The Sword and Laser discussion

I thought it might be useful to have one thread about religion in the novel in general-- not only to discuss religious themes, but also in case anyone had trouble figuring out the religious references/the omnipresent Latin.

I'm not far in, but I thought in this first post I myself might be able to contribute a little bit of context. The religious culture of the novel is very much modeled directly after Medieval monk culture (with a humorous twist), from the emphasis on preserving ancient texts during a time of disruption to the very Scholastic-sounded courses the monks are expected to take (like "Intermediate Angelology" and "Theological Calculus").

Literarrily, there are a lot of important 20th century writers who all happen to A) be catholic, B) write very funny satires, and C) write apocalypses. Off the top of my head you have Evelyn Waugh (Vile Bodies is a near-future satire/apocalypse story, kind of, Love Among the Ruins is a dystopian novella), Walker Percy (the similarly named Love in the Ruins and then its sequel, The Thanatos Syndrome), Anthony Burgess (The Wanting Seed and the very famous Clockwork Orange), Robert Hugh Benson (Lord of the World), and you could probably even throw GK Chesterton in there with his The Man Who Was Thursday, which rises to sort of apocalyptic-status until it suddenly isn't. I'm sure there are more, but those are the ordinary, canonical, literary figures (who aren't considered genre-writers even though they wrote genre) that come to mind. So if you're familiar with any of those writers, that's one weirdly specific tradition in which Miller is writing.

Interesting post.Very informative. The only one I've read (well, besides Miller) was Anthony Burgess. I was raised Catholic, so I was somewhat familiar with some of the references such as the monk's culture you mentioned. It would be interesting to hear from people who may be more familiar with some of the themes than I am.

My main sticking point with Leibowitz--and I also find this in a few other older SF works, especially Isaac Asimov--is the outdated concept of the "Dark Ages" and the exaggerated role of the Church in preserving classical knowledge. It's an extremely Eurocentric and dated view of history that current scholarship doesn't support, by and large.

It doesn't bother me so much in future speculations like Leibowitz or Foundation, because those conceivably could be inspired by the popular conception of the medieval scriptorium (as opposed to the reality). But they tend to reinforce this obsolete notion of "Golden Age-->Dark Age-->Church preserves classical knowledge-->Renaissance". That's at best, a small part of the actual history. I was also raised Catholic, but to my Catholic school's credit, they didn't perpetuate this.

But... the church DID play an important role in preserving knowledge. I think your point is that it was translations from the Arabic that kick-started the renaissance... but it's also true that a great many texts were preserved by the monks (sometimes on purpose, sometimes accidentally) that then contributed to renaissance knowledge once that era began. Monks were also at the forefront of both rational and experimental knowledge at the time, as reflected in the second section.

If I have to pick a side, I'm mostly with "Wastrel" here, but honestly Joe, you have a point. It is Euroecentric to claim that only monks preserved knowledge, and it is Eurocentric to ignore the rest of the world, and though Dark Age Fallacy narratives typically completely ignore the important role the Church played in preserving knowledge, and thus Miller is somewhat implicitly opposed to those narratives, he seems to indulge a bit in some Dark Ages thinking. Like, the entire courtly world being illiterate and only a handful of monks being able to read, write, interpet texts, etc etc, that's straight out of Carolingian Renaissance. But the way the monks are portrayed as such ignoramuses is playing into the Dark Age myth.

I guess we can lay the blame of a lot of it just on the satirical, extremely exaggerated, grotesque nature of the book, and a lot of it on the sheer staggering gulf between a new "Dark Age" after a fallout compared to today and the early Middle Ages compared to Classic Times. "Dark Age" is a phrase not particularly applicable to the one, but would logically be very applicable to another.

Joe Informatico wrote: "My main sticking point with Leibowitz--and I also find this in a few other older SF works, especially Isaac Asimov--is the outdated concept of the "Dark Ages" and the exaggerated role of the Church in preserving classical knowledge. "

But...that's what happened. And it wasn't even so much what we now think of as Europe as it was the Holy Roman Empire centered in what is now Constantinople. They held on to the knowledge of Greece and Rome until Europe was ready for it again.

It's been an awful long time since I read it, but in this re-read of Canticle, I'm reminded of The Name of the Rose by Eco when it comes to the religious elements. Apples/Oranges, but there are commonalities that make the way religion gets portrayed by the respective authors.

