Artistic distributivism

Perhaps you have heard of Chesterton's theory of distributivism.  I don't really have developed enough ideas about it to talk about the economic version of it, but I'm all for the knowledge/skill/art analog of it.   Furthermore, I think it's more workable and realistic than the money version, because if everyone can sing or dance or paint or whatever, that makes everyone's life all the richer rather than everyone equally poor, whereas money is largely about determining who gets what of scarce resources, so that inflation would kick in if everyone was enriched.

But in any case, Chesterton is always dismayed when the means of production or enjoyment of something good and human that belong to everyone become concentrated in the hands of a small elite, as when nobody will bother to sing, but will only listen to those with big recording label deals.  Not that he or I are against the idea of really talented individuals or professional artists, but that we are both saddened more than a little when ordinary people like us give up on something we all should enjoy doing and cede the privilege to a few simply because we won't bother if we can't be the guy at the top (or whatever reason).  This concentration, though, is neither natural nor inevitable.

The thing that started this train of thought just now was reading Chesterton on Latin while I was thinking about Latin; he was lamenting the changeover from a more democratic thing to a more aristocratic thing that occurred around Milton's time when it came to be that Latin was monopolized by a small elite circle that spoke it very artfully, instead of everyone talking at least a little Latin badly, the way it had been for ages.

What's the fun if a chunk of the Church's riches are left to a few classics nerds to appreciate?  Especially when the threshold for conscious and active participation at Mass with Latin is so low, comparatively speaking with any other really meaningful thing in any language - you don't need to be Cicero to get in on it.  As I'll demonstrate tomorrow.

Comments

[John]

Classics "nerds" ? I'm not sure I like your tone... ;)