An Intelligent Person's Guide to Modern Culture

Book Description

Received by the British press with equal acclaim and indignation, this book sets out to define and defend high culture against the world of pop, corn, and popcorn. It shows just why culture matters in an age without faith, and gives an extended argument, drawing on philosophy, criticism, and anthropology, against the "post-modernist" world-view. Scruton offers a penetrating attack on deconstruction, on Foucault, on Nietzschean self-indulgence, and on the "culture of repudiation" which has infected the modern academy. But his book is not only negative. It is a celebration of the true heroes of modern culture and a call to the higher life.

The American edition of this famous and notorious work has been revised to take account of the controversy which it has inspired, and contains new material specially directed to Americans.

Customer Reviews:

Anyone out there interested in the basic issues? .......2007-02-05

I'd hoped to enjoy the the knowledge and insight of the reviewers as well as the author of the book in question - letting me know whether I should buy it or borrow it through my local library. But I'm frustrated at what I regard as agonizingly intellectual reviews of what appears to be an agonizingly intellectualized analysis of modern culture.

Isn't it possible to address a simpler question: why isn't there a 20th Century continuation of music that provides entertainment, solace, feelings of reverence, joy, and relaxation to larger segments of the public - that much 19th Century and earlier music was designed to do?Think about the ecstatic reception of Dvorak's New World Symphony in Philadelphia in 1895.

Why must such values be relegated to the popular music world? Why do contemporary composers ignore the needs of general audiences, amateur performers, church congregations, and children in favor of following their personal muse, deriving pleasure in techno- or structral musical experimentation in directions that have no possible or even intended links to those outsider professional or cultural elites?

And why aren't the reviewers asking these questions?

A "conservative" view pining.......2006-11-19

Roger Scruton, like many so-called "conservatives" has made a noble swing (hence the two stars) at assessing the spiritual and philosophical problems of our day that have produced what Eliot called the "hollow men", but his "conservative" view is not mine.

While he doesn't give a cultural solution, he makes the keen observation that all conservatives can agree upon, by and large, in the first paragraph of p. 82 regarding culture and religion, how the two intersect, and how one derives meaning. Well done there.

He observes how artists have become the new priests, but have turned art into kitsch, (p. 90) and religion followed (p. 92). In this chapter (8), he correctly discusses how the first effects of modernism was to make high-culture difficult, rather than broadly affirming, which was true - hyper elitist, which you can read from works in T.S. Eliot's day and before. Furthermore, culture became kitschy and ultimately banal, via pop culture, ultimately imbuing fake aesthetic values, which I concur with the author's observation. In Anglo culture, pop culture has become, by and large, fake heritage - a commercial phony disguising what has been lost.

In Chapter 10, he makes some apt observations about the totemic iconic status of pop stars. While pop stars have saint-like status, particularly with youth, I think Scruton gives them too much validity, though they are the modern bards, I wish he would have seasoned his thoughts with an analysis on how corporate ownership uses this enculturation to manipulate the public into the reductionistic location of commodity - everything for sale.

Although, I agree with much of Michael Gunther's assessment regarding Scruton's book of meditations, or rather, observations, that is taking a critical observation of the time line from the Reformation, which Scruton calls the Enlightenment (an historical error).

The error that he makes is to pin, like many conservative Roman Catholic thinkers, the problems of Western society onto the Protestant Reformers, particularly Martin Luther, which is the tone on pages 19, 81 and elsewhere, but explicitly on page 23. He attempts to infuse the Reformation with the caustic thoughts of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Friedrich Nietzsche and others. This is an inaccurate analysis of Western religion and thought. While he introduces some continental thought that is less known today, like earlier German and French literature and art, he tends to merge it all eclectically to seek a salve for his tortured cultural mind. His solution, like many of his ilk, is to decry the breaking up of the Roman Catholic hegemony in the Middle Ages and the retreat of its sacred vision and authority.

But, the fact of history is that the building and erosion of Western culture is a multi-faceted one that is not so convenient to his position. For instance, did you know that Charles V, who was at odds with the Reformation, also sacked Rome and the pope?

