Reviving history in a time of crisis: fostering a personal Renaissance. From the editorial:

The historical parallels between fourteenth-century Europe and our own times can be useful to us in our current civilizational crisis. [Francesco] Petrarch decided to do something about the crisis of Christendom in his own era, and the path to reform he opened up, in my opinion, was not only highly successful, but imitable. He aimed to create a new synthesis between classical and Christian civilization, to use the resources of antiquity to heal the spiritual diseases of his own time. What he and his followers created over the next century and a half is known to historians as the Renaissance, the rebirth of antiquity. It followed a formula that can still work today.

You too can build your own Renaissance….

Real humanities education [in the Renaissance] did not end with grammar school; it was supposed to go on for your entire life. The concept of institutio (paideia in Greek; inadequately translated as “education”) for the humanists meant not only learning to read old books in school. It meant absorbing the moral and intellectual formation human beings needed to live successfully in civilized societies. It included manners (mores) learned informally in the family and the school. It included the customs of the community, practices like those associated with marriage, with taking meals together, with showing reverence for elders, with other rituals associated with festivals and funerals, and with military service. Moral and intellectual excellence could also be supported by what I’ve called “the virtuous environment”: physical spaces recalling in their architecture and decoration the nobler world of the ancient Greeks and Romans, even sound-scapes filled with music that claimed to be reviving ancient modes and practices. Humanists and the artists inspired by them created a whole culture designed to reshape the soul, modeled on an idealized classical antiquity….

So what can we learn from the humanists about how to start a renaissance in modern academe?

First, we have to recognize that this is a long-term project. It may well take more than one or two generations to revive sound education. It may have to start in private homes and small colleges, but we cannot give up on the public square and the universities.

We need to find ways to acquire cultural prestige. We need to build alliances, form networks, and find patrons who share our vision. We do not have to be serious all the time—the humanists also recommended the study of the classics for sheer pleasure and spiritual delight—but a tone of high moral purpose needs to underlie all we do, like a cantus firmus underlying a polyphonic motet. We need the humanities to improve the character of our leaders. We must emphasize too that classical studies, taught in the proper spirit, can foster our spiritual natures and are not the enemies of religion.

I think also we need to emphasize more strongly the role of the humanities in strengthening skills of communication and persuasion. The precise use of language is an indispensable tool of civilization. We need to hold up an ideal of human excellence and challenge students to attain it.

For other posts on Renaissance culture, see here.

For a related post by James Hankins, see here.