The Survival of Culture: Permanent Values in a Virtual Age [Paperback]

Hilton Kramer (Editor), Roger Kimball (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 11, 2002

Can the cultural values that have distinguished Western civilization survive the present-day preoccupation with relativism and the quest for pleasure? In this important and wide-ranging collection of essays, ten distinguished critics reflect on the direction of our society, emphasizing both the dangers that threaten our institutions and the vivifying survivals that are worthy of being cherished and nurtured. Among the contributors, Robert H. Bork considers the contemporary assaults on the tradition of law; Anthony Daniels, the English doctor and essayist, finds that he must defend the venerable principle that physicians traditionally subscribe to: “First do no harm”; Roger Kimball assesses the prospects of high culture; Hilton Kramer writes on the future of criticism; Kenneth Minogue shows how Western society has increasingly fallen prey to a “new Epicureanism”; Eric Ormsby warns of the fate of research libraries in the age of the Internet; David Pryce-Jones takes a hard look at the way the bureaucratic imperatives of the European Union are undermining freedom and democracy; Diana Schaub investigates the values of Generation X; Mark Steyn defends Western values against the anti-Western, anti-democratic forces that operate within the West itself; and Keith Windschuttle shows how efforts to alter the historical record threaten the very survival of culture. In all, The Survival of Culture provides a critical fever chart of our age, plotting the health of our cultural institutions and mounting a powerful attack on their adversaries. Drawn from the pages of The New Criterion, these vividly written essays are guaranteed to spark controversy and debate.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The essays in this collection, drawn from a special series of the same name in the conservative journal the New Criterion, which Kramer and Kimball edit, are united by a common theme: the struggle to uphold traditional Western values-those embracing individualism and capitalist democracy-in the face of "the encroaching desert of mindless conformity and rancorous political correctness." These values, according to the authors, are under attack in the media, the political arena, universities and cultural institutions. The essays focus on a range of subjects, from Robert Bork's piece on the influence of politics on the judiciary and Mark Steyn's scathing indictment of the U.N. conference on racism in Durban to Martin Greenberg's look at the writings of political philosopher Edmund Burke. Though some contributions are tightly focused and provocative, like Keith Windschuttle's "The Culture War on Western Civilization," which argues against conventional wisdom about Europe's imperialism and aggression, other pieces are uneven. Intriguing arguments are sometimes obscured by hyperbole (one writer calls the European Union a totalitarian system) or get lost in overly broad laments about the decline of civilization, with blame placed at the feet of such familiar conservative target as the "Euro-left" and Jesse Jackson. Still, though the essays themselves are a mixed bag, the book should be applauded for its attempt to stimulate debate, which it surely will among those who read it.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

Important. (Washington Times )

Lively, smart, and thought-provoking...caustic, sometimes funny jeremiads.... This book has much to offer and is recommended. (Library Journal )

Insightful.... Interesting. (Weekly Standard )

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Ivan R Dee (November 11, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1566634652
• ISBN-13: 978-1566634656
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,401,391 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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38 of 42 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The survival of culture is never sure; nor is its defeat., April 2, 2003

By 

David Light (Maynard, MA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Survival of Culture: Permanent Values in a Virtual Age (Paperback)

So writes Roger Kimball in this book's final paragraph. This collection of ten essays seeks to stave off the latter through discussions of what is permanent in politics, art, law, medicine, education, and social values.

As a collection of essays, the book is naturally somewhat uneven; some of the pieces have a much broader range than others, and the tone varies widely from one to another.

Worth the price of the book is Mark Steyn's hilarious and brilliant polemic on "the West's anti-Westernism." In examples that might make one weep if they weren't so funny, he describes how a remarkable variety of people from the West have bent over backward and forward to apologize for all sorts of supposed crimes against an ever-increasing roster of victims.

Others to single out include the one by Robert Bork. If you're a recovering liberal, you'll read this essay at first with a touch of queasy fascination that will then become enthusiastic head-nodding, as Bork explains just how in the name of Hollywood we have, in a short generation, come to the point where pornography and obscenity are fully privileged (and thus everwhere visible and audible) and any expression of religious faith in the public square has become Verboten (and thus everywhere hidden and inaudible).

In addition, Keith Windschuttle, whose subject matter overlaps to some degree with Mark Steyn's, rebuts the views of Edward Said and his Orientalism; Roger Kimball, among many other things, illustrates why we should be re-reading Matthew Arnold and ignoring Susan Sontag; and Kenneth Minogue, in discussing what he calls "the new Epicureans," shows how the modern "avoidance of the burdensome" has led people to forgo the responsibilities of marriage and family.

Looking over the table of contents again, I can find only two essays that I found either hard to penetrate (in one case) or narrow in scope (in another).

Although there's no recipe in this book purporting to contain the magic ingredients needed for the survival of culture, the essays as a whole will help readers think through, and resist, the assault on permanent values.

4.5 stars.