Today I received my copy of Dreamers of the Day, which is Mary Doria Russell's latest book!
[grins madly and rubs hands together excitedly]
OK, so it's not science fiction or fantasy. It's historical fiction, rather like A Thread of Grace. When I thought about how intellectually, emotionally, and spiritually stimulating her previous three books were (sometimes painfully so), I decided I must own the latest. And, hey, it's historical. I'm a history major. Easy sell.
Showing posts with label history. Show all posts
Showing posts with label history. Show all posts
Thursday, March 13, 2008
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
Practical Mystic
Matthew Stanley writes:
"The secular scientists engaged in the debate could not conceive of a religious scientist; conversely, their religious colleagues could see no barrier between their faith and their work. During the debate, the first group was startled to see a significant strength of religion within their ranks when religion had been so successfully driven from the content of science. How had this fifth column penetrated the fortress of science?
The answer is that it had never left."
That's in reference to a 1988 debate on religion & science that broke out in the pages of a scientific journal. It's a quote from the introduction to a new book by a historian of science:
Practical Mystic: Religion, Science, and A.S. Eddington, by Matthew Stanley. University of Chicago Press, 2007.
Eddington was a famous astrophysicist, science popularizer and devout Quaker. Stanley argues that there really is no such abstract entities as "religion and science." Thus he takes a fairly nuanced approach that stresses the importance of context, in looking at the relationship between a specific field of science and a unique, individual scientist representing a particular religious tradition.
In a related note, remember that article I posted on awhile back about the relationship between religious views and genetic engineering? The molecular biologist in question argued that North American resistance arose from Judeo-Christian beliefs, while European resistance came from airy-fairy New Age beliefs. I came across an interview with Michael Pollan today in which he touched on European resistance to GMOs and gave a few secular reasons why some Europeans are understandably leery of the whole thing. Based on that and a few other arguments I've seen, I get the impression that this particular biologist likes to dismiss any and all resistance to his field of science as stupid, rank superstition, regardless of the arguments the people are actually making.
"The secular scientists engaged in the debate could not conceive of a religious scientist; conversely, their religious colleagues could see no barrier between their faith and their work. During the debate, the first group was startled to see a significant strength of religion within their ranks when religion had been so successfully driven from the content of science. How had this fifth column penetrated the fortress of science?
The answer is that it had never left."
That's in reference to a 1988 debate on religion & science that broke out in the pages of a scientific journal. It's a quote from the introduction to a new book by a historian of science:
Practical Mystic: Religion, Science, and A.S. Eddington, by Matthew Stanley. University of Chicago Press, 2007.
Eddington was a famous astrophysicist, science popularizer and devout Quaker. Stanley argues that there really is no such abstract entities as "religion and science." Thus he takes a fairly nuanced approach that stresses the importance of context, in looking at the relationship between a specific field of science and a unique, individual scientist representing a particular religious tradition.
In a related note, remember that article I posted on awhile back about the relationship between religious views and genetic engineering? The molecular biologist in question argued that North American resistance arose from Judeo-Christian beliefs, while European resistance came from airy-fairy New Age beliefs. I came across an interview with Michael Pollan today in which he touched on European resistance to GMOs and gave a few secular reasons why some Europeans are understandably leery of the whole thing. Based on that and a few other arguments I've seen, I get the impression that this particular biologist likes to dismiss any and all resistance to his field of science as stupid, rank superstition, regardless of the arguments the people are actually making.
Thursday, January 17, 2008
Next time, don't let medievalists anywhere near your terrible "medieval" movies
Got Medieval, (a medievalist), reviews Kingdom of Heaven. And it is funny:
"Orlando does get knighted, and he acquires a rival in the person of Guy of somewhere-or-other, a snooty French Templar who's in line for the throne of Jerusalem. We know Guy is a bad person, because he's rude and French and talks about God a lot. In fact, anytime anyone talks about God a lot in the movie, they're bad. Orlando, who is struggling with religious doubt brought on by the death of his wife and child, is good, but not really very good at making you understand that he's struggling with religious doubt unless he says outright, "I'm struggling with religious doubt," but he does say it, so don't worry. Then his dad dies, and they all decide to go see his lands in Jerusalem.
