I decided to (try to) chart my progress through J. Rufus Fears’ course, Books that Have Made History: Books that Can Change Your Life. I’m going to enjoy this course. Fears is a very good speaker, and I like how he has organized this course according to themes: - Does God or gods exist? What is the nature of the divine?
- What is fate? Are actions predetermined or random?
- What is the nature of good and evil? Are there consequences for our actions, and if so, according to what standards?
- How should we live?
Fears claims that wisdom is the ultimate goal of this (and all) Great Books course. We must transform the information and knowledge of these books into wisdom – apply the knowledge to our lives.
Fears defines a Great Book as one that has the following characterisitics:
- Great theme: see above
- Noble language: language that elevates the soul and ennobles the mind
- Universality: able to speak to people far outside the time in which it was composed.
The first book that Rufus discusses is one that I have never heard of, but will definitely check out. Bonhoeffer was a Lutheran priest who was imprisoned and ultimately killed for being a traitor of Hitler’s Third Reich. Fears claims that Bonhoeffer’s book, Letters and Papers from Prison, is a testament to how the soul can survive under cruel circumstances.
Two things particularly strike me about the book. First is Bonhoeffer’s development of the theology of the cross. The evil of the Holocaust represents a world without God: God has literally abandoned the world, and the cross is a sign of that abandonment. Given this circumstance, an individual must take action, and through that action find his own God. This philosophy brings to my mind the yoga of karma, as described in the Bhagavad Gita. Through constant selfless action, one can literally lose the concept of the self and find God.
The second thing that struck me is that Bonhoeffer and his imprisoners are products of the same classical German education, i.e. they all read the same books. How can his judge be convinced of his duty to carry out trials that he knew was wrong, while Bonhoeffer felt it his duty to fight the system? Fears argues that Great Books in themselves do not cure. Instead, they offer a means by which one can do great good or great harm. A clear example of this to me is the use of the Bible to justify all sorts of conflicting causes, including war. Therefore, it is not the Bible itself that is evil, but rather the way in which it can be used.
Questions to consider:
1. How do I define a great book?
I think that a Great Book (note my use of capital letters) does have the qualities that Fears identifies. To me, the reason a Great Book is able to speak to people over many years is because of its content (great theme) and its inspiring (persuasive? “beautiful”?) language. I would also argue that a Great Book does not necessarily speak to all people, or to all stages of life. I was not ready to read some books I was exposed to in my Western Civilization course in college, but those same books may have more meaning for me now. A Great Book, however, should be rich enough so that one can extract different meanings according to the reader’s current situation. Wallace Stegner’s Angle of Repose is a Great Book to me because what it offers about relationships changed between the time I first read it as a single person, and the second time I read it as a newly married woman.
2. Do ideas make history or are ideas made by social and economic forces (as Karl Marx proposed)?
At first, I interpreted this question as asking whether history, not ideas, are shaped by social and economic forces. I do believe that much of history is shaped by such forces as opposed to ideas. Ideas are used to inspire people unsatisfied with their social or economic situation. Think of what drove the men behind 9/11, or how Bush used the concept of democracy to justify the subsequent war against Iraq (when it was really to secure oil fields).
But are ideas shaped by social and economic forces? The concept of capitalism seems to be an example, but other ideas such as Christianity or democracy do not. That is, social and economic forces may contribute to the rise of a particular religion, but they do not explain the birth of the ideas behind Christianity or Buddhism.
So, getting back to the question, do ideas make history? Great ideas may inspire great people who are able to galvanize others to enact change and make history (yes, I’m hoping Obama is one such person). However, I don’t think it is accurate to say that only ideas make history because I also believe that social and economic forces contribute to the spread of ideas.
