The third day of mysterious death and inscrutable mystery

Adso finally gives comment in this section on one of the things that has bothered my post-enlightenment equality-favoring worldview. He protests that referring to common people as "the simple," which even William does frequently, does not adequately account for those who may not be wealthy or powerful, but are nonetheless very knowledgeable, nor for those who do not have knowledge of Latin and the exalted theological knowledge of the church, yet are in influential positions. Thus Adso points out that the term "simple" is anything but simple. Through this Eco expresses the postmodern disdain for stereotypes, reflected in our generation's comfort with jokes about race, gender, etc, that reflect our shared assumption that all stereotypes have a large number of exceptions. (Thus, we can laugh freely at stereotypes without guilt, because we assume that everyone knows they aren't true.) The point, however, is that it's not safe to assume that such a vast group of people are all incapable of handling knowledge. The "intelligent" people who decided this in aristocratic Europe made a grave and foolish error.
Throughout his ensuing conversation with Salvatore, Adso continues the inner struggle to discern whether Salvatore and the heretical groups he has encountered and the vagabonds of society with which he could be lumped are truly filthy heretics. He perceives glimpses of ardent sincerity in the face of persecution on the part of the heretics, and recalls the widely varying responses of the crowds at the burning which he had personally witnessed. Some there viewed the man as a saint, others as corrupt man leading others astray. How could he be certain about these judgments? When he seeks help from Ubertino, he discovers that Ubertino is passionately emphatic about who has faith and who holds to heresy, yet for all his fervor is unable to explain the distinctions adequately to bring clarity. Thus William's decision to step down from the role of inquisitor appears more and more wise. When the truth about a persons actions and character is inscrutable, yet the powers-that-be demand a decision withlife-and-death consequences, perhaps the best decision is to refrain from judgment and allow others to risk taking innocent blood.
Then there's sex...sex, sex, sex. The great evil of the RCC takes on a soft, beautiful form here so that Adso can hardly discern between the feelings of spiritual ecstasy he has had in the past and the excitement of conjugal relations. He must fight with "reason" against some of the strongest passions he has ever experienced. He must resist beauty for the sake of religious restrictions. As the RCC framed sexual ethics (especially for clergy) there is no place for this senusal gift of God within a life of true devotion and piety.

my post for day 1

Sorry this is late. My only excuse is that I’ve been sick for the last few days. Still sick, s’matter of fact, so this is going to be a bit short. And not overly broad…this is just a small point that interested me personally.

On the first day, Adso describes the abbey. He pays close attention to the geometry of the architecture, the shape of the abbey and the shape of the parts constituting the whole, the number of a given shape’s sides, and so on. Each number reveals “a subtle spiritual significance.” Adso’s emphasis on architecture is important, “For architecture, among all the arts, is the one that most boldly tries to reproduce in its rhythm the order of the universe…”

The outward, awe-inspiring appearance of the abbey seems to make a statement – that there is a secure foundation for truth, authority, and order in this world. The church seems to be that foundation. From a distance, the Aedificium resembles a tetragon: “a perfect form, which expresses the sturdiness and impregnability of the City of God”. This is pure speculation, but it may not be a coincidence that the Aedificium merely resembles the perfect form from a distance and is actually a different shape altogether (an octagon).

The abbey may resemble the perfect form from a distance, but its true nature has nothing in common with the spiritual tetragon. Its outward appearance is an illusion. Within the abbey, truth is elusive or locked up in a library. Not much is certain. As Matt pointed out, Eco also portrays the church/abbey as consistently hypocritical. The external form of the abbey gives the appearance of order, but really it is full of moral disorder – hypocrisy, heresy, and now suicide or murder. Eco does not portray the church as a worthy source of authority.

So everything that the structure of the abbey symbolizes is thrown into question. At any rate, the church itself is not a stronghold of order, truth, and authority, and I doubt that Eco will present anything else to take its place. For Eco, “the truth…we see in fragments”. Adso also remarks that William, “moved as he was solely by the desire for truth,” never finds what he’s looking for.

