"It seems to me that in our lifetime we have passed from the wreck of liberal humanism to the beginning of a new recognition of dogma: isn't it rather tremendous?"
About this Quote
A polite English sentence that quietly drops a bomb: Pitter is describing a cultural mood swing, from the shattered confidence of "liberal humanism" to a fresh appetite for certainty. The phrase "wreck of liberal humanism" doesn’t sound like a debate-club disagreement; it’s shipwreck language. Something that promised moral progress and individual reason has gone down hard in the surf of the 20th century, with war, ideological brutality, and modern mass systems making the old assurances feel thin.
Then comes the twist: she doesn’t greet dogma with the usual recoil. She calls its return "tremendous" - not necessarily good, but immense, almost awe-inducing. That word carries the double charge of fascination and dread. Dogma, for Pitter, isn’t merely a set of rigid beliefs; it’s the re-entry of authority, boundaries, and metaphysical claims into a culture that thought it could run on tolerance and good intentions alone.
The little tag question - "isn't it rather tremendous?" - is where the subtext does its work. It invites complicity, as if she’s daring the listener to admit what polite liberal society won’t: that people crave firm structures when the world stops making sense. Read in the long shadow of two world wars and the mid-century hunger for grand narratives, the line feels less like propaganda than like a startled diary entry from someone watching certainty become fashionable again - and recognizing that the desire for it might be as human as the ideals it displaces.
Then comes the twist: she doesn’t greet dogma with the usual recoil. She calls its return "tremendous" - not necessarily good, but immense, almost awe-inducing. That word carries the double charge of fascination and dread. Dogma, for Pitter, isn’t merely a set of rigid beliefs; it’s the re-entry of authority, boundaries, and metaphysical claims into a culture that thought it could run on tolerance and good intentions alone.
The little tag question - "isn't it rather tremendous?" - is where the subtext does its work. It invites complicity, as if she’s daring the listener to admit what polite liberal society won’t: that people crave firm structures when the world stops making sense. Read in the long shadow of two world wars and the mid-century hunger for grand narratives, the line feels less like propaganda than like a startled diary entry from someone watching certainty become fashionable again - and recognizing that the desire for it might be as human as the ideals it displaces.
Quote Details
| Topic | Deep |
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