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The Modern Temper: A Study and a Confession
Krutch's incisive examination of the dilemmas faced by modern man has proved remarkably prophetic. This book stands as an unflinchingly honest examination of the major moral questions of our era.
- GenresPhilosophyHistory
192 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1929
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124 people want to read
About the author
Joseph Wood Krutch
95 books10 followersWorks of American critic, naturalist, and writer Joseph Wood Krutch include
The Modern Temper
(1929) and
The Measure of Man
(1954).
He worked as a professor at Columbia University from 1937 to 1953. Moving to Arizona in 1952, he wrote books about natural issues of ecology, the southwestern desert environment, and the natural history of the Grand Canyon, winning renown as a naturalist and conservationist. Krutch is possibly best known for A Desert Year , which won the John Burroughs medal in 1954.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_...
He worked as a professor at Columbia University from 1937 to 1953. Moving to Arizona in 1952, he wrote books about natural issues of ecology, the southwestern desert environment, and the natural history of the Grand Canyon, winning renown as a naturalist and conservationist. Krutch is possibly best known for A Desert Year , which won the John Burroughs medal in 1954.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_...
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
June 7, 2022
We live in the world of our consciousness rather than in the physical world. To each of us nothing could be more real than "me" and so it has been throughout recorded history and well before that.
The ancient Greeks were captivated by the mind and attempted to explain everything intellectually. If something was logical, that was all that was needed. Trying to experiment with physical objects was preposterous, as proof had already been established. The only possible way to upset what was thought to be true was to propose an alternate way of thinking about the subject. Physical objects were base by comparison to the work of the mind and working with those objects could only confuse and misdirect thinking. All of this elevated thinking still beguiles today even though we know that any connection between it and reality was accidental.
In every society there has been the desire to explain things, if only for a sense of security, to make fear manageable when there was no alternative to ignorance. The spiritual was behind everything. If something was mysterious to us, it was no mystery to a god or gods working behind the scenes. Gods could have personalities, spirits could be in everything, and a sense of belonging came with this. The stars in the sky were driven by a power superior, but knowable, to humans.
This human need for belonging to the world, being a full participant in it and making sense of the whole took many forms but always was driven by intolerance for the ignorance of reality. Whatever outlandish concepts were contrived, it was superior to admitting helplessness. Then came science and pulled the rug out from under everything.
In The Modern Temper Joseph Krutch (he pronounced it krOOch) leaves nothing out in describing our anxious situation that began in the 15th century with explanations that questioned religious doctrine and that has, in explaining everything from the microscopic to the astronomical, not only swept religion from the field of inquiry, but has put the very idea of the spiritual in doubt.
The first chapter in itself is an excellent summary of our plight and it was my discovery of it in volume two of The American Intellectual Tradition that I became aware of this profound work that should have far wider readership.
Our place in the universe has steadily shrunk until we've become nothing more than another species. We've been ejected from our top position, the ones for which all of creation was made, to just another spot in the family tree of life, individuals here today and gone tomorrow just as leaves fall from the trees. The cost of our knowledge of reality is the evaporation of the spiritual explanation that gave us faith in our goodness, in absolute morality and in our salvation. The idea that I will end with my last heartbeat is no replacement for a loving god that will take you unto himself. Ultimate justice is lost without a supreme being to judge without error. Fear of that final judgement at least offered hope of salvation, far more comforting than the simple fact that Hitler and Gandhi are equally dead.
Our emotions must now tolerate a reality that our intellect has shown to be fact; we've outsmarted ourselves. There is no going back, no willing oneself to believe what cannot be proven when all around are others who would laugh at that belief. Instead of all existing in a framework of human dignity and honor, of clearly identified good and evil, it's now a matter of doing your own thing, being an artist of your own life but in doing so each being isolated in that act of self creation.
Written in 1929 and not a long read, in page after page Krutch makes profound statements that ring so true. But then he expresses a very weak theory in an attempt to say something about the future. It is that civilizations grow, prosper and then decline as the people have doubts and spend time thinking instead of doing, becoming effete. At that point, another group, such as the Germanic tribes that took down Rome, conquer due to a concentration on doing rather than thinking coupled with a certainty that allows no doubt in their minds. He then speculates that compared to Western Europe and America, it is the Russians that are the barbarians of the 20th century, obsessed only with building industrial might. This is the weakest part of the book, though understandable knowing the way things stood internationally in 1929.
But this weakness in the final chapter is the only defect in this otherwise penetrating and accurate description of the modern plight of man.
The ancient Greeks were captivated by the mind and attempted to explain everything intellectually. If something was logical, that was all that was needed. Trying to experiment with physical objects was preposterous, as proof had already been established. The only possible way to upset what was thought to be true was to propose an alternate way of thinking about the subject. Physical objects were base by comparison to the work of the mind and working with those objects could only confuse and misdirect thinking. All of this elevated thinking still beguiles today even though we know that any connection between it and reality was accidental.
