Modern Age - Winter 2016 - 146

MODERN AGE

WINTER 2016

ties movements of genocide and racist eugenics in the modern
West to a desire for a "social ecology," an obsession with social
rather than natural environmental purity. Such pathological social
ecologies are simply manifestations of inner necessity at the level
of an entire society or culture.
As a scholar of art history, Pontynen pays particular attention
to the fine arts in Cultural Renewal, particularly the evolutions of
modern art history. He emphasizes that not only has the concept
of "aesthetics" dominated art history; it has dominated culture at
large. Aesthetics, a term coined by the German Enlightenment
philosopher Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten, denotes human
sensation, perception, and feeling. Aesthetics, in this sense, renders art appreciation and history a mere matter of taste. He cites
the now largely forgotten art critic Ananda Coomarasway, who
insists "[art] is an intellectual, not a physical virtue," in the qualitative tradition. It is about analogously representing ideal Beauty.
Yet the turn toward aesthetics is a quantitative turn toward how
art makes us feel, how it impacts our material senses. Art then
becomes a matter of taste, of which, as the old Latin adage
implies, there is no dispute (de gustibus non est disputandum).
Each person is justified in his own tastes. As goes art, so goes
culture at large. Human culture and our "lifestyles" are now a
mere matter of taste, and when moral and lifestyle "tastes" collide, violence ensues.
Headley and Pontynen both have considerable faith in the
West's ability to regenerate itself. Headley reminds us that secularism has a vital link to the Christian heritage of Europe and that
exploring the space of the secular needn't be an outright rejection of Christianity. Pontynen's advice for restoring the liberal
and fine arts is what he calls a return to quantitative wisdom146



Modern Age - Winter 2016

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Modern Age - Winter 2016

Contents
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