From Paideia to High Culture

It is not by accident that the title of this book contains the term “high culture.” For thanks to referring to the history of the philosophical understanding of culture, I shall demonstrate that it is based on three interconnected concepts: paideia, humanitas, and magnanimitas (magnanimity). All of these concepts emphasise an important aspect of the development of the human being oriented toward a certain ideal model of humanity. To be sure, this model went through modifications over time, but it was always based on an examination of human nature and its potential for development. It is the denial of these essential elements that constitutes what we call “low culture,” one which aspires to satisfy only the needs created by the lowest human desires and feelings.

The very term “high culture” was not formulated until the second half of the nineteenth century, when Matthew Arnold’s essays appeared as a collection titled Culture and Anarchy (1869). It was only after the publication of this book that the term entered the English vocabulary and became increasingly popular. This does not mean, however, that the issues defined by the notion of high culture had not appeared before. In the context of those ambiguities, it appears highly important to differentiate between the very expression (term) “high culture” and the concept it designates.

At the very beginning, it needs to be said that the notion of “high culture” appeared much earlier than the expression itself, namely – in the times of Ancient Greece. When analysing the issue of education, the Greeks have discovered its ideal model, which was the shaping of a perfect man. In their opinion, education and culture had a similar goal. As pointed out by Werner Jaeger, that ideal appeared already in the works of Homer, and even though it referred to the world of knights, the court, and aristocracy, it was characteristic not only of aristocratic nature but also of all human beings. Therefore, Greek culture quickly acquired universal character thanks to the fact that it laid its foundations on human nature. It gained popularity along with the proliferation of democracy. The Greeks described this cultural ideal in terms of kalokagathía (moral beauty).

Christianity adopted this ideal model of Greek culture but it completed the Greek understanding of culture thanks to the new ideal of the human being seen as a person, i.e. a being created by God in His image and likeness. Christianity set a new goal for the human being, which consisted in transcending nature and culture toward God. Thus, the very understanding of high culture underwent an important modification, while still maintaining its universal nature. However, this original, ancient and Christian meaning of the term “culture” went through further changes at the end of the nineteenth century, when the term became popular in philosophy and humanities. As its popularity grew, its meanings diversified depending on the context of a particular scientific discipline, trend, and philosophical system. This is why, over time, “culture” became one of the most ambiguous terms.

Contemporary definitions of culture are limited to highlighting only some of its aspects. They usually emerge in such fields as sociology of culture, cultural anthropology, cultural psychology, semiotics. Thus, they focus on points of reference such as: value (M. Weber), meaning and symbol (C. Geertz, D. Schneider), interpretation, group identity (R. Williams), lifestyle, beliefs, and attitudes (Encyclopaedia Britannica), mental and physical reactions and activity (F. Boas), complex of behaviours (W. Roseberry). Indeed, a closer analysis of these definitions reveals that they arbitrarily take into consideration only selected causes-reasons constitutive of culture. All such definitions emerge within the framework of philosophical debates concerning the relation between man and society, on the one hand, and the relation between culture and reality, on the other hand. The meanings that they attribute to culture come from a subject or a given community, which makes them a kind of projection rather than examination of existing reality. In fact, terms such as “reality” or “objectivity” never appear in contemporary definitions of culture. This is an evidence of a subjective approach to this phenomenon, which makes it impossible to reach its essence. As a result of failure to understand what culture is, there is a growing tendency to remove the difference between high and low culture.

For this reason, I shall discuss culture using the categories of realistic metaphysics, both in the historical and systemic spheres, while taking into consideration the explanations provided within philosophical anthropology. This approach will make it possible to indicate the important factors decisive for the human mode of action. It will also allow us to notice the actual causes, which explain human action and give it purpose. Thus, I shall demonstrate that the essence of culture rests upon the actualization of man’s personal life against the backdrop of experience of the world, and that culture itself is an effect of such a rationalisation of reality; that it is a quality (perfection) of the human being, while cultural artefacts are an image and expression of that perfection, an external sign and a manifestation of culture.

