Romanticism as Cultural Philosophy

In the appendix to his book, Classic, Romantic, and Modern, Jacques Barzun provides examples of no less than twenty-two different usages of the word Romantic. I cannot think of any other phenomenon in all of cultural history as diverse, loved, hated, misunderstood, and argued as much as the concept of the Romantic. So it is irresponsible for anyone to discuss or write on the topic without saying what they mean when they use the word Romantic.

This is not to say that there is no definitive meaning of the word. Simply that there is no consensus of meaning. Writers on the subject may share particular spheres of general commonality or touch on common points. They may also disagree on key features, for example, there is the question of whether the Romantic Movement was a reaction against the Classicism of the Enlightenment or a natural manifestation of the Enlightenment when it was put into widespread action. On this point, I believe that a surface reading of the Romantic would lead one to the first conclusion, but a deeper reading would lead one to the second.

My approach to the Romantic is similar to that of Jacques Barzun, Ayn Rand, and others who have approached the Romantic Movement by looking at the common denominators that linked all of these diverse writers, artists, and philosophers labelled Romantic. Their most basic conclusion is that Romanticism is individualism. Or, as I say, the Romantic can be summed-up by one word – I. Admittedly, this is an over-simplification, but it gets the essential point across.

There is a key point where I differ from any writer that I have read on the subject of the Romantic. Most authors focus on the Romantic as an intellectual and artistic movement whose most narrow parameters are set between 1780 and 1850. The more generous critics see the movements that followed Romanticism to be merely variations on established themes and therefore extend the dates from 1780 to 1918. Where my approach differs is that I do not see Romanticism solely as an intellectual and artistic movement but more importantly also as a zeitgeist.

The word zeitgeist means “spirit of the age” and essentially describes what we might call the culture of a particular time and place. My unique interpretation and usage of the term Romantic is to describe the prevailing culture of the West from 1776-1929. What this does is shift the focus of the Romantic from the intellectuals and artists who produced the works that we label Romantic and looks to the prevailing attitudes, beliefs, rituals, social philosophy, and material production and consumption of the people themselves. When we do this, historical figures like Isambard Kingdom Brunel, Washington Roebling, and Wyatt Earp become just as much Romantic figures as Byron, Shelly, Hugo, and Goethe.

The result of this shift takes Romanticism out of the established pigeon-holes of academia and releases it into the world. As a religion, Shintoism has a key weakness. Because it is ancestor worship, the practicing of the faith is bound to the land of Japan. It is not portable. Whereas, Christianity, Judaism, and Islam demonstrate that by having a textbook faith it becomes not only portable but exportable. Likewise, if we look at Romanticism as a cultural philosophy and codify it, then the philosophy gains living power and is not imprisoned within the ivory tower. That is what I am attempting to achieve in these articles.

When I write that Romanticism is a cultural philosophy I must add that as far as I know this is as original as a concept can be these days. For all I know someone else has explored this and given it a different name. I’ll explain the notion.

Cultural philosophy is basically looking at the zeitgeist of a particular period and extrapolating a general belief system derived from the cultural evidence. In a sense, it is the opposite of the traditional approach to philosophy. Rather than an ideology being codified and put to action, the action is codified into an ideology.

Where traditional philosophical criticism looks for the application of reason and logic in the codified arguments of a single person or school of thought, cultural philosophy applies an interdisciplinary approach to identify a general philosophical expression of a particular group, which may involve specific philosophic influences. Once identified, it can be codified in the form of general principles. This process involves looking at both the top of the intelligential hierarchy as well as the bottom and understanding the dynamics in-between

This idea of cultural philosophy is in itself a Romantic notion. From the Romantics comes the idea of Nationalism. This is often misrepresented as a worship of the State, but more accurately it stems from the Romantics valuing different cultures as representative of the general will of all the individuals within that society and the belief that a culture could be seen as an ideological entity unto itself’ as often portrayed as a national symbol, like Columbia, Uncle Sam, and Brother Jonathan in America; John Bull and Britannia in the United Kingdom; or Marianne in France. Just as we can recognise a national spirit, so too can we recognise a temporal one.

Romanticism, like national culture, can be defined in similar terms as the dominant cultural philosophy in the West during a specific period of time (1776-1929). We can observe all the different people of this vast era and still recognise a general similarity that distinguishes them from the Classicists who went before and the Socialists who followed.

To illustrate, imagine two men are walking down a street and encounter a homeless man. One man says, “Isn’t this tragic, I can’t believe that we live in a society where people are still homeless”. The other man says, “Isn’t this tragic, I can’t believe someone could mess up his life so horribly”. Each archetype represents two distinct zeitgeists, the Romantic (1776-1929) and the Socialist (1929-present). The key differential between them is that the Romantic is individualistic and believes the man should have done more for himself while the Socialist is a collectivist who believes that society, in the form of the State, should do more to help the homeless in general.

