From the Academy

Is Tradition Anti-Intellectual?

We moderns, the old Schoolman said (whether it was Gerbert of Rheims or Fulbert of Chartres, I never can remember) are dwarfs mounted on the shoulders of giants, able to see so far only because we perch upon the immense bulk of the ancients. Yet, being able to see farther than they, sometimes we dwarfs grow contemptuous of the giants, and give them a kick, or aspire to stand in mid-air; and then down we go to the bottom of the ditch. This is the relation in which the intellectuality of any particular generation stands to Tradition, or the wisdom of our ancestors.

RK

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Russell Kirk

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Is Tradition Anti-Intellectual?

We moderns, the old Schoolman said (whether it was Gerbert of Rheims or Fulbert of Chartres, I never can remember) are dwarfs mounted on the shoulders of giants, able to see so far only because we perch upon the immense bulk of the ancients. Yet, being able to see farther than they, sometimes we dwarfs grow contemptuous of the giants, and give them a kick, or aspire to stand in mid-air; and then down we go to the bottom of the ditch. This is the relation in which the intellectuality of any particular generation stands to Tradition, or the wisdom of our ancestors.