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What is Culture?∗

Donald P. Goodman III

Version 1.2, 14 June 2009

1 Introduction

Culture has played an enormous role in the development of peo-ples, nations, and societies throughout history. It has provided theprimary impetus for war and for peace, for good deeds and bad,from the unified efforts of Christian countries during the Crusadesto the wholesale slaughter of the Indians in North America. Itprovides a powerful bond for personal loyalties and loyalties be-tween peoples; being of a given culture can make one welcomeamong strangers or a stranger in one’s own home. It is a powerfulinfluence upon all people in all times and all places.

Furthermore, cultures have been able to form people into cer-tain molds and certain ideals more effectively than any other ma-terial force.1 Peoples have retained a fierce loyalty to given idealsand patterns of behavior without any apparent motivation otherthan what in English is commonly referred to with the word “cul-ture.” Furthermore, culture has been of more service than evenformal education, because of both its effectiveness and its univer-sal availability, in imparting a given set of ideas effectively through

∗This work is published under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License, available at http://creativecommons.org/-license/by-sa/3.0/us/.

1That is, more effectively than any force other than the Sacraments.

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the generations.2 Clearly, culture is a vital influence upon individ-uals and societies and ought to be properly understood in orderto understand their actions.

Despite the importance of culture, however, very little has beenwritten from a Thomistic perspective on the topic. This tacitur-nity is probably mainly due to the apparently easily understoodnature of culture and its role. It is probably further due to thesimple universality of culture; culture is as the air we breathe, andit is no wonder that so few have ever thought to sit down and thinkhard about it. However, delving further into culture than simplythe common uses of the term allows a much greater appreciationof it, as well as a better understanding of its paramount role insociety. Therefore, a Thomistic investigation of culture, even suchan amateur one as this by necessity is, should be helpful for theunderstanding.

Dialectic seemed the most effective means of acquiring a betterunderstanding of culture, and therefore this essay has adopted adialectical tone. First, as Aristotle observes, we must not expectmore certainty than the subject matter allows.3 This is a socialscience, like ethics or politics, and therefore will rarely if ever al-low for the demonstrations to which students of mathematics orsome physical sciences are accustomed. This lack of demonstra-tion is not a shortcoming; it is a necessary consequence of thesubject matter involved. Therefore, rather than proceeding fromdemonstration to demonstration, like the books of Euclid,4 thisdiscussion must proceed along the paths of dialectic, and resemblePlato’s dialogues much more than the average geometry textbook.

The dialectic has proceeded along the lines of determining whatexactly is meant by the word “culture,” and thence to the sources

2See, e.g., Rev. Theodore J. Radtke, Mexican Family Customs In OurCatholic Southwest, in Customs & Traditions of the Catholic Fam-ily 37 (Neumann Press 1994) (explaining that “where the opportunities forreligious education are still meagre, religious traditions [that is, religion inculture] are a powerful influence in safeguarding their [the people’s] faith”).

3See Aristotle, Ethica Nicomachea I:3 (R. McKeon ed., W. D. Rosstrans., Random House 1941).

4See Euclid, The Thirteen Books of the Elements (Sir Thomas L.Heath trans., 1956).

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of what we have just defined. A thorough explanation of thosesources will enable a more precise subdivision of culture. Finally,these concepts will be applied to modernity and its cultures, inwhat sense these can be called cultures (with a particular focusupon American culture), and how culture can best be lived outwithin the modern milieu.

Finally, it should be emphasized that this work is not intendedto be definitive. Rather, it is a first attempt to describe cultureand the workings of culture from a Thomistic standpoint. As such,it is a work in progress, and any further work building on it, orcorrections to it, are greatly appreciated, and the work will bealtered to reflect such changes as soon as possible after the authorbecomes aware of it.

May Almighty God, the Blessed Virgin Mary, St. John theEvangelist and St. Francis de Sales, St. Thomas Aquinas, and theguardian angels of both writer and reader bless this work and allwho wrote and read it.

2 Defining the Term

The most important part of outlining a coherent, Thomistic con-cept of culture is defining the word. In this section dialectic isengaged in to arrive at a definition of “culture,” similar to theway in which Aristotle arrived at a definition of “good.”5 Thatis, various thoughts about culture will be suggested and examinedbased on our ideas of culture; those which are struck down will beexcluded, and those which are accepted will be included. In thisway we will attempt to arrive at a good definition.

A good definition, in Thomistic and Aristotelian philosophy,consists of two parts: the genus and the specific difference.6 Thegenus is what type of thing the word defined is7; for example, thegenus of “story-book” is “book.” The specific difference is what

5See Aristotle, supra note 3, at I:1–12.6See, e.g., Aristotle, Analytica Posteriora II:12 (R. McKeon ed.,

G. R. G. Mure trans., Random House 1941).7Id.

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makes that thing different from all other things of its genus8; forexample, the specific difference of “story-book” is “which tells astory.” The two combined make a complete definition; in our“story-book” example, the definition is “a book which tells astory,” as opposed to a book which explains a craft or which ex-plores some philosophical matter.

Obtaining such a definition will speak volumes concerning thenature of culture and greatly increase understanding of it. Con-sequently, this definition is sought first of all, and further spec-ification of the nature of culture is held until later in the essay.

2.1 Common Uses of “Culture”

The word “culture” is commonly used for a number of differentthings. Most commonly, of course, it is used to refer to the customsand habits of an identifiable group of people. One of the mostcommon cultures in America is that of the Irish; it may be helpful,first of all, to note the traits to which the word culture applies inregard to the Irish, and then to generalize from that usage of theword to a more universal understanding.

The first thing that often comes to mind is the Irish accent, oreven the Irish language. Next will often come their religion, thefact that the Irish are usually at least nominally Catholic. Thenwill come music; the Irish have a body of songs that they will sing,generally concerning drinking, deceased loves, or military defeat.Finally, the more common but less significant habits will come tomind; the Irish enjoy drinking whiskey and beer, and potatoesfeature very largely in their cuisine. Often, there will also be moreor less random snippets of other traits; for example, that the Irishall think of the English as an ancestral enemy.

What can be drawn from the fact that the word culture willcommonly be applied to all these traits, and oftentimes more?This question is equivalent to asking what the common character-istics of all these traits might be. Each, of course, is distinctivelyIrish; the songs sung by the Irish will rarely be sung by anyone

8Id.

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else; their whiskey and beers are brewed differently from those ofother peoples; their religion is, while much broader than their ownculture, adopted and ingrained into the national character; theyhave a distinctive way of speaking and otherwise communicatingwith each other. These traits are not necessarily unique to theIrish, for which see below; however, they are all distinctively Irish,in that all Irishmen will see and recognize them as Irish.

Of course, many of these traits are shared, most particularlytheir religion. The Irish are far from being the only Catholic peoplein the world. However, their religion is certainly part of what iscommonly called their culture; otherwise only the Greek Orthodoxand similar national churches could properly be called culturalreligions. So culture does not only refer to what is unique to agiven people; it also refers to those things which are distinctive ofthat people, in the sense that they are thoroughly engrained in thepeople’s thoughts and practices. It is, therefore, proper to say that“an Irishman is Catholic,” even though it is most definitely notproper to say that “a Catholic is an Irishman.” Certain traits of aculture are certainly shared with other cultures; those traits maystill, however, be considered part of an individual culture providedthat they are distinctive to that culture.

