Abstract

This article returns to the question of the foundations of Western culture. Many have trod this path before, notably Nietzsche. At issue is a theory of culture, and the classical Greek preoccupation with how humans can make sense of their lives, find direction and some sort of vindication — for that is what culture is, and does. Travelling Greece today, what surprises is the vitality of the ancient sites. Alive with their own cast of timeless enchantment, it is as if they haven't changed over the millennia. Has this miraculous, enduring vitality something to do with the fact that the Western tree that Greece seeded continues to flourish? Or, is this just romantic illusion, a way to redeem the prosaic orders of modern everyday life; or, a fantasy aesthetico-religious culture to populate the disenchanted ruins of the Christian churchyard?