In every society there has been the desire to explain things, if only for a sense of security, to make fear manageable when there was no alternative to ignorance. The spiritual was behind everything. If something was mysterious to us, it was no mystery to a god or gods working behind the scenes. Gods could have personalities, spirits could be in everything, and a sense of belonging came with this. The stars in the sky were driven by a power superior, but knowable, to humans.
This human need for belonging to the world, being a full participant in it and making sense of the whole took many forms but always was driven by intolerance for the ignorance of reality. Whatever outlandish concepts were contrived, it was superior to admitting helplessness. Then came science and pulled the rug out from under everything.
In The Modern Temper Joseph Krutch (he pronounced it krOOch) leaves nothing out in describing our anxious situation that began in the 15th century with explanations that questioned religious doctrine and that has, in explaining everything from the microscopic to the astronomical, not only swept religion from the field of inquiry, but has put the very idea of the spiritual in doubt.
The first chapter in itself is an excellent summary of our plight and it was my discovery of it in volume two of The American Intellectual Tradition that I became aware of this profound work that should have far wider readership.
Our place in the universe has steadily shrunk until we've become nothing more than another species. We've been ejected from our top position, the ones for which all of creation was made, to just another spot in the family tree of life, individuals here today and gone tomorrow just as leaves fall from the trees. The cost of our knowledge of reality is the evaporation of the spiritual explanation that gave us faith in our goodness, in absolute morality and in our salvation. The idea that I will end with my last heartbeat is no replacement for a loving god that will take you unto himself. Ultimate justice is lost without a supreme being to judge without error. Fear of that final judgement at least offered hope of salvation, far more comforting than the simple fact that Hitler and Gandhi are equally dead.
Our emotions must now tolerate a reality that our intellect has shown to be fact; we've outsmarted ourselves. There is no going back, no willing oneself to believe what cannot be proven when all around are others who would laugh at that belief. Instead of all existing in a framework of human dignity and honor, of clearly identified good and evil, it's now a matter of doing your own thing, being an artist of your own life but in doing so each being isolated in that act of self creation.
Written in 1929 and not a long read, in page after page Krutch makes profound statements that ring so true. But then he expresses a very weak theory in an attempt to say something about the future. It is that civilizations grow, prosper and then decline as the people have doubts and spend time thinking instead of doing, becoming effete. At that point, another group, such as the Germanic tribes that took down Rome, conquer due to a concentration on doing rather than thinking coupled with a certainty that allows no doubt in their minds. He then speculates that compared to Western Europe and America, it is the Russians that are the barbarians of the 20th century, obsessed only with building industrial might. This is the weakest part of the book, though understandable knowing the way things stood internationally in 1929.
But this weakness in the final chapter is the only defect in this otherwise penetrating and accurate description of the modern plight of man.
June 6, 2015
One of the things my college professor warned us is that if we were Christians, there was very likely a good chance that we would have found this book to be very offensive. I am a Christian, but one with an open mind. It was easy to see how one could have found it offensive, with the concept of the book relying heavily on the existentialist view of life, wherein this is it, and there's nothing else. I did enjoy the book, and I felt that it did not conflict with my faith; in fact it helped me better understand it. Krutch's view is that while God may not exist, there's nothing wrong with believing in a higher power if it helps one live their life and enjoy it. It's basically a paradox: there is no God, but live your life as if there is one, because life is better that way.
read-in-part
September 13, 2021Read the titular essay as part of my Western Heritage course. It made me think a lot about what I believe and why, though it didn't change my mind. I also wrote an essay comparing Krutch's worldview to elements of Plato's Republic. That was a lot of fun (and also very hard :)
January 27, 2023
excellent
November 22, 2024
Feel bad giving low rating, but only really fked with two chapters , the other chapters were tough to get through. But those two chapters were 😍😍😍
March 23, 2025
The writing is dense and tough, though enjoyable. The content, however, seems quite timely, even though the book is almost a century old at this point.
December 21, 2009
A series of essays written by a naturalist and penetrating amateur philosopher in 1929, to define how the "modern temper," or common worldview, had changed fundamentally in the age of science. Some parts still sound remarkably current, as in the discussion of religious faith and science, whereas others sound unduly pessimistic to our ears--his declaring the death of love, or the death of our ability to find suffering noble and meaningful. Proposing to figure out why some parts continue to resonate and other do not would launch the launch the cultural historian on a worthy project; meanwhile one can teach the book as a snapshot of how the attitudes of the late 1920s might relate to the present.
Want to read
August 10, 2008My copy has a different cover and only 169 pages.
September 18, 2007
Though Krutch was wrong about the Soviet Union, he is right about everything else.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews