Four Cultures of the West

by John W. O'Malley

The workings of Western intelligence in our day--whether in politics or the arts, in the humanities or the church--are as troubling as they are mysterious, leading to the Where are we going? What in the world were we thinking? By exploring the history of four "cultures" so deeply embedded in Western history that we rarely see their instrumental role in politics, religion, education, and the arts, this timely book provides a broad framework for addressing these questions in a fresh way.The cultures considered here originated in the ancient world, took on Christian forms, and manifest themselves today in more secular ways. These are, as John W. O'Malley identifies the prophetic culture that proclaims the need for radical change in the structures of society (represented by, for example, Jeremiah, Martin Luther, and Martin Luther King, Jr.); the academic culture that seeks instead to understand those structures (Aristotle, Aquinas, the modern university); the humanistic culture that addresses fundamental human issues and works for the common good of society (Cicero, Erasmus, and Eleanor Roosevelt); and the culture of art and performance that celebrates the mystery of the human condition (Phidias, Michelangelo, Balanchine).By showing how these cultures, as modes of activity and discourse in which Western intelligence has manifested itself through the centuries and continues to do so, O'Malley produces an essay that especially through the history of Christianity brilliantly illuminates the larger history of the West.

Genres: History, Religion, Philosophy, Cultural, Theology, Cultural Studies, Nonfiction

272 pages, Kindle Edition

First published October 15, 2004

About the author

Rev. Father John W. O’Malley, SJ, PhD was a professor of theology at the University of Detroit, Weston Jesuit School of Theology, and Georgetown University. His specialty was the history of religious culture in early modern Europe, especially Italy. He received best-book prizes from the American Historical Association, the American Philosophical Society, the Sixteenth Century Studies Conference, the American Catholic Historical Association, and from the Alpha Sigma Nu fraternity. His best known books are The First Jesuits (Harvard University Press, 1993), which has been translated into twelve languages, What Happened at Vatican II (Harvard, 2008), now in six languages, and The Jesuits: A History from Ignatius to the Present (Rowman & Littlefield, 2014), now in seven languages. A companion to the book on Vatican II is his Trent: What Happened at the Council (Harvard, 2012), in five languages. He has edited or co-edited a number of volumes, including three in the Collected Works of Erasmus series, University of Toronto Press. Of special significance is The Jesuits and the Arts, (Saint Joseph’s University Press, 2005), co-edited with Gauvin Alexander Bailey, and Art, Culture, and the Jesuits: The Imago primi saeculi, 1640) (Saint Joseph's University Press, 2015). In 2015 he also published Catholic History for Today's Church: How Our Past Illuminates Our Present (Rowman & Littlefield). He edited a series with Saint Joseph's University Press entitled Early Modern Catholicism and the Visual Arts, in which thirteen titles have appeared to date.

John O’Malley lectured widely in North America and Europe to both professional and general audiences. He held a number of fellowships, from the American Academy in Rome (Prix de Rome), the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the American Council of Learned Societies, and other academic organizations. He was a past president of the Renaissance Society of America and of the American Catholic Historical Association. In 1995 he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, in 1997 to the American Philosophical Society, and in 2001 to the Accademia di san Carlo, Ambrosian Library, Milan, Italy. He held the Johannes Quasten Medal from The Catholic University of America for distinguished achievement in Religious Studies, and he holds a number of honorary degrees. In 2002 he received the lifetime achievement award from the Society for Italian Historical Studies, in 2005 the corresponding award from the Renaissance Society of America, and in 2012 the corresponding award from the American Catholic Historical Association. He was a Roman Catholic priest and a member of the Society of Jesus.

Reviews

[Tom Willis · Rating 4 out of 5]

I believe Father O’Malley’s book does an excellent job organizing and identifying the four major forces which shaped Western culture. He does address the use of the term “culture”, but I really think the term to be too misleading, and could be replaced by something along the lines of “school”, “tradition”, or even “ideology”. The term “culture” brings with it more implications of something set and deliberate, like “Italian culture” than certain ways of thinking that can be seen to have influenced various movers and shakers throughout history. But O’Malley’s description of his thesis as four streams shaping an ocean seemed apt, and he never seemed to attempt to pigeon-hole figures into cultures where they didn’t fit. He didn’t sacrifice history to his theory.