I've heard both sides of the churches role in the dark ages and tend to believe both have an element of truth.

The church did preserve knowledge and ancient works.
But they also helped prolonged the "dark ages", in Europe, by suppressing (or condemning) knowledge and new findings that conflicted with their teachings.
This lasted to very recently, at least the 19th century. There are still some christian denominations that don't accept evolution.

^ That's fair. One group saved the works of Aristotle, Plato etc. and another suppressed Galileo. Both did it in the name of their religious duty. Makes sense.

The Church as suppressors of knowledge is itself a 19th century narrative, and it's pretty untrue (at least during the middle ages. During the Early Modern period, you can argue that things changed with the Galileo Affair, though that's super complicated. Witch hunts also weren't a thing really until the EMP). Once the Middle Ages got going, the Church was very supportive of empirical inquiry, not just financially subsidizing research, establishing universities, etc etc, but in its doctrine: the Church in the Middle Ages (unlike Christianity later/today) believed that 1. the world was ordered, 2. the world was knowable, and 3. that one can better know an author by what is authored. The universe was analogous to scripture, and people were obligated to read it. When you have a religion like that, it must support science, or else descend into hypocrisy.

I mean obviously just because mainstream historians agree that the "Dark Ages" are a myth, doesn't mean that the Middle Ages were a nice place, and just because a Church supports scientific inquiry doesn't mean that it isn't going to go about murderizing theologians it views as heretical. Suppressing new scientific findings? Not really. Suppressing new theologies? Most definitely.

This is a great intro to Dark Age Fallacy stuff (especially because the author is an atheist and skeptic): http://www.strangenotions.com/gods-ph...

And this is another interesting resource I've stumbled across recently, as the most commonly persistent "Medieval Church Suppressed Stuff" argument is one concerning medical rsearch: http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story...

Anyway, yeah, back to the novel, I think this is a major failing of Miller-- we don't get to really see the nastier side of an institutional Church. I imagine this is due not to Miller thinking the Church was Nice and Shiny throughout the Middle Ages, but rather the choice to center the book around the monastery and avoid New Rome. I imagine if we got to see New Rome at all during the second phase, the book would be much more balanced in its overall portrayal of religion.

(also, w/r/t Evolution, the Catholic church's first comments on the matter were in Humani Generis, which amounted to "Catholics can believe this theory; Genesis is not literal," but Catholicism still requires believe in an Adam and an Eve figure, which gets scientifically problematic)

Also regarding church as a repository of medieval knowledge: certainly they did, but they were monks. The knowledge they were mostly interested in preserving was stuff that monks were interested in, ie theological texts. It's my understanding that medieval Europe got a big boost to the natural sciences and mathematics when they were able to acquire Arabic texts through trade and conquest.

John (Taloni) wrote: "But...that's what happened. And it wasn't even so much what we now think of as Europe as it was the Holy Roman Empire centered in what is now Constantinople. They held on to the knowledge of Greece and Rome until Europe was ready for it again."

The Holy Roman Empire (which was neither holy, Roman, nor an empire) was what the eastern half of the Carolingian Empire turned into, and consisted of what is today Germany, northern Italy and a few surrounding territories.

The polity centered on Constantinople was the plain old Roman Empire (though ignorant Westerners, who mistakenly believe the Roman Empire ended in the 5th Century, insist upon calling it the Byzantine Empire).

In any case, it's a mistake to think of ancient knowledge as one single, monolithic thing, as though there was some central repository for it. Western Europe did lose a great deal of classical Greek literature, but only because nobody over there could read Greek, not due to some conspiracy on the part of the Church. But they did know Latin, and monks were able to preserve a large chunk of Roman literature.

Greek literature, on the other hand was preserved in the Eastern Roman Empire and the Muslim world, and got reintroduced to the West from both sources -- through Muslim Spain, by way of Crusaders in the Middle East, and from refugees after the Turkish conquest of Constantinople.

Rob Secundus wrote: "If I have to pick a side, I'm mostly with "Wastrel" here, but honestly Joe, you have a point. It is Euroecentric to claim that only monks preserved knowledge, and it is Eurocentric to ignore the re..."