Culture, therefore, is something which applies to a given, dis-tinct group of people and involves the habits of that people asdistinct from the habits of other peoples. They may share somehabits with others (the Irish, for example, are not the only peo-ple fond of whiskey, nor are they the only people fond of singingabout it). However, these habits can still be considered distinc-tively their own, even if at the same time they are distinctivelysomeone else’s.

Another observation about culture we can make based simplyon its common usage is that it tends to bind a people together verystrongly and instill certain values very effectively. When some-one in a given culture hears another man using, for example, hislanguage, or even just his accent, it is an instant attraction andincentive to camaraderie. Furthermore, certain traits and charac-teristics are very effectively inculcated by a people’s culture. Beingable to say that, e.g., Irishmen like whiskey, or Argentines like soc-cer, is remarkable generalization that is nevertheless usually cor-

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rect, simply because Irish and Argentine culture quite effectivelyraise their members into certain pursuits and practices. It seemsthat culture not only serves as a unifying force within a people,then, but also as directive force, pointing the members of a culturetoward certain ends.

This concludes our examination of the common usages of theword “culture” and what it describes. This discussion will helpus move on to the word “culture” itself, from which we may learnstill more about the concept.

2.2 The Etymology of “Culture”

Philosophy by etymology is always suspect. In the first place,while linguistics has narrowed etymology, at least among reason-ably recent languages with reasonably extensive corpuses, intosomething like an exact science, this sort of philosophizing is al-most always done by “popular” etymologies, which are almost uni-formly wrong.9 Philosophizing based on an erroneous etymologycan hardly be helpful toward any reliable conclusions.

Secondly, the etymology of a word tells us nothing about theconcept to which it refers necessarily ; it only tells us what thepeople who spoke the languages involved thought about it at agiven time. Even this limited conclusion from an etymology initself is suspect, as many languages use phrases of a given deriva-tion without actually meaning anything like the literal meaningof the words.10 These are tenuous grounds for any philosophicaldiscussion.

Therefore, before even an accurate etymology can really be con-sidered relevant to a philosophical discussion, one must determine

9An excellent example is amateur linguists attempting to derive Spanishusted from Arabic. Linguists, however, have demonstrated quite conclusivelythat usted is descended from an Old Spanish address, vuestra merced, “yourmercy,” which derivation is supported by continuous historical texts and tran-sitional forms. The popular etymology is incorrect despite the superficialresemblence of forms.

10Excellent examples can be provided by French, in which “mother-in-law”is belle-mere, from the words for “beautiful mother,” even if the mother-in-lawis not beautiful, and in which tout le monde is regularly used for “everyone”even when “everyone” is not meant to apply to everyone in the world.

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first whether the opinion of the speakers of the relevant languagesat the relevant times is one which is valued by the participants,and second whether that etymology reliably gives an indicationof that opinion. In this case, the first question can definitely beanswered in the affirmative. Those speaking these languages werethe early and medieval Christians, whose opinion ought to be val-ued above all others. As for the second, however, the derivationmay or may not be a reliable indicator of their opinions; such astudy is far beyond the purposes of this brief essay, and such adigression would in any case be unkind to the reader.

Nevertheless, something of an etymology, though somewhat“popular” (in the sense that it is not supported by deep linguisticresearch) and therefore by necessity unreliable, may be helpful inindicating the direction of the debate, particularly when consid-ered in combination with the considerations encountered in theinvestigation of common uses of the term.11 This etymology fitsvery well into those considerations and sheds considerable lightupon the purposes of those traits observed as particularly referredto by the word “culture.” Therefore, this derivation will be pre-sented; however, the reader is asked to remember that it is notintended to be an authoritative etymology, but merely a probableone which seems helpful for the discussion at hand, and must notbe held to higher standards than it is intended to meet.

The etymology of the word “culture” is subject to some confu-sion among the Catholics concerned with the matter today. SuchCatholics generally connect the English word “culture” with theLatin cultus as used in reference to, for example, the “cult” of thesaints, of Our Lady, or of God Himself. They use this to statethat culture must be derived entirely from religion, and that whatis not derived from religion is not truly culture. While this mis-take is certainly understandable given the superficial resemblenceof the two words and doubtedlessly stems from a laudable desireto hinge all aspects of society upon the Faith, it overstates thecase of religion in culture and neglects a more obvious derivation.

While one of the meanings of cultus is indeed “worship” or

11See supra, Section 2.1, at 4.

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“cult,” that meaning is not primary.12 Rather, the primary mean-ing is that indicated from the English word “agriculture”: culti-vation, making grow.13 “Agriculture,” of course, come from ager,“field,” and cultura, “cultivation,” the cultivation of the field.14

Another word for “culture,” then, along the same construction,might have been “homoculture,” the cultivation of men. This et-ymology derives “culture” from cultus in the sense of cultivation,rather than in the sense of worship; it finds in the history of theword an indication of the end of culture, rather than of one of itssources,15 as the prior derivation does.

The nature of this end is not here particularly specified, andneed not be. It suffices to observe that the word “culture” indicatessome development of human beings toward a given end. Thisobservation will enable a formulation of a decent definition of theterm “culture,” and therefore defining the word will be put off nolonger.

2.3 Defining the Term

Enough information has been gathered about culture to presenta definition of the term. We have found that culture comprisesthe distinctive habits of a people; that it performs both a unifyingand, more importantly, a directive role; and that it involves thecultivation of a people toward a common end. The genus of culturecan be derived from this: the distinctive habits of a given people.However, a people has many different habits. Culture refers specif-ically to those habits which bind a people together into a singlegroup for a common end—and this marks the specific difference.A complete definition of culture has been achieved: “the habitsof a given people which bind it together toward a common end,”the common end being what that given people considers to be thegood.

12See, e.g., Cassell’s New Latin Dictionary 160 (D. P. Simpson ed.,1959) (indicating that “worship” is not a primary meaning of cultus).

13Id.14See Webster’s New Universal Unabridged Dictionary 41 (1996).15See infra, Section 4, at 15.

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Readers familiar with Aristotelian philosophy will see this def-inition as very similar to that of a classically Catholic concept:virtue. Virtues are, according to Thomistic thinking, states ofcharacter (which are acquired by habit) which make a man good.16

In other words, they are the habits by which men are good men.Just as, for example, good baseball is a practice, living well is apractice; just as baseball has certain virtues that help one practiceit well, like a good throwing arm and skill in choking up on thebat, so does living well have virtues that help one practice it, likepatience and fortitude. In our case, being a member of a culturehas certain virtues attached to it, which help make a man a goodmember of that culture. The similarities between “culture” and“virtue” are unavoidable and clear.

Both, of course, intend to make men good. Culture, however,intends to make men good members of a given people; virtue in-tends to make men good men simply. The difference lies, of course,in the end. The end of virtue is simply goodness; the end of aculture may be goodness (though always, of course, goodness asrealized in a certain people and according to their ways), but itmay also be something very different. The end of the culture is thekey. This end is, of course, culturally defined17; the more this endapproximates that of virtue proper, the better that culture will be.However, culture always performs these two functions, no matterwhat end it assigns to itself: it binds a people together, and helpsdirect them toward a common end. This latter characteristic iswhat makes it so closely related to virtue proper, and why culturecan be so successful in instilling true virtues in members of thosecultures which value them.