Culture One seems to be one of the more relevant and populated cultures of today. The “Prophetic’ mindset dominates not just popular religious movements but modern politics as well, and even occasionally manifests itself in the presentation of new technological advances. It’s also the culture that told me as a child that I couldn’t read the Harry Potter books, and as a result has made itself eminently silly to me since then. The idea that some things are right and proper, and some things are wrong and improper, and that this delineation needs must be accepted as-is and without consideration (cf. Luther’s hate of “reason”) is a pretty consistent with the modern, internet-fueled “exchange of ideas”.

O’Malley made the interesting observation at some point churches within the prophetic culture began to assimilate the Enlightenment ideals espoused in the Declaration of Independence into their religious doctrines. “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity” easily fits into the bumper-sticker philosophy of Culture One, but it is rather unexpected that an ideology with such and irreligious origin would become a cornerstone of American (Protestant) Christianity. However, I don’t believe O’Malley ever attempts to place the period of the Enlightenment, or the philosophers of the French Revolution anywhere in his system. It seems that they could fall into both Culture One and Culture Three.

Culture Two is the one that really grinds my proverbial gears. It seems to be driven by a desire for education for its own sake. Knowledge can never be a bad thing. It is in this culture that latent Gnostic streams within Christianity flourished and eventually lead to the Reformation. O’Malley observes this but doesn’t make the correlation with that early Christian heresy. Academic theologians turned Christianity into a purely philosophical system based on facts and logic, and letting virtue and the Christ-like life fall more or less by the wayside.

Culture Three is where I am most at home, and is the culture toward which I am unashamedly biased. It is the culture that seems to welcome the most from the world, and to attempt to produce the most good. O’Malley emphasizes the role literature plays in this culture, the Christian adaptation and reinterpretation of Pagan classics - but I think he, as an academic, may be neglecting this continued activity in the world today, among the “normal people”. Literature, the assimilation and reinterpretation of literature and the appreciation of literature as such (pop lit, naturally, inclusive) is a driving force in modern culture. It seems to be the way a majority of the average Westerner’s leisure time is spent. The churches, lamentably, have been emptied, but the cinemas and concert halls are only gaining adherents.

Today Culture Three shares this with Culture Four in the form of cinema and modern music – these are the things that move people today. In forty years the presidents and senators, and possibly even bishops, will be people who once stood in line for a movie or book release. O’Malley makes only a passing reference to pop music – something definitely easy to dismiss – which I think is to the loss of his work, if I have correctly read the book as a sort of road map through the past with hints toward the future of Western civilization. O’Malley has no trouble pointing out the populist forces behind the Prophetic and Artistic (though in his reading, essentially Liturgical) culture and the Academic culture is by its nature rather removed from the mass of humanity. But outside of that his reading of the Humanist Culture does seem to be a little too academic, and he does neglect much of the Artistic culture outside the influence of the Christian liturgy.

[Diane · Rating 5 out of 5]

In this book, the author, a Jesuit priest, traces four cultures that he believes together make up the Western world. The first is the prophetic tradition, the second is the intellectual/analytical tradition, the third is the literary tradition, and the fourth is the performance arts. He traces how these cultures have shaped the Western world in the past, particularly during the Renaissance. He also explains how clashes between these cultures have led to social and political turmoil. He brings his analysis up to date by providing a few examples of each culture in the contemporary world.

I liked his analysis very much, and his prose was quite readable, even for the non-specialist. He caused me to think about Christian culture during the Reformation in a new light. However, I wish that he would have included more contemporary examples, as I struggled to apply much of what he had to say to the contemporary world. Also, I was a bit confused by his assertion that the literary tradition was completely separate from the performing arts, but that the literary tradition also included much political, and other non-fiction, writing. I wish he would have explained in more depth the relationship between fiction and non-fiction in the four cultures.

[Judy Alston · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting historical read that has very relevant contemporary context.

[Doug Schreiber · Rating 4 out of 5]

O'Malley brings a unique insight into a study of history. One could argue with his sense of what the four cultures are and how he delineates them, but one cannot question his thought and research and raw knowledge of western history and the drivers in western thought and theology.

It is worth the read, but a warning; I had to get ourt my dicionary! I also had to get my history book because he presumes a broad previous knowledge of his reader.

[DW Rowlands · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was definitely interesting as intellectual history and well-written--the author is a Jesuit after all--but I didn't find his classification scheme entirely convincing.

[Tim Saunders · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am currently researching interfaith (Christian and Muslim) approaches to school leadership and the spiritual, moral, cultural and mental development of students in the UK. John O'Malley is one of my key dialogue partners and this book has inspired me to consider how the four cultures of the West he explores are shared with Islam and how this has major implications for developing a curriculum which is based on common values and partnership rather than one based on isolation, hostility or competition.