The historical approach will help us reach the roots of theoretical reflection about culture, which can be traced back to Ancient Greece. In what follows, I shall demonstrate that the emergence of the very term “culture” is one thing, while the origins of the theoretical thought about that way of existence, which is characteristic for human beings and differentiates them from the natural world, is quite another thing.

Next, I shall present the circumstances in which this ideal model was first described in terms of kalokagathía. I shall explain its moral-personal aspect, as well as its social aspect. I shall analyse the way in which the understanding of the term changed in Plato’s thought. Finally, I shall discuss the next, even higher, level of culture, which was described by Aristotle. That level is expressed by a kind of greatness and strength of the soul, which Aristotle calls magnanimity (Greek: megalopsychía, Latin: magnanimitas, literally: “greatness of soul”). This distinctive feature of the human being representing high culture consists in the ability of making correct judgments about great and small goods. As Aristotle observes, the search for greater goods poses numerous difficulties, which are easier to overcome for the “great-souled” being. Thus, magnanimity appears as an indispensable condition of genuinely human high culture.

Finally, I shall point to the moment when that Greek ideal model met the Roman ideal model of education. I shall discuss the circumstances in which people began to use the word “culture” to describe the rational process of individual and social upbringing of the human being. I shall explain how these two terms, which may well designate the entirety of Greek and Roman civilisations as opposed to barbarism, came to be seen as identical.

The second part of this book discusses the way in which the Christian ideal of culture stemmed from Hellenic culture. Here, I shall indicate the roots and characteristic features of the specifically Christian understanding of culture, while also explaining how Christianity both complemented Greek philosophy and drew new conclusions from it. The primary link between the ancient heritage and the achievements of medieval thought was the thought of the Early Church Fathers. Therefore, I shall present the contributions to the humanities of: Saint Clement of Rome, Justin Martyr, Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, Origen, Marcus Minucius Felix, Basil of Caesarea, Gregory of Nazianzus, Gregory of Nyssa, Saint Ambrose, Saint Jerome, Cassiodorus, Saint Gregory the Great. Their great contribution consisted in the strengthening of a positive bond between Christianity and Hellenism. However, it is important to remember that their understanding of the Christian paideia was based on the so-called Christian philosophy, which did not distinguish between philosophical and theological aspects but rather saw them as standing in a mutually inspiring relationship. I shall describe this approach in terms religious personalism. Next, I shall prove that the theological and philosophical aspects were separated when philosophy became autonomous, which finally took place in the thirteenth century, thanks to Saint Thomas Aquinas.

The research perspective adopted for this part of the book will allow us to shift from historical discourse to metaphysical, or more precisely, anthropological discourse. I shall demonstrate that Saint Thomas’ emphasis on the role of the existence of beings in the world made philosophy more realistic and thereby provided philosophical cognition with more direct view of the world and empirical verifiability. I shall present St. Thomas’s notion of the person. I shall explain what it means that the human being is disposed towards personal life and point to those elements which should be actualized within that being. Finally, I shall demonstrate that is thanks to the knowledge of those elements that the human being can rationally and responsibly choose the ultimate purpose of his or her life and form it according to this purpose.

In the third part of the book, I shall present, on the one hand, the reasons and circumstances of the emergence of so-called popular culture, and, on the other hand, the views of the selected authors from the nineteenth and the twentieth centuries, who opposed those tendencies and championed high culture. As we shall learn, they employed the term “high culture” in a variety of contexts. Among the thinkers who devoted a great deal of work to the issues of high culture is Matthew Arnold (1822–1888), whose collection of essays, Culture and Anarchy, is considered to be one of the first works in English addressing these questions. In turn, authors such as José Ortega y Gasset (1883–1955), Thomas Stearns Eliot (1888–1965), and Dwight Macdonald (1906–1982) believed that because of the tendency to remove the division between high and low culture, high culture is virtually brought down to the level of low culture, and, consequently, the former falls apart. Another advocate of high culture was Roger Scruton (1944–2020), who noticed that now, more than any time before, it needs to be saved and preserved. High culture was also addressed by Walter Benjamin (1892–1940), whose 1935–1936 essay The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction became very influential, and later by Theodor Adorno (1903–1969).