George Steiner | Nostalgia for the Absolute | Nostalgia pelo Absoluto

"Intellectuals cannot tolerate the chance event, the unintelligible: they have a nostalgia for the absolute, for a universally comprehensive scheme." - Raymond Aron
In 1974, George Steiner delivered the CBC Massey Lectures, entitled Nostalgia for the Absolute. His lectures examined the gap left by the decline in authority of established religions, and the alternative "mythologies" which filled in that gap: Marxism, Freudian psychology, Lévi-Straussian anthropology, and - most tellingly for our own time - fads of irrationality.
The literary and cultural critic died earlier this week at age 90. But what he said over 45 years ago has particular resonance today.
"It is a truism to say that Western culture is undergoing a dramatic crisis of confidence," he said in his lectures.
The renowned scholar viewed Western society as a fundamentally bereft culture, looking for new answers to fill the void left by the sweeping away of religious belief - the central claim that ties his five Massey Lectures together.
Steiner turned his attention to the very idea of truth itself in his final Massey Lecture, almost anticipating our own "post-truth" moment. Steiner had a great fear of what happens to societies when they lose their commitment to truth. He was also keenly mindful of humanity's limits - and the threat that determining ultimate truths is simply beyond us.
Program 1: The Secular Messiahs [00:00:00]
Program 2: Voyages into the Interior [00:30:40]
Program 3: The Lost Garden [00:56:46]
Program 4: The Little Green Men [01:24:50]
Program 5: Does the Truth Have a Future? [01:52:55]

[@prasantbanerjee8199]

The lectures were delivered during 1974. They offer a critique of Marxism, Freudian psychology, and Levi-Straus' structuralism, attempting to run down all three streams of thought, reserving the greatest of ires for Marxism-Leninism. George Steiner is an admirer of the anti-Marxist views of Arthur Koestler.

[@aleksakostadinovic2892]

Incredibly thoughtful and thorough investigation

[@alphaimagining]

A striving visionary himself, the breadth and clarity of Mr Steiner's presentation offer badly needed guide posts for grappling with the new mechanical nihilism of erratic and oblivious political subjectivity.

[@shellyshelly9218]

It is, I'm afraid, anything but. Steiner was a superb literary critic, for sure, but he's often out of his depth in these lectures and just spinning a rather flimsy ideological web.

[@shellyshelly9218]

@@ericjackson-nq4hp Take a deep breath and relax. I've engaged with Steiner's work since the 1970s - and have also read many books besides😅 And actually, I said nothing about the breadth of Steiner's oeuvre. Still, the lecture is really just a piece of Cold War rhetoric - brilliantly delivered, for sure.

[@andytaylor6402]

Very interesting lecture !

[@syedadeelhussain2691]

I enjoy listening to this polyglot.

[@Chew81]

Even his accent is a smorgasbord! I wouldn't have known he was American. He sounds a tad Indian and a tad English.

[@JuliusFriedrichAugustBahnsen]

It seems strange that he would include something as purely academic as structuralism, and leave out fascism and liberalism. Fascism made its mythological aspects central and overt, and liberalism is the only “antitheology” of modernity that “worked,” so to speak, (even though I think we’re finally witnessing the “failure” of that one, too.)

[@richardmayer541]

Agree on fascism - ultranationalism also a surrogate religion

[@adude9882]

Intolerable tone of voice these days.