Culture 1: Prophecy and Reform enables us to think of teaching which is focused on Unity, the unity of the cultures as a dynamic whole and the unity of society beyond conflict centred on a transcendental purpose. Culture 2: The Academy and Professions helps us think about teaching in search of Truth, valuing enquiry and accessing higher professional learning so as to include the contribution of all including ethnic minorities. Culture 3: Poetry, Rhetoric & the Common Good inspires a pedagogy based on service and leadership for the common good regardless of religion differences but also valuing the worldwide Islamic heritage in the humanities, poetry and literature. Culture 4: Art & Performance provides a corrective for reviving the Arts in an islamic curriculum in the quest for Beauty and excellence of craftsmanship. O'Malley has stimulated me to ask to what extend Islam has already contributed to Western civilisation in respect of the four cultures (which it indeed has), to what extent it has enjoyed parallel cultures commensurate with the values of the West, and to what extent contemporary Muslims have the capacity to engage in the progressive formation of Western civilisation through a shared pedagogy oriented to the purposes of the four cultures.

Appreciating Islam as a positive classical resource for western education in relation to the four cultures also presents an opportunity to explore several interesting revivals of classical forms of liberal education which are current in the UK that I would recommend to teachers. There is a great non-religious book on the Trivium which transcends the dichotomy between traditional and progressive teaching methods: Trivium 21c: Preparing Young People for the Future with Lessons From the Past and there is the wonderful spiritual work by a Roman Catholic educationist on the trivium which has even closer resonance with O'Malley's book Beauty in the Word

O'Malley has given us a superb book written lovingly as a historian which helps the West keep its bearings but which is also a fertile stimulus for profound educational, intercultural and dialogical thinking. It should help us to imagine and practice the kind of educational hospitality that immigrants coming to the West can be offered that will help them integrate without compromising their integrity and enhance our civilisation rather than working against it or becoming preoccupied with a separate religious/ethnic identity. To that end we can work towards an Islamic Renaissance in Education with no small thanks to this thoughtful and appreciative Christian reflection on the best of the West.

[Gary · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book attempts to survey Western culture by diving culture into four streams. Culture one is Prophetic, exemplified in a Karlstadt or a Martin Luther King. Two is Academic, starting with Socrates and exemplified especially in a Medieval scholastic or specialized professor. The third culture is that of Rhetoric, of whom Erasmus and the humanists stand out. And culture four is that of Art and Performance; it is not expressed in words, and loses its power if such is attempted.

The author does a good job, showing the dividing lines between these cultures as well as where they merge and join forces. The four-fold division is not always totally convincing, but it does help illuminate the history of our civilization.

A character like Martin Luther falls into at least culture one, three, and four. Classical Christian education has a pretty even mixture of all four cultures. Culture four involves liturgy and icons or symbols, whether religious or 'secular', but at least in Protestantism the liturgy is largely word based (culture three) and very capable of explanation.

The Prophet demands we hear 'Thus says the Lord' (or some other deity, or a deified State or Demos). The Academic talks in his technical jargon, making ever finer distinctions and encouraging endless questions. The Rhetorician wishes to move us to action, he wants us to be rounded and useful to society, he wants to persuade us and tries to teach us to be persuasive. While Art and Aesthetic also moves us, but without words. It (not a they) transforms us, affects us, not with words but with the beauty of say a Cathedral or a palace or a monument.

An interesting book. I liked it.

[Rinald · Rating 3 out of 5]

O’Malley traces the cultural history of the West. He traces this history through four cultural frameworks: [1] prophetic culture (Isaiah, Jeremiah), [2] the academic/professional culture of philosophers and scientists (Plato, Aristotle), [3] the humanistic culture of poets, dramatists, orators and statesmen (Homer, Isocrates, Virgil, Cicero) and [4] the artistic culture of artists, artisans and architects (Phidias, Polycletus, Praxiteles). The book makes an interesting read for those reading on the history of Christianity (of the European West) as well as the cultural history of Europe.

[Bryan · Rating 1 out of 5]

The concept is interesting, but the author ruins it with his overly pompous writing style and Catholic superiority complex.

[Paul]

Faculty discussion book for 2012.

[Schmidleysscribblins.wordpress.com · Rating 5 out of 5]

A wonderful book that helped me organize the knowledge I have about history of Europe and the West. O'Malley is a first-class historian.