Can “Great Books” Prevent the Descent into Barbarism?
Dr. Louise Cowan once suggested to doctoral students at the University of Dallas that the “great books” of the Western Tradition should be read because “the traditions that formed Europe and America must be preserved if we are to escape a descent into barbarism.” On the surface, this claim seems to imply that the “great books” possess an ethical potential capable of insulating us from barbarism; that is, they are capable of serving as a prosthetic conscience. However, when one considers the example of Joseph Goebbels, who earned a Ph.D. in Romantic Drama from Heidelberg University in 1921, and yet clearly descended into barbarism through the murderous ideology of Nazism, Dr. Cowan’s claim would seem to be in jeopardy.[1] Goebbels was surely acquainted with Vergil, Homer, Plato, Aristotle, Goethe, Shakespeare and the like, but the encounter with “the traditions that formed Europe and America” did not prevent him from hijacking the arts for Nazi propaganda and facilitating genocide. It i
