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UnHerd’s Freddie Sayers talks with Professor James Hankins, a forty-year veteran of Harvard University, about the precarious state of the Western tradition and the burgeoning resistance movement in classical education. Moving through a 2,500-year narrative arc from the ancient Greek invention of reason to the modern-day “cult of innovation,” Hankins warns that elite institutions are suffering from a dangerous cultural amnesia. But, despite the degradation of the canon, offers a defiant hope rooted in history, arguing that Western civilisation has survived near-extinction before and remains ripe for a new Renaissance.
As James Hankins reminds us here, the people in charge of our leading universities seem unaware of the fact that a culture–any culture–that is not transmitted from one generation to the next will quickly disappear. Either that, or they simply don’t care.
I suspect the former.
Superb discussion with Prof Hankins
The West defined, its entire history, analysis of the present and possible future – in 47 minutes !
And it didn’t rely upon doom-bait either, although the Trump-word was introduced for no good reason.
More please Freddie (are your fingers still growing ?)
Outstanding discussion. I’m glad to hear about the University of Florida’s Hamilton School. It seems to be part of a movement, including the University of Austin, to re-establish the Western tradition, or Greek-Roman-Christian tradition, in higher education. I wish them well.
Hankins and Allen Guelzo have co-written a history of the Western Tradition called “The Golden Thread”, the first volume of which (Hankins’s work) is now available. and the second (Guelzo’s) is soon to be published. Hankins refers to it briefly toward the end of this video. I’m deep into the first volume and it’s been a welcome refresher of my high school and college courses in Western Civ. It’s a long read, but well worth it. Highly recommended.
The hair in the nose is very distracting