I think we should be careful to not interpret his future version as a direct and exact interpretation of the past. His "Dark Ages" are not just the result of an empire falling apart as happened in Europe. There was a strong and vicious backlash after the collapse against science that he names the "Simplification", and this is presumably the reason for the culture of ignorance at court. While the era clearly references the Medieval period of Europe, there are major differences, and I don't know that it's fair to say that he's ignoring history here. Things are playing out differently this time around, and that choice felt entirely consistent to the history of the world he is building.

For example the great minds of the second renaissance find themselves dealing with the realization that they are not "discovering" anything but are recreating what has already been done and will be for the rest of their lives. So again, this is not just a cyclical repeat renaissance. It's a new thing.

I disagree that spending time in New Rome would give us a more balanced view of religion. I think that's a different book, and one that we have plenty of examples of already. It seems pretty clear to me that Miller's New Rome is an institution with corruption and bureaucracy in this book much like the state governments are. I don't think we need to go there to get that. I think Miller's more interested in themes of private/personal faith vs. Institutions.

To me the book is very balanced in spite of the religious setting. The entire section on assisted suicide has great potential to be a complete straw man of the doctor's position. However as a person who firmly sides with the Doctor's stance in that situation I felt that the treatment was very even handed and fairly done.

E.J. Xavier wrote: "I think we should be careful to not interpret his future version as a direct and exact interpretation of the past. His "Dark Ages" are not just the result of an empire falling apart as happened in Europe. There was a strong and vicious backlash after the collapse against science that he names the "Simplification", and this is presumably the reason for the culture of ignorance at court. "

Fair enough w/r/t Miller's balance (and his private vs institutional theme, I didn't really see that before). And yeah, fair w/r/t this not being exactly the past. It's important that this isn't straight allegory, that this really is a fully realized world. Though I do think Simplification is more strongly correlated to real history than you suggest-- I'm thinking of Germanic tribes smashing/burning/looting everything in sight, and the lack of value of education/knowledge/what we think of as culture (though Simplification is another grotesque exaggeration of this if I'm right, and I may not be right as my primary knowledge of this period comes via Dan Carlin).

W/r/t Renaissance, again, I think there are greater parallels than you suggest-- Renaissance people (and Enlightenment people) saw the era as very much a rediscovery of Classical culture/learning, even if that's not a perfectly accurate conception of the situation.

To me the book is very balanced in spite of the religious setting. The entire section on assisted suicide has great potential to be a complete straw man of the doctor's position. However as a person who firmly sides with the Doctor's stance in that situation I felt that the treatment was very even handed and fairly done.

I'm really glad you brought this up (and MAJOR SPOILERS FOLLOW). From what I read in the other thread of people's reaction to it, I was really expecting some kind of dogmatic/preachy nonsense with a straw man. (I guess the Abbot's "LISTEN TO MY AUTHORITY" rant contributed to that?) But it seemed really nuanced, and quite distinct from the Dogmatic position. The book seems to argue (imo) that Euthanasia in this case is wrong because it makes people complicit with nuclear war-- it's something established specifically so that nations can blow each other up without having to look at suffering. It makes war cleaner. And the surviving suffering souls stand as a testament to how awful/insane the nation states are. People are expected to suffer rather than die in dignity not simply because Pope Said So but because that act protests the ultimate evil of this world. (also, the whole thing is important in Miller's attempt to show that these aren't deterministic cycles; mankind could have chosen not to follow this path to destruction, but they, with clear understanding of what that destruction would be, made multiple choices along the way to make that final choice easier)

And then Miller seems to go further than any orthodox Catholic ever would, and claim that violence at all, not just violence against one's self, makes one complicit in the destruction. The Abbot is humiliated by his confessor for his loosing his cool,and further mocked for attempting to claim that he wasn't in control of himself.

"And then Miller seems to go further than any orthodox Catholic ever would, and claim that violence at all, not just violence against one's self, makes one complicit in the destruction. The Abbot is humiliated by his confessor for his loosing his cool,and further mocked for attempting to claim that he wasn't in control of himself."

Rob Secundus: Must the Firstus die before you can take the throne? :-)

I agree with your assessment of the assisted suicide section and how lived-through suffering in this situation would be an indictment on the evil of nuclear weapons. A faithful Catholic could extend the argument you made not only to the situation depicted in the book, but to all circumstances: lived-through suffering as an indictment on all sin - because through sin death (and suffering) came into the world. Of course, such an argument would take faith to appreciate.