Culture, then, is the set of virtues necessary to be a good mem-ber of a given group; that is, to attain the common ends which thatgroup values. French culture is the pursuit of the virtues of beinga good Frenchman; German culture is the pursuit of the virtues ofbeing a good German. In some ways these two cultures will corre-spond; both French and German culture greatly value religiosity,

16Aristotle, supra note 3, at II:5–6.17Of course, the end toward which they should tend is not cultural, but

universal. But many, of course, do not conform to that proper end.

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for example. In others, however, they will be different; a virtueof being a good Frenchman involves the proper pronunciation ofnasal vowels, while being a good German requires gutterals. Thisnotion of culture, “the virtues necessary to attain the common endof a given group,” is clearly extremely broad and encompasses agreat deal of human behavior. It also has a number of importantconsequences that can be here examined.

First, culture clearly plays a vital role in forming the individualand, even more, the family with what is necessary to be happy.As one prominent Old World refugee remarked after coming to thenew,

the thing which could not be taken away from us atthe border—our faith and all the rich heritage of an oldculture, like music and folk customs—were the very es-sentials which made our family life such a happy one.18

This is, of course, the reason for the “cultivation” part of culture:it cultivates the family in a certain mold and helps them grow in acertain way. This is the real point of culture: it brings a people up,“cultivates” them, literally raises them as a parent raises children,toward a certain end. It follows that, since men can only be happyif they attain their true and final end, culture is an enormouslyimportant factor in whether a given man will be truly happy.

Second, culture is an enormously important factor in binding apeople together: to its members currently living, to its ancestors,and to its descendents. Since culture so broadly includes all of thehabits and actions which are distinct in a given people, it includesmost of that by which the individual and the group identifies itself,and thus most of that by which they consider themselves part of agreater whole. They will also remember the relations of their ownways to those of their fathers, and along with that the relation oftheir own ways to those of their children, which were received bytheir handing down. So culture has a very large unifying effect ona people.

Finally, making judgements concerning the relative merits of agiven culture will depend largely upon the source of that culture’s

18Maria Augusta Trapp, Living Holy Week with Christ, in Customs &Traditions of the Catholic Family 32 (Neumann Press 1994).

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end. While certainly the means of pursuing a given end is subjectto moral judgement, no means of pursuing a bad end can be good.If, then, the end of a given culture is bad, that culture itself willrequire serious cleansing. Catholics, of course, know that the endof the culture must be the good life, a life well-lived in the graceof Jesus Christ; all cultures, to be truly good, must be pointed atthat aim, and all cultures which are not are, insofar as they arenot, bad. The end of the culture, then, provides the best way tomake a judgement about a given culture concerning its goodnessor lack thereof.

Culture, then, is a set of habits specific to a given people whichbinds them together by cultivating them toward a common end.Having, therefore, come to a general understanding of culture,some examination of specifics is now in order.

3 Parts of Culture

Culture is clearly not unitary; not every cultural practice is of thesame kind, any more than every type of music is of the same kind.It is therefore helpful to examine the different types of practicewhich fall under culture and how they differ from the others. Es-sentially, each type of culture is a different means for pursuing theend of that culture. They are of essentially two types, symbolsand customs, with appropriate subdivisions within each.

3.1 Symbolic Habits

Every culture consists partially of symbolic habits; that is, habitswhich represent something beyond themselves. These are clearlydifferent in kind from many of the habits that constitute culture.For example, a given culture may have the habit of eating a certainkind of food; this habit represents nothing beyond itself. However,many habits represent something beyond themselves, in the sameway that the cross represents something more than simply twopieces of wood put together in a certain way. These habits have,therefore, been put into their own category under the name “sym-bolic habits.”

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These symbolic habits are among the most important of a cul-ture’s practices, insofar as they generally point to those thingswhich the culture holds most dear. Catholic cultures, for ex-ample, employ many symbolic habits, like the sign of the cross,which point to what they hold most dear, namely, the Faith. Non-Catholic cultures will have similar symbols representing their mostcherished thoughts, as the Muslims often use the crescent. Thesehabits, then, are very important for understanding a given culture.

Symbolic habits can be divided into two distinct groups. First,there are those symbolic habits which are symbolic of things withinthe culture itself; these are called “intracultural symbols.” Second,there are those symbolic habits which are symbolic of things out-side the culture; these are called “extracultural symbols.” Manyhabits will, of course, be partially both of these, referring to athing both valued internally and externally; they can generally,however, be considered primarily one or the other.

The intracultural symbols are often the most common, partic-ularly in isolated cultures which have little contact with outsiders.Even cultures which are, or were, emphatically part of a wider cul-tural phenomenon, like those which once composed Christendom,however, do have intracultural symbols, and often many. In Spain,for example, the red beret represents an adherence to royalism, asymbol which would not be widely recognized anywhere else. InFrance, the white cockade or the fleur-de-lis represent the same,and are equally unknown outside France.19

Occasionally, even religion will be a specifically intraculturalthing, and consequently even religious symbols will be intracul-tural symbols. Such religions typically focus entirely upon a givenpeople, which has a fairly unified culture, and will often posit acertain people as being the only true people in the world. Thank-fully, this is a relatively rare thing, though many religions tend inits direction.

Extra-cultural symbols, however, are the more important, forthe same reason that symbolic habits are the most importanthabits: they refer to what the culture considers higher than all

19Nor, perhaps, even in France in these latter days, in which true culture isso rapidly dying. But the principle remains intact.

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else, and consequently often also to the end which that cultureembraces. Most religious habits will be of this type, especiallyin Catholic cultures. These habits require little explanation; theyclearly represent something beyond themselves and that somethingis clearly outside the culture itself. No one, not even the French,argue that the crucifix formerly present in French classrooms wasa symbol of some great, specifically French ideal. The understand-ing is always that such habits are referring to things beyond andgreater than France, no matter how great France might be con-sidered to be. Specifically, it refers to the end that French cultureembraces, so long as it is still truly French. The nature of thesehabits is thus largely undeniable.

These symbols can be further divided into two groups. First,there are culturally specific extracultural symbols. These symbolsrefer to something beyond the culture itself, but are used and rec-ognized only within a given culture. The Welsh, for example, oftenwear leeks for St. David’s day in March; other cultures, however,would be completely blind to the meaning of pinning a vegetableto one’s shirt. Other habits usually among these symbols are lin-guistic expressions of religious belief, or “the reverent use of thename of God and of religious expressions.”20 Such expressions,like adieu and adios, like “godspeed” or the insertion of “Godwilling” into a statement of intent, are generally unique at leastto a linguistic group, and often to a specific culture within thatgroup.

The other group is largely self-explanatory. These are cultur-ally unspecific extracultural symbols, namely, those which are usedacross many cultures. Crucifixes, nativity scenes, and innumerableother habits fall under this category.

3.2 Customs

Customs are those practices which do not represent somethingbeyond themselves. Often included are those practices which arecommonly most identified with a culture, like cultural clothing and

20Rev. Edgar Schmiedeler, Your Home, A Church in Miniature, in Cus-toms & Traditions of the Catholic Family 19 (Neumann Press 1994).

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cuisine. Customs both bind a culture together, to those living, tothose dead, and to those yet to come, as well as instill the virtueswhich that culture values into its members. These practices canbe divided into two main groups, etiquette and customs proper.

