Professor Carroll Quigley---a few more comments
In a post on September 14, I began a brief series of quotes from the last lectures of Carroll Quigley. This will conclude that series and complete my comment on the Georgetown professor.
Quigley wrote two major books. The first, "The Evolution of Civilization; an introduction to historical analysis", was in the intellectual tradition of Toynbee and Spengler, but at just 271 pages not at all related to them in accessibility. To a college freshman, the book for the first time gave a construct to the "facts" of history, with its detail of Quigley's seven stages of civilization and the six level hierarchy of human and societal needs. In its clarity and brevity the book is brilliant. "The Evolution of Civilization" was the primary course book for his School of Foreign Service required class, and boot camp, of "Development of Civilization".
His second major book, "Tragedy and Hope, a history of the world in our time" is an exhaustive 1311 page history of the world from 1895 - 1950, that was published in 1966. It was the primary textbook for Quigley's course "The World Since 1914". Unlike most history textbooks in my experience, it is not just a recording of generally accepted "facts" --- far from it. It is an interesting narrative that fits within Quigley's historical framework and is filled with "facts" that are derived from Quigley's primary research, "facts" that are believable because they are not boring. It often has a point of view that is clear. Unfortunately, the main fame of this history book today is a result of Quigley's "documented" contention that an Anglo-American elite organization conspired to and to some extent did control the U.S. and U.K. governments in the period between the 1920's and 1940's. Conspiracy lovers have extrapolated this theory beyond this period, which is by no means suggested in the textbook. Quigley purportedly remarked to a colleague in the 1960's that "today the reality is much scarier. Instead of a secret cabal now being in charge, no one is. We have instead a kind of chaos or anarchy."
Despite his demanding approach to instruction and grading, Quigley remained one of the most popular professors at Georgetown and for the last four consecutive years before his retirement he received the student-voted Faculty Award. Unfortunately, however, in the last years of his career he was not so well regarded by the Georgetown administration. He had strong opinions about education and in 1967 wrote a widely circulated article for the campus newspaper, "the Hoya", entitled "Is Georgetown University Committing 'Suicide'?"(can be Googled). This did not endear him to the adminstration. He wrote "Education , correctly defined, means training toward growth and maturity to prepare a person to deal, in a flexible and successful way, with the problems of life and eternity. It does not mean, as it increasingly is taken to mean by the educational operationalists who now control our educational bureaucracy, obtaining a ticket of admission to some other bureaucratic structure, however large and rich that may be".
He and his close colleagues at Georgetown were educators who represented an American pragmatism and at times idealism, senior professors who brought their full energy, insights and teaching skills into the undergraduate classrooms. Along with Quigley, some others were Jan Karski, political science professor and a famous leader of the Polish resistance in WW II; Walter Giles, the precise, refined, and demanding professor of constitutional law; Jules David, professor of history who, being a loyal Catholic, penned "Profiles in Courage" for John F. Kennedy's signature; Father Zyrini, a professor and master teacher of economics; Father Sebes, professor of comparative civilizations who had spent most of his life in Asia(not so common at the time); and Jesse Mann, professor of philosophy and a leading scholar of William James and American pragmatism. In the 60's and 70's they were all teaching but ascendancy was moving toward a politically predictable and reliably mainstream group of polished bureaucrats, which could never have been a description of the above group.
Quigley retired in May 1976, still full of ideas and passion for them, but also disheartened by the evolution of his beloved Georgetown School of Foreign Service; by his view of the sad state of affairs in U.S. government and the materialist U.S. society; and by America's seeming choice to ignore Eisenhower's admonition about the military industrial complex. To my mind, in addition, he never really recovered from the murders of the Kennedy brothers, whom he knew and championed.
Quigley died of a heart attack at a young 66, seven months after he retired. A few months before, he closed his final formal lecture series as follows: "Now I come to my last statement. I regret ending on what is, I suppose, such a pessimistic note--I'm not personally pessimistic. The final result will be that the American people will ultimately prefer communities. They will opt out of the system. Today everything is bureaucratic structure, and brainwashed people who are not personalities are trained to fit into this bureaucratic structure and say it is a great life--although I would assume that many on their death beds must feel otherwise...Now I want to say good night. Do not be pessimistic. Life goes on; life is fun. And if a civilization crashes, it deserves to. When Rome fell, the answer was, 'Create our own communities'. Thank you, Ladies and Gentlemen."
Quigley wrote two major books. The first, "The Evolution of Civilization; an introduction to historical analysis", was in the intellectual tradition of Toynbee and Spengler, but at just 271 pages not at all related to them in accessibility. To a college freshman, the book for the first time gave a construct to the "facts" of history, with its detail of Quigley's seven stages of civilization and the six level hierarchy of human and societal needs. In its clarity and brevity the book is brilliant. "The Evolution of Civilization" was the primary course book for his School of Foreign Service required class, and boot camp, of "Development of Civilization".
