Johan Huizinga
Johan Huizinga
Johan Huizinga, was a Dutch historian and one of the founders of modern cultural history...
NationalityDutch
ProfessionHistorian
Date of Birth7 December 1872
bestowed heroic impossible strive survivors themselves title
It is impossible to strive for the heroic life. The title of hero is bestowed by the survivors upon the fallen, who themselves know nothing of heroism.
arranging creates history limited primarily
History creates comprehensibility primarily by arranging facts meaningfully and only in a very limited sense by establishing strict causal connections.
dam european maintain market social
We can't put up a protectionist dam on our own against the neo-liberal world market either. However, we can try, together with our European partners, to maintain the social character of Europe as much as possible.
order play space
Play: It is an an activity which proceeds within certain limits of time and space, in a visible order, according to rules freely accepted, and outside the sphere of necessity or material utility. The play-mood is one of rapture and enthusiasm, and is sacred or festive in accordance with the occasion. A feeling of exaltation and tension accompanies the action.
character play bears
Culture arises and unfolds in and as play... culture itself bears the character of play.
use youth spirit
Educators are aware that they can reach the youth only by making use of gang spirit and guiding it, not by working against it.
civilization play dancing
The spirit of playful competition is, as a social impulse, older than culture itself and pervades all life like a veritable ferment. Ritual grew up in sacred play; poetry was born in play and nourished on play; music and dancing were pure play....We have to conclude, therefore, that civilization is, in its earliest phases, played. It does not come from play...it arises in and as play, and never leaves it.
lonely light cities
The modern city hardly knows a pure darkness or true silence anymore, nor does it know the effect of a single small light or that of a lonely distant shout.
luxury giving way
Life is made too easy. Mankind's moral fibre is giving way under the softening influence of luxury.
public-opinion looks demand
From whichever angle one looks at it, the application of racial theories remains a striking proof of the lowered demands of public opinion upon the purity of critical judgment.
ideas rainbow imagination
The eternal gulf between being and idea can only be bridged by the rainbow of imagination.
music sports fashion
The things which can make life enjoyable remain the same. They are, now as before, reading, music, fine arts, travel, the enjoyment of nature, sports, fashion, social vanity (knightly orders, honorary offices, gatherings) and the intoxication of the senses.
form humans human-relations
History can predict nothing except that great changes in human relationships will never come about in the form in which they have been anticipated.
attitude sober-up expression
An aristocratic culture does not advertise its emotions. In its forms of expression it is sober and reserved. Its general attitude is stoic.