Lewis himself helps us understand this in his famous (also 1944, by the way) introduction to St. Athanasius’ book, On The Incarnation. “Every age has its own outlook,” he writes. “It is specially good at seeing certain truths and specially liable to make certain mistakes. We all, therefore, need the books that will correct the characteristic mistakes of our own period. And that means the old books.” Why? Because “All contemporary writers share to some extent the contemporary outlook—even those, like myself, who seem most opposed to it.” He could have easily used Orwell’s name there.
The problem is that every period ends up sharing “a great mass of common assumptions” and contemporaries (or locals, etc.) have trouble thinking beyond those assumptions. Lewis offers one help: “to keep the clean sea breeze of the centuries [different contexts with different assumptions] blowing through our minds, and this can be done only by reading old books,” in his case then one by the great Alexandrian bishop Athanasius.
Monday, June 28, 2010
CS Lewis - the "clean sea breeze" of old books | No ideas in a vacuum - Joel J. Miller
Labels:
christianity,
quotes,
reading,
religion
via joeljmiller.com
Sunday, June 27, 2010
My first post at my Fructose Malabsorption (FrucMal) blog
Labels:
fructose malabsorption,
me - elsewhere
[ "Diet Solutions" - Dieticians - in Melbourne, Victoria - FrucMal Miscellaneous ]
Just something I'm trying out.
My first post at my Fructose Malabsorption (FrucMal) blog
Labels:
fructose malabsorption,
me - elsewhere
[ "Diet Solutions" - Dieticians - in Melbourne, Victoria - FrucMal Miscellaneous ]
Just something I'm trying out.
Hitchcock Films re-imagined in Vanity Fair photographs - Writing Prompts?
Labels:
images,
writing,
writing prompts
"ohnotheydidnt: Vanity Fair. The Hollywood Issue."
Great resource for writing prompts, if you ignore the image's original inspiration in the text.
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