...it only gets worse when the Archbishop of Jerusalem instructs people, fearing they're all about to be captured, to 'covert to the heathen faith and repent later'. This is supposed to show that he's a craven fake, but not five minutes ago when Orlando was telling us, 'all religions are bunk,' we were supposed to see him as a champion of "the people" and a crack theological thinker."
Read the whole thing! His remarks on Orlando Bloom's macho-speech-giving abilities are priceless. He somehow found the time to also review Beowulf, and even the Footwear in Beowulf. I particularly liked this part:
"I put the blame mostly on Neil Gaiman, because he has a solid track record for taking well-worn cliche's, stock characters, and stale plots, adding some black-eyeliner, and calling it Deep, Dark, and Meaningful. He thinks that he's some sort of revolutionary for making a movie where the evil woman is a slinky seductress and the virtuous woman is an ice queen."
Yes! It's true! Thank you!
[via the Sci-Fi Catholic]
"Orlando does get knighted, and he acquires a rival in the person of Guy of somewhere-or-other, a snooty French Templar who's in line for the throne of Jerusalem. We know Guy is a bad person, because he's rude and French and talks about God a lot. In fact, anytime anyone talks about God a lot in the movie, they're bad. Orlando, who is struggling with religious doubt brought on by the death of his wife and child, is good, but not really very good at making you understand that he's struggling with religious doubt unless he says outright, "I'm struggling with religious doubt," but he does say it, so don't worry. Then his dad dies, and they all decide to go see his lands in Jerusalem.
...it only gets worse when the Archbishop of Jerusalem instructs people, fearing they're all about to be captured, to 'covert to the heathen faith and repent later'. This is supposed to show that he's a craven fake, but not five minutes ago when Orlando was telling us, 'all religions are bunk,' we were supposed to see him as a champion of "the people" and a crack theological thinker."
Read the whole thing! His remarks on Orlando Bloom's macho-speech-giving abilities are priceless. He somehow found the time to also review Beowulf, and even the Footwear in Beowulf. I particularly liked this part:
"I put the blame mostly on Neil Gaiman, because he has a solid track record for taking well-worn cliche's, stock characters, and stale plots, adding some black-eyeliner, and calling it Deep, Dark, and Meaningful. He thinks that he's some sort of revolutionary for making a movie where the evil woman is a slinky seductress and the virtuous woman is an ice queen."
Yes! It's true! Thank you!
[via the Sci-Fi Catholic]
Monday, January 14, 2008
The Bible and Race
Here's a highly interesting review of a book which explores the way the Bible has often been used against racist ideas, as well as in support of them.
The book is entitled: The Forging of Racism: Race and Scripture in the Protestant Atlantic World, 1600-2000, by Colin Kidd. It was published by Cambridge University Press in 2006.
"Moreover, far from this being the incidental implication of a few verses, orthodox Christians have consistently recognized the solidarity of the human race as a core theme of both the biblical narrative and formal Christian theology: the image of God in humanity, the Fall, and original sin are predicated on the understanding that all human beings are bound together in a single, common origin, lineage, and family. The Christian tradition has consistently discerned that this doctrinal teaching has substantial implications when it comes to the issue of race. To take a typical example, the 18th-century conservative biblical scholar Nathaniel Lardner averred: "all men ought to love one another as brethren. For they are all descended from the same parents, and cannot but have like powers, and weaknesses, and wants … . For notwithstanding some differences of outward condition, we have all the same nature, and are brethren."
...
