All Is Not Lost

January 8, 2013 – 4:01 pm

There’s been so much focus lately on the senescence and decline of Western culture that I think it’s important to take a minute, now and then, to remind ourselves that we still possess much of great and lasting value — and that the magnificent legacy of Plato and Aristotle, of Shakespeare, Leonardo, Beethoven, Goethe, Newton, Michelangelo, Bernini, Voltaire, Galileo, Mozart, Gauss, Aquinas, Kant, Bacon, Keats, Hume, Carlyle, Chopin, Byron, and the rest of our immortal pantheon still inspires, even in the autumn of our civilization, creations of transcendent beauty.

Posted by Malcolm on at 4:01 pm, filed under Society and Culture. RSS feed for this post. Trackbacks are closed, but you can post a comment.

11 Comments

  1. TheBigHenry says

    Big Ludwig used to be my favorite composer.

    He still is.

    Posted January 8, 2013 at 4:54 pm | Permalink
  2. JK says

    Careful there Henry… tapping out a name like Big Ludwig’d probably be adequate inspiration for a rapper name.

    On second thought – probably not. First, one would’ve had to graduate the first of the 3Rs.

    Posted January 8, 2013 at 5:55 pm | Permalink
  3. the one eyed man says

    The music I play at home ranges from the Goldberg Variations to Stan Getz, but very little (nothing, really) which has been written in the last twenty years.

    I clicked on the YouTube and my daughter, who was in her room doing her homework, came out in a state of shock.

    “You’re listening to my black people music! I listen to it to culture myself.”

    I pass this along without comment.

    Posted January 8, 2013 at 6:43 pm | Permalink
  4. TheBigHenry says

    I like to assign the prename “Big” to famous people I admire: Big Ludwig (van Beethoven); Big Al (Einstein); Big Abe (Lincoln); Big Winston (Churchill); Big Mike (Jordan), Big Dubya (Bush), etc.

    As for the expression, “to culture myself”, I think that’s code for learning how to talk “black”.

    Posted January 8, 2013 at 7:27 pm | Permalink
  5. the one eyed man says

    It should be noted that tomorrow would be Richard Nixon’s one hundredth birthday.

    We all have our favorite Milhouse memories. I remember being at a McAnn’s near Times Square, watching him on television declaring that he is not a crook (the guy next to me at the bar turned to me: “Well, do you think he’s a crook?”). I saw him call it quits at a Resignation Party in Martha’s Vineyard, also attended by Nina Phillips and the daughter of John Anderson, who would later run for President. (The father. Not the daughter.)

    However my favorite remembrance of Evasive Richard was watching a speech where he sternly declared that “America can’t stand pat.” I figured he was just complaining about his wife: “America can’t stand Pat.”

    Posted January 8, 2013 at 8:16 pm | Permalink
  6. TheBigHenry says

    I would never refer to Nixon as Big Dick, because I neither admire him, nor do I have any information about the size of his peter.

    Posted January 8, 2013 at 8:24 pm | Permalink
  7. Malcolm says

    “You’re listening to my black people music! I listen to it to culture myself.”

    Yeesh. She’d be better off switching to Staphlyococcus aureus.

    Posted January 8, 2013 at 8:47 pm | Permalink
  8. the one eyed man says

    Regrettably, the only culture she is familiar with is made by Dannon.

    All those years of playing Mozart sonatas and Haydn string quartets when she was in the crib: for naught.

    Posted January 8, 2013 at 9:31 pm | Permalink
  9. Malcolm says

    Apparently.

    Posted January 8, 2013 at 10:46 pm | Permalink
  10. JK says

    Golly Peter, you’ve kids at home?

    (Uh oh – nevermind.)

    Posted January 8, 2013 at 11:02 pm | Permalink
  11. TheBigHenry says

    More culturing:

    Oxygen’s ‘All My Babies’ Mamas’

    Posted January 9, 2013 at 12:05 pm | Permalink

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