3.2.1 Etiquette

Etiquette is the set of customs which bind the culture together byeasing social interaction. In common parlance these customs areoften called “manners.” It includes eating customs, greetings, so-cial honorifics, and innumerable other examples of common prac-tices which simply aim at giving to others the respect which istheir due.

Generally, of course, these customs are intended to make mem-bers of the culture agreeable to each other. When an Italian, forexample, gives his friend a kiss on the cheek, it may make himmore agreeable and be an expression of his friendship; but othernationalities might object to the familiarity. This cultural incom-patibility is fairly common. However, oftentimes etiquette willmake members of a culture agreeable also to members of othercultures. Nevertheless, these customs are particular to a givenculture.

Etiquette, of course, changes more rapidly than most othercultural practices, though even so it changes rather slowly. Thesecustoms may, however, if they last for a very long time and be-come particularly ingrained in cultural practice, become customsproper21 by that long use. However, it is the fact that they nolonger primarily aim at easing social interaction, rather than thatthey have existed for a long time, which effects this alteration.Further examples can be found below.

3.2.2 Customs Proper

Customs proper are those customs which bind together simply;they do not have as their particular goal making the person agree-able to others within that culture, though they may, of course,have that effect. They are generally more established within a

21See infra, Section 3.2.2, at 14.

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culture than etiquette, but not necessarily. The specific differenceis “which bind together simply,” not the long establishment withinthe culture. Length of use by itself does not a custom proper make.

Etiquette is a way of easing social interaction, as discussedabove22; we can take the doffing of a hat as an excellent example.This custom was a means of ensuring that the distinctions betweendifferent parts of society remained clear and respected, thus beingaimed primarily at social interaction. Over long use, however, thiscustom became less and less aimed at social interaction and moresimply at binding together society, insofar as it was expected notonly as a gesture of deference but also as a characteristic act ofa member of the culture. In other words, when a man failed todoff his hat he was not merely being impolite; he was acting like aQuaker, or like a member of some similarly unconnected society.

Both etiquette and customs proper are, of course, distinctiveto a society; the distinction is in their primary ends. Customsproper do, of course, ease social interaction, but their primaryend is binding together the culture without regard to that inter-action. Similarly, etiquette binds the culture together simply, butprimarily its aim is to ease interaction on a social level. The end,as always, is the first principle, and the end in each case is quitedifferent.

4 Sources of Culture

4.1 Religion

Religion has, of course, always been a huge source of culture inany society which can be called devout. This has been especiallytrue for cultures which adhere to the Catholic faith. Religionhas, indeed, been so strong a force for culture that, as mentionedpreviously,23 some Catholics have been led to believe that it isproperly the only source of culture. This, however, is overzealous,as this section shall explain.

22See supra, Section 3.2.1, at 14.23See supra, Section 2.2, at 6.

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Nevertheless, religion is the inspiration for many customs, boththose particular to a given culture and those spread throughoutmany cultures. Indeed, the Faith infused culture with so manycustoms that families’ homes came to be considered miniaturechurches.

[P]articularly has religion had a place in the Christianhome. Indeed, to such an extent has this been true thatfrom early Christian times it has been looked upon as aChurch in miniture. . . . St. Augustine. . . in addressinga group of fathers of families in his own Diocese ofHippo, . . . referred to them as bishops—“my fellowbishops.”24

The customs in various cultures which were inspired by religionwere, then, many and strong. This was true not only in familylife, but also in society in general, in which many practices arosefrom the religious life of the community.25

However, despite this enormous influence, it is improper toclaim religious faith as the source for all culture. The evidentsource of many customs in other, fertile areas of cultural influenceis sufficient to disprove this claim.26 While religious faith is cer-tainly the most important part of man’s existence, and exercisesan influence over all other parts, there are still other parts whichexist and have an influence over man. To have religion absorb allof these would not be in accord with the plan of God, Who wishesus to enjoy our natural as well as supernatural goods.

This doctrine of religion in culture, however, may present aconflict for the Catholic convert who lives within a non-Catholicculture. Since the Catholic religion rightly insists upon providingthe end for any culture, is the Catholic convert from a non-Catholicculture necessarily abandoning his culture for the Faith? In a

24Rev. Schmiedeler, Your Home, A Church in Miniature, supra note 20, at8.

25These are, of course, too many and well-known to require specific cita-tion. Passion plays, festivals on the feasts of patron saints, public processionsoffering prayers for rain and good crops—they are far too obvious and far toomany to catalogue.

26See infra, Sections 4.2, 4.3, and 4.4, at 17, 24, and 25.

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certain sense, he is so abandoning it; in another sense, he certainlyis not. While his conversion removes an important part of hisculture and replaces it, for him, with another, most if not all ofthe rest of his culture will be compatible with the Catholic faith.So he is abandoning his culture as it has been practiced, but he isattempting to change that culture by improving it by the insertionof the proper end. This insertion will not only provide his culturewith a rich source of further customs and practices; it will makehis culture what it should be, what God wants it to be. Therefore,while he is abandoning a part of his culture, he is doing his culturea service which it sorely needs. His culture should provide himonly with more motivation to embrace the true Faith, rather thanconcern him about its adoption.

4.2 Language

Language is, naturally, an enormous influence on culture, as well,and provides a culture with a great deal of its substance. It doesthis in two primary ways. First, language provides a great uni-fier of culture simply by its existence as a separate and distinctspeech. Second, language helps unify and inform the participantsin a culture by providing a great deal of substantive content.

Language also, of course, is influenced by culture; that is, cul-ture helps to form language just as language helps to form culture.However, this article is concerned with the substance and sourcesof culture, not with its products, which would make it overbroad;consequently, this aspect of language shall not be examined.

4.2.1 Language as a Cultural Unifier

Language, second to religion, is the single most important providerof cultural unity. Language is the medium by which all of a peo-ple’s relations, commerce, and daily life is conducted, and themeans by which a people comes to know its common end and howto pursue it. Many customs involve language in some way, and cul-tures themselves tend to treat their languages as vitally importantparts of their cultural identities.

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Americans especially have a historical testament to the impor-tance of language in cultural identity. While occasionally certainimmigrant families, after a generation or two, will lose their lan-guage and yet retain significant aspects of their former culture,in most cases upon losing their language their name is the onlyremnant of their previous traditions. As long, however, as the lan-guage remains in use, other aspects of that culture have a muchstronger hold. This thesis is both logically tenable and historicallyconfirmed.

This connection between retention of language and retentionof broader culture is logically necessary. When a language is heldin common with a given culture and not with members of an-other culture, it presents a formidable barrier to cultural exchange.Lacking a means for communication and interrelation, most mem-bers of each culture will turn towards their own culture for theircustoms and ideas. Even those few members who speak both cul-tures’ languages will be surrounded most of the time by thosewho speak only their native language, which will lead them toturn similarly to their own culture for their traditions, using theirbilinguality only for necessary interrelation rather than to replacehis own tradition.

On the other hand, when one culture is surrounded entirely byanother culture which speaks a different language, the loss of itslanguage will most likely be fatal to its other customs. The vastbodies of immigrants in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries areample proof of this fact. The Italians and Slavs who flocked to thiscountry at the turn of the twentieth century were very distinctiveas long as there was a large body which retained their nationallanguages; afterwards their cultures were merely superficial sem-blences of their former selves, consisting largely of strange namesand a predilection for hand gestures.

