How Should We Then Live Part 8: The Age of Fragmentation (I)

Watching this episode I was reminded of something I have referenced before – spending time in Europe with American Fundamentalists. In general I found that American Fundamentalists (often from the Mid-West or South) did not always appreciate the richness of Europe and its culture. Their palette struggled with the foods, the ubiquitous alcohol put them off, the arts and culture struck them as high-brow and their own patriotism (and frankly provincialism) caused them to constantly look down on other nations and cultures – and in many cases things they didn't understand. They didn't enjoy their time and I certainly did not enjoy my time with them.

In recent years I've been reminded of this any time I've listened to Albert Mohler engage European culture or politics. And after watching and listening to Schaeffer in this episode I was reminded of it once more.

Schaeffer was not a Fundamentalist and he had a certain passion for European culture. This is self-evident as he spent decades on the Continent and yet in this episode I was struck by his inability to understand some basic driving forces within European culture and at times I was reminded of those Fundamentalists and their narrow sensibilities hindering them from understanding, let alone appreciating modern Europe in the context of its long and rich historical tapestry – and certainly the milieu of its various art movements.

And what of art? We've touched on this before while reviewing this video series and the fact that Schaeffer seems to embrace a narrow view and definition of the subject – sometimes painfully so. What is it? Interestingly he never really attempts to define it and yet it's clear that his functional definition of proper or moral art is restricted to a kind of strict realism. He speaks of 'Great Art' and suggests this may (with qualification) be tied to the Renaissance as a kind of standard. He constantly refers to coherence in terms of worldview and the need for unified thought and ideas and believes art must express this. Once again we're repeatedly taken back to Bach and Rembrandt – the paragons or ideals of the modern Evangelical aesthetic. Apparently the Baroque period was the golden age – a strange notion in itself. The Dutch schools eschewed the rich ornamentation that is usually associated with Baroque but that is their context and they weren't divorced from it. Painting it would seem (as I understand Schaeffer) must be a photograph on canvas and music must represent a mathematical and patterned concept of harmony. Everything else is out of bounds.

It is therefore no surprise that for Schaeffer poetry must have a specific metre and the novel must function as something of an essay with well defined plot, characters and didactic morality.

This is how Schaffer defines artistic realism it would seem. But is this in fact reality? Does it truly reflect reality – or an idea of what reality is? Can a photograph capture reality? Can it really capture beauty, movement and context? If anything it is often a narrow window that fails to do justice to a larger context. Anyone who has ever photographed something grand is usually disappointed with the result. The photograph may be a fine thing but it fails to capture the moment.

Painting and other forms of art have a potency in that they can sometimes express a larger set of ideas and context – but in doing so they must stray from empirical norms and set patterns. There are dangers in this, in terms of unreality and delusion but that's the nature of art.

Does music have to be Western? Many Evangelicals seem to think that Western music is Christian music. That's an argument rooted in the philosophy of Christendom but it's not one found in the Bible and would certainly have been rather puzzling to the Mediterranean and Middle Eastern world of the New Testament. I am not convinced that a 4/4 time signature is somehow more Christian. 'Eastern' music in many cases would not and still doesn't accord with Western norms. Must the modern Western concept of harmony be embraced without exception? Must there be resolution? Is there no role for improvisation? While we usually associate it with jazz in our context, improvisation plays a significant role in the traditional music of other cultures. Are they all invalid?

In terms of verse – the argument for metre is usually tied to concepts of musicality. Is that how music works? It has to be like Bach? While I can appreciate Bach it's not the music I really care for. I find it monotonous, mechanical and often flat. It has a kind of beauty in its symmetry but is very limited. Likewise while I am indeed moved by much of what we might call classical poetry, pentameter couplets and blank verse can at times take on that same kind of frustrating monotony. If verse is wed to musicality then I would simply refer to the same set of questions with regard to music – as indeed others have done. In addition the arguments that would tie verse to the oral tradition also seem to fail as the older poems (at least in some traditions) are often freer in terms of metre – and the Hebrew Psalms and ancient Mesopotamian poetry have no metre at all.

Could it be that a specific historical narrative tied to Northern Europe and it sense of aesthetics is driving Schaeffer's artistic sensibilities? That's fine and he would hardly be alone in his preferences – but they are just that, preferences. And therefore to present them as Biblical is highly problematic to say the least.

In some respects Schaeffer lays an overly philosophical grid on some of the artists and their intentions. In other cases he's right to point out that philosophy is driving the art – something that seems to irritate him, even while he's essentially arguing for the same position. It's just a case that he thinks his (rather subjective) philosophy is the only valid motivator and vehicle for expression.

He ignores the driving factors within the artistic world, points we mentioned in connection to his commentary on Renaissance art. There are those seeking to innovate, experiment and make a name for themselves by standing out. Artists will in some cases form an alliance in an attempt to drive an idea or style. It's complicated. Were the Impressionists trying to make some grand epistemological statement or were they experimenting – trying to engineer a break with studio set-ups? They wanted to move outside to try and catch the dynamics of light in common settings. Art to them was more than studio imaginings of classical subjects. Does this mean that everything before had to be rejected? By no means. Did they open doors to other types of art? Yes. Do we have to appreciate everything that came after or hold them responsible for all that came after? Of course not.