I'll add to the observations about the uncertainty of experience: William declares about the monks that "when they are excited they relive visions they learned from books." This statement could easily be expanded to discount all religious experience with one fell swoop. Anyone who reads holy writings will begin to expect the experiences he/she/it reads about, and a bit of emotional excitement can cause him to believe he has had that very experience. Thus testimonies of faith conversions or encounters with the supernatural can't be trusted. They are of personal value to the one claiming to have the experience, but can't persuade someone else that the persons views are true.
William makes a humorous poke at the RCC's exaltation of saints, and points out how they stoop to the level of promoting superstition for the sake of maintaining their power. He caustically derides the Italian people for being "more afraid of Saint Sebastian or Saint Anthony than of Christ." Thus he strengthens the idea that the church uses whatever truth is convenient to accomplish their ends, whether those ends are keeping people from pissing on a place "as freely as dogs do," or holding onto material wealth by condemning belief in Christ's poverty as heretical.
Even penance is used by heretical groups to gain popular support. William states that the age of "the great penitential cleansing" is finished, allowing that true penance was exhibited at one time. Adso, however, confesses that he can't distinguish between the kinds of penitents, and the only difference he can see among various groups is the RCC's reaction to them.
The inconsistency of being selective about sins is mocked not only with the homosexual allusions, but also with the way some of the monks are consumed with a lust for knowledge, which they are willing to sacrifice morals to satisfy.
So, Crista...you owe us two posts. Come on, now.

A sinner's retribution: Day 2 blog

As I have already confessed to both of you, I have sinned and read a good deal ahead… all the way ahead. My comments will not really reflect this though as they are really just an expansion upon the notes I wrote in the margins. Anyway, here are my notes on Day 2.

The conversation between Benno and William is interesting. Benno, a student of learning whose only passion is knowledge, is eager to read works that are kept from him because he knows that there is much to learn from pagan sources. Not all truth is found within Christianity, it is not the exclusive source of truth- contra RCC. Jorge is very opposed to the notion that a book on laughter by Aristotle exists because the RCC accepts Aristotle as virtually canonical and laughter is of the devil- either mocking truth or trivializing evil.

The concept of hearing what you want to hear and believing what you want to believe is an interesting one. Beranger tells of a vision he had of Adelmo, there is discussion of people imagining that they did crimes they are accused of in order to end torture etc…. This is an extremely important point that cannot be overemphasized in religious discussions. Experience is very central to a many people’s religious beliefs. How can one argue against experience? Here we see uncertainty attached to experience. So do people really have these experiences or do they only see what they want to see or visions that originate in their own imaginations? Postmodernism is opposed to the idea of an individual’s experience having any sort of universal significance. Experience is important to a postmodern epistemology but it cannot inform universal/absolute truth. It can only be meaningful to the individual because it originates only within the individual. This theme is repeated throughout the book.

The homosexual tendencies of the monks are becoming more and more pronounced. Adso admits that he has had these lusts later in his life. The RCC and Protestant Christianity emphasizes sexual purity very strongly, but they are viewed as hypocrites, often justifiably. As a Protestant I am biased, but I do believe that the RCC gives us a worse rap than we deserve here. Sexual immorality occurs among our clergy but less frequently than believed.

Hell-fire preaching is also given a very hard rap. This reminded me of Dawkins’ God-delusion where he equates preaching about hell to child abuse. BW is insinuating that Adelmo’s death may be a result of this sort of preaching. The catch here, of course, is whether or not it is true. The world will always view preaching and talking about hell as an evil of our faith but if hell truly exists we ought to do all we can to help people avoid it. It is not unloving to warn others of this. The world sees this as hateful because they do not believe it. They think we are only frightening people. This is an embarrassing doctrine for me, I admit. I do not like it and I do not want to preach it. But I do think that it is compromising the gospel and accommodation to forsake it. If we believe it, we must preach it. Wisdom and gentleness are not to be forsaken either, however.

The short conversation between Salvatore and the cook brought out another interesting theme. What is true and genuine Christianity? Salvatore is giving away food to the herdsmen and is reprimanded for ‘squandering’ the abbey’s food. Salvatore appeals to Jesus’ love for the poor but he apparently (according to the cook) ‘screws whores’. Does the church care more about sexual purity than the state of the poor? Is sexual purity really that important? These are questions that people of our generation are asking. Of course we believe it is, but how important is it in comparison to other issues? Does it deserve the prominence it receives? These are more difficult questions. Another example of this inconsistency is given in the next chapter. Aymaro will not explicitly mention homosexuality because it is ‘improper’ to mention. He doesn’t really explicitly spell anything out really- he has an aversion to gossip… but of course that is exactly what he is doing. He is mentioning it and he is gossiping.

