Christians have long been concerned about something they have called humanism — essentially the worship of humans instead of God.
But given pronouncements from the World Economic Forum (“You’ll own nothing and be happy”), along with calls for us to begin eating insects and live in what are effectually prison cities, coupled with the string of lies related to COVID and its alleged solutions and the dehumanizing of dissenters, it might be said our new problem is what might be dubbed “anti-humanism.”
We live in a wonderful world — if only the people would go away.
But Tucker Carlson might say such attitudes are not new. They’ve been around at least eight decades reflected in, of all things, our architecture.
I think the former Fox News host is on to something.
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In a recent interview on British comedian Russell Brand’s podcast, against the background of talk of oppression and totalitarianism being currently experienced, Carlson expressed his appreciation of the beauty of Britain and its architecture.
But he said he was amazed by how British architecture changed between 1939 to 1945.
Buildings changed, going from “designs that complemented the landscape around them and [used] local material, you know, used in ways to, I think, elevate the human spirit to a kind of architecture that clearly hates people, that is designed to oppress the human spirit and make people feel without value, worthless. And that is ugly and disposable and made out of materials that are not worthy to be lived in, that are disgusting,” Carlson said.
Think about what Carlson is saying: We are creatures of our architecture more than we think.
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What provokes more group discussion: sitting in a classroom of row-after-row seats facing a teacher in the front or sitting on chairs formed in a circle?
You know the answer.
And while Carlson didn’t say this, reflect on the image of a cathedral, its architecture developed to make a person feel small, especially against the majesty of God, whom the building is designed to point to.
But that emotional smallness a person feels inside a cathedral is not tied to a crushing of the spirit as Carlson described; rather, it is to evoke thoughts of humility as one perhaps reflects on the greatness of God.
“Everything changed with the war, and there’s something about war that changes people in a very, very deep way down to the architecture, which is an expression of how we feel about each other,” Carlson said.
“The buildings that we build to house our fellow man say a lot about how we feel about our fellow man, in my view. And after the second World War, I mean, it completely changed, and it became very aggressively anti-people.
“But what kind of person could come up with brutalist architecture or it’s many tributaries — and there are many? Brutalism is just the most obvious one, but all architecture post-war is really kind of brutalist, actually.
“What are you saying when you build a building like that? You’re saying that the people who occupy the building are worth nothing. That’s what you’re saying.”
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Carlson contrasted contemporary architecture with the British Cotswolds, beautiful green hills hosting venerable homes and other buildings built of local limestone and thatch before the times of electricity and machines.
”And the result was beautiful and, by the way, I’m not just saying this as an Anglo whose ancestors lived in this country. I’m saying this just as a human being.
“I think if you brought someone from the streets of Tokyo to the Cotswolds and said, ‘What do you think of that building?’ He would say, ‘That’s beautiful,’ because beauty is inherent,” Carlson said.
“Every person recognizes beauty,” he continued, adding that such recognition is not culturally specific. One could look at a Shinto temple in Japan and immediately see that it is beautiful.
Brand interjected that beautiful architecture once expressed a contract or bond of faith between government and the people as expressed in the style of government building.
“I just thought that!” Carlson exclaimed, recalling how impressed he and his wife were of government facilities in a Cotswolds village.
“I thought whoever built that cared about the people. It was built by the people who lived there for the people who lived there, and they loved the people who lived there because they were related to them or knew them. And that hall — I mean, it was built by peasants without machines.”
On his observations of architecture, I think Carlson’s on to something.
Maybe that’s why I’m happy living in a 1903 farm house.
And I think the most beautiful house in my neighborhood is a new one that, while larger and, of course, more modern, looks very much like mine.
Just don’t get me started on what happened at the University of Arkansas, where I’ve taught and done graduate work.
Their school of architecture needed more room. So they put a grotesque addition on the back of their pleasant-looking, late-1930’s building.
The school of architecture, no less.
Yup. Tucker’s on to something.
