Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy's Lectures on Universal History

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= different series of recorded lectures (audio), each with their own particular flavor are available via the ERH Fund.

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Description

Series 14

Volume 14: Universal History (1955)

Four 1-hour lectures, all that remains of the original course.

There are several lecture series with this title.

All of them have the same premise as Out of Revolution, in that they seek to express the unity of history. But here Rosenstock-Huessy proclaims more than the unity of the 1,000 years of European history–he argues for the movement of the spirit through the entire history of mankind, “from Adam to the last judgment.” Our own story is told through the lives of our revolutionary ancestors: the tribes, the astrological empires, the Jews, and the Greeks, all of whom are honored not only for their enduring and continuing contributions to that history, but for having once and for all broken new ground.

The surviving lectures of this version of the course consist of an introduction to history, with special emphasis on the importance of holidays, calendars, and the formal articulation of events."


Series 17

"We are in the midst of a tremendous, real universal history. Who cares for the French history, or for English history? A secular story. They are of no importance, if you compare them to this tremendous 2,000 years of organized life in the form of the Holy Spirit, of this power to connect more than one generation of man in the same spirit, to bear fruit, where one generation sows, and the other harvests. This has not existed before, and it is threatened today."

(https://www.erhfund.org/lecturealbum/volume-17-universal-history-1956/)


Series 18

ERH Fund:

"In Universal History (1957), Rosenstock-Huessy addresses the social inheritance of acquired characteristics, the sociology of historical change, and the generational shift of each new way of life. Individual lectures feature war and the tribes, the cost of settlement, fatherhood and Israel, the difference between “people” and “public,” and the definition of saints.

Lecture 3 contains a good presentation of the purpose of a universal history and its importance in creating the future. Lecture 11 has a classic Rosenstock-Huessy presentation on the power of speech.

​There are several lecture series with this title.

All of them have the same premise as Out of Revolution, in that they seek to express the unity of history. But here Rosenstock-Huessy proclaims more than the unity of the 1,000 years of European history–he argues for the movement of the spirit through the entire history of mankind, “from Adam to the last judgment.” Our own story is told through the lives of our revolutionary ancestors: the tribes, the astrological empires, the Jews, and the Greeks, all of whom are honored not only for their enduring and continuing contributions to that history, but for having once and for all broken new ground. ​​ Rosenstock-Huessy defends both the existence and the meaning of the Christian era. Indeed he names Christ as the turning point of history, the culmination of the yearnings of the ancient world and the redemption of its achievements, as well as the cornerstone of our hopes for the unity of mankind. Like Augustine before him, he sees the four ages of the ancient world succeeded by the millennia of the Christian era, in which one God superseded the many gods, one world was forged out of our competing empires and nations, and one great society is to be born of our many warring social forms. The history of mankind is retold as relay race in which each age or generation enters, claims, and incorporates new territory."

(https://www.erhfund.org/lecturealbum/volume-18-universal-history-1957/)

Contains 29 lectures, Lecture 1 starts here


Series 32

"In this lecture series, Rosenstock-Huessy explores speech and naming, the central nature of Christianity in history, and ethics; he explains his take on creativity, the development of human culture, the danger of becoming enslaved by certain types of thinking, and the development of a human soul.

..

Here it is not the 1000 years of European history for which unity is sought, but the entire life of humankind “from Adam to the last judgment.” Our own story is told through the lives of our revolutionary ancestors. The tribes, the astrological empires, the Jews, and the Greeks are honored not only for their enduring and continuing contributions but for having once and for all broken new ground.

Rosenstock-Huessy declares that the Christian era exists, and he defends it. He calls Christ the turning point of history: the culmination of the yearnings and the redemption of the achievements of the ancient world, the cornerstone of our hopes for the unity of mankind. The four ages of the ancient world are succeeded by the millennia of the Christian era in which one God over many gods was, one world out of many worlds have been, and one society out of the many societies, is yet to be, created. The history of mankind is retold as a kind of relay race in which each age or generation charts new territory."

