Wes Callihan explains what he (and C.S. Lewis) mean by "Old Western Culture. Find out about the Old Western Culture curriculum here: www.oldwesternculture.com
I think there is a great body of work supporting the idea that western culture is NOT insular; other cultures have had definitely had a vast influence on what we now call the western canon….
I agree completely. Notice I didn't argue that western culture *is* insular - the influence of the Ancient Near East, Islam, Indian, Chinese, and Japanese culture, and even of native American cultures are obvious at all points in western civilization. No culture is ever without external influences. I simply argued that there has always been an identifiable body of tradition called "western culture" that has been central in the education and formation of its citizens in the Mediterranean and European world, just as *every* culture focuses primarily on it own cultural values in the formation of its people. That doesn't deny the existence of other influences or their value.
I just went back and realize that I said those other cultures, of the ANE and the far East for example, while valuable, didn't influence our culture. That's wrong - they did influence them, as you rightly pointed out. But that doesn't change the fact that there is a western canon, it's just to point out that the canon has *causes*, which is of course true of everything. In many other lectures in this series, I mention those outside influences.
@@wjcallihan Your original point was (which I believe still to be correct) is that Western culture was primarily influenced by Greco-Roman culture and much less by others simply because Egyptian, Sumerian, Indian or Chinese works were not translated until recently. Do you still agree with that?
Oh this is nice! I love learning about different cultures! Just for the sake of learning, without any expectations or biases or politically correct agendas. The topics outlined here are useful to begin with. Thank you!
Jorge, I agree, and even this curriculum touches the early American period with Tocqueville's Democracy in America. We would consider anything less than 200 years to be "suspiciously new" in terms of properly viewing them as "great books," but that's not to say even new publications are not worth reading (they are!), nor that some won't become "great books" and part of the canon of the "great books." We just don't know which ones. Wes Callihan makes the case about Austen's books - specifically that they are just barely old enough in his view to properly and safely be considered "great books." I would venture to add the Lord of the Rings, extremely recent, yet bearing enough evidence of cultural impact that I think we can safely assume their place in the canon.
I agree and I am a fan as Catholic of your work! I just want to added Egypt had a larger effect on Greece especially being far older and this point is often missed
@@romanroads For Egypt: The Book of Ptahhotep, and the Epics of Gilgamesh for Mesopotamia.(These are better for adults) Those are solids books from early human civilization. Just a suggestion but keep up the great work! 🙏
No need to yikes. :) Things have indeed changed regarding the canon. But I was not arguing in this lecture not that things have not changed. I was arguing that the old perceptions about the canon are what shaped our civilization, and to know that old tradition is to know one's inheritance, whatever one thinks of it.
Revolution. We became sovereign! No longer a ruling king, emperor etc. over us. We the people are primarily accountable to God, and in that accountability we are our brothers keeper. The 60's started to destroy this accountability, "God is dead". The sovereign attitude today is; I can become a god. Because of this new " reality", we are watching society disintegrate into madness. Woke is the new awakening!
it all begins with overthrowing rulers appointed by God. Its an analogy to satan wanting to overthrow God. What business is it of yours who is "in charge"? follow God, trust in God.
Muslim thought was also read by the old West, as well as writing by people such as Maimonides from the Jewish thought. But overall, I like your approach, even though it lacks some parts of western culture
I agree to a certain point, but some of this just came across as Christian propaganda. I think paganism and to an extent, secularism (so long as at least an archetypal/allegorical concept of sacred/profane can be maintained), can also be a path to Old Western Values, so long as we don't take the idea that humans are above all else (where humanism often goes wrong). I think you can embrace Enlightenment Values and still preserve Western culture. Both pre-modern (c. pre-1750s) and classical liberal/Enlightenment values (think American Revolution, not so much French Revolution, which actually looks more like Marxism before Marx) have their good and bad sides and both are far superior to the chaos and cultural nihilism and cynicism of post-modernism (think the Woke movement).
Actually, I talk about that a lot in other lectures in this series. It did indeed have a huge impact on western culture and anyone would be a fool to ignore it. So I don't. :) I appreciate your comment!
Man. Someone will always find fault with something, lol. It's not *meant* to be heavyweight, amigo. It's meant to be an introduction. If you want heavy duty, I can point you to other resources. But I suspect you'd find fault with them too.
