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FeaturesDecember 1996 Knocking about the ruins by John Gross The fourth in a series on “The future of the European past,” The only amusing thing I ever heard Hannah Arendt say—admittedly I only met her once or twice—was at a seminar in Princeton. The speaker was Dwight Macdonald; his subject was the inanity (or worse) of popular culture, and as he warmed to his theme, the counter-example he increasingly invoked was that of Europe. On the one hand Masscult and Midcult; on the other hand Athens, Florence, Paris, Weimar … He drifted on in this vein for about five minutes, until Arendt, who was sitting in the front row, permitted herself a very audible whisper: “Ach, Dwight, I could tell you a thing or two about that old Europe of yours.” No one in his right mind would want to defend the European past en bloc. In the twentieth century, Europe’s gifts to the world have included Nazism and Communism, and even before that, Europeans had quite as much to be ashamed of in their history as Asians, Africans, or any ... This article is available to subscribers and for individual purchaseSubscribe to TNC (Print and Online editions) Subscribe to TNC (Online only) This article originally appeared in The New Criterion, Volume 15 December 1996, on page 4 Copyright © 2009 The New Criterion | www.newcriterion.com http://www.newcriterion.com/articles.cfm/knockingaboutruins-gross-3419
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 The New Criterion is now optimized for Mobile Devices Already a print subscriber? click for online access On the moral consequences of relativism (from "The Dictatorship of Relativism.") Relativism as political absolutism On the dangers of relativism to the nation-state (from "The Dictatorship of Relativism.") Introduction: The dictatorship of relativism An introduction our symposium "The Dictatorship of Relativism: Who Will Stand Up for Western Values Now?” by John Gross On Great Victorian Lives: An Era in Obituaries, edited by Ian Brunskill. New from The New Criterion: ‘Free speech in 
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