While conservative myself, an Anglo "Whig" conservative, I read this book and saw more broadly how the contemporary "liberal" / "conservative" divide is really a loosely held confederation of worldviews, with many overlaps. Scruton is really trying to speak from an English cultural view (we'll say Anglo, because that cultural worldview reaches beyond England). The conservative Anglo worldview changed in the time of the Tudors to a Reformed Protestant one (even that morphed between a traditional Anglican, Puritan Anglican / Non-Conformist, Laudian, Latitudinarian, Evangelical and others). Like ancient Israel, even this has its muddling. In religious history, the rise of the Anglo-Catholic movement undermined and co-opted this history, which made it vulnerable, as Newman would observe of its romantic medievalism. In history, Britain and the Anglo world started to lose its history and memory as it grew out, losing its religion, and getting caught up in colonial concerns that gained the world, but lost its soul; which got it entangled with multi-culturalism, which has become its political warder. The story is too long and interwoven to call it all out, but there are milestones and I think Scruton gets it wrong from the Anglo position. To make it universal is more difficult, which is what many are trying to do today without ties to religious mooring, but through political revisionisms, such as the post-modern views that Scruton aptly scrutinizes.

Much of the post-War angst you can read in such works as the writings of Philip Larkin and the critiques of Peter Hitchens, and I must add, George Orwell; and, in film and TV (e.g. Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy", "Inspector Morse", etc.). This undertow was revealed much earlier in Matthew Arnold's era, like his poem, "Dover Beach". WWI, positivism, socialism, among other elements, helped push it along (the 60s wasn't the origin, it was a cumulative effect). The result has been a tragic ride down a nihilistic path. For those in Britain, the punk movement makes cultural sense as an outcome, but even it too has been submerged into the sale and dance of commodity culture, which is what we have with the loss of tradition. You can now see why human life is devalued and cruelty is the face of pop culture today - but you won't see that in the papers or in advertisements without looking.

Lastly, Scruton makes some keen observations about the Zeitgeist influenced by the usual suspects, like Herbert Marcuse, Jean-Paul Sartre, Michael Foucalt and others who exported much of their nihilistic poison, which he correctly ties in with the 18th century Jacobins and moving forward (p. 124f). None the less, the soixante-huitards have had their day. But for Scruton, he odes cultural hope without faith and strangely Confucius and not Christ? A truly orthodox Protestant critique, which would have also resonated in the ancient Jewish / Catholic / Orthodox heart - is to trust God and not institutions, which man tends to deify in substitution, which happened at Trent and elsewhere.

Our times are much like the days in the book of Judges. If one looks at Christian and Western history through the glass of the ancient history of the Old Testament Jews, one will get a better look at a truly conservative vision of the history of man (Anglo and otherwise) and God and some light toward a clearer interpretation of man's history - a story of man, with feet of clay, troding back and forth like Bunyan's allegory trying to find himself and his way.

A defence of the high culture.......2006-04-23

The author starts by giving a definition of the concept of culture and states his intention to pursue an "archaeological" method in studying his subject. He then discusses the difference between cult and culture in which he sees religion as the guarantee of social knowledge and asserts that there can be no scientific culture because culture addresses the question of what we feel. Mr Scruton then proceeds by defining the Romantic movement in art and literature and linking it to the decline of Christian faith and the Enlightenment, the aesthetic thus replacing the religious. And so art and literature ceased to be recreation and became studies. Since the aesthetic is the realm of value, the question of taste arises. He underlines the importance of fiction in high culture because it is the product of the imagination. Art being the product of the human spirit, it is higher than nature and apart from it.
Mr Scruton then concentrates on Romanticism which had nature, erotic love and the world before Enlightenment as its dominant themes. Works of art also pose the question of the importance of fantasy and imagination. Modernism is also discussed with the example of Baudelaire, then avant-garde and the concept of kitsch in which advertising is important because it creates a fantasy in which value can be purchased so that price and value are one and the same.
The author then discusses the issue that the relationship between a painting or a novel and its subject is an intentional one, not a material one as opposed to photography.
A further topic is modern music in which it is not the music that is the focus of attention but the singer himself. In the music of youth, the music is at the service of the performer and not the other way round.
Finally the author concludes that culture is rooted in religion and that the role of modern high culture is to perpetrate the common culture not as a religion but as art.
An interesting study of modern values and of the importance of aesthetic principles which shows that "culture" does not merely denote every kind of collective habit.

