Confusion in the West: Retrieving Tradition in the Modern and Post-Modern World

by Anna Rist, John Rist

In their trenchant panoramic overview – ranging from antiquity to the present-day – John and Anna Rist write with authority and ennui about nothing less than the loss of the foundational culture of the West. The authors characterize this culture as the 'original tradition', viewing its erosion as one which has led to anxiety about the entire value of Western thought. The causes of the disintegration are discussed with an intensity rare in academe. Critics of modernity ordinarily concentrate on the Enlightenment and the book certainly offers deep analysis of Enlightenment thought. But it goes further. Thus the cruelty of modern totalitarianism is now depicted as in the spirit of the French Revolution and its implacable hostility to a vanished primordial heritage, while scientism, bureaucracy and consumerism appear as the only rivals to a threatening nihilism. The book argues that Western thought has created a set of conflicting moral and spiritual to the detriment of coherence, in individual minds as in society and culture.

Genres: History

278 pages, Hardcover

Published February 2, 2023

Reviews

[Tiago F · Rating 3 out of 5]

Quite a drag to finish. While the topic is pretty interesting, somehow they managed to make it pretty tedious. Although assumes some level of background knowledge, and even though I'm far from literature on such topics, there was plenty of topics where I didn't have enough context in philosophy or history to truly understand their point, and they never bothered to make that easier. It is also heavily political. While at least politics are grounded at a deeper level of history and philosophy, which is certainly better than surface level pop politics, it nevertheless seems heavily motivated and didn't sit super well with me.