Since this is such a huge issue in the book and this post is already long I’ll discuss this more in subsequent posts, but the heresy debates are very interesting. The opposition to heresy is not about truth but about power. The heretics (see Ubertino) are the ones who are concerned with truth (they can see the difference). The church is only concerned with heresy because it threatens their power (and $). There is not really any interest in truth or goodness. Later (still in day 2- I won’t betray this) the church is blamed for heresy. Heresies are a result of the church not providing for her people. Heretics are people for whom the church is insufficient. Heresies are a proof then that orthodoxy is not really orthodoxy (right teaching). If it were, it would be sufficient for all. It is insufficient and thus forces heresies to make up for these deficiencies.

More on laughter. The reason Jorge so strongly opposes it is that he views it as encouraging doubt. There is no room for any doubt in Christianity. BW (and postmodernism) not only disagrees but almost idolizes doubt. Reason was created by God (if there is a god) and if our reason leads us to doubt then it is God’s doing ultimately. Doubt is sacred and right and essential to our existence as human beings.

Nate already spoke of the library’s role of concealing truth so I will not expound upon it here. It is interesting. “Knowledge is used to conceal rather than enlighten.” People in power are primarily concerned with maintaining that power, not in helping others to attain to the same place in society. The message: ‘never trust authority!’

What day one hath wrought

I find amusing that both Ubertino and Jorge - the oldest monks who have seen decades of church life come and go - as they encounter the unsettling changes and heretical movements that threaten the power of the church, speak dramatically and strongly about the "last days." How many elderly members of churches have we met like this? As culture changes, they are unsettled by the evil in the world around them and grumpy or puzzled by the new developments. Thus they become fascinated with pointing out how the events of today are signs of Christ's second coming.
The transition of Western Culture from the Dark Ages to the Modern Age is truly an interesting time period in which to demonstrate the merits of post-modernism...
William points out to Ubertino that the stories he holds to as evidence of the error of the heretics he tried are recycled stories used to accuse groups in the past, showing how easily truth can be mixed with error (by those accusing heretics as well as the heretics), and how the stories, whether true or not, were used by those in power to accomplish their ends. The system in which they lived was built on stories constructed by the heirarchy for their convenience, but William refuses to continue this approach to establishing truth. He would rather not make a judgment at all then decide on something he is unsure about.
The labyrinth of the library is clearly a central and powerful symbol to the entire book. Only a select few who were handpicked by their successors know how to locate the resources and knowledge contained at one of the greatest libraries in the "Christian" world. The knowledge is guarded from those who "cannot handle it" by ominous, otherwordly threats, mystical (and perhaps mythical) forces, and powerful threats. Even among the monks, supposedly pious people with high status and education, a heirarchy of information is strictly enforced.
Now that I have the quote in front of me, I must restate my appreciation for Eco's delicious description of the tale as "immeasurably remote in time...gloriously lacking in any relevance for our day, atemporally alien to our hopes and our certainties." He relishes the beauty of literature and the joy of books with a note of contempt for overplayed pragmatism.
The prologue contains a very telling statement: "...I have not completely understood how he (William) could have such faith in his friend from Occam and at the same time swear by the words of Bacon, as he was accustomed to doing." Is it possible to take good elements from two seemingly contradictory schools of thought? Isn't the world black and white, good and bad, right and wrong, full of polar extremes? Apparently not...

Day One Comments and Observations

A quick word about format: I’m going to post one blog per day (that is Eco’s days not mine). Ya’ll can do it however you want of course, but let’s keep interaction with each other’s blogs in the comments section and keep the blog portion reserved for our own observations. That will make things easier to keep up with.

