There are many places that long sat on the periphery of the Western world, and these places often sat in a kind of stagnation for centuries, where nothing much seemed to happen in cultural life. For my own part, I don't believe that is so, exactly. They very likely did have lively folk cultures, with all kinds of outpourings of creativity, but they were not recorded or set down in any way for posterity.
This began to change in the Age of Nationalism. Now, a friend of mine has turned the whole modern idea of nations quite on its head by suggesting that the great man theory is truer than anyone guessed, and that the nation is properly only the vehicle of great men. I generally agree with this. Nationalism is not something devoutly to be wished as it represents in most of its modern expressions a degenerate tendency toward collectivism.
I would say that the exception is when the nation can be a muse to the creative type, to the aesthete. In these, admittedly rare, cases, it can manifest as a force for good. In the aforementioned peripheral nations, this was very much the case, and the Western world was better off for these, often very un-Western expressions of vital force.
In particular, I suppose it makes sense to focus on a couple of test cases. For one, we could look at Finland. The Finn is a peripheral type not only culturally, but probably racially as well. However, he is a hybrid type (having some constituents from the West), though he has a peculiar dark soul that harmonizes more with the East than the West (though he hates, say, Russians despite their similarities).
The Finns had a tradition of oral poetry that stemmed from their unique mythological views. This was eventually channeled, thanks to a cultural awakening in the 19c, into such works as the Kalevala, which is a creative systemization of folk beliefs and stories. Also of note is the musical tradition, wherein Finns finally made serious and lasting contributions to the classical music of Europe.
The Finns also developed a lively intellectual life in the 20c which included giving birth to some of the centuries most interesting thinkers. Anyone can pursue the Finnish contributions to philosophy, for example, if interested. Finland has made, in a short time, outsized contributions.
Another place that deserves significant mention is Romania. This land was ruled for centuries by the Osmanlees, though it actually was a great nation in the Medieval period with crusading kings of high vigor. Nevertheless, it stagnated during foreign rule. But again, it did revive quite a bit in time to make some very worthy contributions to European thought in the 20c.
Among the most interesting philosophical and theological writers of the 20c were Romanians, and their culture flowered during the brief interwar period. Nevertheless, the amount and quality of its offerings shall stand in perpetuity as evidence of the greatness that, for the time being, rests more as potentiality than actuality.
So, nationalism, if it proved a fertile ground for some grand cultural output, can have its uses. But I must stress that this is dependent on the competence of individual creative genius. Aesthetic and intellectual outpourings are not the preserve of the masses, and they require a caste of gentlemen for continuity. This is yet another topic that deserves a healthy amount of further inquiry.
Russia experienced a similar cultural Nascence in the 19c, and its output was also very great, but I hesitated to include it, even though it matches the pattern outlined above, for the reason that it is hard for me to view it as 'peripheral' especially at that time in history.
ReplyDeleteNot only was Russia not peripheral but it is not Western. The Eurasian area is the seat of its own Nascent high culture, or so it would seem. You can see how that evolves with time. It is growing beyond its European pseudomorphosis and the Asiatic influence is getting stronger. Some think this is a bad thing; I don't really care either way. It will be what it will be despite what anyone thinks about it. I suspect Western attempts to contain it or shift it in a Western direction will not work.
ReplyDeleteWhy? Because no one has ever really succeeded in damaging or destroying a high culture. At most an extant civilization can achieve a temporary hegemony over it and change its outward development for a while. That happened to the Middle East under Greek and Roman rule, Russia under European influence, and the Middle and Southern Americas under Spanish rule. They are still their own places to this day despite all of that.
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