The German immigrants of the earlier nineteenth century, how-ever, provide an even better example. For much of the nineteenthand even during the early twentieth century, these Germans re-tained their language, and consequently were able to retain theirculture. Many German-language newspapers were published, andthey even requested, and were denied by largely Americanist Irishbishops, German-language catechetics in the Faith. This refusal in

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the late nineteenth century effectively required fluency in Englishamong all German children, at least those who wanted to learntheir religion. Their language gradually died out in America, andtheir distinctive culture along with it. But while they retainedtheir language, the influence of that language was at least partlyresponsible for the retention of their culture.

Furthermore, many stereotypical second-generation Americanimmigrants consider abandoning their language to be a key partof assimilating into the larger culture. The loss of their nativelanguage strikes them as a tool for becoming truly American; ifthey do not speak American English, they think, they will notreally be Americans. Partly this is simply the fallacy of equating“nation” with “state”27; partly, however, this notion is due to thequite correct idea that abandoning one’s language is the biggestand most difficult step in abandoning one’s culture and adoptinganother.

It is well-known, for example, that “the French people adherestrongly to their language.”28 This is true of all cultures andall languages. The Gaelic language has always been a source ofgreat unity for the Irish who still speak it, and a desire for thoseloyal Irish who do not.29 The German language was such a greatsource of loyalty to the Germans in recent times that it was theprimary identifier of nationality, and thus became the subject ofgreat abuse. Examples can be endlessly multiplied.

Perhaps the best example, however, are those nationalitieswhich are just beginning to reawaken as separate and distinctcultures. Most specifically, the various non-Irish Celtic peoples

27Contrary to nationalistic notions of proper government, there can licitlybe many nations, and thus many cultures, within a single state (sovereigngovernmental unit), or one nation spread among many states; each state neednot encompass a single nation and vice-versa.

28Rev. J. Albert le Blanc, Religious Customs Among the French ofLouisiana, in Customs & Traditions of the Catholic Family 67 (Neu-mann Press 1994).

29Indeed, despite these facts, the Irish remain the only counterexample ofa people who largely lost their language yet retained their culture. The greatand often violent religious distinction between the Irish and their conquerorsis responsible for this remarkable retention. Furthermore, the fact that manyIrish never did lose their language was doubtlessly a help.

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provide an excellent demonstration of the principles discussed inthis section. The Welsh, the Scots, the Cornish, and the Bretonsall have or once had their own languages; all have greatly dimin-ished or, in the case of Cornish, disappeared under the pressuresof the surrounding peoples. However, in the last century or sothese peoples have been gaining a new awareness of their own dis-tinct cultural identities; and one of the most important projectsof these peoples has been the expansion or revival of their culturallanguages. As cultural awareness has increased, their languageshave also expanded; the recent expansion of the Welsh tongue isprobably the most conspicuous example. Thus, the cultural unityprovided by a distinct speech is paramount in binding together aculture, and thus is an immense help in the pursuit of that cul-ture’s ends.

4.2.2 Language as Substantive Culture

Furthermore, language is a necessary provider of substantive cul-tural content. This role is a necessary result of its place in culturalunification. Simply put, the substantive content of a culture de-pends in large part upon the means of communication within thatculture, which is, of course, language. Therefore, many practiceswithin a culture will be dependent upon the means of communi-cation, or language, which that culture employs.

Even a brief consideration of the pervasiveness of language willreveal the many cultural practices which depend upon it. Widelyknown poetry and literature, of course, will all be in a given lan-guage and, particularly in the case of poetry, quotable, and thususable, only within that language. Cultural songs will have wordsin that language, and these songs will be largely untranslatableinto other languages, having the same translation difficulties as allforms of verse. Even relatively simple songs such as le chansonde la mariee and sur le pont d’Avignon defy easy and versifiedtranslation; more complicated cultural pieces, such as le Chansonde Roland, will be completely impossible.

Language also provides many common figures of speech which,while usually translatable into another tongue, will lose most ofthe traits which made them desirable. The English phrase “what’s

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good for the goose is good for the gander” is made easily memo-rable by the alliteration which the English language provides; otherlanguages will most likely not allow for such an easy pneumonicdevice. This is, of course, a minor example, but other, more signif-icant cultural phrases will also lose their desirable characteristics.An excellent example is the rhyme commonly used to rememberthe number of days in the various months:

Thirty days have September,April, June, and November.

If an English-speaking family has moved to, for example, Japan,and the children grow up speaking Japanese with English onlyin the home, this cultural device will be useless for them. Con-sequently it will pass into disuse, and by the second generationdoubtlessly be forgotten. Examples can, as is usual in a culturaldiscussion, be endlessly multiplied.

Furthermore, many of the linguistic devices used by the par-ents, speaking one language, will be unneeded by the children,speaking another, which serves to partially sever the children fromtheir culture still further than adopting a new language itself al-ready has. An example in English is the common spelling poem:

“I” before “e”except after “c”and when sounding like “ay”as in “neighbor” or “sleigh.”

The parents consider this an indispensible reminder for their ownlanguage; the children consider it a silly remnant of the tongue oftheir parents, decreasing their respect for the traditions of theirfathers and thereby for the other customs which their fathers prac-tice.

There are several results of this substantive contribution oflanguage to culture. The first is the reinforcement of the factthat abandoning a language is in large part abandoning a cul-ture. If language provides these important substantive qualitiesto a culture, particularly common literature and music, includingfolk songs, then losing that language must necessarily entail losing

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those qualities, which in turn means losing a significant part ofthat culture. Even more than the loss of the language as a toolfor unification, losing these substantive aspects of culture bringsabout the fall, or at least the severe dilution, of the culture itself.

The second is that it is important that a language never beabused. Linguists often decry such statements as prescriptivist,30

but this condemnation has no merit. In the first place, the ideathat a language ought not be abused in no way countenances thenotion that some languages are innately superior to others, orthat the language as spoken today is innately superior to the lan-guage as spoken in a few hundred years. In the second place, anyprescriptivist content in the statement is amply justified by theimportant role that language occupies in any given culture. Inother words, a certain degree of linguistic prescriptivism may wellbe justified in order to protect one’s culture from decay.

The abuse of language is the deliberate and widespread failureto conform to its grammatical and cultural rules. This principledoes not mean that language should not be allowed to changeover time; indeed, no principle could effectively forbid all change,though certain nations have been fairly successful at limiting it.31

It does mean, however, that the change should not be the resultof laziness, but of natural and organic evolution.

An example of natural and organic change would be the lossof case in the English language accomplished since the Normanconquest; indeed, an even better example would be the change ofEnglish from Anglo-Saxon to the English we know today. Twocultures had collided and were merging; it was only fitting thattheir languages merged, as well. A new language and new culturewas thus formed in the British isles. An abuse of language, how-ever, would be such changes unmerited by the cultural facts. If, forexample, Americans began to adopt certain random Swahili say-ings, they would be abusing their language. Generally linguistictendencies are merited by the cultural background against which

30That is, as stemming from the notion that language has inherent value,rather than value simply in its efficacy as a tool.

31Icelandic, for example, is largely unchanged for over a thousand years,and Icelandic students are able to read the old Viking sagas without concernfor the differences of language.

