Picking up the Golden Thread of Western Civilization

What would the collapse of civilization look like?

We might immediately think of cutoff utilities, disruptions in the supply chain, violence in the streets, and the lack of functional government. While it’s true these might serve as external indicators of a functioning modern society, they do not constitute the essence of civilization. A civilized person doesn’t just live in the city (the civitas that gives civilization its name) but conforms to an ideal of culture. A barbarian lives for immediate needs and wants, while a civilized person thinks and acts according to higher standards of decency and nobility, recognizing higher goods within the soul and in society.

Great civilizations have identified goals that transcend everyday concerns, such as the refinement of the mind, the cultivation of the arts, and the fostering of a life of virtue. The barbarian cannot grasp the essence or purpose of these ends, thinking them impractical or pointless, which is why they were often known for destroying the achievements of civilization. Those who worked to build up an inheritance of culture often understood its fragility and the constant need to transmit and defend it.

While the barbarians normally stood outside the gates as a visible threat, today they stand firmly within them. We are the barbarians. We have slowly undermined the achievements of the last two and a half thousand years, casting them off while refusing to hand them on to our children. The way we speak, dress, think, act, and, perhaps most of all, entertain ourselves reflects a lack of civilized soul. And this interior corruption has already manifested itself exteriorly, as we discard human life casually, corrupt children with ideology in schools, and allow mobs to cause chaos.

Western Civilization has faced the threat of extinction numerous times. When the Roman Empire collapsed in the West, overrun by a succession of Germanic tribes, the work of Boethius and Cassiodorus ensured that classical learning would survive through their textbooks and translations, copied by generations of monastic scribes. When that flood of barbarians finally became Catholic and began to restore order under Charlemagne, a new wave of invasions destroyed much of what had been accomplished. Alfred the Great, while fighting the Great Heathen Army, personally began translating important works from Latin into Old English to shore up the culture of his besieged kingdom.

And in modern times, Dom Prosper Guéranger reestablished Benedictine life in France after Napoleon shuttered monasteries, making his monastery, Solesmes, a symbol of Christian resurgence as a center for the collection of manuscripts that stimulated study of the Church Fathers and a renewal of Gregorian chant.

“The West has failed,” Denethor declared in his despair in Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings. Even if the West has returned to barbarism in many ways, we are, by no means, doomed to remain there. It will be hard to recover the legacy of our civilization, however, if we remain in ignorance of it. We need greater cultural literacy of the deeds, works, and ideals of Western Civilization to form our minds and inspire a revival of a civilized society. For those just beginning, it helps to pick up a travel guide, designed to help us know where to look so we can begin experiencing the great legacy of the West for ourselves.

A new two-volume text aims to do precisely this: The Golden Thread: A History of the Western Tradition, written by eminent scholars Allen Guelzo and James Hankins (Golden Thread Academics is an imprint of Encounter Books). This massive work, following the narrative of the West from Ancient Greece through the twentieth century, runs over two thousand pages in both volumes combined (which did cramp my hand while reading it!).

It’s beautifully produced as well, lavishly illustrated with works of art, portraits, timelines, and many maps, and also includes short selections from primary sources and “threads” that offer additional context and engagement in cultural works. I appreciate its interdisciplinary approach, which, though primarily historical, includes serious attention to philosophy, art, religion, law, literature, and science.

And, unlike many other works, it does not gloss over medieval Christendom; rather, it devotes ample attention to the rise of Christian Rome and the development of a distinctively Christian culture in the West.

We may have lost our way, but we have not failed yet. We can find our path again, picking up the golden thread of our tradition. The image of the golden thread goes back to Theseus, who used it to navigate the labyrinth in his quest to slay the Minotaur. If this mythical beast represented a destructive darkness that lurks beneath the surface of civilization, it has reappeared and taken a new technological form. Our own creation threatens to overwhelm us, making this no time for existential confusion.

To face this challenge, we need to think more, not less, rediscover the beauty of sacrificial love, and become cultural creators rather than sliding into passivity.

It’s time to take up the golden thread of the West so that we can continue this great and noble tradition, drawing from its profound depths to overcome our shallowness and repair its broken length by passing it down to the next generation.

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