“If you convince me to read more classic literature I will be impressed.”
…so here goes.
Why You Should Read The Classics If You Want To Embiggen Your Soul.
Many people dismiss the “classics of Western civilization” as a list of books picked out by stuffy old academics who need to “get with the times” and realize that “being old” isn’t a sufficient criterion for determining whether or not a book is worth reading. Others argue that the common litmus test for the classics, “a book that has stood the test of time,” is nothing short of “chronological snobbery from the Ivory Tower.”
To that, I say (mustering as much pretentious conservative British grouchiness as possible) – Poppycock!
The key to unpacking the misconception is distinguishing between the phrases “the book is old” and the “the book has stood the test of time.” The first is merely an indicative statement that tells us when the book was written. The second is an evaluative statement that the book has continued to demonstrate its relevance to each generation after its writing. In other words, the second statement indicates that a classic is a book that, rather than having a brief flash of popularity and fading into obscurity, has continued to fascinate people from different times and different cultures. It is a book that is not bound to the spirit of its age, but rather speaks to basic truths of morality and needs of human nature that transcend cultures and generations. In short, it is not old, it is timeless.
The clash over the classics ultimately boils down to a clash between an absolute, transcendent moral order and a socially-constructed philosophy of morality and human nature. The former viewpoint, endorsed by most Christians, theists, and even the odd atheist or two, argues that there is a universal moral law that holds across all of human experience. The latter, endorsed by the naturalists, existentialists and pragmatists of today, argues that truth is not universal, nor absolute, and it varies depending on a society’s preference. For the latter, classics simply tell us what other people have done in the past, it cannot tell us what universal moral truth is because there is no universal moral truth to talk about.
But for those who believe in a transcendent moral law, perhaps the law of God written on the hearts of man (see Romans 2), it is unsurprising to see common themes popping up across cultures and generations. It is also unsurprising to see that works of literature which discuss those themes continue to be read by people from different times and cultures. And if these classics contain truths that endure across human nature, then they tell us what is most essential about being human – they equip us to understand ourselves as individuals, in relation to our fellow man, in relation to our world, and, in the case of Christian classics, in relation to our God.
Posted by Nick Barden