"May I Know the Whole ..........2004-07-30

of which you are so beautiful a part," was a favourite prayer of the man about whom I wrote my doctoral dissertation, the philosopher of religion, William Earnest Hocking. Scruton's conclusion to his work on modern culture reminded me of that prayer. Initially, like many other reviewers on this site, I was annoyed with what I thought were too few answers. And yet the more I pondered Scruton's reference to to the natural piety of Wordsworth, and the ethos of Confucianism, I found myself agreeing with the suggestions he offers.

Again, as with at least one other reviewer, I felt that "Yoofanasia" is worth the price of the book. The tragedy is, indeed, that many of those who might benefit most from these insights are probably unlikely to read the book or this chapter and possibily unable to do so. As one who second career involved thirty years of trying to get adolescents to learn to think, and who refused to buy into the cult of self-esteem and child-centred education, Scruton is right on in this analysis. When I pondered my own experience of how ungrateful were most of these charges of mine, it seemed eminently clear that natural piety could provide some corrective to that and the civility, courtesy, and deference to wisdom of traditional Confucianism could do that as well.

I recommend the book particularly to educators concerned about schools which are warehouses for adolescents and for those who want to make of them anything but. I recommend it for those concerned with media ecology. I recommend it for those whose own hearts leap up when they behold rainbows in the sky, or the warmth of furry, purring kittens, or the smiling, silent face of their beloved.

Catherine Berry Stidsen, Cayuga, Ontario, Canada

Twilight of the gods.......2002-05-11

This is a great guided tour through the last few centuries of culture. Scruton appears to be an advocate of natural law (the notion that the good will become obvious to the enquiring mind)--believing that the doorway to this epiphany is through high culture. However, he has to go back a century or so to find good examples. It seems that there is nothing worthwhile happening these days. Scruton has a major Wagner thing going on -- they are on the same page as far as the whole twilight of the gods idea goes.

Unfortunately, Wagner is dead and we are left all alone.

Average customer rating:
Films in Review Gorgeous Miss Marilyn Monroe on Magazine Cover Reading this Magazine April 1953 ( Volume IV, #4 ) Photograh of MM Unretouches & Pretty Much Unrehearsed, includes Schary on Film Awards, The Oscars, Filming Julius Caesar, Movies About Hol
articles by Dore Schary, Isaac Bickerstaff, Malvin Wald, Theodore Huff, John Houseman, Herman G. Weinberg Etc Edited Henry Hart
Manufacturer: National Board of Review of Motion Pictures
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000JD9EMI

Average customer rating:
Henry on Hols
Annie Tempest
Manufacturer: Arrow (A Division of Random House Group)
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Instructional & How-To | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books
Drawing | Instructional & How-To | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 058431180X

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Nick Clements: P7 Travelogue

Manufacturer: Nick Clements
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Photography | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 095333824X

Book Description

Four short stories about high school romance! In "First Kiss," Jungha has badly rotten teeth, which becomes a big deal when his cute girlfriend finally decides to have their first kiss! Then, in "Taming a Girlfriend," when you're not sure how to make your new girlfriend crazy about you, follow this simple rule: "treat her with disrespect and she'll come clinging to you!" "Miss Lemonade"'s cafeteria owner, Dorian Grey, is infatuated with one of his regular customers. However, he's put off by her daily order of hot lemonade. Finally, Seran starts a part-time housecleaning business in "The Cleaning Man." But when her first customer is an obsessed graphic novel artist, she's forced to consider changing careers!

Book Description

37 of Disney's biggest hits arranged for easy piano, including: Be Our Guest * Beauty and the Beast * Can You Feel the Love Tonight * Circle of Life * Colors of the Wind * Friend like Me * Hakuna Matata * Hawaiian Roller Coaster Ride * I Just Can't Wait to Be King * Kiss the Girl * Out There * Someday * Strangers like Me * Under the Sea * A Whole New World * You'll Be in My Heart * You've Got a Friend in Me * When She Loved Me * and more.

Customer Reviews:

A little more difficult than expected.......2007-09-08

We bought this for our two kids who are playing level 3 piano and found it to be more difficult that expected. They have lost interest in playing the songs right now, but we hope that in a year or so they my try again.

Great Variety, Decent Arrangments.......2007-04-18

I am a piano teacher, and my students have loved looking through this book for ideas. The variety of titles is great, and for the price, it's an awesome deal. Most of the arrangements are excellent.