In this example I am not referring to any high minded ideological conflict to be fought by quoting Adam Smith or Karl Marx. For each individual the zeitgeist manifests as a general feeling of what is right that he may never fix to an established codified ideology or assume a set label recognised by academia. The more inquisitive individual may study and find philosophers to justify their sense of reality, but it is important to recognize that their sense or feeling of truth precedes their understanding of any concrete ideology.

One of my favourite films to illustrate this temporal cultural divide is Kate and Leopold which depicts the clash of cultures and attitudes between a Nineteenth century duke and the people of the Twenty-first century world he finds himself in. Remember that the word attitude means orientation. The feelings we describe as attitude are simply the product of a person’s orientation to reality, that is, their philosophy of life. Understanding and codifying this is the process of cultural philosophy.

By emphasising the importance of cultural philosophy it is not my intention to discredit the role of the philosophers, writers, and artists, especially those associated with the Romantic. It is important to understand the connection between these creators and the cultures that they influenced.  Far too often academics focus on the literary and material products of the few at the top because that is their critical expertise and ignore the movements of the much larger cultural mass at the bottom which requires the skill sets of a social scientist or cultural historian.

Richard Dawkins coined the word meme to describe how ideas move through society. A meme is "an idea, behaviour or style that spreads from person to person within a culture." Malcolm Gladwell describes a meme as "an idea that behaves like a virus--that moves through a population, taking hold in each person it infects."

The Social Contract by Jean-Jacques Rousseau was written in 1762 and yet it is cited as one of the key influences of the French Revolution of 1789. That’s a twenty-seven years span. The Communist Manifesto was written in 1848, and yet we do not see the first Communist nation until seventy years later.

Memes take time to spread and often when they reach the stage of widespread cultural influence the ideas presented often become diluted, misinterpreted, or misrepresented, like Chinese Whispers. The source of the ideas may be unknown outside the true believers, but the ideas are still there, imbedded in each person’s general sense of life.

For example, the British free newspaper The Metro had this from a girl who had participated in the London Riots of 2011. The message is watered-down and converted to common perception, but if you look closely you can see Karl Marx’s message, “Property is left”.

One of the girls bragged about ‘getting a couple of free things’, before insisting: ‘It’s the government’s fault. I don’t know. Conservatives, whoever it is. It’s the rich people who’ve got businesses and that’s why all this happened.’

Likewise, the ideas of Romanticism spread like memes through Western Civilization and became the key defining feature of Nineteenth Century culture. This was supported by the laws, governments, institutions, and social codes of conduct that developed and reaffirmed among the people by their attitudes and actions.

When of my favourite little stories that I repeat often is that of the American outlaw Curly Bill Brocious. He had just evaded conviction for murdering of the marshal of Tombstone, Ed White. After the trial, he and a friend rode into a town and went to a restaurant where they forced the patrons to undress and dance at gunpoint. A passing deputy saw this through the window and formed a posse. A gunfight ensued and a horse in the livery where the posse held-up was killed in the crossfire before Bill escaped. The following day a messenger from Bill paid compensation to the livery owner for his loss.

So here is a cruel man who takes pleasure in humiliating people, has no regard for the law, and had just narrowly avoided a murder conviction and yet he felt obligated to take personal responsibility for the livery owner’s property losses. I find that incredible. Compare that attitude with the girl from the London riots or try getting a parent to pay for an item in a shop broken by their child. Even the lowliest criminal of the Nineteenth Century showed more respect for the property rights of others than the average person today. If Bill robbed someone, then that was intentional, but killing the horse was an accident to be repaid. Amazing thought process by our standards.

Here’s in another example of the Romantic attitude from the National Review dated 19 April 1999 called Paying for Beauty - motion picture 'Titanic' misrepresents the social codes of the wealthy.

Yet Cameron-who, as I say, did his homework-knows that there were many true gentlemen in first and second class who indeed, according to their code of behavior, "did the right thing." For example, we see in a cameo shot Isidor Strauss and his wife. They are lying together on a bed in their stateroom, waiting for death. Cameron knows that their real story is more complicated and much more poignant.

Isidor Strauss created the great department store Macy's. In his late 60s, rich and retired, he toured Europe with his wife. They were now heading home on the Titanic. As the ship sank, Mrs. Strauss was allowed to board a lifeboat. She pleaded that her elderly husband be allowed to board too. This was allowed. But Mr. Strauss refused to board. He said, "I will not go before the other men." That was that. She said that she had spent her life with him and would not leave him now. She stepped out of the boat, and they sat on deck chairs to watch others load.

The point here is that the upper-class gentleman's code of that era was deeply felt and sternly enforced. It involved "setting an example" for the rest of society. When things went wrong, one bore it with stoicism, or irony, or humor. Perhaps above all, one was deferential to women.

