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The workings of Western intelligence in our day--whether in politics or the arts, in the humanities or the church--are as troubling as they are mysterious, leading to the questions: Where are we going? What in the world were we thinking? By exploring the history of four ''cultures'' so deeply embedded in Western history that we rarely see their instrumental role in politics, religion, education, and the arts, this timely book provides a broad framework for addressing these questions in a fresh way.
The cultures considered here originated in the ancient world, took on Christian forms, and manifest themselves today in more secular ways. These are, as John W. O'Malley identifies them: the prophetic culture that proclaims the need for radical change in the structures of society (represented by, for example, Jeremiah, Martin Luther, and Martin Luther King, Jr.); the academic culture that seeks instead to understand those structures (Aristotle, Aquinas, the modern university); the humanistic culture that addresses fundamental human issues and works for the common good of society (Cicero, Erasmus, and Eleanor Roosevelt); and the culture of art and performance that celebrates the mystery of the human condition (Phidias, Michelangelo, Balanchine).
By showing how these cultures, as modes of activity and discourse in which Western intelligence has manifested itself through the centuries and continues to do so, O'Malley produces an essay that especially through the history of Christianity brilliantly illuminates the larger history of the West.
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Sweeping in scope, warm and conversational in tone, Four Cultures of the West deftly rearranges our picture of Western cultural, religious, and intellectual history. Inspired by Tertullian's question, 'What does Athens have to do with Jerusalem?', O'Malley traces the coexistence from classical times to the present of four styles of discourse he calls cultures: prophecy and reform; the academy and professions; humanism and poetry; the arts and performance. Each culture found its great protagonists: Isaiah and Luther typify the uncompromising prophets-- Jerusalem; on the Athenian side, Plato and Aristotle's analytical rigor gave birth to academia; Homer and Erasmus expressed the literary essence of humanism; the arts took shape under Phidias, Michelangelo, and the creators of iconography, liturgy, and architecture. O'Malley demonstrates how these cultures jostled one another down the ages, sometimes interacting with suspicion, sometimes outright conflict. A respected church historian, he draws his most vivid examples from the sixteenth century, when all four cultures came brilliantly to the fore during the Renaissance and its debate between scholasticism and humanism. He touches more lightly on how each culture manifested itself in secular dress down to the present day, but the persuasiveness of his paradigm is such that a multitude of examples spring readily to mind. O'Malley succeeds, in the most convincing way, in making us think; his 'invitation to reflection' we enthusiastically accept.
Sweeping in scope, warm and conversational in tone, Four Cultures of the West deftly rearranges our picture of Western cultural, religious, and intellectual history. Inspired by Tertullian's question, 'What does Athens have to do with Jerusalem?', O'Malley traces the coexistence from classical times to the present of four styles of discourse he calls cultures: prophecy and reform; the academy and professions; humanism and poetry; the arts and performance. Each culture found its great protagonists: Isaiah and Luther typify the uncompromising prophets-- Jerusalem; on the Athenian side, Plato and Aristotle's analytical rigor gave birth to academia; Homer and Erasmus expressed the literary essence of humanism; the arts took shape under Phidias, Michelangelo, and the creators of iconography, liturgy, and architecture. O'Malley demonstrates how these cultures jostled one another down the ages, sometimes interacting with suspicion, sometimes outright conflict. A respected church historian, he draws his most vivid examples from the sixteenth century, when all four cultures came brilliantly to the fore during the Renaissance and its debate between scholasticism and humanism. He touches more lightly on how each culture manifested itself in secular dress down to the present day, but the persuasiveness of his paradigm is such that a multitude of examples spring readily to mind. O'Malley succeeds, in the most convincing way, in making us think; his 'invitation to reflection' we enthusiastically accept.
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