Eliot scholars have ignored the Dawson connection. The central claim Dawson and Eliot made, based on their wide-ranging knowledge of anthropology and history, was that every culture has a cult, some religious system that serves as an ultimate source of value and meaning.
“Eliot’s reputation as a critic of society has been worse than his record”—so wrote Roger Kojecký at the beginning of his 1971 book, T.S. Eliot’s Social Criticism.[1] Thirty-five years later, the situation has…