The two axes of culture

Bill W. writes:

I enjoyed your exchange with Dimitri K. about the incorrectness of priests “joining forces” with mullahs against homosexuality. In particular, I thought that your point about the axes of human existence was profound. I hadn’t thought of it that way before. It reminds me of C.S. Lewis’s summary of morality, drawing an analogy between a culture and a fleet of ships at sea. It consists of three main points:

1. Each ship must run well internally, so that it can sail at all (personal morality).
2. Each ship must sail well enough that it does not collide with other ships (interpersonal morality).
3. The fleet as a whole must have a destination, a purpose (cultural morality, or the question of larger purpose, and national identity)

Fascinating, Mr. Auster, fascinating.

LA replies:

Thank you. That idea of the two axes basically contains the entire traditionalist idea within it. Traditionalism, as I understand it, means belief in a transcendent order of truth, as transmitted through a particular culture. The vertical axis is the transcendent truth; the horizontal axis is the particular culture.

I also like the Lewis image very much. Lewis’s holistic, multi-leveled, common-sense way of thinking about society would have been much more common in the past.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at May 25, 2007 05:24 PM | Send