(https://www.erhfund.org/lecturealbum/volume-32-universal-history-1967/)

20 lectures, lecture 1 starts here at https://www.erhfund.org/lectures/volume-32-universal-history-1967/lecture-01/

Excerpts

On Using Misleading Vocabulary

Eurgen Rosenstock-Huessy:

"The oldest is ordinary-extraordinary. As long as William James or myself talk in these terms, we cannot sell the truth, because we make this concession to the ordinary way of life as though it was the primary, and the extraordinary is just a kind of additional folly, enthusiasm, you see, ranting. It's unnecessary. Obviously the Founding Fathers, or the people who came in the wilderness and founded this college are our support. They did something whole-heartedly, therefore we can do it half-heartedly. Therefore we have to find an expression by which the ordinary points toward the whole all-out effort as its condition. Do you see this? Therefore the word "extraordinary" and "ordinary" are built up in the wrong sequence -- as -- look the same -- give you another example. Who -- we have here some Catholics, I'm sure. Now you know, in this country the -- and in

Europe too, for the last hundred years, the children of the darkness have called the Church an international -- institution. If it is an international institution, it is not older than the nations. Then the nations are there first and the "international" is a kind of sugar-coating of the frontiers between the nations. Obviously the Church was nothing of the kind, ever. It's a universal, an ecumenic church. It's the Catholic Church, and it is there at the very first moment in the person of his -- its -- her founder. She is one and all for all mankind. She is total. She is wholehearted. If it isn't, there is no Church. If Jesus was not as much an American as He was an Asiatic, or as He was a Japanese and a Chinese, He has never been, because He has just missed His whole mission. If you can say that He was a Jew, and in -- in -- as the Jews now try to tell you, these modern Jews who try to sell you Jesus as a Jew, then He died in vain. The Cross is perfectly superfluous. The wall, the partition between the different nations then was never torn down. Now the modern enemies of the faith say very cleverly "international," the Church is an international, and therefore a very dangerous, institution. That has been the attack on Christianity right along. First against the Catholics, then by the racists against the Protestants just as well. You can also attack Protestantism as erecting a standard which isn't wholly German. And as you know, Mr. Hitler said, "Christianity has to go or at least I have to be Christ," as he used to say. He did. And this is very simple, gentlemen. The word "international" is a very clever way for abolishing all ecumenic, all humanitarian unity among the human race, because then "international" is second, and "national" is first. Can you see this? There are any number of such words.

Gentlemen, children, and fairy tales, and poetry are called by these logicians "pre-logical." Then it means that they are immature, and they are to be superseded by logic. And so what is creative and what is the necessary foundation for all later logic is declared to be just a little preamble, you see, just a -- an eggshell to be sloughed off. A very indecent, archaic, youth movement of the human mind and it should be as quickly as possible replaced by "logic." I've just written, pardon me, an article on the -- these three words, "pre-logic," and "international," and "extraordinary." That is a very clever way of turning everything topsy-turvy. If you say "pre-logical" for poetry, and for ritual and for liturgy, you come into this category of cybernetics, and you hasten to order a machine to replace you, because then the logic, you see, is the highest, and the necessary; and the prelogic is the causeway to the logic. But it's unnecessary, and it is primitive, and it should go as fast as possible. International: no Church, no Christianity, no common destiny of mankind, the nations are there, and then we patch in some nice international institutions like this international education business of Mr. {Holland}, or whatever goes on in New York for internationalism. Internationalism will never cure nationalism, gentlemen. Don't believe that. But the Americans think so, by the way. It's a very strange -- superstition, which you have, that "international" is good enough -- it will never replace nations, you see. By every word -- time, you use the word "international," you reaffirm your belief that the nation is there first, you see, and the international is second.

Now Jesus died on the Cross, and Adam was created to show you that first God created man, and then we split into nations. And obviously, if we -- you don't believe this, there's no hope for mankind, you see. If nations are first and international is an afterthought, of course, that may be an error. That may be an -- that is not then in the -- at the core of the human problem. At the core of the human problem however is that we are one, already, from the first day of creation. And then, of course, you can see from the Anglo-Saxons and the Americans, we branch off; but we are branches of one tree. If you say "international," you deny this.

The Church is not international, gentlemen, and the founding of a college is nothing extraordinary."

(https://www.erhfund.org/lectures/volume-14-universal-history-1955/lecture-01-2/)

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