A prefatory note

Modern Age, Summer, 2003 by George A. Panichas

THE FIRST "RECONSIDERATION" inaugurating an ongoing feature of Modern Age appeared exclusively in the Fall 1995 issue; it was entitled "The Case of Georges Bernanos" and written by Thomas Molnar. Since then a goodly number of reconsiderations have been regularly published in these pages, of which the following two--Lee Congdon's on the historian John Lukacs and R.V. Young's on the American literary critic and theorist Stanley Fish--are the latest installments. Before Molnar's piece came out, there were earlier valuative essays, not specifically designated as reconsiderations, for instance, Nancy Maveety's on "Liberalistic Order: The Work of Gottfried Dietze" (Fall 1989) and John W. Osborne's on "Ruskin's Unto This Last (1862)," which the essayist himself had designated in his sub-title as "A Reconsideration" (Winter 1992).

From a conservative perspective, a reconsideration has some distinct purposes that differentiate it from other literary writings commonly found in a quarterly review. In essence, the reconsideration of a particular writer, theme, or idea, whether currently known or neglected, seeks to review, reassess, reexamine a subject's significance, relevance, or place, and impact, in civilized thought and humane civilization, ancient or modern. It aims, too, to introduce a reader to the essential lines of thought and orientation of a subject, and in effect to enrich and to deepen one's critical understanding and appreciation, as well as to clarify and to interpret a subject in the midst of changing habits and disappearing principles.

What the late British teacher and critic F.R. Leavis declared in his important book, Revaluation, first published in 1936, with regard to the critic's central responsibility, is equally applicable today: "I think it the business of the critic to perceive for himself, to make the finest and sharpest relevant discriminations, and to state his feelings as responsibly, clearly and forcibly as possible."

A reconsideration must primarily begin with an incipient and clear recognition and implementation of the criteria, the standards of discrimination, as Leavis reminds us, that distinguish the authentic, entailed properties of the critic's "common pursuit of true judgment." A writer who integrates these criteria is bound to strengthen both the aims and the authority of a reconsideration that enables a reader to measure and to discern the deeper values of an essay intent on providing a critical overview of a particular subject and at the same time establishing its enduring significance in relation to contemporary social, political, intellectual, religious, and economic conditions and circumstances.

The two reconsiderations found in this issue of Modern Age exemplify, both in concept and in practice, exactly what needs to be addressed in a revaluative project, and especially to afford the reader what is the all too rare opportunity and the freedom that are now woefully lacking in the contemporary intellectual and academic community in which the dicta of ideology are uniformly treated as holy writ. The inevitable consequence of this corruptive process is the erosion, if not the general annihilation of critical discourse, let alone the quality of honest exposition and commentation.

If, regrettably, critical thought today becomes more and more extinct in periodical literature, one must hope that an essay in reconsideration can help save something of the old criticism in an Arnoldian sense in the mainstream literary climate that outrightly denies (and, yes, even rages against) not only the defense of values and standards but also the belief that "ideas have consequences."

Where today can one expect to discover challenging essays like Irving Babbitt's "English and the Discipline of Ideas," or Paul Elmer More's "Criticism," or T.S. Eliot's "The Function of Criticism"? Into what "vacuum of disinheritance," one must cry in lament, have journals like The Dial, The Bookman, The American Review gone? How are we to be spared from the reigning hierarchs of postmodern theory and empirico-critical doctrines? These are pivotal questions that need to be asked and answered in the form of dialogue if our one-dimensional cultural proclivities are not to be totally triumphal in sealing (and certifying) decline and decadence in American life, literature, and thought.

As the following two reconsiderations confirm, the critical spirit of scrutiny and evaluation has to be kept alive if we are not to disappear in the intellectual waste-lands. The socio-cultural conditions that, in the late 1940s, Richard M. Weaver marked in "a world which has lost its center" with "the lowering of standards" and "the adulteration of quality" are even more pronounced today. This is a world in which "the loss of those things which are essential to the life of civility and culture" translates into barbarity and ignorance. Weaver further asserts: "The tendency to look with suspicion upon excellence, both intellectual and moral, as 'undemocratic' now shows little sign of diminishing." If anything, our present situation is even more endangered as "armed doctrines" pitilessly assault right reason and order.