Tim Dawson Managing Director Synergetic Tim Dawson Managing Director.
Christopher Dawson - Bliese
Transcript of Christopher Dawson - Bliese
Christopher Da w son:
His Interpretat ion of History
J O H N R. E. B L I E S E
CHRISTOPHERENRY AWSONa s b e e n c a l l e d
“the greatest English-speak ing Catholic histo-
rian of the twentieth century.”’
He
was a lso a
profound conservative crit ic of contemporary
W e s t e r n c u l t u r e a n d h i s i n d i c t m e n t s w e re
ba sed o n a synthetic interpretation of the his-
tory of mankind which is one of the most im-
pressive ever produced. His analysis of the
decl ine of the West must be considered an
i m p o r t a n t c o n t r i b u t i o n t o c o n s e r v a t i v e
thought. Yet Dawson has been strangely ig-
nored by American conservatives, to our dis-
advantage. Now and then one f inds passing
reference to Dawson, but se ldom an y ser ious
recognition of his contribution. As
a typical
exam ple of this neglect, al though Dawson he ld
a chair a t Harvard f rom
1958
to
1962,
he i s
men tioned only on ce in Nash’s history.’ Pa t-
ently we would do well to become better ac-
qu ain ted with Dawson’s thought:
H e
combined
two points of appr oac h in his s yn the sis of his-
tory: th e belief that cu lture s rath er than na tions
are the basic uni ts of history; an d th e develop-
ment of what he called the Christian view of
history.
Dawson would have us e xam ine history from
a cul tural perspect ive .
“Modem
history has
usually be en writ ten from t he nationalist point
of view. . .
.
In the course of the nineteenth
century this movement permeated the popular
consciousness and determined the ordinary
man’s conception of history. .. .And the resul t
is that e ach nat ion c la ims for i tse lf a cul tural
unity an d self-sufficiency that i t do es not pos-
s e s ~ . ” ~he national point of view is actually
dangero us; it was “one of the great pred ispos-
ing causes” of World W ar I.
We s h o u l d a d o p t
ins tead the cu l tu ra l concep t ion o f h i s to ry
“which goes beh ind th e pol it ical uni t and
studies that fun dam ental uni ty which we term a
cu l tu re .”‘
A culture Dawson defined
as “a common
way of l if e-a particular adjustment of ma n to
his natural surroundings and his economic
needs.” Four main components serve as th e
basis for culture: “(1) race, L e . , the genet ic
factor;
(2)
environment , i .e . , he geographical
factor; (3) function or occupation, i . e . , the eco-
nom ic factor,” a nd (4) “thought or the psycho-
logical factor.”5 The first th ree affect the life of
any living thing; the fourth is distinctively hu-
man. These four e lements were ident i f ied in
one of Dawson’s earliest works. In one of his
la tes t , a slightly different analy sis is given, still
containing four factors: “(
1) the sociological
factor, o r the principle of social organization;
(2) the geographical or ecological factor-the
adaptation of culture to i ts physical environ-
ment ;
(3)
th e econ om ic factor-the relation
between man’s ‘way of life’ and the way in
which h e ‘gains his living’; and
(4 )
the moral
factor-the regulation of hu m an life in con -
formity with some system of values and stan-
da rd s of behavior.”6 Dawson ha s also used an
analysis l imited to two elements, intellectual
and mater ia l , of which the intellectual is the
more important since i t “gives a culture i ts
specific form. . . .Essentially the intellectual
element consists in a common set of values
which serv e to unify th e various activit ies of the
g r o u p . S u c h v a l u e s f i n d e x p r e s si o n p r e -
eminen t ly . . n a society’s religio us beliefs.”’
Dawson believed religion to be the key to
history, because i t is th e key to culture. A
Modem Ag e
259
religion i s not simply a theology. Religion must
be exp ress ed in sociological ways as well for it
“can never escape th e necess i ty of becoming
incarnated in cul ture an d clothing i tse lf in so-
cial insti tutions an d tradit ions, if i t is to exert a
permanent inf luence on hu man l i fe and behav-
ior.”’ Th e ma nn er in which religion becom es
embodied in temporal socie ty es ta bl ishes the
form of a culture.
