Johan Huizinga
Johan Huizinga
Johan Huizinga, was a Dutch historian and one of the founders of modern cultural history...
NationalityDutch
ProfessionHistorian
Date of Birth7 December 1872
sunday america pages
Do you know anything that in all its innocence is more humiliating than the funny pages of a Sunday newspaper in America?
america groups awareness
The awareness of the all-surpassing importance of social groups is now general property in America.
thoughtful essence america
Most thoughtful Americans of today seem to have forgotten how strongly their own and immediate predecessors, Emerson, Hawthorne and Whitman, were still preoccupied with the essence behind things.
country struggle america
Under weak government, in a wide, thinly populated country, in the struggle against the raw natural environment and with the freeplay of economic forces, unified social groups become the transmitters of culture.
past squares america
He who wishes to maintain that the past of mankind no longer has any absolute value in lifemust also be ready to deny his ownlife until the present moment, indeed in advance until the last moment, as worthless. He who realizes that culture is the giving of form will also see that the highest forms that it is given to the human spirit to recognize have always been, psychologically considered, such evasions from the present. Considerations such as these do not at all square with the direction of America's mind.
dam european maintain market social
We can't put up a protectionist dam on our own against the neo-liberal world market either. However, we can try, together with our European partners, to maintain the social character of Europe as much as possible.
against character dam dominant european french influence longer maintain market nor social together wake
wake the French from their dream, and tell them honestly: 'No, we no longer have the dominant influence we once had in Europe, nor will we get it back. We can't put up a protectionist dam on our own against the neo-liberal world market either. However, we can try, together with our European partners, to maintain the social character of Europe as much as possible.'
bestowed heroic impossible strive survivors themselves title
It is impossible to strive for the heroic life. The title of hero is bestowed by the survivors upon the fallen, who themselves know nothing of heroism.
arranging creates history limited primarily
History creates comprehensibility primarily by arranging facts meaningfully and only in a very limited sense by establishing strict causal connections.
bridges progress earth
William James once said: "Progress is a terrible thing." It is more than that: it is also a highly ambiguous notion. For who knowsbut that a little further on the way a bridge may not have collapsed or a crevice split the earth?
past reality history
Every work of history constructs contexts and designs, forms in which past reality can be comprehended. History creates comprehensibility primarily by arranging facts meaningfully and only in a very limited sense by establishing strict causal connections.
simple feelings culture
The more the specific feelings of being under obligation range themselves under a supreme principle of human dependence the clearer and more fertile will be the realization of the concept, indispensable to all true culture, of service; from the service of God down to the simple social relationship as between employer and employee.
art skills understanding
The art of watching has become mere skill at rapid apperception and understanding of continuously changing visual images. The younger generation has acquired this cinematic perception to an amazing degree.
spiritual balance culture
Culture requires in the first place a certain balance of material and spiritual values.