His second major book, "Tragedy and Hope, a history of the world in our time" is an exhaustive 1311 page history of the world from 1895 - 1950, that was published in 1966. It was the primary textbook for Quigley's course "The World Since 1914". Unlike most history textbooks in my experience, it is not just a recording of generally accepted "facts" --- far from it. It is an interesting narrative that fits within Quigley's historical framework and is filled with "facts" that are derived from Quigley's primary research, "facts" that are believable because they are not boring. It often has a point of view that is clear. Unfortunately, the main fame of this history book today is a result of Quigley's "documented" contention that an Anglo-American elite organization conspired to and to some extent did control the U.S. and U.K. governments in the period between the 1920's and 1940's. Conspiracy lovers have extrapolated this theory beyond this period, which is by no means suggested in the textbook. Quigley purportedly remarked to a colleague in the 1960's that "today the reality is much scarier. Instead of a secret cabal now being in charge, no one is. We have instead a kind of chaos or anarchy."
Despite his demanding approach to instruction and grading, Quigley remained one of the most popular professors at Georgetown and for the last four consecutive years before his retirement he received the student-voted Faculty Award. Unfortunately, however, in the last years of his career he was not so well regarded by the Georgetown administration. He had strong opinions about education and in 1967 wrote a widely circulated article for the campus newspaper, "the Hoya", entitled "Is Georgetown University Committing 'Suicide'?"(can be Googled). This did not endear him to the adminstration. He wrote "Education , correctly defined, means training toward growth and maturity to prepare a person to deal, in a flexible and successful way, with the problems of life and eternity. It does not mean, as it increasingly is taken to mean by the educational operationalists who now control our educational bureaucracy, obtaining a ticket of admission to some other bureaucratic structure, however large and rich that may be".
He and his close colleagues at Georgetown were educators who represented an American pragmatism and at times idealism, senior professors who brought their full energy, insights and teaching skills into the undergraduate classrooms. Along with Quigley, some others were Jan Karski, political science professor and a famous leader of the Polish resistance in WW II; Walter Giles, the precise, refined, and demanding professor of constitutional law; Jules David, professor of history who, being a loyal Catholic, penned "Profiles in Courage" for John F. Kennedy's signature; Father Zyrini, a professor and master teacher of economics; Father Sebes, professor of comparative civilizations who had spent most of his life in Asia(not so common at the time); and Jesse Mann, professor of philosophy and a leading scholar of William James and American pragmatism. In the 60's and 70's they were all teaching but ascendancy was moving toward a politically predictable and reliably mainstream group of polished bureaucrats, which could never have been a description of the above group.
Quigley retired in May 1976, still full of ideas and passion for them, but also disheartened by the evolution of his beloved Georgetown School of Foreign Service; by his view of the sad state of affairs in U.S. government and the materialist U.S. society; and by America's seeming choice to ignore Eisenhower's admonition about the military industrial complex. To my mind, in addition, he never really recovered from the murders of the Kennedy brothers, whom he knew and championed.
Quigley died of a heart attack at a young 66, seven months after he retired. A few months before, he closed his final formal lecture series as follows: "Now I come to my last statement. I regret ending on what is, I suppose, such a pessimistic note--I'm not personally pessimistic. The final result will be that the American people will ultimately prefer communities. They will opt out of the system. Today everything is bureaucratic structure, and brainwashed people who are not personalities are trained to fit into this bureaucratic structure and say it is a great life--although I would assume that many on their death beds must feel otherwise...Now I want to say good night. Do not be pessimistic. Life goes on; life is fun. And if a civilization crashes, it deserves to. When Rome fell, the answer was, 'Create our own communities'. Thank you, Ladies and Gentlemen."
posted by John Borden at 9:28 PM
2 Comments:
Hi John,
I just stumbled across your blogs about Carroll Quigley, whom I also loved and was my favorite professor. My favorite quote of his was "Plato's Republic is the Mein Kampf of the ancient world!"
When were you at GU? I was SFS '75 and was a student in Quigley's final Dev of Civ class. I took as many of his classes as possible. My favorite was "Science, Christianity, and Western Intellectual Tradition," which he taught only once, in my senior year.
Regards,
Bill Erickson
I took from all of your named best Georgetown teachers except Karski and Mann.
But you forgot to include Frau Luster, and Jeanne Kirkpatrick and her protege whose name I have forgotten:Cuban immigrant who first worked in fast food, got a PhD in Political Science and later taught at Georgetown. ( great story).
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