Sir Ernst Gombrich, the art historian, tells of some friends of his in his native Vienna who, after the Anschluss, expected to be arrested immediately by the Gestapo. They spent what they thought would be their last hours of freedom together, and possibly their last hours alive, playing late Beethoven quartets. ^*

What is in your mind when you think about culture?

One reader recently mentioned Beethoven's Op. 132. It might help you to find a copy of the work and listen to the third movement: Heiliger Dankgesang eines Genesenen an die Gottheit, in der lydischen Tonart: Molto adagio; Neue Kraft fühlend: Andante. Reflect on the noble creature God made as he faces death (or camp) at the hands of another creature of God. Ask yourself what sort of person grabs a fiddle at that moment.

Dr. Dalrymple served as a physician in Central America, North Korea, East Timor, Monrovia, Liberia, Peru, a British inner-city hospital and in a prison. For fourteen years he wrote a column for the London Spectator. He has given some informed and careful thought to the problem of unforced and spontaneous evil and its roots in "the unrealistic, self-indulgent, and often fatuous ideas of social critics". He has something to say about the place of culture, and you need a piece of his mind.

It is hard to summarize these 26 essays, but that's not entirely a bad thing. I'm going to suggest that you take advantage of that assortment by reading a few of them, setting the book aside, and listening to a few randomly chosen movements from Beethoven's Opp. 127, 130, 131, 132, 133 and 135. Work your way through these interpolated essays and quartet movements.

I can't guarantee how effective a crash course in culture this might be—and I take a very dim view of crash courses in culture anyway—but I imagine you might begin to sense what it is like to confront a really serious person. There is some danger that you might think of the Beethoven as merely a soundtrack for some morbid reflections on humanity, but that's not my intention.

Culture is a sharing of our humanity. It is not, as we hear incessantly, a matter of style preference.

I'm hoping this might help one understand art as others have understood it.

* Our Culture, What's Left of It,  p. 123

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Our Culture, What's Left of It
Theodore Dalrymple
Ivan R. Dee
ISBN: 1-56663-721-X