Building a Culture

My life seems like a complicated musical composition sometimes.  Themes rise and fall then are repeated again and again with subtle variations.  One of the themes that keeps repeating is that of “building a new culture”.  I hear it strongly at times, then it fades to the background.  It is the answer to questions of my life “Why classics?” or “Why theology?” or “Why Catholic?” and even “Why homeschool?”.   There are many answers to these questions, but one of the answers is “I am helping build a new culture.”

I read this article today by Andew Klavan and it fits with this theme of building a new culture  that is playing so loudly  in my world at the moment.  I am also reading “The Restoration of Christian Culture” by  John Senior, planning next year’s homeschool lists,  we recently watched “Prince Caspian”  and I have found myself in some really interesting conversations lately which all bring this theme to the fore.

Andrew Klavan does a good job of making a very breif case against Holliwood culture, but he stops short.  I do not think the case can be made against the culture without including the education system that feeds it and I don’t think a new culture can rise until the education of the next generation is wrested from the current intreanched intrests that dominated it.

Our schools are turning out vast numbers of adults who are taught to base their judgements on how something makes them feel.   This is why homeschooling becomes so important.  Parents have to be responsible for their children’s education.  We need to produce children who can think deeply and understand new concepts within a context of history and culture.  We need to raise children with attention spans that are longer than the average insect’s.  We have to step off the cultural treadmill and not be afraid to be very, very different.  From this we will inevitably see new art, music, and literature flow.    Then we can hope to sway culture back – or we will at least be out of the que when the lemmings go off the cliff.