A religion may b e introduce d into a society
in on e of thre e ways. T he religion m ay grow up
“as i t were naturally, with th e l ife of a people”
and insepa rable from i t . T his is the normal
process in pr imit ive cul tures , and has occurred
in more advanced civil izations as well,
as
in
the Greek and Roman. Second, a religion may
be fully formed outside a cu l tu re and then be
introduced into i t , as Buddhism entere d China
or Islam Persia. Finally, a fully formed religion
may e nte r a cu lture sti l l in the process of forma-
tion, “thus i tself becoming one of the con-
s t ituent e lem ents of the new cul tu re that i s
growing up,” as ha ppen ed with ear ly medieval
Christianity.
A
people m ay also lose i ts religion and be-
c o m e secularized. “W‘i’iiLoui a
Idigiuii, :io+
ever, a cul tu re cann ot long survive. Seculariza-
tion is inevitab ly a sign of “social decay;” sin ce
religion provides the principle of inner cohe-
sion for a society, a sec ular society will sooner
or la ter disintegrate:”
Th e loss of the historic religion of a society
is a sign that i t is undergoing a process of
social disintegration. . . .We cannot . . .
assu m e the possibil ity of a cul t ure cont inu-
ing to p reserve i ts unity a nd to persist indef-
initely without any religious form what-
soever. W he n the process of secularization
is completed, the p rocess of social dissolu-
t ion is consummated an d the cul ture comes
t o a n e n d . ”
Secularization is precisely what Dawson
bel ieved was hap penin g to the contemporary
West .
Onc e es tab l i shed , a cu l tu re t ends to become
static. However, cultural change may be in -
du ce d in several ways. Dawson del inea ted five
major types of social change. First and most
basic, a people dev elops a partic ula r relation-
ship to i ts or iginal environment . When a work-
ab le way of l ife has been attai ned , i t will per -
s is t . Second, for some reason a people may
come into a new geographical environm ent an d
adap t i t s cul tu re to f it the new area. Third. two
different peoples may mix, usually as the re -
sul t of conquest , and a new cul ture must be
formed. Dawson considered this the “most typ-
ical and important of a l l the cau ses of cul ture
change;’ it ha s be en “the origin of prac tically
all those su dd en flowerings of new civil isation
which impress us
as alm ost m i r a ~ u l o u s . ” ’ ~s
the two peo ples begin to fuse themselves into a
new people an d fo rm a new cul tu re , they pa ss
through a fairly regular cycle. First there is a
period of seve ral centuries of “silent growth
a
the old er cul ture , e i ther that which they have
brough t with them , or that which they found in
the land.”I3 Next there is a period of “intense
cultural activity, when the new forms of l ife
created by the vital union of two different
p e o p l e s a n d c u l t u r e s b u r s t i n t o f l ~ w e r . ” ’ ~
Finally the culture reaches maturity ‘-either
by the absorption of the new elements by the
ta inment of a permanent balance between the
two, the stabilisation of a new cultural varia-
tion.”15 The fourth type of cultural change
resu l t s when a society adopts some material
e lem ent which ano ther people has developed.
Such m ater ia l chan ges may al ter the whole
system of social organization. Yet, being the
result of purely external factors, this kind of
ch ang e very often lea ds not to social progress
but to socia l decay , for “as a rule , to be pro-
gressive change must come from within.”I6 Fi-
nal ly , the f if th type of chang e is induc ed when
a people modif ies i ts cul ture because of the
adoption of some new knowledge or belief.I7
A cul ture tends , especial ly af ter the h igher
level of civil ization has been reached, to ex-
p a n d .
A
civilization attempts to become a
super -cu l tu re ex tend ing over a l a rge area,
dom ina t ing o r absorb ing o ther less a d v a n c e d o r
less powerful cul tures . “T hu s a higher civiliza-
t ion a lmo st a lways contains a t least two sep a-
rate t radi t ion s which may provide the ten sion
t h a t c a u s e s s o ci a l p ro g r es s a n d c u l t u r a l
ach ievement .