You're smelling something else, then. :) If you lay your assumptions aside and actually listen to the lectures, I never once argue that European culture is the "center" of anything other than European culture, or better than other cultures. I talk about European culture because it's what most of us in Europe and America have inherited and what has heavily shaped us, whether we are Americans or Europeans ethnically or not, and whether we like that culture or not. It's like knowing your family history generations back - they might be good or they might be evil but *knowing* your family history is immensely valuable for understanding yourself. Societies, like individuals, benefit from knowing their heritage first, before studying other cultures. You can't claim to love your neighbors if you despise your own family, and in the same way, someone who claims to appreciate other cultures but despises their own without making the effort to at least familiarize themselves with it, doesn't understand what it means to appreciate *any* culture.
I'll add that I answered this objection in 4:33-6:02. I specifically said that other civilizations were highly sophisticated and valuable and that we don't study our culture because it's perfect, but because it's *ours*. Other cultures are not perfect, either, yet we should study them. But this series is not meant to cover *everything*, it's meant to be an introduction to *our* culture, from which one can move on in any other direction they wish.
@@wjcallihan I appreciate that you are responding to these even though they went cold a while ago Mr. Calihan. Makes me think that you care about the value of the content even for people who probably don't want to listen. It is also important to know these things because not only are they relevant for those who want to understand the world, and in the case of many, what shaped them, but also because there are universally valuable things taught therein. People ought to know why a phrase like, "I am Aeneas, duty-bound" has importance for every man, regardless of background. Western-ness is incidental in this case because it is the goodness of the thing that we want. Good miniature lecture.
Awesome!!!
fantastic!
I think there is a great body of work supporting the idea that western culture is NOT insular; other cultures have had definitely had a vast influence on what we now call the western canon….
I agree completely. Notice I didn't argue that western culture *is* insular - the influence of the Ancient Near East, Islam, Indian, Chinese, and Japanese culture, and even of native American cultures are obvious at all points in western civilization. No culture is ever without external influences. I simply argued that there has always been an identifiable body of tradition called "western culture" that has been central in the education and formation of its citizens in the Mediterranean and European world, just as *every* culture focuses primarily on it own cultural values in the formation of its people. That doesn't deny the existence of other influences or their value.
I just went back and realize that I said those other cultures, of the ANE and the far East for example, while valuable, didn't influence our culture. That's wrong - they did influence them, as you rightly pointed out. But that doesn't change the fact that there is a western canon, it's just to point out that the canon has *causes*, which is of course true of everything. In many other lectures in this series, I mention those outside influences.
@@wjcallihan Your original point was (which I believe still to be correct) is that Western culture was primarily influenced by Greco-Roman culture and much less by others simply because Egyptian, Sumerian, Indian or Chinese works were not translated until recently. Do you still agree with that?
@@danesovic7585 yes, I do.
Oh this is nice! I love learning about different cultures! Just for the sake of learning, without any expectations or biases or politically correct agendas.
The topics outlined here are useful to begin with. Thank you!
where can I get your books/ Courses on this series 'Old Western Culture' ?
I just saw this! (one year later...). See oldwesternculture.com !
I don’t consider myself a Christian, but I largely agree with the sentiment here. A great books education is hard to beat.
I would also add that learn about the history of the Americas is also part of our culture now.
Jorge, I agree, and even this curriculum touches the early American period with Tocqueville's Democracy in America. We would consider anything less than 200 years to be "suspiciously new" in terms of properly viewing them as "great books," but that's not to say even new publications are not worth reading (they are!), nor that some won't become "great books" and part of the canon of the "great books." We just don't know which ones.
Wes Callihan makes the case about Austen's books - specifically that they are just barely old enough in his view to properly and safely be considered "great books." I would venture to add the Lord of the Rings, extremely recent, yet bearing enough evidence of cultural impact that I think we can safely assume their place in the canon.
I agree and I am a fan as Catholic of your work! I just want to added Egypt had a larger effect on Greece especially being far older and this point is often missed
I don't disagree, yet I'm not familiar with many works from the Egyptians available today. Is this oversight, or are they sparse?