Col. John Jacob Astor, whose ancestors first earned their money in fur trading, also makes a cameo appearance in Titanic. He was traveling with his second wife, young and pregnant. She pleaded that he be let into a lifeboat with her. Second Officer Lightoller refused: "Women only." Without complaint, Astor withdrew. Apparently while swimming in the ocean he was crushed by tons of steel as one of the funnels tilted and crashed. Benjamin Guggenheim, of the great steel fortune, met a similar fate and asked a departing passenger to tell his wife he had died "like a gentleman."

It is possible that Cameron intuited that a modern audience would scarcely believe that any such code of honor existed. Yet I think he never considered for a moment trying for genuine complexity here, because he had a very different, more up-to-date ideal in mind: that of Jack Dawson.

The author makes a chilling point. We of the Twenty-first century can scarcely imagine how people could possibly be so noble. Remember, this is not a foreign culture. This was us one hundred years ago – next year will be the century anniversary of the Titanic.

We can learn just as much on how to live our lives as Romantics from the examples of the people who actually lived according to the Romantic philosophy as we can in studying the raw material of Romanticism as taught in university literature, political science, philosophy, and art history courses.  You might say that being a modern Romantic requires abandoning your native culture to emulate that of Victoriana.  In its ideal form that is what subcultures like Goth and Steampunk seek to achieve.

When coming to understand Romanticism it is import to know the works and ideas of the key individuals involved in the movement during its first sixty years, but Romanticism cannot be limited to that relative minority. The real Romantic revolution is to be found in the unwritten cultural philosophy and history of the millions of people who participated in the zeitgeist created by those ideas and together created the modern world that we have inherited.

Addendum

I appreciate that in writing this I found I had to explain the concepts of zeitgeist, cultural philosophy, and memes and in doing so I never actually elaborated on the Romantic principles I say are inherent in the Romantic zeitgeist.  So I will abandon my responsibility to defend my position and simply list a few here that I have gleaned from my research.

Equilibrium:  Life is full of contradictory extremes that must be held in balance.  For example, man is an individual creature but also a social creature, therefore the needs of the individual and the legitimate needs of the group must be balanced.  Life is full of such things requiring balance.

Emotion and Reason:  Romanticism rejects the false dichotomy separating emotion and reason.  You cannot have an idea without an emotion or an emotion without an idea.  When someone is accused of being too emotional, we are actually judging the quality of their thoughts and how they act on those thoughts.  Likewise, when we accuse someone of being too rational, we are denying that they are feeling but choosing not to act in an demonstratively emotional manner.

Volition: This is a fundamental component.  Romanticism is an action oriented philosophy so there is strong emphasis on the will to act, take risks, and try new things.

Energy: This pairs with volition for the purpose of action.  The Romantics glorified men of will and energy who accomplished  great visions.

Natural Rights:  The high value placed on individualism requires a high value also be placed on the importance of the Natural Rights to life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness. If the man of will and energy accomplishes his vision at the expense of the rights of others, then he has violated the key rules that define the Romantic.

Karma:  This is cause and affect.  With actions come consequences and each man must take ownership of his actions.  This is positive if he reaps rewards and negative if he brings hardship.  Everyone has the right to keep their justly earned rewards and a responsibility to rectify their mistakes against themselves and others.

Self-Awareness and Acceptance: The Romantic must accept himself for who he is and not be afraid to be honest and open about that.  This ties in with individualism.  You own your life, so it stands to reason to know yourself.  The converse of this is ego, self-consciousness, and self-obsession.  These are forms of fear, and fear is after all the mind-killer.

Diversity, Tolerance, and Acceptance:  The world is a diverse place with diverse opinions with every piece playing its part in the whole dynamic.  Uniformity is never the goal.  This means tolerating things you cannot bear, like the free speech of others with whom you disagree, and accepting those  things that you cannot change. Diversity does not mean allowing people of other cultures, beliefs, and backgrounds walk all over you and yours for fear of offending them, but it does mean respecting the rights of others to act and if need be holding them accountable for their words and deeds.

Social Responsibility:  Humans are social creatures and we choose to join groups for our benefit.  With this comes a responsibility to carry your own weight, so to speak, and see that others do the same.  This also means being someone of your word.  Do what you say and say what you do.

Faith:  As Shepherd Book tells Mal, “I don’t care what you believe, just believe”.   A common trait among all the Romantics was that they had faith is something bigger than themselves whether that be God, or forces of nature, or the nation, or even science.  I call this the great mystery and I think Romanticism needs mystery.

Truth: This is one of the higher Romantic values. It is a honest and un-prejudicial pursuit of understanding the reality the things.  It is a fearless desire to know what is no matter where that journey takes you.

Heroism: The Romantics believed in heroes as exemplars of their values, as models to emulate, and as people worthy of praise.  This ties in with a few other principles: the denial of ego, the respect for other individuals and their achievements, and the will to achieve your own greatness.

Finally there is the Romantic’s idea of the purpose of life.  The answer is simply to live.  Have experiences, find the high places and the low, be brave and bold, search every corner that interests you, take risks, and make life interesting.  Do not be content with the office cubical lifestyle or even a hedonistic routine.  You are an individual, so go and think, feel, and act.