As advertised has some of the more recent Disney tunes.......2006-07-17

As advertised this volume contains songs from the more recent Disney movies though "Lilo and Stitch" which was released in 2002 is the newest. I really liked the arrangements from "Aladdin" "Lion King" "Beauty and the Beast" "Hunchback" and "Toy Story". The rest of the songs didn't seem to be as melodic perhaps because I'm not very familiar with the songs and movies where they originated. Full lyrics are included as well as musical introductions and transitions. Some selections are as long as sixteen pages though most range from six - ten pages. The pieces are pretty easy to play though some songs venture out of the keys of C and F where most beginners are most comfortable. All in all a good collection.

Did Not Recieve.......2006-03-07

I ordered my Disney Music book on January 28th from Amazon and I still have not recieved it and it is now March 6th. Please get back to me thanks.

Great Scores for Beginners.......2005-09-17

If you love Disney music and want to be able to play those tunes, this is a great book that covers most of the more recent song.

Customer Reviews:

Fans - Stop messin' about & read this book!.......1998-04-28

We "Carry On" fans have actually been quite lucky with book tributes to the series. As well as this title I've read "The Carry On Companion" by Robert Ross and "What A Carry On" (a10/10 book published in 1988). Fans of the stars may also be interested in "Sid James" by Cliff Goodwin, "The Kenneth Williams Diaries" and "Just Williams". This book does not disappoint. It is warm tribute to the well-loved series with some great black and white photos and a personal verdict on each film.

Book Description

The household (domus) was the basic unit of Roman society. This sourcebook offers insight into the different and often conflicting roles and mores of household members -- male and female, old and young, free and slave -- as it illustrates the activities associated with the home and Roman perceptions of its place in society. Newly translated excerpts -- some of which are available in English for the first time -- are taken from a wide range of Latin and Greek prose literature, ethical and agricultural handbooks and codes, legal texts, inscriptions, and other epigraphical material from the second century B.C. to the sixth century A.D. Taken together, they constitute an indispensable resource for the study of Roman domestic and social history, providing an intimate glimpse inside the Roman home.

Product Description

The four Valois Dukes of Burgundy created, in little more than a century, a fabulously wealthy and independent state. Their centralised control and chancellery have bequeathed to us a vast treasure trove of documents, including accounts and inventories of the Masters of the artillery under the later Dukes. Although many of these were extracted and transcribed in the late 19th century, modern historians have largely ignored their unprecedented insights into 15th century guns and their use. When Charles the Bold, the last Valois Duke, took on the combined Swiss confederate forces in 1476 he lost not just the battles and his personal fortune, but much of his artillery train as well. Of the dozens of cannons captured, at least 25 pieces survive in Swiss museums. The increasing numbers of surviving narrative sources from the 15th century gives us, almost for the first time in Medieval Europe, the ability to see the course of history in a period when Europe was undergoing some of the most profound changes before the 20th century. The Artillery of the Dukes of Burgundy is the first attempt to bring together all these sources, bringing new and fresh insights into the development and use of artillery in the 15th century. Moreover this is the first modern study of medieval cannon, one of the most important discoveries of the post-classical world.

Book Description

Lionel Bruno Jordan was murdered on January 20, 1995, in an El Paso parking lot, but he keeps coming back as the key to a multibillion-dollar drug industry, two corrupt governments -- one called the United States and the other Mexico -- and a self-styled War on Drugs that is a fraud. Beneath all the policy statements and bluster of politicians is a real world of lies, pain, and big money.

Down by the River is the true narrative of how a murder led one American family into this world and how it all but destroyed them. It is the story of how one Mexican drug leader outfought and outthought the U.S. government, of how major financial institutions were fattened on the drug industry, and how the governments of the U.S. and Mexico buried everything that happened. All this happens down by the river, where the public fictions finally end and the facts read like fiction. This is a remarkable American story about drugs, money, murder, and family.

Customer Reviews:

Best book I've read in a long time!!!.......2007-08-22

This book I just couldn't put down. The story was a real heart breaker and the book full of information. I learned more history on Mexico's government then I ever did in school. I am astounded at what I didn't know about my government!?! From the refernece list I have picked 2 other novels I am currently reading. Great job Charles Bowden!!! I can't wait for the movie!!!