@@romanroads For Egypt: The Book of Ptahhotep, and the Epics of Gilgamesh for Mesopotamia.(These are better for adults) Those are solids books from early human civilization. Just a suggestion but keep up the great work! 🙏
Some Yikes moments in here, I literally lol'd. It's amazing how things have changed regarding western canon.
No need to yikes. :) Things have indeed changed regarding the canon. But I was not arguing in this lecture not that things have not changed. I was arguing that the old perceptions about the canon are what shaped our civilization, and to know that old tradition is to know one's inheritance, whatever one thinks of it.
Revolution. We became sovereign! No longer a ruling king, emperor etc. over us. We the people are primarily accountable to God, and in that accountability we are our brothers keeper. The 60's started to destroy this accountability, "God is dead". The sovereign attitude today is; I can become a god. Because of this new " reality", we are watching society disintegrate into madness. Woke is the new awakening!
it all begins with overthrowing rulers appointed by God. Its an analogy to satan wanting to overthrow God. What business is it of yours who is "in charge"? follow God, trust in God.
Muslim thought was also read by the old West, as well as writing by people such as Maimonides from the Jewish thought. But overall, I like your approach, even though it lacks some parts of western culture
I agree to a certain point, but some of this just came across as Christian propaganda. I think paganism and to an extent, secularism (so long as at least an archetypal/allegorical concept of sacred/profane can be maintained), can also be a path to Old Western Values, so long as we don't take the idea that humans are above all else (where humanism often goes wrong). I think you can embrace Enlightenment Values and still preserve Western culture. Both pre-modern (c. pre-1750s) and classical liberal/Enlightenment values (think American Revolution, not so much French Revolution, which actually looks more like Marxism before Marx) have their good and bad sides and both are far superior to the chaos and cultural nihilism and cynicism of post-modernism (think the Woke movement).
What about the huge impact of Islamic civilization on western culture? You seem to skip that part in history.
Nobody cares about that lol
Actually, I talk about that a lot in other lectures in this series. It did indeed have a huge impact on western culture and anyone would be a fool to ignore it. So I don't. :) I appreciate your comment!
Lightweight
Man. Someone will always find fault with something, lol. It's not *meant* to be heavyweight, amigo. It's meant to be an introduction. If you want heavy duty, I can point you to other resources. But I suspect you'd find fault with them too.
Western Culture being linked to this Judeo-Christian heritage would not make it Western Culture period.
rubbish.
Ignoring 2000 years of thought (roughly), in the West, as shaped by biblical and church teaching, is laughable.
@@Youtuube304s holding on to something that is no where near European in thought or spirit for over 2000 years is extremely laughable
I can pretty much smell the eurocentrism on this man.
You're smelling something else, then. :) If you lay your assumptions aside and actually listen to the lectures, I never once argue that European culture is the "center" of anything other than European culture, or better than other cultures. I talk about European culture because it's what most of us in Europe and America have inherited and what has heavily shaped us, whether we are Americans or Europeans ethnically or not, and whether we like that culture or not. It's like knowing your family history generations back - they might be good or they might be evil but *knowing* your family history is immensely valuable for understanding yourself. Societies, like individuals, benefit from knowing their heritage first, before studying other cultures. You can't claim to love your neighbors if you despise your own family, and in the same way, someone who claims to appreciate other cultures but despises their own without making the effort to at least familiarize themselves with it, doesn't understand what it means to appreciate *any* culture.
I'll add that I answered this objection in 4:33-6:02. I specifically said that other civilizations were highly sophisticated and valuable and that we don't study our culture because it's perfect, but because it's *ours*. Other cultures are not perfect, either, yet we should study them. But this series is not meant to cover *everything*, it's meant to be an introduction to *our* culture, from which one can move on in any other direction they wish.
@@wjcallihan I appreciate that you are responding to these even though they went cold a while ago Mr. Calihan. Makes me think that you care about the value of the content even for people who probably don't want to listen. It is also important to know these things because not only are they relevant for those who want to understand the world, and in the case of many, what shaped them, but also because there are universally valuable things taught therein. People ought to know why a phrase like, "I am Aeneas, duty-bound" has importance for every man, regardless of background. Western-ness is incidental in this case because it is the goodness of the thing that we want. Good miniature lecture.