Let's also be clear about something. Artists are often strange and troubled people and this would include many of the artists, composers and writers that Christians revere. We could talk about why this is, what happens when you see the world through different eyes and try to relate to the larger society – but it's safer to say, that's just how it is.

As art moved into the Twentieth Century, there were other ideas being played out. There was fragmentation as indeed epistemology had been fragmented. We can lament this but I find Schaeffer's solution to be no solution. Just because something possesses a type of limited coherence, doesn't mean that it's true. Multi-perspectivism and simultaneity came into play amplified by the ideas of Einstein and the changes in the world of physics and technology. Man's place, context and meaning were shifting – at least that was the perception. To expect non-Christians to reckon soundly with these changes would be foolish.  But what strikes me most about Schaeffer is that he barely takes notice of these things at least in terms of the arts. He celebrates the changes that came with the Reformation, Industrialisation and Capitalism but seems to miss how these changes shook society to its core and drove men to question basics and the givens of epistemology. A fourth dimension applied to art takes art in strange directions that defy normative perceptions and at that point art is unabashedly attempting to portray abstract ideas and conceptions as opposed to mere perception – but is that somehow less real? Would Schaeffer really make such an absolute empiricist claim that only that which fits within the three-dimensional range of perception is real? As a Christian I can say that I hope not.

And as I've argued previously, a true Biblical Epistemology as opposed to the Sacralist Worldview of Schaeffer is able to look at all of these issues in a very different light. From an apologetic standpoint I can appreciate the philosophical implications of fragmentation and the wonders of multi-perspectivity and simultaneity – and while Special Relativity casts aspects of epistemology into doubt it does not mean that we must embrace a pure or absolute relativism. Such ideas may not be the best hope for creating a cohesive society but I am equally dubious of the imposed but largely fictitious coherence one such as Schaeffer would require.

In the Anglo-American world, Empiricism took hold and captured the intellectual Establishment. For Schaeffer this is a mixed blessing. On the one hand he is more of a Rationalist and this is seen in his presuppositionalism but at the same time he's (ironically) rather Aristotelian in his synthesis of Empiricism with axiomatic concepts and coherence based reasoning. The Anglo-American Analytic School which was formed in response to the Kantian legacy took philosophy in the realm of mathematical-type reasoning, a kind of hyper-empiricism or scientific approach to language, concepts and logic which fragmented into the materialist positivism that is the orthodoxy within today's academy. Schaeffer would criticise this to be sure but at the same in some respects he's more oriented to this way of thinking in terms of logic and realism.

Europe took a very different turn and as such its Continental philosophies are often juxtaposed with the Anglo-American Analytic spectrum. Idealism won out in Europe and later fragmented over problems associated with solipsism, the focus on context, ideas as the primary driver of thought and the shaping force of events. In light of these positions (which must be granted at least a degree of plausibility) we must again ask – can art deal with symbols or impressions? Can it, through an elaboration of these concepts communicate meaning? These categories seem to be beyond Schaeffer, or maybe it's simply because he views them to be invalid. Again there's an irony because in many respects his coherence-based epistemology resonates with certain aspects of Idealism – a point of critique others have made in reference to the presuppositional apologist Cornelius Van Til.

However, Schaeffer is a creature reared within the Anglo-American context and its categories govern much of his thought and intuitions – especially when it comes to his political theory, explorations of philosophy, his concepts of realism and certainly his interpretation of art. His empirically based realism combined with his insistence of coherence consistently remind one of Thomas Reid and his quasi-Christian, Enlightenment re-casting of old Aristotelianism in contrast to both Cartesian rationalism and the representationalist epistemology of Descartes, Locke and Hume. Schaeffer's epistemology (right or wrong) is squarely located in the Analytic sphere and completely out of step with the Continental tradition. This is important if one wants to understand the nature of his interaction with European art and philosophy – whether his statements are valid and whether he has properly understood those whom he is critiquing.

He never mentions Industrialisation and the fragmentation that resulted from it. But why? Could it be that as an American his perception of this era is quite different? Could the pains of industrialisation have been more acute in a place like Europe than in America which has long possessed what could be called a non-grounded culture? America has long been a land on the move with shallow roots, and it had the frontier to facilitate this in a way Europe did not. And thus the changes wrought by industrialisation and capitalism were more easily embraced by a people that had no deep ties to tradition, location or even the land. I will revisit this point momentarily.

Europe is different – and yet even American authors like TS Elliot, Ezra Pound and others felt the crisis – perhaps someone like Pound with his Europhilic focus felt this even more acutely, which is why by 1945 he was writing cantos from a cage outside of Pisa. This titanic cultural shift is what the artists of the late 19^th century and early 20^th century were talking about. They were trying to find not just a unity but a shred of hope and meaning amid a shattered society and fragmented epistemology. The world and its norms had seemingly changed and intellectuals reeled as a result of it. The man on the street felt it too – but it was expressed in different ways. For some it was a time of pain, for others an era of possibility.

Americans in general terms thought it was wonderful and exciting – It was a time of bigger and better, of powerful grand-scale creations. Every day revealed a new marvel. Gershwin irritatingly starts playing in my head when I drive across the Brooklyn Bridge or even driving north from Buffalo up to Niagara Falls – all the industry, the large-scale bridges, the titanic undertakings of that period are impressive. Americans developed a pragmatist realist aesthetic – something I see a little of in Schaeffer.

Continue reading Part 8 (II)