Cultural Literacy and Its Importance in Society, Plus John Donne's Meditation #17

Cultural literacy is the ability to understand and participate in a particular culture. It includes knowledge of the arts, literature, history, and customs of that culture. Cultural literacy is important for communication and understanding between people from different cultures.

The term "cultural literacy" was coined by American educator E. D. Hirsch in his 1987 book Cultural Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know. Hirsch argued that cultural literacy is essential for civic participation and for understanding the world around us. He identified a list of several thousand terms and concepts that he believed all Americans should know.

The reason this topic is important because as our culture becomes more splintered, our various past experiences overlap less and less. As a result, when someone refers to Job's tears, it has no meaning to those who hear or read it if they are unfamiliar with the book of Job in the Old Testament.

Having an understanding of history, literature, philosophy and the arts enables us to communicate without having to explain what the Alamo was, who Romeo and Juliet were as star-crossed lovers, or how Puerto Rico became part of the U.S. but is not a state.

In 2008 I wrote the following, which references this loss of a cohesive understanding of who we are and the breakdown of our sense of community.

23 July 2008

As the world's knowledge exponentially compounds, we find ourselves increasingly removed from the knowledge that has gone before us. When we encounter a passage from literature today, few there are who recall its source, who can identify its root.

At various points in history many great libraries were burned. Today, such book burning is no longer necessary. Whether history, theology, philosophy, literature, biography, science or travel, the classics are all but forgotten. (People with dyslexia get a pass from my rant here.) 

In a nation where reading is mandatory, it is literally amazing how few there are that read today. Maybe it's our educational system that presents classic lit in a manner that turns young people away from the rich bounty contained in books. Or maybe it's due to the easy seduction of so many other distractions. 

I'd mentioned Hemingway a few weeks back. Here is the source for the title of his Spanish Civil War classic For Whom the Bell Tolls, beginning with another oft quoted phrase worth taking to heart.

No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were: any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.

Here is the context for this passage, a worthy meditation.

Meditation #17
By John Donne

From Devotions upon Emergent Occasions (1623), XVII: Nunc Lento Sonitu Dicunt, Morieris (Now, this bell tolling softly for another, says to me, Thou must die.)

Perchance, he for whom this bell tolls may be so ill, as that he knows not it tolls for him; and perchance I may think myself so much better than I am, as that they who are about me, and see my state, may have caused it to toll for me, and I know not that. The church is Catholic, universal, so are all her actions; all that she does belongs to all. When she baptizes a child, that action concerns me; for that child is thereby connected to that body which is my head too, and ingrafted into that body whereof I am a member. And when she buries a man, that action concerns me: all mankind is of one author, and is one volume; when one man dies, one chapter is not torn out of the book, but translated into a better language; and every chapter must be so translated; God employs several translators; some pieces are translated by age, some by sickness, some by war, some by justice; but God's hand is in every translation, and his hand shall bind up all our scattered leaves again for that library where every book shall lie open to one another. As therefore the bell that rings to a sermon calls not upon the preacher only, but upon the congregation to come, so this bell calls us all; but how much more me, who am brought so near the door by this sickness.

Read the complete essay here

Throwback Thursday: For Whom The Bell Tolls, Reflections On Writing

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED 20 DECEMBER 2013

I was re-introduced to Hemingway in the late '70s through his first collection of short stories titled In Our Time and stunned by the power of Hemingway's prose. Though I'd never worn glasses, the stories there were like being a grandma who gets hit in the face with a fist, glasses flying across the room from the impact. I read the book continuously two and a half times through. The description of the doctor in The Doctor and the Doctor's Wife is so loaded with tension, yet achieved with sleight of hand, never once saying the guy was mad or outraged, or any such thing... it is nothing short of miraculous how he accomplishes so much with such simple prose.

I'd read Old Man and the Sea in high school, which is likely out of favor now due to his overbearing machisimo and politically incorrect attitudes. It is, however, a good read. The story did make an impression.

The first Hemingway novel that followed my return to classic literature during this period in my life was For Whom the Bell Tolls. Its setting is the Spanish Civil War. The hero's quest turns out to be a futile mission. The characters are vividly drawn, and tragic. Can one man make a difference? Robert Jordan believes he can.

The real tragedy of the Spanish Civil War was the pillaging of a section of European real estate in order to try out new war technologies. Franco fascists were not armed with Mussolini's planes for nothing. Hitler and friends watched with avid interest as the peoples were subjugated. Technology, not ideology, proved the winning variable in this situation.

In the novel, idealism and realism collide. Pablo, the local leader of a small guerilla band of anti-fascists, represents one shade of realism. Pilar, his wife, epitomizes another. Robert Jordan, the American teacher who has joined the war effort, is the idealist.

What really happened in Spain has still not fully been understood. The events of that time were significant, though soon lost in the shadows and mists of the world war that follow. Orwell lost his faith in communist socialism as a result of things he saw. Others were appalled by fascism's jackboot horrors. Picasso was, inspired by the destruction of a town called Guernica, to paint his famous statement decrying the brutality of this kind of "total war," which the U.S. continued to carry out in Viet Nam.

What follows here is an excerpt from one of Michael Mazza's reviews at amazon.com. I find reading reviews to be a mentally stimulating exercise. Movie reviews at imdb.com and the Amazon reviews are frequently cogent, insightful offerings from people who are thinking at least a little beneath the surface of things.

"Hemingway offers a grim and graphic look at the brutality of 20th century warfare. War is not glamorized or sanitized, and atrocities are described in unflinching detail. The characters explore the ethics of killing in war. As the story progresses, Hemingway skillfully peels back the layers of Jordan and other characters to reveal their psychological wounds. But the book is not all about pain and violence. In the midst of war Hemingway finds the joy and beauty that keep his characters going. He also incorporates storytelling as a powerful motif in the book; his characters share stories with each other, recall missing untold stories, or resist a story too hard to bear. In Hemingway's world storytelling is as essential a human activity as eating, fighting, and lovemaking."

Yesterday I referenced an article about Ezra Pound's influence on James Joyce, one of the most influential writers of the last century. Ernest Hemingway was another protege of Pound. According to the blog Hemingway's Paris, From Pound, Hemingway learned "to distrust adjectives" and received valuable guidance in how to compress his words into precise images. Many years later, Hemingway called Pound "a sort of saint" and said he was "the man I liked and trusted the most as critic."With a recommendation from Ezra Pound, Ford Maddox Ford let Hemingway edit his fledgling literary magazine: The Transatlantic Review. In recommending Hemingway to Ford, Pound said "...He's an experienced journalist. He writes very good verse and he's the finest prose stylist in the world."

This "style" of stripping out adverbs and adjectives became known as Hemingway's contribution to modern literature. Yet it had origins in Pound.

That Pound was an important figure in literature is undeniable. His role in history became tragic. In a 1943 letter Hemingway stated that Pound was "obviously crazy."

I'm reminded of Nietzsche's ten years of madness after a breakdown in Northern Italy. I'm reminded of Hemingway's paranoia later in life and ultimate suicide. I'm reminded of a line from Dylan: "I've been hit too hard, seen too much..."

Perhaps genius is a burden and we should be grateful that most of us are mere mortals.