he could not yet see was the evolution—or the devolu-rnHon —of intellectuals, convinced as the latter were that the superiorit)’rnof culture over civilization was represented bv their superiorityrnover the philistines. Yet we can see that intellectualsrnmay become, or indeed be, even less civilized than arernphilisfines. (Especially when intellectuals promote all kinds ofrnbarbarisms of their own.) In any event, American intellectualsrn—perhaps particularly because of their feeling of isolafionrnfrom other Americans—were especially inclined to accept andrnpropagate this culture-civilization antithesis: Yes, American civilizationrnmay have been the most advanced in the world whenrnit came to housing, heating, pkmibing, transporting, producing;rnbut American culture had yet to catch up. Well, Americanrncivilization is no longer the most advanced in the world,rnwhile —or, perhaps, because—American culture has caughtrnup. Intellectuals have often lamented the inadequacy of Amer-rnJULY 2001/13rnrnrn