In regards to the confession: I was quite happy how Mr. Miller handled it. We must remember that the penitent in this case is not a regular lay person, but a monk. As such, he bound even stronger to the example of Jesus Christ than a lay person. Thus, while it may be perfectly moral for a lay person to lose his temper in the presence of evil, it might not be an acceptable behavior for a monk, who is supposed to demonstrate the example of Jesus to the world at all times. I seem to recall several exhortations in religious writings against monks doing any kind of harm to others, whether they "had it coming" or not. And then there are the words of Jesus on the subject: "But I say to you that every one who is angry with his brother shall be liable to judgment" (Mat 5:22)

Finally, I think it bears to keep in mind the distinction between violence and force. Violence is uncontrolled anger that results in force whose principal aim is to quench the feeling of anger. As such, violence is something which any orthodox Catholic can prohibit anyone at all times. But force can be controlled, narrowly directed, and aimed to a moral purpose. For this reason an orthodox Catholic can both believe that violence is morally wrong and still believe that it is morally right to use force in protecting an innocent person, or repealing an unjust aggressor - provided that only the amount of force necessary to achieve the moral aim is used and no more, that such force is specifically directed towards the unjust perpetrator, and that the defender does not surrender to anger in the process.

If I recall correctly, in the scene in question, the confessor explicitly asked the abbot what was the intention when he punched the doctor: was it done to save the child? Could it have saved the child? Or was it done because his anger got the better of him, without much hope for the salvation of the child?

While it's true of course that the Church played a role in preserving some scientific knowledge of the Antiquity, the view of it as a sole lit candle burning against the darkness, as possibly promoted by the Canticle and apparently somewhat supported by some posters above, is also wrong.

Consider these points:
* What got preserved was mostly what was in line with religious dogma. Sure some of the other stuff slipped through, or was preserved in spite of it, but a lot of it got destroyed. Someone mentioned Eco's The Name of the Rose - I don't want to spoil it, but Eco explores this other part as well, which is something Miller avoids. There's also a reason (some) Greek tragedies survived but comedies didn't, even though they were just as common.

* The people of Meso-America, such as the Aztecs and the Mayans, did a good job of preserving their written codices for centuries - until the Spanish conquest, that is. After that, the highest religious authorities of New Spain ordered them to be burnt. Quoting Bishop de Landa (from Wikipedia): "We found a large number of books in these characters and, as they contained nothing in which were not to be seen as superstition and lies of the devil, we burned them all, which they regretted to an amazing degree, and which caused them much affliction."

One Mayan Codex survived - it was sent to Europe as a curiosity and is now horrifyingly known as the "Madrid" Codex. Should the Catholic church be lauded for its preservation or criticized for the destruction of all the others? Book burnings were also common in Europe, especially after the reformation movement started. Again I think Miller only explores a single part of this story.

* Persecution of freethinkers, theological outliers, women and scientists is well documented and understood and also goes against the beacon of knowledge narrative. In the Canticle, all the christian monks/priests are martyrs in the quest to preserve knowledge, but we know from history that they were often on the other side. Murder of Hypatia, possibly with complicity or on the orders of St Cyril? Again something avoided in the Canticle.

Don't get me wrong, I love the Canticle (I gave it four stars), even the religious stuff, but it is a bit tunnel-visioned and perhaps whitewashing as far as religion's role in science and its preservation is concerned. If some of the counter elements that I present here were to be included, it would've been a much stronger work. Yes, maybe it is hinted at with the stuff from New Rome, but really no more than that.

The part that made me think was at end of the third section (view spoiler)[ when Zirche was scrambling to absolve Mrs. Grayles before the end came, and then was all upset because the host fell on the ground. (hide spoiler)] I'm from a Protestant tradition which believes that any Christian can officiate a sacrament (although some vetting is usually a good idea, to prevent abuse) And that communion is a symbol of remembrance. So I understand but have never really grokked the idea that the wafers actually become the body of Christ. It still seems odd to me, that Jesus Christ could be hurt or maybe dishonored because (view spoiler)[a bomb caused the bread to fall to the ground, through no fault of Zirche's. (hide spoiler)]

Joanna wrote: "The part that made me think was at end of the third section [spoilers removed] I'm from a Protestant tradition which believes that any Christian can officiate a sacrament (although some vetting is..."

An example in the book where orthopraxy follows orthodoxy... Or, to put it differently, what you believe influences what you do.