AS GOOD A PLACE TO START AS ANY...........2007-07-12

When I read this book, back in Dec. 2002, I didn't realize just how it would change my life. It altered my perception of reality forever and I am 60 years old. Mr. Bowden has made a compelling case for the failure of the War on Drugs. In heartbreaking detail he summarizes the story of a family in El Paso who suffered greatly as a result of their child being murdered by another child. But the background to the War on Drugs is as byzantine, complicated and murderous as it gets. Its as if the average U. S. citizen lives in a completely alternate universe where this issue is concerned. It also explains why millions of illegal immigrants cross our borders every decade. Five years after reading this book, I am still affected by it every day. May I suggest Sibel Edmond's gag order case and the MadCowMorningNews as another place to go to understand the nexus between terrorism and drug trafficking, greed and money laundering. Great book--though a complicated read at times---images of the desert are beautifully described.

Another Reason to Kill the Immigration Bill.......2007-06-27

Charles Bowden has written a well documented story of a span of time in the drug history of the U.S./Mexico border. Certain drug cartels intertwine and are involved with the same several families for years. Thousands of people are put into bondage, murdered or disappeared with little or no trace of them ever again. Many Mexican politicians, even a president or two, are involved with the drug scene and with stealing and removing to other countries, the wealth of Mexico. One murder, which is never solved conclusively, has enormous impact on the life of one DEA officer and on the survival of his extended family. It's a raw picture of one of the reasons to not allow wholesale amnesty of illegal aliens.

BEST BOOK I'VE READ IN 20 YEARS!.......2006-10-18

This book is brilliant! Only gifted readers will be comfortable reading it though because it is an incredible read! THE TRUTH WILL AMAZE YOU if you are clever enough to hang onto the pages as you turn them!

I admire Mr. Bowden so much because this book is based on 7 1/2 years of research and detective work. The detective work starts with one individual and spirals into a nonfictional mystery of global proportions leading the reader to a place where their reality of what being a U.S. citizen means is forever changed.

THIS BOOK SHOULD BE REQUIRED READING FOR EVERY CITIZEN IN THE UNITED STATES!! EVERY PARENT SHOULD READ THIS BOOK!

"Saying NO to Drugs"... isn't working folks!! THE WAR ON DRUGS is a BLOG to keep the average American from reading books such as this!

Our leaders are making sure the drug problem won't go away . THIS IS A PROFOUND BOOK ABOUT THE PROBLEM AND THE ERASING OF OUR DEMOCRACY.

Thank you Mr. Bowden for having the courage to write it!

A soap opera of the drug war.......2006-07-23

Though I tried my best, I could not stumble through this poorly written soap opera of a book. Bowden jumps from place to place and time to time trying, I think, to create an air of mystery or intrigue. He fails and creates instead the literary equivalent of your crazy aunt telling an alcohol induced tale of her youth at the yearly Christmas party.
He intersperses his confusing narrative with piles upon piles of facts, without bothering to source them or relate them in any way to the story line, or to stick to a single tense. His endless repetitions of the deeds of Amado Carillo make the man more boring every time. Bowden wails on and on where a brief description would have sufficed.
There are many other books which deal with the history (Spillane's 'Cocaine') the social aspects (Massing's 'The Fix') or the racial problems (Blakeslee's 'Tulia') of cocaine and, no doubt, hundreds of interesting books about the border. Bowden's is not among these. For a captivating and informative examination of cocaine, read Dominic Streatfield's 'Cocaine.' His writing is clear, interesting and funny. He includes interviews with a number of important players in the field (Gary Webb, the Ochoa brothers...) and very interesting facts.
Bowden creates a sickening mire of useless facts, mysticism and bad writing that's not worth the effort of opening.

Book Description

Pulsating and eccentric binary stars play a fundamentally important role in deciphering the mass distribution within stars. The present volume reviews the fundamental concepts of both radial and nonradial oscillations in the stars, including the Sun. Helio- and astroseismological results are reviewed, from the basics to the most recent developments. A new theory is presented, which seems to explain the mechanism of the light and radial velocity variations of recently discovered Ap stars. This textbook covers almost all kinds of variable stars of widely different characteristics. It will serve as a reference text for a very long time to come, not only for specialists but also for undergraduate students of physics and astronomy.

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