Civilisations BBC 2

[Belgrove]

Civilisations kicks off this week on BBC 2. Now in the plural, it will be presented by Simon Schama, Mary Beard and David Olusoga and will cast wider and further back in time than Kenneth Clark's personal and narrow perspective, with which it will inevitably be compared. Memory plays tricks, and having watched the classic series again, they are less an example of television's golden age as a rather indulgent window into Clark's taste. Although Clark's commentary is entertainingly idiosyncratic, I found the programmes lacking the substance one expects of the grandiose title Civilisation. Perhaps it's time to watch again and reappraise Bronowski's Ascent of Man.

David Cannadine spoke refreshingly on R4

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09sn1hj

about the porosity of cultures and the distortions that occur through categorising people according to which civilisation they ostensibly belong. Perhaps the new programmes will adopt a more holistic perspective of the impossible brief. I confess to being rather disappointed when the presenters for the new programmes were first announced, but have since found Mary Beard's series on the Romans, currently repeated on BBC4, to be informative and entertaining, and so look forward to her contributions.

[Lat-Literal]

Civilisations kicks off this week on BBC 2. Now in the plural, it will be presented by Simon Schama, Mary Beard and David Olusoga and will cast wider and further back in time than Kenneth Clark's personal and narrow perspective, with which it will inevitably be compared. Memory plays tricks, and having watched the classic series again, they are less an example of television's golden age as a rather indulgent window into Clark's taste. Although Clark's commentary is entertainingly idiosyncratic, I found the programmes lacking the substance one expects of the grandiose title Civilisation. Perhaps it's time to watch again and reappraise Bronowski's Ascent of Man.

David Cannadine spoke refreshingly on R4

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09sn1hj

about the porosity of cultures and the distortions that occur through categorising people according to which civilisation they ostensibly belong. Perhaps the new programmes will adopt a more holistic perspective of the impossible brief. I confess to being rather disappointed when the presenters for the new programmes were first announced, but have since found Mary Beard's series on the Romans, currently repeated on BBC4, to be informative and entertaining, and so look forward to her contributions.

I was grateful for the highlighting of the programme on R4 and managed to stick with it for 20 minutes.

Cannadine's presentational style is ok-ish when perhaps something greater would have been more enticing. It seemed to start slowly with a bit of jarring background music. Then I lost count of the number of experts he had on to utter a few sentences. Among the first were a couple of stereotypes. The trendy sounding woman who brings a touch of what she hears as "the street" into academia. An academic man who deliberately goes out of his way to pronounce words in ways that leaves one wondering if the rest of us always "say them wrong".

Fortunately, after such distractions, the standard did improve. But I think what really lost me was the absence of any obvious substantial raison d'etre. Sure, the modern sales pitch has to be to smash the 1960s and the immediate, subsequent decades from every angle. It has nowhere else to go when everything has already been done. Possibly surprisingly, the liberals were smashed first so now it is the turn of those like Clark who even in their time were perceived by some as archaically conservative. Yet as Cannadine revealed inadvertently, Clark did have a clear reason. That is, he was putting forward an argument for there being civilisation when the contrary could seem to be true in the Cold War and the Vietnam War.

But when was the last time that the term "Western Civilisation" was heard very frequently among the general public or in the mass media? It was many years ago when most of us reluctantly accepted that life here now is a jungle. Slightly earlier, we had all become sufficiently sophisticated to accept that tribal life in any actual jungle had considerably more sophistication than had previously been acknowledged. Indeed, it was probably in many ways more sophisticated than our own. So, not only is there nothing new in this BBC exercise. It is seeking to provide authoritative answers to a question that no one is asking. No doubt in doing so, it is hoping to be cleverly contentious so as to bump up ratings on the serious side.

What, though, I sense in its pseudo-highbrow distance is that it is more likely to be playing with fire. Today's backdrop, unmentioned so far as I am aware although, ever hopeful, I may be proven wrong, is not Vietnam or indeed "Soviets" whatever British, European and American Governments choose to imply. It is, of course, the terrorist threat from extreme Islamic fundamentalism. The one which opposes democracy, bans music, destroys art, treats many people worse than we treat our pets and regularly cuts off human heads to stick upon poles without any truly tribal ritualistic justification. And given that context, programme makers might ask themselves whether it is helpful to be unnecessarily hammering in our final nails.