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they operate; however, language is of such paramount importancethat such abuses must be carefully prevented.

Language can also be abused by deliberate alteration, and byconformity to that alteration. The word “seductive” is an excellentexample. At one time, “seductive” indicated a horrible wrongdo-ing, the taking advantage of an otherwise innocent woman. How-ever, advertisements have begun to use it to describe the allureof their products, speaking of “seductive chocolate cake” or “se-ductively delicious desserts.” In this way, the meaning of “seduc-tive” has changed. The meaning of the word has been reversed,from “immorally inducing another to sin” to “really attractive.”Modern media have reversed the meaning of this word. A man“seducing” a woman is no longer taking advantage of her, butusing his innate charm to bring her to what she really, perhapssecretly, wants anyway. Such changes are truly abuses of languagebecause they actively alter the sensibilities of a people regardingits cultural end, in this case, the moral and virtuous life. Thisruns contrary to the purpose of culture, at least in good culturesinformed by Catholic values, and is therefore culturally bad.

We have remarked already that “the French people adherestrongly to their language”32; however, there is more to the French-man’s affirmation of the French mind than simply this. He goesfurther to say that they adhere also “to their family traditions,[and] so too do they remain steadfastly attached to the CatholicFaith.”33 This is, of course, equally true of all cultures and alllanguages. Adhering to one’s language is, in large part, adheringto one’s culture; and adhering to one’s culture is, if that culturehas a common religion providing its end, adhering to one’s Faith.The importance of language as a source of culture cannot, then,be underestimated.

Since culture and language are so closely intertwined, however,the question arises whether a culture which begins to speak adifferent language can be considered the same culture. The answeris probably no; they have become a different culture, no longerbound by that primary source of unity. They would be, of course,

32Rev. le Blanc, supra note 28.33Id.

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very closely united cultures,34 but different cultures nevertheless,the remaining superficial resemblences notwithstanding.

4.3 History

History is, of course, a very important source of culture, and thisfact is so self-evident that it can require but little explanation.The history of the English and Irish, for example, for the last fivehundred years have been a source of a great deal of their culture,especially in the great influence which the English have had on theIrish despite the heroic resistance of the Irish to that influence.Innumerable songs, practices, and other customs have arisen fromthis conflict, from singing about heroic military defeats to toastingto the king over the water. Unquestionably this is a fertile sourcefor culture, and this particular example will furnish an excellentstudy.

England, of course, had been a tentatively revolutionary powersince the schism of Henry VIII, and confirmed their own revolutionby the usurpation of James II’s throne in 1688. The fact that Ire-land had also paid homage to the English king some five hundredyears earlier meant that a revolutionary society was governing acounterrevolutionary society. Naturally, this could not but havesome effect upon the counterrevolutionary society. This revolu-tionary influence upon Irish culture is not meant to be in any wayderogatory of the Irish; indeed, the fact that they adopted so littleof the revolutionary theories of the English government is much totheir credit as a strong and virile society.

However, the influence of the English was not entirely withouteffect. That English influence was the primary impetus of therelatively quick and easy assimilation of the Irish into Americansociety despite their Catholicity, a barrier not as easy for othernationalities to overcome. Though Catholic, the Irish tended tobe revolutionary in several key ways, and these traits, derived fromthe English, resulted in the heresy known as Americanism. Thehistory of the Irish contributed heavily to this strange anomaly of

34Once again the Irish provide an excellent example. Those Irish who speakGaelic can be considered a different culture from those who speak only English;however, these are certainly very closely related cultures.

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liberal35 Catholicism, an anomaly which led the way into the new,modernist “Catholicism” which we see today.

Examples could be endlessly multiplied, but this multiplicationwould serve no purpose. The influence of history upon culture isevident enough that this section may safely be considered com-plete.

4.4 Physical Realities

Physical realities, of course, are a fertile source of culture. Thesephysical realities have an enormous effect on the way a peoplelives; this will naturally have a correspondingly enormous effecton the culture of that people. Three primary sources of culturefrom physical reality can be identified: the geography of an area;the climate of that area; and the means of sustenance to whichthat area is suited.

Geography and climate naturally have an enormous effect on apeople. The Swiss and other peoples who have developed in verymountainous regions often have very distinctive ways of buildingtheir homes and villages, as well as ways of shouting across longdistances when blocked by mountains. Those who developed incold regions wear certain types of clothing, those in hot othertypes. Examples could doubtlessly be multiplied.

Means of sustenance is also a fertile source of culture. It willform many of the popular expressions in a culture, for example.The Germans once had, and perhaps still have, an expression alongthe lines of “may you eat pig” to wish someone bounty. Further-more, it will often influence clothing, and obviously has an effecton cuisine.

While these variations in culture are generally not so great asto make differences in them different cultures, they are certainlyrelevant to the culture as a whole. No complete study of culturecould ignore them.

35“Liberal” in the classical, rather than the modern American political,sense.

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5 Reclaiming Culture

This great concept of culture still exists in the modern world;however, it is sorely beleaguered. How culture can be preservedand revived in the modern milieu will be our next subject.

5.1 The Death of Culture

Culture, however, is not what it was once, and the Catholic mustbe hesitant about applying the term “culture” in its full sense,rather than in only an analgous sense, to the cultures of modernity.This is true not only insofar as culture is Catholic; culture is dyingnot only as Catholic, but as culture itself.

The fact that Catholic culture is dying out is no new proposi-tion; even before the recent Council the heirarchy regularly notedthe massive assaults upon Catholic culture, particularly as livedout in family life. Consistently the Church warned the faithfulagainst “the threat of the secularization of the home,”36 and evenwarned of a conscious “experiment”37 in that secularization. Thiscampaign consisted primarily in “the absence of those practiceson the family hearth”38 which we have defined as specifically cul-tural, even if religiously motivated, practices. Catholic culture waswounded and dying even before culture in general came to thosedire straits.

The same “privatization of the good”39 which brought aboutthat death, however, means the death of all culture, leaving onlythe superficial remnants of culture, what some have called the“disneyfication” of once proud and noble peoples. First, the wayin which modernity has effected the death of culture, properly socalled, will be examined; then, this death will be examined usingAmerican culture as an archetype.

36Rev. Edgar Schmiedeler, O.S.B., Introduction, in Customs & Tradi-tions of the Catholic Family 3 (Neumann Press 1994).

37Rev. Schmiedeler, Your Home, A Church in Miniature, supra note 20, at7.

38Id. at 21.39See Alasdair MacIntyre, The Privatization of the Good, in 52 Review

of Politics 344–377 (1990).

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5.1.1 Modern Culture in General

Essentially, modernity has induced a process of plasticization, ordisneyfication, of culture. While modernity insists that it respectsall the practices within all cultures, this respect only extends tothe superficial practices of various cultures, not to the deep andessential conceptions of the world which cultures engender in theirmembers. Not only does this testify to the typical disingenuous-ness of modernity, but it also divests culture of its most importantelements.

Culture, as we have seen, requires a people to aim at a com-mon end,40 and consists essentially in the virtues which tend tobring that people toward that end.41 This is the meat and sub-stance of culture; while the outward practices by which a culturepursues that end are interesting, charming, and even picturesque,they lose their meaning when not applied toward the cultural end.One cannot make sense of, for example, traditional French cul-ture without reference to becoming a good Catholic and gainingHeaven, for that was the end toward which French culture strove,and the virtues in which French culture consists are meaninglessand aim at nothing without that end.

