The Financial Times this weekend is running a fascinating article by Peter Aspden (subscription only, alas). Prompted by the (absurd) decision to time-delay the Rolling Stones at the Superbowl, Aspden’s article becomes a meditation on the well-springs of Western culture. Aspden notes how “sober commentators” are searching for a “middle ground” between the “value systems” of Christianity and Islam, but argues that this is to miss the point.

“The sensibility of the west is of course tied up with its great religions, Judaism and Christianity; but it has another spring; that of the Hellenistic world. And all those things that are passed down to us by monotheism – moral certitude, high seriousness, the promise of transcendence – are constantly undermined by our legacy from the classical word, which favoured in its cultural diversions playfulness, irony, sensual gratification and mortal pleasures….The Renaissance and the Enlightenment were extraordinary movements precisely because they remembered that classical civilization was integral to the development of Western thought.”

Food for thought.