Modern Age - Winter 2018 - 111

Autonomy on the Road to Tyranny

In former times, the keepers of culture were not speaking to
the people at large in their humane pursuits but provided the
parameters of order in which graduated levels of cultural participation could take place. Only in this traditional society can
a democracy serve the ethical ends of the human person. This
is possible because each class is recognized as having its own
"peculiar and essential function." There is an inherent goodness
in the order of a "continuous gradation of cultural levels" among
the classes. The aristocratic set isn't necessarily of supreme
importance, and it should be seen not as having "more culture
than the lower, but as representing a more conscious culture and
a greater specialization of culture." To egalitarian objections, Eliot
responds that equal responsibility would be loathsome for the
social order, as the more deliberate and thoughtful members
would be straitjacketed, and those further removed from cultural
concerns would be irresponsible in their contributions. There is
no way around hierarchy, ultimately. But what kind of hierarchy
will we have?
Such stewardship of culture is not manufactured but is the
product of a variety of pursuits, each undertaken for its inherent
goodness and not with a view to remaking society from the top
down according to an abstract template. Eliot notes the centrality
of the family to the succession of culture in this traditional class
society. In language similar to Burke's, Eliot evokes an organic
order that receives the past before taking thought as to what
will be added: "I have in mind a bond which embraces a longer
period of time . . . a piety towards the dead, however obscure, and
a solicitude for the unborn, however remote. Unless this reverence for past and future is cultivated in the home, it can never be
more than a verbal convention in the community."
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Modern Age - Winter 2018

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