Modernity, however, will not respect those ends; it refuses re-spect to any end which fails its own tests of individual liberty.The end of truly French culture, for example, was intolerable tomodernity; consequently, the most violent eruption of modernity,the French Revolution, focused entirely on destroying the Frenchpursuit of that end. Modernity will not respect cultural ends, andtherefore under modernity culture itself must die.

The objection to this conclusion is simple, yet misleading.Catholic philosophy, the argument goes, also does not respect allends, but only a Catholic one, yet culture continues to exist even ina Catholic milieu. If that is the case, then surely culture can existin the modern milieu, even though modernity casts a suspicious eyeupon non-modern ends. This is simply a case of modern culturesadopting an end other than that which pre-modern, and specifi-cally Catholic, cultures have adopted. There is no disneyfication

40See supra Section 2.3, at 8.41See id.

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of culture, but only an alteration of its underlying principles.This argument is misleading, however, because modernity not

only fails to respect pre-modern ends; it fails to respect any ends.Because of its overly heavy focus on the individual, modernityrefuses to allow that there can be one end which is good for every-one and which ought to be publicly, either politically or culturally,acknowledged. Rather, modernity requires that each individualchoose his own end, which means that the role of culture, what-ever it might be in the modern milieu, cannot be that of cultivat-ing the individual towards a given cultural end. Culture, beingdeprived of its end, must be deprived of its substance. All thatremains is a superficial remnant of culture, the practices withouttheir purpose. While such “cultures” do provide excellent fodderfor children’s movies and highland festivals, they do not fully qual-ify as cultures in the full sense, the sense which until now we havebeen investigating.42

Is there any way, then, that these modern sets of customs canbe called “cultures,” or must that word be avoided when discussingthem? The answer, of course, is that they can be called cultures,but not in the same sense as a culture with an acknowledged cul-tural end. Traditional logic states that a term can be used inthree ways: univocally, analogously, and equivocally. It is usedunivocally when its meaning is precisely the same as its mean-ing elsewhere, as when the word “paganism” is applied to bothGreek and Roman myth. It is used analogously when there issome relationship between the two uses of the term, but not anidentity between the two, as when the word “paganism” is used ofboth Greek myth and the current irreligion which prevails in themodern world. The latter is not formally paganism; there is nopantheon, for example, or priests, or augurs. But there is somesimilarity in the two, such as hedonism and a rejection of the truefaith. Finally, a word is used equivocally when the two uses arenot related in the slightest, as when the word “paganism” is used

42This is, of course, an internal inconsistency of modern pluralism in general;it demands that there be no universally required end, yet still insists thateveryone respect that same principle. But the fact that modernity destroystrue culture is not altered by the fact that modernity is internally inconsistentin this way.

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of both Greek myth and Catholicism. Clearly, culture can be usedboth of true cultures and of modern cultures analogously, even ifnot univocally.

While true cultures and modern cultures are fundamentallydistinct, they still have a great deal in common. Both take theirpractices from the same sources,43 for example, and both consistof many similar practices, such as music, language, cuisine, andother common habits. While they must be considered distinct,they are certainly similar in many ways, and consequently the term“culture” certainly applies to both, even if to modern cultures onlyanalogously.

This understood, it may be helpful to look at the process of thedeath of cultures; that is, to examine the way in which modernitydestroys true cultures, and either assimilates them into a widerand emptier culture or, more rarely, simply petrifies them into aplastic mockery of their former proud nobility. By far the mostsuccessful culture of the modern milieu has been the American;consequently, it has been selected for some closer, though brief,examination on this point. The look at the specific and particularshould help to clarify the general and universal.

5.1.2 American Culture

American culture prides itself on its individualism. Individualism,however, may take one of two forms:

1. A strong emphasis on self-reliance and personal responsibil-ity. This form of individualism is no problem for our defini-tion of culture or for Catholicism in any culture.

2. The emphasis of the individual such that he is beholden tonone; that he chooses and pursues his own ends in his ownway; and that his adherence to higher entities is predicatedupon his own individual liberty and choice. Clearly, thisindividualism eviscerates our idea of culture and the hold ofthe Catholic faith on souls and families.

43See supra, Section 4, at 15.

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However, American culture quite evidently supports the secondkind of individualism. Americans pride themselves on “going theirone way” and their “live and let live” philosophy. More recently,these notions have been expressed by sweet little phrases suchas “open-mindedness” and “not judging.” Any attempt to claimthat the ends or means of another are bad ends or means is being“judgemental” and “closed-minded,” whether it is from religiousor, more pertinently to our discussion, cultural grounds. Americanculture, moreover, was the first to truly internalize this sort ofcultural milieu—that is, a cultural milieu in which there is no trueculture. Consequently, its history provides an excellent illustrationfor our notions of modernity’s murder of authentic cultures.

This first happened, of course, with the American Indians.American Indians had definite ends within their several cultures,and they all enforced upon themselves particular means of pursu-ing those ends. Their cultural dedication to their cultural endsmade them into exemplary Catholics in Spanish44 and certainFrench45 lands. American culture, however, and to a certain ex-tent revolutionary British culture before it, could not tolerate suchcommunity-oriented societies among it. So the Indians were sys-tematically wiped out; after a time, when conscience forbade theircomplete extermination, they were isolated onto reservations and,very slowly and still incompletely, absorbed into acultural Ameri-can society.

Immigrants suffered the same fate. We have already observedthe damage done to Irish culture, previously infected as it was byEnglish liberalism,46 when it found its way to these shores. Some-what less well-known among Catholics is the fate of the Germanimmigrants, often very Catholic, yet also destroyed by the influ-

44See, e.g., Warren H. Carroll, Our Lady of Guadalupe and theConquest of Darkness (Christendom Press 1983) (giving an excellentoverview of the strength of the Mexican Indians’ conversion).

45See, e.g., Warren H. Carroll, The Cleaving of Christendom657–663 (Christendom Press 2000) (discussing the French missions in NorthAmerica, though his conclusions about the separation of converts from for-mer culture is perhaps too strong, and neglects the adoption of many Indiancustoms among French Americans, not to mention their intermarriage).

46See supra, Section 4.3, at 24.

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ence of American society.German Catholics came to America and generally set up small,

largely self-sufficient farming communities, in which their culture,including its language, was preserved in its entirety. The German-language press, for example, was very active in the nineteenthcentury. Even the Americanist heresy, by which Americanist bish-ops attempted to strangle the integrally Catholic (and thereforeanti-liberal) society of the German Catholics, was insufficient todemoralize or eliminate these German-speaking peoples, though itcertainly put a dent in their armor by essentially requiring Englishfluency for all Catholic school children.

However, the United States went to war with Germany in1917, and the German Catholic society in this country was finallydestroyed. Germany and Germans were represented as all thatwas contrary to American ideals of freedom and liberty (meaningAmerican ideals of individualism). Germans were, then, put un-der enormous pressure to abjure their particular culture, contraryas it was to American ideals. The German Catholic communitiesfinally folded under this “war spirit.” They largely abandonedtheir own cultures, sometimes even Anglicizing their surnames inorder to hide their backgrounds. They became as American as ev-eryone else—and the authentic culture which they so long upheld,containing an explicit common end, was abandoned.