The Bible, therefore, has actually been a roadblock in the way of racists—although a barrier that all too many Christians, alas, have managed to find their way around. Kidd forcefully explains how it would have been so much easier for white southerners to have defended their "peculiar institution" ideologically if they could have accepted polygenesis. A few voices made the tempting argument that blacks were closer to soulless beasts than blood brothers but, as southerners were not generally ready to throw away their Bibles, they did not win out. The truths revealed in Scripture remained present to bear witness against them: African Americans were their brothers and sisters, co-recipients of the plan of redemption in the one, human family that is made in the image of God. The Bible was even an obstacle when it came to the stand against miscegenation: for example, was it not patently clear from the scriptural narrative that Moses had married a black woman? Even the pro-apartheid Dutch Reformed Church of South Africa was forced to concede that the Bible permitted interracial marriages."
The book is entitled: The Forging of Racism: Race and Scripture in the Protestant Atlantic World, 1600-2000, by Colin Kidd. It was published by Cambridge University Press in 2006.
"Moreover, far from this being the incidental implication of a few verses, orthodox Christians have consistently recognized the solidarity of the human race as a core theme of both the biblical narrative and formal Christian theology: the image of God in humanity, the Fall, and original sin are predicated on the understanding that all human beings are bound together in a single, common origin, lineage, and family. The Christian tradition has consistently discerned that this doctrinal teaching has substantial implications when it comes to the issue of race. To take a typical example, the 18th-century conservative biblical scholar Nathaniel Lardner averred: "all men ought to love one another as brethren. For they are all descended from the same parents, and cannot but have like powers, and weaknesses, and wants … . For notwithstanding some differences of outward condition, we have all the same nature, and are brethren."
...
The Bible, therefore, has actually been a roadblock in the way of racists—although a barrier that all too many Christians, alas, have managed to find their way around. Kidd forcefully explains how it would have been so much easier for white southerners to have defended their "peculiar institution" ideologically if they could have accepted polygenesis. A few voices made the tempting argument that blacks were closer to soulless beasts than blood brothers but, as southerners were not generally ready to throw away their Bibles, they did not win out. The truths revealed in Scripture remained present to bear witness against them: African Americans were their brothers and sisters, co-recipients of the plan of redemption in the one, human family that is made in the image of God. The Bible was even an obstacle when it came to the stand against miscegenation: for example, was it not patently clear from the scriptural narrative that Moses had married a black woman? Even the pro-apartheid Dutch Reformed Church of South Africa was forced to concede that the Bible permitted interracial marriages."
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
Lapsarian myths
Jim Slagle has an interesting quote from historian Diane Purkiss on the history of witchcraft; or rather on the public's perception of historical witches. A snippet:
"There is no evidence that the majority of those accused were healers and midwives; in England and also in some parts of the Continent, midwives were more likely to be found helping witch-hunters. Most women used herbal medicines as part of their household skills, some of which were quasi-magical, without arousing any anxiety. There is little evidence that convicted witches were invariably unmarried or sexually 'liberated' or lesbian; many (though not most) of those accused were married women with young families. Men were not responsible for all accusations: many, perhaps even most, witches were accused by women, and most cases depend at least partly on the evidence given by women witnesses. Persecution was as severe in Protestant as in Catholic areas. The Inquisition, except in a few areas where the local inquisitor was especially zealous, was more lenient about witchcraft cases than the secular courts; in Spain, for example, where the Inquisition was very strong, there were few deaths. Many inquisitors and secular courts disdained the Malleus Malificarum, still the main source for the view that witch-hunting was women-hunting; still others thought it ridiculously paranoid about male sexuality. In some countries, torture was not used at all, and in England, witches were hanged rather than burned.
"All this has been known for some time. Yet in the teeth of the evidence, some women continue to find this story believable, continue to circulate it. Some women are still so attached to the story that they resist efforts to disprove it. The myth has become important, not because of its historical truth, but because of its mythic significance."
She also writes:
"It is often linked with another lapsarian myth, the myth of an originary matriarchy, through the themes of mother-daughter learning and of matriarchal religions as sources of witchcraft. This witch-story explains the origins and nature of good and evil. It is a religious myth..."