[Stunsworth]

The entire series is now available on iPlayer. I’ve watched the first two episodes and found them riveting.

[Serial_Apologist]

But when was the last time that the term "Western Civilisation" was heard very frequently among the general public or in the mass media?

When Ben Kingsley as Ghandi said it sounded like a good idea?

[Serial_Apologist]

The entire series is now available on iPlayer. I’ve watched the first two episodes and found them riveting.

Watched the first last night, and I agree. I've always liked Schama.

[Stunsworth]

Watched the first last night, and I agree. I've always liked Schama.

There’s a small pre-Homeric Greek artefact in the second episode that will take your breath away - well, it took mine away at least.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Watched the first last night, and I agree. I've always liked Schama.

and - and at his considerable best not least at the very start of the programme - the "we may disagree about what we mean by 'civilization', but we know when we encounter its exact opposite" over images of Islamic State destroying Hindu statues.

Not that keen on the ready resort to the "religious significance" of early Art; that places where people gathered and made Art were "sacred" places of worship, "like cathedrals". The sheer humanist enjoyment of making Art and Music wasn't given much of a look in. That aside, episode 1 was superb television.

Greatly looking forward to Mary Beard, but I hope she isn't encouraged to "Worsley it up" as it seemed she was in her recent, and very disappointing programme on Julius Caesar.

[teamsaint]

Watched the first last night, and I agree. I've always liked Schama.

I went off him a bit when he did a no - show at a book signing for The Power of Art , at the Galway festival.


I have forgiven him mostly now though.


He is top class.

[jean]

...Mary Beard...in her recent, and very disappointing programme on Julius Caesar.

Can't recommend too highly her piece in the current Private Eye...

[Lat-Literal]

and - and at his considerable best not least at the very start of the programme - the "we may disagree about what we mean by 'civilization', but we know when we encounter its exact opposite" over images of Islamic State destroying Hindu statues.

Not that keen on the ready resort to the "religious significance" of early Art; that places where people gathered and made Art were "sacred" places of worship, "like cathedrals". The sheer humanist enjoyment of making Art and Music wasn't given much of a look in. That aside, episode 1 was superb television.

Greatly looking forward to Mary Beard, but I hope she isn't encouraged to "Worsley it up" as it seemed she was in her recent, and very disappointing programme on Julius Caesar.

So they are drawing a contrast with ISIS etc which picks up on one of my points but then they have got their work cut out to describe how that can be "an exact opposite" to "civilisations" in the plural. They can surely only do so by suggesting that "civilisations" in the plural are equal and reside in the same philosophical and even practical space!

I do like Schama, though.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Watch the programme, Lats - it's really good and will answer your questions far better than I can.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p05xxsmp/civilisations-series-1-1-second-moment-of-creation

[Serial_Apologist]

Watch the programme, Lats - it's really good and will answer your questions far better than I can.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episod...nt-of-creation

And your answer to the humanist principle of a thing worth doing is worth doing for its own sake will come along too, I would think.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

And your answer to the humanist principle of a thing worth doing is worth doing for its own sake will come along too, I would think.

I would imagine so ; but it's the automatic assumption - the cliché, even - that this "humanist" perspective played no part (almost the idea that it could play no part) in the creation of the Art objects, that they had to be religious, that annoys me.

(Tellingly, it wasn't Schama who voiced such an assumption, but the Musicologist from the University of Huddersfield.)

[Serial_Apologist]

I would imagine so ; but it's the automatic assumption - the cliché, even - that this "humanist" perspective played no part (almost the idea that it could play no part) in the creation of the Art objects, that they had to be religious, that annoys me.

(Tellingly, it wasn't Schama who voiced such an assumption, but the Musicologist from the University of Huddersfield.)

The early attribution of superstitious agency would surely preclude that, though?

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

The early attribution of superstitious agency would surely preclude that, though?

It's the "attribution" that raises my hackles, S_A.