These cultures were either eliminated or absorbed; either waythey were killed. Acultural liberalism, however, has still anotherweapon in its arsenal to wield against authentic cultures: plas-ticization. Cultures can be “plasticized” to the point at whichthey are entirely superficial and no longer include the commonend of that culture, though the outer signs of that culture are stillretained.

Highland culture in America is the best example. Kilts, bag-pipes, and caber-tossing are well known to most Americans, andhearken to Scottish accents and strange, bearded men eating hag-gis. But none of the true, authentic ideals of Highland culture—loyalty to clan, for example, and to the Church—remain respected.Highland culture has been plasticized; it’s now a Disney caricatureof culture, not the true culture in its entirety itself.

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Not only does such plasticization effectively strip a culture ofany threat it poses to the liberal milieu, but it also provides theacultural denizens of modernity with some facsimile of culture,making them feel as though they truly live in the multiculturalparadise which liberalism falsely promised to mankind. They seeexamples of such cultures—Highland, Italian, Greek, and so on—and feel as though they truly do live in a melting pot, in which allcultures come together to live in harmony. In truth, however, lib-eralism does not harmonize all cultures; it destroys them, guttingthem of their real significance and identifying them with superfi-cial accoutrements which, apart from their full cultural milieu, areoften ridiculous. Highlanders are fiercely loyal and simple people;those are some of their defining characteristics. Wearing a kilt andtossing a telephone pole are not.

Liberal society, which is by definition acultural, cannot toler-ate the existence of authentic cultures—that is, cultures with awell-defined and common end—within their areas of dominance.Such cultures explicitly call into question all the notions of self-determination and individualism which liberalism values above allelse. So these two means, absorption (or elimination) and plasti-cization, are employed to neutralize their effects while still main-taining some of their superficial aspects. Modernity neuters cul-ture, and no culture can live within it without specifically rejectingit and remaining constantly on guard against it. History teachesthis lesson without any doubt.

5.2 Reviving Culture

This death of culture, as we have called it, is unquestionably abaneful development for the good life in the Western world. Cul-ture has been primarily responsible for the passing down (the tra-dition) of religious and societal values. When culture failed, thattradition necessarily failed, as well, and modernity and the En-lightenment found themselves finally and definitively triumphant.An excellent means of reviving tradition, of ensuring that our re-ligious and societal values are reliably passed down to future gen-erations, is to rescue culture from its current malaise. Some mighteven argue that, excepting prayer and fasting, it is the only re-

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liable means of passing the truths which we know down to ourchildren. Some discussion, then, of the revival of culture is cer-tainly warranted.

Culture, can of course, only be saved by practicing it, by learn-ing about and embracing what modernity has, through its philo-sophical errors, given up. In other words, we must embrace thetraditions of our own cultures, sometimes unearthing them fromunder many years of neglect. This is often a challenging task, in-volving new languages and customs which may be entirely alien.However, no other means of regaining the benefits of culture, soefficacious in preserving the faith and other traditions, will be suf-ficient.

Furthermore, we must be conscious of the danger which moder-nity offers to these revived cultures and ensure that we are con-stantly on guard against it. True and authentic culture is funda-mentally antithetical to modernity, and consequently cannot sur-vive within its milieu. Children especially, who must be raisedin these revived cultures if those cultures are to survive, must beshielded from modernity until they are mature enough to compre-hend and avoid its threats. In the passing down of culture (inother words, in tradition) lies the only hope of culture’s survival.A failure in this means a failure in the entire project.

Culture can be revived in one of two ways. The first involvesthe simple adoption of many customs from various cultures; thesecond is the adoption of a single, given Catholic culture of thepast, emulating it as far as one is able. The second is the onlysustainable method. Authentic, unified cultures develop over hun-dreds and thousands of years; they cannot be patched together inthe haphazard way suggested by the first option. The developmentof culture is, of course, uncertain, this and it is quite probable that,in this country, the various Catholic cultures which Catholics haverevived will blend into a single culture. However, this must be per-mitted to occur organically; attempting to sidestep the slow, nat-ural process cannot be successful. As Catholics, we know that therichness of culture cannot be obtained except by the accumulationof centuries. As Catholics, then, we know that culture cannot berevived but by tapping into those centuries of growth by adoptingan authentic culture, probably from our own descent. Otherwise

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the “culture” we adopt will be schizophrenic, disunified; the meansby which it pursues the common ends of Catholic cultures will beinconsistent, and the ends not common to all Catholic cultureswill be confused and unobtainable. We must trust our ancestorsand what they tried to hand down to us, and take what we canfrom them; it will develop from us as it developed from them, ina natural way over many years.

First and foremost, of course, the Catholic must revive the“religious customs . . . of the past”47 which so many of the faith-ful in the modern world completely neglect. Even this, however,will often depend upon the individual culture which the Catholicchooses to emulate. Some religious customs were, of course, uni-versal throughout the West; many, however, were particular togiven cultures, and consequently a full revival of these customswill require adopting in at least some manner some authentic, de-veloped culture, preferably one from the individual Catholic’s owndescent.

Next, once the Catholic has determined the culture which hisfamily will attempt to emulate, he must dedicate himself to learn-ing, as far as he is able, the language of that culture. While theEnglish have what may seem an unfair advantage in this matter, aswe have discussed above,48 language is a vital part of culture, andso some familiarity with the cultural language is necessary. Whilenaturally fluency in another language will not always be obtain-able, the greatest possible retention of the language is imperativefor the fullest possible adoption of the culture.

The Catholic endeavoring to reclaim his ancestral language cantake comfort in the fact that large portions of the world are bilin-gual,49 and they have little difficulty shifting between the two lan-guages in appropriate situations.50 It is further a myth that chil-dren learn languages more easily than adults51; rather, children

47Rev. Schmiedeler, Your Home, A Church in Miniature, supra note 20, at17.

48See supra, Section 4.2, at 17.49See Francois Grosjean, Life with Two Languages 1-24 (Harvard

Univ. Press 1982).50Id. at 250–51.51Id. at 192–93.

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devote substantially all of their time to learning their native lan-guages, while adults seldom devote as much as a quarter hour aday to language study. A firm commitment to the project cannotbut have excellent results, even if fluency is not shortly ensuing.

Next, of course, comes some familiarity with the cultural his-tory and normal forms of art. The Frenchman, for example, mustlearn about St. Louis and Gothic architecture.52 This is undoubt-edly the easiest and most pleasurable part of acquainting oneselfwith one’s chosen culture. One must also reach into the culture’sstore of traditional music and stories. These are rich sources ofeveryday culture which will be an immeasurable help in giving theCatholic the strength to stay the course.

That, after all, is one of culture’s greatest benefits: it is a com-pletely surrounding milieu which constantly reminds its membersof the ends they pursue. In this way Catholics can help ensurethat their descendants will receive the values which our ancestorshave passed to us. That is the definition of tradition; that is theprimary way in which our faith is handed down in families. Andthat is how culture helps to keep that faith alive.

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Martinsville, VA 24112http://gorpub.freeshell.org

52For, as Emile Male states, the French (and everybody else) have producedno better. Emile Male, Religious Art in France of the ThirteenthCentury 398–99 (Dover 2000).