. .
Ul lgI I l” : p e u p k a114 its cuhure, or by the at-
260 Summer 1979
Dawson’s judgm ent of th e expansive ten-
den cy of a c ivil izat ion c hang ed over the years .
He first regarded terr i tor ia l e xpa nsion as som e-
thing achieved at the e xp en se of the qual i ty of a
civi l izat ion, but la ter h is judgment was re-
versed. “The normal proc ess is qui te the oppo-
site,
e.
g., he great a ge of medieval c ul ture was
also the age of the terri torial expansion of the
F r a n c o - N o r m a n c u l t u r e , t h e g r e a t a g e of
Spa nish cul ture was the a ge of Spanish terr i to-
r ia l expansion and th e la t ter ceased before the
former by a generat ion or O n a larger
scale, the entire history of the world may be
s e e n
as
a process of incr eas ing integration
based on the tendency of civil izations to ex-
pand.”
W hile a cul ture may ch an ge in many ways, i t
is not infinitely malleable. “Precisely because
change is something out of the ordinary and
interferes with th e previou s m ode of a culture’s
functioning, there is a l imit to the amount of
change of which
a
society i s c apab le without
breakdown.”” Th ere is a lso a qualitative l imit:
“Only so long as change i s the spon taneous
expression of t he society i tself d oe s i t involve
the p rogress o f c iv i l i za t ion .”22 Som et imes
changes a re in troduced in to
a
cul tur e that are
not assimilable into th e “spo ntan eou s expres-
sion of the society i tself .” If the culture is
strong enough, i t will so on er or later reject the
alien elements that have bee n thrust upon it. If ,
however, the a l ien e lem en ts are accompanied
by
a
superior technology, they will usually
destroy the cul tu re in to wh ich they have bee n
i n t r ~ d u c e d . ~ ~he former possibili ty may be
il lustrated by the Islamic world’s attempt to
ass imilate Greek sc ience . T h e result was “an
internal confl ic t between the scient i f ic and
religious traditions [which] proved incapable
of solution.”24 Islam rejected Greek science,
and the Moslem world consequent ly is now
technologically inferior to th e West. T he latte r
possibility
is
i l lustrated by the reactions of
pr imi t ive peop les to con tac t wi th Wes te rn
civil izations and the ch an ges being wrought in
A s ia n n at io n s by W e s t e m t e ~ h n o l o g y . ’ ~
Dawson viewed history from a C hristian per -
spective. He believed that Christianity has a
concep t of history inhe ren t in i t , fo r i t is a
uniquely historical religion. I t is “essentially
the religion of the Incarnation, of the divine
intervention in history at a par t icular t ime an d
in a particular so cial context an d of the exten-
sion and incorporation of this new spiri tual
creation in the l ife of humanity through the
mediat ion of an h is tor ic ins t i tu t ion al soci-
ety.”26
Dawson was
a
Catho l ic conver t and h i s
Catholicism pervaded his writings. Yet his
Christian view of history inc lud es much th at a
Protestant could accept ; i t goes much deeper
than
a
simple Catholic notion of the Church.