Every now and then someone tells me the story of the ancient matriarchal religions. They were peaceful, kind, sexually liberated, and ecologically sensitive, and they were smashed and driven underground by the evil patriarchal religions, which have been persecuting women ever since. Ecrasez l'infame, destroy the patriarchy!
I'm not a huge fan of The Patriarchy myself (or at least I try to heed what feminism has to say). And surely there were matriarchial religions somewhere in European prehistory. But I'm doubtful about the strictly historical value of the overarching original-matriarchy story. It's always seemed to me that it was indeed a kind of lapsarian myth, an account of the Fall. It's not about history or science, it's a mythic answer to an existential question, located (of course) in the misty land before history. We all tend to situate our Paradises somewhere in the past or in the future: Ah, things were good once, in the pagan classical era/the Catholic Middle Ages/pre-Columbian Turtle Island/the Enlightenment/the decent, law-abiding 1950s/the Clinton era... Or, just you wait until the Dictatorship of the Proletariat/Jehovah's Earthly Kingdom/the Enlightened Reign of Science/the Rapture/the Singularity. Things were/will be much better then, darn tootin.'
I'm not saying that such myths do not contain existential truth. Just that we should recognize when we've left history and entered mythology. Then, perhaps, we can compare our mythologies.
"There is no evidence that the majority of those accused were healers and midwives; in England and also in some parts of the Continent, midwives were more likely to be found helping witch-hunters. Most women used herbal medicines as part of their household skills, some of which were quasi-magical, without arousing any anxiety. There is little evidence that convicted witches were invariably unmarried or sexually 'liberated' or lesbian; many (though not most) of those accused were married women with young families. Men were not responsible for all accusations: many, perhaps even most, witches were accused by women, and most cases depend at least partly on the evidence given by women witnesses. Persecution was as severe in Protestant as in Catholic areas. The Inquisition, except in a few areas where the local inquisitor was especially zealous, was more lenient about witchcraft cases than the secular courts; in Spain, for example, where the Inquisition was very strong, there were few deaths. Many inquisitors and secular courts disdained the Malleus Malificarum, still the main source for the view that witch-hunting was women-hunting; still others thought it ridiculously paranoid about male sexuality. In some countries, torture was not used at all, and in England, witches were hanged rather than burned.
"All this has been known for some time. Yet in the teeth of the evidence, some women continue to find this story believable, continue to circulate it. Some women are still so attached to the story that they resist efforts to disprove it. The myth has become important, not because of its historical truth, but because of its mythic significance."
She also writes:
"It is often linked with another lapsarian myth, the myth of an originary matriarchy, through the themes of mother-daughter learning and of matriarchal religions as sources of witchcraft. This witch-story explains the origins and nature of good and evil. It is a religious myth..."
Every now and then someone tells me the story of the ancient matriarchal religions. They were peaceful, kind, sexually liberated, and ecologically sensitive, and they were smashed and driven underground by the evil patriarchal religions, which have been persecuting women ever since. Ecrasez l'infame, destroy the patriarchy!
I'm not a huge fan of The Patriarchy myself (or at least I try to heed what feminism has to say). And surely there were matriarchial religions somewhere in European prehistory. But I'm doubtful about the strictly historical value of the overarching original-matriarchy story. It's always seemed to me that it was indeed a kind of lapsarian myth, an account of the Fall. It's not about history or science, it's a mythic answer to an existential question, located (of course) in the misty land before history. We all tend to situate our Paradises somewhere in the past or in the future: Ah, things were good once, in the pagan classical era/the Catholic Middle Ages/pre-Columbian Turtle Island/the Enlightenment/the decent, law-abiding 1950s/the Clinton era... Or, just you wait until the Dictatorship of the Proletariat/Jehovah's Earthly Kingdom/the Enlightened Reign of Science/the Rapture/the Singularity. Things were/will be much better then, darn tootin.'
I'm not saying that such myths do not contain existential truth. Just that we should recognize when we've left history and entered mythology. Then, perhaps, we can compare our mythologies.
