"These expressions — "culture" and "civilization" — have to be used in their Continental sense to make the point clear. "Culture" is the sum of all products which represent a personal manifestation, like painting, poetry, religion, philosophy, and the humanities. "Civilization" is nonpersonal. It is the sum total of all efforts which contribute to the increase of comfort or "usefulness" in the practical sense. Bathtubs, dentists' tools, railways, and traffic regulations are products of civilization. […] Yet while civilization is basically lack of friction, smoothness, comfort, and material enjoyment we have to look at traditional Christianity as being something "uncomfortable." […] It is difficult to project into the frame of a comfortistic civilization the picture of Christ, hanging on the cross with a body convulsed by pain, the palms torn to shreds by the heavy nails, the hairs glued to the scalp by sweat and coagulated blood. It ought to be repeated again that culture is always "magnificent." […] Civilization is geocentric comfort. But culture, which must be bought by bitter suffering (there is neither art nor sanctity without suffering), points always toward heaven. And the ochlocratic millennium hell bent upon avoiding suffering will turn its back toward heaven."
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Literary criticsPhilosophers from AustriaJournalists from AustriaCatholics from AustriaHistorians from Austria
Original Language: English
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pp. 36–37
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Erik_von_Kuehnelt-Leddihn
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Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn
Erik Maria Ritter von Kuehnelt-Leddihn (31 July 1909 – 26 May 1999) was an Austrian Catholic nobleman and socio-political theorist.
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