Bel ief in divine providence is basic : -“ the
Christian is bound to believe that there is
a
spiritu al pur pos e in history-that it is su bj ec t
to the design s of Providence an d th at somehow
or
other God’s will is done.”” In the ancient
world, the do minan t conception of history w a s
one of constant , sense less chan ge; with the
com ing of Christianity “man first acqu ired that
sen se of a uni ty an d a purp ose in his tory with-
ou t which the spec tac le of the unend ing change
becomes meaningless a nd oppressive.”28
Dawson believed it necessary to com bine the
Christian view of history with his analysis of
cul ture s i f one would und ers tand W estern his-
tory. At various t imes h e discu sse d th e compo-
nen ts tha t make up E uropean cu l ture , concen-
trating p rimarily on the intellectual ones. At
on e point he co nsidered four factors: political
exis tence based on the Roman Empire , the
Christian religion, the Hellenic l i terary tradi-
t ion , and the German barbar ians
as a new
rac ial Normally, however, he l isted
two components basic to European cul ture:
Chris t iani ty and th e c lass ic al tradit ion. Th ese
elem ent s are not, of course, entirely compati-
ble ; indeed, there has a lways been tension
between them “which shows itself in the con-
f l i c t be tween the ex t reme idea l s o f o ther -
worldly ascet ic ism and se cul ar humanism. Yet
the coexis tence of both of these e le me nts has
been an essent ia l condi t ion of the Western
development , one which has inspired al l the
g r ea t a c h i e v em e n t s of o u r ~ u l t u r e . ” ~ ’ n e o r
the other e lement may have dominated a t any
mom ent in th e past , but bo th have a lways, from
their origins to th is day, b een p resent . W hen
they com bine , in teract “ in l iv ing an d f rui tful
contact with one another ,” the result i s a period
Modem Age
261
of great cul tura l achievem ents. In th e eighth,
twelfth, an d fifteenth cen turi es Dawson be-
l ie ve d s u c h a p ro ce ss o ~ c u r r e d . ~ ’
A
con sequ ence of our inte llectual her i tage is
that W estern socie ty has never remained s ta t ic
for very long;
i t has
neverachieved a n equi lib-
r ium beyond which no change would occur .
The dynamic West is , in th is respect , very
different from th e “unchanging East” and the
reason is to be found in religious differences.
Christianity is uniquely cap ab le of comb ining
with the classical tradit ion precisely beca use i t
is an historical religion. For the Christian,
“deliverance is to be obtained not by
a
s h e e r
disregard of physical existence and a concen-
tration of the higher intellect on the contempla-
tion of pure Being, but by a creative activity
that affects every part of the composi te nature
of
man.”32 Christianity ha s always resisted at-
tempts to in t ro duce into i t Gnost ic e lem ents
which reg ard th e material world as intrinsically
evi l . On th e other hand, there is an unworldly ,
transcenden tal aspect to Christianity which
necessitates a paradoxical att i tude toward the
world. T he tension between these two elemen ts
ha s given Christianity “its charac teristic power
change socie ty and to create new cul tural
f o rm s . 33 C h r i s t i a n i t y h a s p r o v i d e d t h e
dynamism in Wes te rn cu l tu re , a force no othe r
religion p rovides, save perh ap s Judaism . Daw-
son believed this spiri tual dynamism is so
im -
portant for ou r cu ltur e that, if i ts sourc e is long
removed, i t will bring “the progressive move-
ment to a ful l s top, and th us br ing about a s ta t ic
socie ty which has mastered socia l chan ge to
such
a
degree tha t i t longer possesses any
vital momentum.”34
In tracing Christianity’s sociological man-
ifestations, ob viously the Ch urc h is one of the
most important insti tutions on which to focus
attention. Dawson divided the history of the
Chu rch into s ix ages , e ac h las ting for three or
four cen tur ies and
each
following a roughly
similar course:
late. Se con dly there is a period of achieve-
ment w hen the Church seem s to have con-
quer ed the wor ld a nd i s ab le to c rea te
a
new
Chr is t ian cul ture an d new forms of l i fe and
art a n d thought. Thirdly there is a period of
re t reat wh en the Church is a t tacked by new
enemies f rom within or without , and the
achie vem ents of the second ph ase are lost or
deprec ia ted . 35
The Firs t Age of the Church began with
Christ and the l i fe an d death s t ruggle of th e
new re l ig ion wi th the Roman Empi re and
pagan civi l izat ion. In the second phase the
Church faced i ts most important change: the
extension from
a
purely Jewish to a Gentile
environment . The thi rd phase hardly exis ted
as
the las t great persecution threaten ed
to
de-
s t roy the Church but ended in i t s t r iumph.
The Sec on d Age began with the convers ion
of Constant ine and extended for
330
years
unt i l the M oslem con quest of Jerusalem. Th e
period of intense spiri tual activity witnessed
the greates t of the Fathers and the develop-
ment of moriasticisni. In the second phase, the
age of Just inia n, there
was
a flowering of art,
phase sa w the re trea t of subje ct nat ionali t ies
from
the Byzant ine Church, forming their own
nat ional church es , an d ended with th e r ise of
Islam.
