Andrew Sullivan: Can We Build Something As Beautiful As Notre Dame Cathedral?

Editor’s Note: This is a work in progress.

Andrew Sullivan:

“Could We Still Build Something as Beautiful as Notre-Dame?

Along with so many others, I found the images of the destruction of Notre-Dame close to unbearable. For some, it represented a simply appalling loss for global culture. For others, a kind of torment for the idea of France, its history, its soul — even in thoroughly post-Christian times. I could not stop myself from seeing it as a metaphor — for the near-extinction of Christianity, the metaphysics that underpins so much of the West’s distinctiveness and coherence: its defense of the individual soul as inviolate, for example. It remains an open question whether liberalism, broadly understood, can survive the loss of its metaphysical foundations. And as we see liberal democracy struggle to articulate its truth against the ocean of nihilism, the lure of tribalism, the cult of the strongman, and the left’s contempt for the Enlightenment and religion — the burning of this symbol of Christian devotion cut me to the quick.

But it also reminded me of the question of beauty in modernity. By which I mean: Can our civilization ever create anything of comparable beauty to Notre-Dame, or indeed the archipelago of cathedrals across Europe, stemming from the middle ages? I can’t see it. The core criteria for creating modern architecture — even if it is not brutally ugly or mediocre — are usefulness and cost. Beauty — even if it is formally considered in architecture — is usually subordinate. Even if you survey modern cathedrals, there is a lack of detail, and an absence of the kind of skill that enabled the twelfth century to construct marvels beyond our capacity. We have technique in abundance; we have technology that would have appeared as magic to the designers of Notre-Dame; we have wealth beyond measure in comparison. But even the architectural baubles of our new religion — think of Apple’s new headquarters, for example — contain nothing as complex or as overwhelming or as awe-inspiring as the rose stained glass window of an eleventh century masterpiece.

I’m not saying I want to go back to the Middle Ages. We have gained a staggering amount of peace, security, freedom, health and knowledge. Theocracy is no longer an option. But they had something we don’t, didn’t they? A unifying vision of the whole of life and death, a common, metaphysically rooted faith, and an enchantment modernity has banished. I think of these cathedrals as they must have appeared at the time to peasants on a pilgrimage, looming on the horizon like a spaceship compared to the misery and brutality of life in that era, overwhelming the senses, commanding awe and devotion, reifying faith in an almost unanswerable way. When we see Notre-Dame burn, we see the reality of our time: that this exquisite kind of architectural beauty is never going to be summoned up again, nor the souls who imagined it, nor the human beings who crafted every inch of it with love. …”

The short answer … NO.

The long answer requires a great deal of thinking about what made the Middle Ages the Middle Ages and what has made the Modern World the Modern World.

Note: Actual Christianity is obviously a large part of the answer. The other large part of the answer is capitalism in the form of chattel slavery and wage slavery.