Thursday, August 02, 2007
Philip K. Dick on JWs
"In one interview, Dick discusses an account of Jehovah's Witnesses in one concentration camp who, as part of the camp bureaucracy, typed up lists of people who were to be killed each day:
Hmm. He has a point, but I think it was a bit more complicated that he thought. For one thing, I don't think JWs (or Bibelforscher) were gassed as a matter of course. I thought that those who were put in the camps were just starved and/or worked to death, unless they agreed to sign a paper rejecting their subversive beliefs and acknowledging the Fuhrer's supremacy.
When my teenaged refugee father stopped to rest in an evacuated concentration camp, he found prisoner JWs serving tea and doing other chores. An officer (I don't know if he was just Wehrmacht, or SS) explained that the JWs were used in this role because they were totally non-violent and thus trusted. All the other inmates had been evacuated* but they got to stay. My father was impressed. I think by that time he had had his fill of war, of both the Nazi and Communist variety.
*Because, you know, the Nazis just had to kill as many people as they could before they went down in defeat.
This is the essence of the unhuman... These Jehovah's Witnesses knew the situation; they knew that they and other people were going to be gassed. And yet they were typing lists, and emptying wastebaskets, whatever, as long as it didn't break some damn ordinance in the Bible like "Thou shalt not salute the flag." They'd go to their deaths rather than salute the flag, and yet they'd type up and carry lists of people who were to be exterminated!"Pink Beams of Light From the God in the Gutter, p. 17. The Dick quote is from Philip K. Dick: The Dream Connection, by D. Scott Apel.
Hmm. He has a point, but I think it was a bit more complicated that he thought. For one thing, I don't think JWs (or Bibelforscher) were gassed as a matter of course. I thought that those who were put in the camps were just starved and/or worked to death, unless they agreed to sign a paper rejecting their subversive beliefs and acknowledging the Fuhrer's supremacy.
When my teenaged refugee father stopped to rest in an evacuated concentration camp, he found prisoner JWs serving tea and doing other chores. An officer (I don't know if he was just Wehrmacht, or SS) explained that the JWs were used in this role because they were totally non-violent and thus trusted. All the other inmates had been evacuated* but they got to stay. My father was impressed. I think by that time he had had his fill of war, of both the Nazi and Communist variety.
*Because, you know, the Nazis just had to kill as many people as they could before they went down in defeat.
Tuesday, March 27, 2007
Book review - Eifelheim
by Michael Flynn. Tor, 2006. 320 p.
What if the first contact between humanity and an intelligent alien species occurred in the Year of Our Lord 1348?
Some sf authors would have taken this concept and written a cautionary tale in which benighted priests declare the aliens to be demons and whip mobs of superstitious peasants into a killing frenzy. After all, was that not the Age of Faith, an era of theocracy, ignorance, and fear?
What Flynn has done instead is marvelously refreshing. Eifelheim is a carefully researched depiction of Rhineland in the 14th century, showing both the bright and dark aspects of medieval civilization and the small renaissance that was underway before the Black Plague. He illuminates some of the roots of the Scientific Revolution among natural philosophers like William of Ockham, Jean Buridan, and Nicholas Oresme.
Thus when grasshopper-like aliens, the Krenken, crash near the small Black Forest village of Oberhochwald, it is in fact their good fortune to encounter the local priest. Father Dietrich is a thoughtful and discerning man, who studied under Buridan at the University of Paris, and is adept at inquiring into the natural causes of things. His somewhat cool rationality is combined with deep Christian faith, which motivates him to display charity and hospitality to the stranded travelers.
Flynn does a wonderful job of depicting people who live in an Aristotelian universe attempting to communicate with beings that possess a post-Einsteinian science. The Krenken, in turn, are baffled but fascinated by human imagination and Christian ethical concepts. The complex religious, social and political arrangements of the era are brought to vivid life, such as the conflicts between the Great Houses, or between the radical “Spiritual Franciscans” and their enemies. But this is not simply a novel of ideas: the characterization is finely done, and one comes to sympathize deeply with the people of Oberhochwald, and even some of the Krenken. These are complex people with both virtues and foibles, and Flynn neatly sidesteps the stereotypes you might expect. Father Dietrich can seem almost too good to be true at times, but readers also come to know his faults and past sins.