The Thi rd Age , dur ing which the Church
was threatened by Moslem power, began with
the C hris tian e xpan sion into nor thern Europe.
There th e Church was the so le representa tive
of higher culture, possessing a monopoly on
edu cat ion which m ade the re la t ionship be-
tween re l igion and cul ture c loser than in any
other per iod. The high point of achievement
was reached in the Caro l ing ian Rena i ssance .
T h e a g e e n d e d w it h a re lapse caused by the
new barbar ian invasions of the ninth century.
The Fo urth A ge began with a spir i tu al reac-
t ion aga inst the secular izat ion of the C hurc h as
i t had b ee n abso rbed in feud al socie ty . Firs t
U IU . . . LY ” . . . I Un-h;tonta.ra -..Y
l;tnirgics!....-
The third
Ea ch of them begin, an d end , in cris is ; and
all
of them except perhaps the first , pass
through three ph ase s of growth and decay .
Firs t there is a period of intense spiri tual
activity when th e C hurc h is face d with
a
new
historical solution and b egins
a
new aposto-
came th e mo nast ic reform in Lorraine and Bur-
gundy, which eventual ly extended to the pa-
pacy i tse l f and reach ed a c l imax in the l i fe of
St. F ranc is . T he Church then re treated in the
face of th e new nat ional monarchies which
tended towards t he disintegration of th e inter-
262
Summer 1979
nat ional uni ty of Western Chris tendom, and
which brought the p apacy to the low points of
the great schism and the secular ized Renais-
sanc e Popes.
The F i f th Age began wi th a cr i s i s tha t
threatened the uni ty and exis ten ce of Western
Christendom. Both th e Protestant Reformation
and th e l ay cu l tu re of the I t a l i an Rena i ssance
chal lenged the Chu rch which reacte d with i ts
own reform movement and th e es tablishment of
new rel igious orders . T he Chu rch confronted
secular society with a new form of Christian
humanism and expanded into newly discov-
ered terri tories through intensive missionary
act ivi ty . Th is was the age of Baroque c ul ture
which, however, was depen den t o n the Catho-
l ic monarch ies and when they dec l ined , i t de -
cl ined with them. Final ly , th e Cathol ic monar-
chy of France was dest royed by t he Revolution
and the Church was a vic t im of the change.
The
Six th Age has seen such
a
revival of
C a t h o l i c i s m t h a t t h e C h u r c h w a s i n
a
fa r
stronger position by 1850 than i t had been a
century before. Th is age, of cour se , i s the one
in which we live and is st i l l in progress.36
(Dawson did not spec ulate on which p hase we
are now in.)
A grea t dea l of Dawson’s work applied his
analysis of cul ture and c ul tura l chan ge in de-
tail to two periods of Wes tern history, m edieval
and contemporary. Th e Middle Ag es were s in-
gled out as “the outstand ing exam ple in history
of the a pplication of Faith to Life: th e embod i-
ment of religion in social insti tutions and ex-
ternal forms and therefore both i ts achieve-
ments an d i ts f a i lu res
are
w o r t h y o f s t ~ d y . ” ~ ’
W hile religion is vital to
a
society, i t may be
more or
less
closely re la ted to the external l ife
of
a
given socie ty; in the Middle Ages the
rela t ionship w as espec ial ly c lose:
There has never been an ag e in which Chr i s-
tianity attained
so
c o m p l e t e
a
cul tu ral ex-
p r e s s i o n as i n t h e t h i r t e e n t h c e n t u r y .
