The Question of a Canon
Every society, every culture, assigns power and privilege differentially
to its members. If social upheaval is to be avoided, the cultural
assumptions that justify those inequalities must be widely shared and
effectively disseminated. Those assumptions will constitute the world
view of that culture or society. Fashion and esthetics are carriers
of such assumptions as is the designation of the cultural “worth” of
literary and artistic productions (the distinction between high and low
culture). The icons of a culture, its canon, thus serve a political
purpose, that of rationalizing the unequal distribution of power and
privilege within that culture. For example, the absence of women’s
voices in the “Great Conversation” is related to and an expression of the
political circumstance of seeing masculinity as more valuable than
femininity. Concretely, it is related to the political and economic
circumstance of women being seen as chattel (given in marriage by their
fathers) and of being unenfranchized politically…having finally been
given the vote, but not practically eligible to be elected to the
presidency. The absence of Black and native American voices should
also be remarked. The Western Canon is a monument sanctifying “dead
white guys.” Hence to the argument for supplementing the Western
Canon with alternative voices, or for calling into question the whole
concept of “greatness” in art, literature and philosophy.
ON THE OTHER HAND
No one can stand outside their society or be value free. In
addition, some values persist; freedom, choice, mercy,
trustworthiness and rationality are intrinsic to any definition of
humaneness . The passage of time is an effective filter. Those
works of art and literature that continue to speak to us over the
centuries endure as a manifestation of their worth and continued
relevance. While the canon is an open one in the sense that any new work
of art is a candidate for inclusion and absolute unanimity about which
works are to be included does not exist, a canon does exist; it
includes those works that, over time, have helped explore most
deeply the implications of what it means to be a human being. It
would not be too much to say that to be civilized is precisely to be
engaged in that exploration.
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Last updated:
Thu Aug 26 12:16:04 EDT 1999