Tuesday, July 13, 2010

Culture and Cultus

I never made the connection between the word culture and the word cultus. I never before connected divine worship with culture. This opens up new lines of thought with regard to the phrases "culture of life" and "culture of death." Can "culture of death" be seen as worship or is it a contradiction in terms, a play on words bringing out the fact that it denies divine worship?

See the Author's preface to the English Edition of Leisure: The Basis of Culture

2 comments:

Holy Slave said...

I think, and I'm prob wrong, but maybe if I am ya'll can clarify for me, that when you bring the notion of divine worship into the understanding of 'the culture of death' then you can bring forth the idea that the culture of death is a mix of intellectual effort and contemplation upon such things as implied with the idea.

Colonel4God said...

I think that "the culture of death" would deny the act of contemplation. It elevates work and makes it the totalitarian ruler of human knowledge denying the giftedness of said knowledge. It rather displays knowledge as the sole work of man and therefore it's fruits, namely the sciences, can be manipulated without recourse.