Europ e has see n no g rea te r Chr is t ian hero
than St . Francis , no gr eater Chris t ian phi-
losopher than St . Thom as, no greater Chris-
t i a n p o e t t h a n D a n t e , p e r h a p s e v e n n o
grea ter Christ ian ruler than St. Louis. I d o
not m ainta in tha t the g ener al level of re li -
gious li fe was higher tha n a t o the r t imes or
that the s ta te of the C hurc h was heal thier ,
s t i l l less that the scandals were rarer or
moral evi ls less obvious . W ha t one can as-
sert is that in the M iddle Ages more than at
other periods in the l ife of our civil ization
the E uropean cul tu re and the Chris t ian re l i-
gion were in a stat e of comm union: th e high-
e s t e x p r e s s i o n s of m e d i e v a l c u l t u r e ,
whether in ar t , i n l itera ture
or
in philoso-
phy, were religious, and th e greatest repre-
sentatives of medieval religion were also the
lead ers of medieval culture. Th is is not,
of
course, an inevitable state of things. It may
even b e argued that th e dual ism of re ligion
and cu l tu re tha t ex i sted under th e Roman
Em pire , and more o r less generally in mod-
ern t ime s, is the normal condition of Chris-
tianity. Nevertheless, th e other alternative,
that of a co-operation and collaboration be-
tween rel igion and cul ture , i s undoubtedly
a
more ideal system, and f rom this point
of
view the medieval achievem ent rem ains un-
surp assed by any o ther age.38
By contrast , Dawson believed that the W est
today i s characterized primarily by i ts
sec-
ular ism. The Western world has become
al-
most completely secularized, thu s has lost an y
se ns e of direction a nd threatens i tself with de-
st ruction. Even the most basic n eed s t radi tion-
ally fulfi lled by religion have b ee n take n over
by profane pseudo-religions, first by th e cree d
of p r o g r e s ~ , ~ ’nd then by polit ical ideologies
s u c h as c o m m u n i s m o r n a t i o n a l i ~ m . ~ ’How-
ever , as fa i ths by which to direct the inc redib le
p o w e r s c i e n c e h a s m a d e a v a i l a b l e , t h e s e
pseudo-religions are dangerously inadequate .
Secularization threatens to destroy our cul-
ture be caus e i t e l iminates th e spir i tual pr inci-
ple
which has served
as
i ts unifying force in th e
past. Christ iani ty ha s provided the W est with
“a t r a n s c e n d e n t s p i r i t u a l e n d w h i ch g a v e
W es tem cu l tu re i t s dynamic purpose .”41 Once
th e spir i tu al pr inciple is gone, se l f -dest ructive
forces tak e over, for we ar e left with only th e
raw will to power exercised by co mp eting spe -
cia l interests. “Christianity is the sou l of Wes t -
em
civi l izat ion, and when the soul is gone
the body putref ies . What i s a t s tak e
is
not the
Modem Age
263
external profession of Christianity, but the
inn er bond w hich holds society together, w hich
l inks man to man and the orde r of the s ta te to
the orde r of nature . And when th is has gone
nothing remains b ut the principle uf bru te force
which is essent ia l ly unreconci lable with a
plural is t socie ty l ike the European commu-
nit^."^'
Within each state, this will to power man-
ifests i tself in the constan tly expanding power
of government. The secu lar s ta te is not content
to rul e in l imited areas but ten ds to expand into
every asp ect of our l ives and to dem and tota l
obed ience .43 Th ese t endenc ies a re mani fes t
throughout Western cul ture . While they have
reached m onstrous proportions in Com mun ism
and Nazism, they opera te equ al ly in Anglo-
Saxon countries. In
1936,
Dawson predicted,
“W e may not have a Total i tarian State in this
country of the same kind that we find in Ger-
many or in Italy. Nevertheless . . .
h e s a m e
forces that make for governmental control an d
social uniformity are at work here [England]
also and i n the U.S.A. , and it seems to me
highly prob able that th ese forces will result in
the formation of a type of Totali tarian State
which b ear s the sam e relation to Anglo-Saxon
polit ical and social traditions,
as
the Nazi Sta te
bears to the t radi t ions of Pruss ia and Centra l
Europe.”& Th e paternalis t ic s ta te wi th i ts in-
finity of governmental regulations and social
services is the Anglo-Saxon equivalent which
may become “a col lective despot ism which d e-
s t roys human l iber ty an d spir i tua l in i t ia t ive as
effect ively as any Communist or Nazi ter-
rorism.
