Last week, some obligations and interruptions turned the Durants’ The Renaissance into a slog.
To be fair to myself, it wasn’t just my fault. For several days, I read The Renaissance on Italian painters before the 16th century. Three quarters of them were unfamiliar to me, and though I might receive a fine education in art had I looked up each artist online and connected him or her to the Durants’ descriptions, I don’t have the time to undertake that task. So basically I read over a hundred pages of what to my uneducated mind and eye appeared largely as gobbly-gook.
To be fair to myself, it wasn’t just my fault. For several days, I read The Renaissance on Italian painters before the 16th century. Three quarters of them were unfamiliar to me, and though I might receive a fine education in art had I looked up each artist online and connected him or her to the Durants’ descriptions, I don’t have the time to undertake that task. So basically I read over a hundred pages of what to my uneducated mind and eye appeared largely as gobbly-gook.
Much of the writing in this part of the book is a list of the artist’s birthplace, three or four of their works, and their demise. (By the way, if you had wanted a long life in the Renaissance, you needed to become an artist. I am amazed how many of them lived past the proverbial three score and ten.)
Fortunately for me, I am now past those painful lists of painters and into the Renaissance popes. I like the Durants’ take on Alexander VI, allegedly the most corrupt pope of this era, on the other members of the Borgiaclan, and on Julius II, the warrior pope who enjoyed leading armies and who initiated the reconstruction of Saint Peter’s.
What appeals about the Durants’ approach to these historical figures is their ability to discuss someone like Alexander VI without grinding an ax. Here was a pope who misled opponents, regularly practiced diplomatic deceptions, had several children, and practiced nepotism to an extreme degree. (I was surprised how many popes and other religious of this era had mistresses. A randy bunch, though the age itself was apparently as sexually promiscuous as our own.) But Durant defends many of Alexander’s actions in the context of the time: the attempts by foreign powers to dominate Italy and destroy the Papal States, the attempts of secular governments to crush the Church, the Machiavellian politics.
What I like about Durant when he describes such people and events is his sense of fair play, and his understanding of the human heart. The History of Civilization, the writing of a former socialist, is far more “tolerant,” both in looking backward at history and in its examination of human nature, than the histrionic stance of our current age.
Let’s face it: labels and “correctness,” political or cultural, have—I started to write seeped, but that is the wrong word—crashed like a tsunami into every part of our lives. That woman buying eight loaves of white bread in the grocery line ahead of you must be a dumb redneck. (A description you probably find redundant.) That woman with five piercings in each ear and tattoos down both arms must be a radical. (Actually, she attends a Latin Mass on Sunday and says a daily rosary.) You tell a friend you own four firearms and you’re treated like a terrorist. You aren’t speaking to that cousin who voted for Trump, while he’s not speaking to a sister who voted for Clinton. Guys are kneeling during an NFL football game, and you don’t really have a clue as to why. You denigrate the cops by labeling them gun-happy racists, then call 911 when you hear someone rummaging around downstairs at three in the morning. Social justice warriors—that silly moniker always makes me smile—are offended by almost anything that comes out of your mouth. All of us make stupid statements all the time, but let a politician, left, right, or center, say something the wrong way, and the other side is all over him or her, zie or zer, or whatever the heck other gender pronoun you got.
It’s refreshing to spend 30 to 45 minutes daily with the Durants, Will and Ariel, whose good natured and tolerant views of history and human beings seem sunlit and roses compared to what passes for toleration today.
Fortunately for me, I am now past those painful lists of painters and into the Renaissance popes. I like the Durants’ take on Alexander VI, allegedly the most corrupt pope of this era, on the other members of the Borgiaclan, and on Julius II, the warrior pope who enjoyed leading armies and who initiated the reconstruction of Saint Peter’s.
What appeals about the Durants’ approach to these historical figures is their ability to discuss someone like Alexander VI without grinding an ax. Here was a pope who misled opponents, regularly practiced diplomatic deceptions, had several children, and practiced nepotism to an extreme degree. (I was surprised how many popes and other religious of this era had mistresses. A randy bunch, though the age itself was apparently as sexually promiscuous as our own.) But Durant defends many of Alexander’s actions in the context of the time: the attempts by foreign powers to dominate Italy and destroy the Papal States, the attempts of secular governments to crush the Church, the Machiavellian politics.
What I like about Durant when he describes such people and events is his sense of fair play, and his understanding of the human heart. The History of Civilization, the writing of a former socialist, is far more “tolerant,” both in looking backward at history and in its examination of human nature, than the histrionic stance of our current age.
Let’s face it: labels and “correctness,” political or cultural, have—I started to write seeped, but that is the wrong word—crashed like a tsunami into every part of our lives. That woman buying eight loaves of white bread in the grocery line ahead of you must be a dumb redneck. (A description you probably find redundant.) That woman with five piercings in each ear and tattoos down both arms must be a radical. (Actually, she attends a Latin Mass on Sunday and says a daily rosary.) You tell a friend you own four firearms and you’re treated like a terrorist. You aren’t speaking to that cousin who voted for Trump, while he’s not speaking to a sister who voted for Clinton. Guys are kneeling during an NFL football game, and you don’t really have a clue as to why. You denigrate the cops by labeling them gun-happy racists, then call 911 when you hear someone rummaging around downstairs at three in the morning. Social justice warriors—that silly moniker always makes me smile—are offended by almost anything that comes out of your mouth. All of us make stupid statements all the time, but let a politician, left, right, or center, say something the wrong way, and the other side is all over him or her, zie or zer, or whatever the heck other gender pronoun you got.
It’s refreshing to spend 30 to 45 minutes daily with the Durants, Will and Ariel, whose good natured and tolerant views of history and human beings seem sunlit and roses compared to what passes for toleration today.
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