What do you make of Brother William’s (henceforth BW) statement to Adso towards the beginning of Day 1 Terce? BW is describing how he arrived at the conclusions he did about the horse and he says that he found himself “halfway between the perception of the concept ‘horse’ and the knowledge of the individual horse.” He goes on to say concerning his conclusions that, “…the ideas… I was using… were pure signs, as the hoofprints in the snow were signs of the idea of ‘horse’; and signs and the signs of signs are used only when we are lacking things.” He seems to critically reference Platonic philosophy with the ‘idea of horse’ language. It is not the universal ideal of ‘horse’ that is important but the individual horse. The signs of ‘horseness’ are only used as an inferior substitution for the actual individual horse. Universals are insufficient in understanding the individual, which may vary much from the universal. So it will be with truth. Universal concepts of truth are inferior to the knowledge of the individual. You only use them when you do not have the real thing.

I found the conversation between the Abbot and Brother William to be quite interesting. I'm not sure exactly where all of the threads are going to go but Eco is setting us with philosophical foundations already.
- BW is presumptively the more 'enlightened' of the two (so far anyway... ). He seems to 'understand' the complexities involved in arriving at truth and has the powers of observation that remind one of Sherlock Holmes (and 'coincidentally' both are English?!). His only fault so far is arrogance for which he can hardly be blamed (as he is seemingly quite superior in intelligence). Time will tell, but I think he'll represent the more virtuous philosophy (postmodernism I presume). According to my dustcover, his tools are the “logic of Aristotle, the theology of Aquinas, and the empirical insights of Roger Bacon.” It will be interesting to see if these are ultimately viewed as sufficient or insufficient to discover truth (represented by the mystery).
- It is interesting that the Abbot blames everything on the devil, whereas BW is less sure about the underlying causes to a man's deeds. The Abbot is more virtuous than he could be. He does recognize 'second causes'. Not everyone who is accused is necessarily guilty, the devil could be attempting to have the innocent burned, one must watch out for the devil. The abbot is comforted by the fact that BW sometimes finds the accused innocent, but he is reluctant to admit that an inquisitor can be impelled by the Devil. Oddly, the abbot has a more positive view of human beings than does BW. Guilty sentences are only to be handed down when the Devil is present. It is the classic ‘the devil made 9him) do it’. Evil is not human but diabolical influence. BW will neither confirm or deny this influence. The abbot seems to be opposed to the idea that the devil could be working through the judges. He is convinced about the rightness of the Church. BW is not and seems to have more positive feelings towards heretical movements. The truth is not necessarily found in the teachings of the RCC.

-BW consistently breaks down the traditional ideas of right/wrong, good-guys/bad-guys, truth/error. The inquisitor might be the one impelled by the devil. It might not be the devil. (later) The Pope might be the bad guy and King Louis the good guy. Science/magic is not inherently good or evil it can be used for both. BW introduces the idea that one might be an inquisitor for his own personal profit and that fighting heresy may in fact encourage heresy.

-The abbot is, as the Catholic church was, very afraid of the revelation of knowledge. They hide truth that may threaten their authority (the library), effectively brainwashing their people. They seek out and burn heretics, yet they are also quite hypocritical… More on hypocrisy later. One of the most interesting statements in the abbot conversation was the ‘not all truths are for all ears speal. Truth belongs to the few- two librarians. This goes back to epistemology: Who determines truth? The few, the powerful etc…? Or the individual?

-The abbot makes the interesting statement that, ‘If a shepherd errs he must be isolated from other shepherds but woe unto us if the sheep begin to distrust shepherds.’ The chief concern of the church (and authority in general, nonreligious as well) is to hold onto their power and authority.

The church is consistently portrayed as hypocritical. They burn some heretics, but let the more influential ones (of whom they are somewhat afraid) escape. They break their own rules about silence during meals, reinterpreting them for their own convenience. They condemn as heresy the idea that Jesus and the apostles were poor to defend their own wealth. They are willing to lie and deceive in order to trap heretics (‘ends justifies the means’). They have their own ‘don’t ask don’t tell’ policy for the homosexual monks in the abbey. One monk opposes study and academics by writing books against it. There is holy pornography everywhere. The nude sculptures are ‘okay’ because they are in the church, outside they would be considered obscene. The best descriptions of sin are found in the pages of ‘virtuous men’ who have ‘never’ done such evil. The blind monk is the only one who seems to be consistent and he is seen as somewhat crazy. The rules of the order and of the church are applied arbitrarily by those in power.