745
Dawson bel ieved that on ce before the W est
faced a sim ilar destr uctio n of its civilization by
secularization:
t h e b a t h s , t h e c i r c u s a n d t h e a m p h i t h e a tr e
gave th e m ajori ty th e luxuries tha t had for-
merly been the privilege of the few, and
com pensa ted them for the loss of civic free-
d o m a n d
T h e R o m a n E m p i r e a n d i t s H e l l e n is t ic
civil izat ion had become sepa rated from any
“l iving re l igious basis” and, a l though Au-
gustu s a t tem pted to res tore that basis , h e was
unsuccessful. In spi t e
o
the high mater ia l and
intel lectu al cul ture , “ the dom inan t civil izat ion
beca me hateful in the ey es of the su bject Orien-
tal world,” an d indeed its own greatest mind s
were a l ienated from i t , a “pr ice that every
civilization ha s to pay when it loses i ts religious
foundat ions , and is contented with a purely
material success.”47
W este rn civilization now fac es
a
grave spiri-
tual cr is is a t the very t ime when i t has , by
conque s t and t echnology and t rade t ended to
unify th e en t i re world.48 If our c ul ture is to
survive i t m ust ob tain some religious roots,
e i the r by convers ion back
10
Christianity or by
findin g some new spir i tual pr inciple . Dawson
.*ns n= fz:&:; heh&..red
&!her
&err.$ivp
possible i f me n would ser iously make the at-
tempt. Naturally, he thought the more desir-
able would be to re turn to Chris t iani ty . Thus
the ch a l lenge i s i s sued
to
Christians:
Th e new Babylon i s th rea tened by a n even
more ca tas t roph ic and su ic ida l end than any
of th e world emp ires of the past . Th us we
f ind ourse lves back in the sam e s itua tion as
tha t which the Chr i s ti ans encounte red dur -
ing the decl in e of the ancien t world. Every-
th ing d epen ds on w he ther the Chr i st ians o f
the new age are equal to their miss ion-
w h e t h e r t he v are ab le to com mu nica te the i r
hope to a world in which m an f ind s himself
a lone and he lp less be fore the mons t rous
serve his own ends but which have now
des t roy h im.49
Dawson proposed a first step towards solu-
tion of the problem of secularism. H e believed
that h igher educat ion should be of most con-
cern to the C hris t ian. “It i s in th is f ield that the
Th e Roman Em pi re was faced by the same
tively high standard of material civilization
had become a source of vital degeneration
rathe r than of socia l progress . Th e l i fe was
passing out of the old City-state and i ts
ins t itu t ions , an d in i ts p la ce th ere had ar is-
en a standardized cosmopolitan civiliza-
tion inspired by no higher m otive tha n mass
hedonism. The State-provided pleas ures of
problem
as
Europe to-day. Its
forces
wh ich have been created by man to
264 Summer 1979
secula r is t danger is most formidable . . for] if
[Christianity] loses the right to teach it can no
longer exist ." Moreover , educ at ion i s a lso the
weak point of secularism: "The only part of
Leviathan that is vulnerable is i t s brain."50
Dawson devoted one of his last books to the
proposal to institute, i n private, Catholic col-
leges, a program for the study of Christian
culture." It is a proposal that s t r ikes one as
hope lessly inadequa te , a t l e as t in the United
States, in view of the in cre asin g problems pri-
vate colleges have i n merely surviving. But
those diff icul t ies do indeed point to the im-
mediacy of the issue for ou r chu rche s; their
right to teach is being rapidly eroded away.
Th e central focus of Dawson's works is h is
profound bel ief that th e un derlying disease our
'Daniel Callahan, et al., "Christoph er Dawson," Har-
uard Theologica l Review 66
(1973). 167.
'George H. Nash,
The Conseruutive Intellectual Movement in America (New
York: Basic Books, Inc., 1976), p. 308. William F.
Buckley,
Jr.
includes an essay by Dawson in hisAmerican
Conservative Thought in the Twentieth Century (In-
dianapolis and Ne w York: The Bobbs-Merrill Company,
Inc., 1970 . ) 3Christoph er Dawson, The Making ofEurope
(Cleveland: Meridian Books,
1956;
first published,
1932),
p.