While most of the novel is set in the 14th century, there is an interesting parallel tale about two scientists in the 21st century who stumble across the mystery of Oberhochwald. The town later became known as Eifelheim and was abandoned by human beings. Some interesting (but highly speculative) science is tossed around, while the social and emotional worlds of post-modern academics are portrayed with a certain amount of humour.
Stories involving the Black Plague rarely end happily, though there are more survivors in Eifelheim than there are in Connie Willis’ Doomsday Book. Still, as in Willis’ novel, what matters most is not death itself, but how that death is met. Dietrich and others display faith, hope and love in the face of a great tragedy.
Well-written and insightful, Eifelheim is one of the most sympathetic fictional depictions of medieval Christianity I have had the pleasure to read, approaching A Canticle for Leibowitz in its sophistication. This novel is a must for Christian fans of sf and anyone interested in the medieval era.
(Eifelheim is an extended version of Flynn’s 1986 novella of the same title, which was nominated for a Hugo Award.)
4.5 out of 5
What if the first contact between humanity and an intelligent alien species occurred in the Year of Our Lord 1348?
Some sf authors would have taken this concept and written a cautionary tale in which benighted priests declare the aliens to be demons and whip mobs of superstitious peasants into a killing frenzy. After all, was that not the Age of Faith, an era of theocracy, ignorance, and fear?
What Flynn has done instead is marvelously refreshing. Eifelheim is a carefully researched depiction of Rhineland in the 14th century, showing both the bright and dark aspects of medieval civilization and the small renaissance that was underway before the Black Plague. He illuminates some of the roots of the Scientific Revolution among natural philosophers like William of Ockham, Jean Buridan, and Nicholas Oresme.
Thus when grasshopper-like aliens, the Krenken, crash near the small Black Forest village of Oberhochwald, it is in fact their good fortune to encounter the local priest. Father Dietrich is a thoughtful and discerning man, who studied under Buridan at the University of Paris, and is adept at inquiring into the natural causes of things. His somewhat cool rationality is combined with deep Christian faith, which motivates him to display charity and hospitality to the stranded travelers.
Flynn does a wonderful job of depicting people who live in an Aristotelian universe attempting to communicate with beings that possess a post-Einsteinian science. The Krenken, in turn, are baffled but fascinated by human imagination and Christian ethical concepts. The complex religious, social and political arrangements of the era are brought to vivid life, such as the conflicts between the Great Houses, or between the radical “Spiritual Franciscans” and their enemies. But this is not simply a novel of ideas: the characterization is finely done, and one comes to sympathize deeply with the people of Oberhochwald, and even some of the Krenken. These are complex people with both virtues and foibles, and Flynn neatly sidesteps the stereotypes you might expect. Father Dietrich can seem almost too good to be true at times, but readers also come to know his faults and past sins.
While most of the novel is set in the 14th century, there is an interesting parallel tale about two scientists in the 21st century who stumble across the mystery of Oberhochwald. The town later became known as Eifelheim and was abandoned by human beings. Some interesting (but highly speculative) science is tossed around, while the social and emotional worlds of post-modern academics are portrayed with a certain amount of humour.
Stories involving the Black Plague rarely end happily, though there are more survivors in Eifelheim than there are in Connie Willis’ Doomsday Book. Still, as in Willis’ novel, what matters most is not death itself, but how that death is met. Dietrich and others display faith, hope and love in the face of a great tragedy.
Well-written and insightful, Eifelheim is one of the most sympathetic fictional depictions of medieval Christianity I have had the pleasure to read, approaching A Canticle for Leibowitz in its sophistication. This novel is a must for Christian fans of sf and anyone interested in the medieval era.
(Eifelheim is an extended version of Flynn’s 1986 novella of the same title, which was nominated for a Hugo Award.)
4.5 out of 5
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