20.
4Dawson,
The Age of the
Gods
(London: S heed and
Ward, 1933), p.xiii. V b i d . , pp. xiii f. 'Dawson, TheFor-
mation of Christendom (New York: Sheed and Ward,
1967),
p. 40. 'Dawson, The Dynamics of World History,
ed. by John J. Mulloy (New York: Me ntor
Books, 1%2),
p.
431 . Th e quotation is from Mulloy's closing essay.
"Dawson, Religion and Culture (Cleveland: Meridian
Books,
1958;
first published,
1948),
p.
54 .
'Dawson,
Medieval Essays (Garden City, New York: Doub leday and
Company, 1959; f i r s t publ ished, 1954) , pp. 53f
'Tawson, Progress and Religion (London: Sheed and
Ward,
1933),
pp.
233f.
"Dynamics of World History, p.
105.
"Age of the Gods,
p. xvii. 'Ybid . 141bid .151bid . ,.
xviii. 161bid.171bid. ,p. xvi ff. '"Dynamics of World His-
tb ry ,
p. 392. "Ibid. , p. 407 . Italics in original. '"bid., p.
52 .
"Ib id . , p.
438.
The quota tion is by Mulloy. ''Progress
andRe l ig ion , p. 64. Z3Dynamicsof WorldHistory, p. 442.
From Mulloy's essay. z4Progress and Re lig bn , p. 172.
25Dynamicsof World History, p. 442 . From Mulloy's essay.
cult ure suffers fro is not political o r economic
but spiritual. Dawson was, of course, con-
cerned about the pol i tical and economic issues
confronting
all
contemporary conservatives.
He
opposed the increasing power of modem
governments , the i r cons tan t encroachment
upon individual freedom, and the ossification
of society as "a centralized bureaucratic con-
trol" is substituted for "the s ponta neou s activ-
ity of normal social life."52 But he would have
us always remember that these are but the
superficial symptoms of a much d eeper mala i se
which must be cured before our civilizatioq c an
become healthy again.j3 Otherwise, al l con-
servatives' efforts devoted to political an d eco-
nomic issues will go for naught, eve n if they are
temporarily successful.
"Dawson, The Historic Reality of Christian Culture (New
York: Har per and Brothers,
1960),
p.
6 3 .
"Dawson, Be-
yond Politics (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1939), p. 121.
"Dynamics of WorldHistory,
. 266 . "Making of Europe,
chapters 1 through 5. 30Dawson, The
Crisis
of Western
Education (London: Sheed and Ward,
1961),
p. 122.
31Dawson,The Movement of World Revolution (New York:
Sheed and Ward, 1959), pp . 91f. 32Dynarnicsof World
History, p. 187. 33HistoricReality of Christian Cultu re, p.
77 . 34Movement of World Reuolutwn, p. 109. 35Historic
Reali ty of Christian Culture, p.
4 7 .
3EIbid . ,pp .
4 8 5 7 .
37MedieualEssays, p.
15. 301bid.,pp .
163f.
3sProgress and
Religion, p. viii. 40HistoricReality of Christian Culture, p.
24. Understanding Europe
York: Doubleday and Company, 1960; first published,
1952),
p.
203.
42Dawson, The Judgment of the Nations
(New York: Sheed and Ward, 1942), p. 144. 43Historic
Reality of Christian Culture, p. 97 . 44Dawson,Religion
and the Modern State (London: Sh eed and W ard, 1936), p.
54 .
451bid.,p.
106.
46BeyondPolitics,p. 88. 47Dynamicsof
World History, p. 131. 4"Ibid., p. 455. From Mulloy's
essay. 49Historic Reality of Christian Culture, p. 6 7 .
'"lbid. , pp . 87f. "Crisis of Western Educa tion. See, for a
summary, Leo R. Wa rd, "Dawson o n Education in Chris-
t ian Culture," Modern Age
17 (1973) , 399-407. 52 -
Dynamics of World History, p. 221. 53Religion and the
Modern State, p. xii.
Modern Age
265