Here is a textbook example of how a lie get popularized and becomes pseudoknowledge. Our Manufacturers of Culture, under the influence of powers and principalities, are slowly and surely preparing our culture to undertake a pogrom. Again and again, outright lies about Christians and their history get promulgated while we are told that it is “impeccable research” as, incredibly, the Da Vinci Code was described by one reviewer. Or, we get the ill-informed tracts by New Atheists that would embarrass any real atheist. But, above all, we begin to get the toxicity making its way into popular visual media like Agora.
The reason this matters is that visual media tend to bypass the critical intellect, and we live increasingly in a post-textual age. People get less and less of what they “know” about the world from reading books and processing arguments through critical faculties. Propaganda, prettily presented by the cinematographers art, can do wonders in transforming a culture. The image bypasses the rational faculties and people somehow find themselves agreeing around the water cooler that, as “everybody” knows, Christians are the enemies of learning who destroyed the Library at Alexandria.
The irony in all this, of course, is that the Christians are the ones who preserved the writings of antiquity—and these writing are precisely what no postmodern can be bothered to read. Who wants to read all those dusty books? That’s why the overwhelming mass of consumers of pop culture know everything they know about Christian history from watching the Da Vinci Code or Angels and Demons or Kingdom of Heaven or (most recently) the egregious Robin Hood that Ridley Scott just burped out. Ask your average water cooler expert on the early Church or the Dark Ages, and he will favor you with a discourse on Christian history and theology that is derived almost entirely from stuff he saw in the movies or on TV. If you ask him to read the Fathers of the Church, or Plato, or Aristotle, he may promise to get to it, but—seriously—what are the odds? So much effort! Even reading Fr. Barron’s essay is so time-consuming! Couldn’t he have put all this into a nice Youtube video? To paraphrase Malibu Barbie, “Reading and thinking is hard!” So say the postmodern defenders of ancient learning against the swarming Christian hordes of antiquity, bent on destroying reason with their ignorant faith.
Which brings me to my last point. As Fr. Barron points out, there is a visual grammar at work in film which we all understand and yet which works subliminally. The visual message of Agora is that Christians are pestilential insects who need to be exterminated. Knead that message into a culture deeply enough and long enough and it is just a matter of time before somebody acts on it.
Comments
Post a Comment
Luckily (if we can say that) most atheists today are ‘New Atheists’... and that is understandable: being a new atheists means usually stut down your brain and repeat a few dumb and flawed arguments (like ‘science did not prove God, therefore God must not exist’) or plain lies (‘there are no proofs for God’ or ‘All proofs for God have been debunked’).
What strikes me the most is that new atheists are the atheist counterpart to religious extrimists, who also shut down their brains and put dynamite belts on…
Of course a new atheist would reply: ‘at least I am not killing people or hurting anyone’... however they are hurting people (people’s feelings and people intellects when thei listen to their dribble).
Sure they do not blow up people… but if you listen to Hitchen and Dawkins… it seems to me that they would like to but do not have the gusts…
Perhaps I am too harsh…. most ‘new atheists’ are usually young people, who find their ‘faith’ and ‘rebellion’ in the same jar. Perhaps, one day, when they grow up they might change their view.
I am always amazed when people call it the “Dark Ages”. The “Dark Ages” were actually an “Age of Faith” where the subsisting, disorganized, pagan tribes of Europe were shaped into a properous civilized people. That is tough and slow work that takes love and persistence. That is why it could have only been done by the Catholic Church.
The other charge that people make about Alexandria is also patently false. The Romans razed it and so did the Moslems. Never the Christians.
I should have read the links first, sorry for repeating what they already said:)
I don’t know if any of you career Catholic apologists have noticed or not, but Bishop Olmstead of Phoenix is getting absolutely trashed in every corner of online commentary for announcing the ex-communication of Sister McBride for authorizing a direct abortion as a healing measure at a Catholic Hospital. Would one of you please take a moment to offer some counter perspective?!!!
“The other charge that people make about Alexandria is also patently false. The Romans razed it and so did the Moslems. Never the Christians.”
The reality here appears to be a leetle more complicated. Fr. Barron’s helpful piece acknowledges that Christians were involved in razing in Alexandria, specifically of pagan temples. Whether one of those temples was at the time of its destruction a notable library appears to be historically unclear. In fact (pace David Hart Bentley and Fr. Barron), it seems that we don’t know historically how or when the great library at Alexandria was destroyed.
The situation is muddy for several reasons. There was apparently more than one notable library in Alexandria. Ancient reports of a library being destroyed (or not destroyed) at one time or another may be questionable for various reasons. There may be confusion about the meaning of a word (“library” or “set of texts”?). Both Caesar and the early Christians had enemies who would have loved to bash them with the charge of library-burning. Evidence of either seems lacking.
At least we can say that (a) there are indications that the great library was long since destroyed by Agora’s time, and (b) there is no clear evidence that the pagan temple destroyed in Agora’s time housed a notable library. I’m not sure that positing a notable library in the temple is necessarily beyond the bounds of reasonable historical speculative fiction—but if the film (which I haven’t seen) depicts the event as an attack on a library (a symbol of learning) rather than an attack on a temple (a symbol of pagan worship), then clearly it does grave violence to the historical record.
We are living in the Age of Darkness right here and now. So says David Bentley Hart in his excellent book, “Atheist Delusions.” Hart shreds the trendy new atheism and deconstructs the revisionist Christian history that they rely upon. In our post-religious utopia, the modern, enlightened man has that special combination of freedom without virtue, material abundance, pitiless violence, cultural mediocrity, spiritual impoverishment and moral adolescence. “If ever an age deserved to be thought an age of darkness, it is surely ours.” Highly recommended.
Whoa Mark, did you just pull out “pogrom” from the list of SAT words? I honestly had to look that one up since I suffer from an utter lack of understanding. Next time, I might suggest writing the entire missive in Greek so that I can then experience the joy of translating in it’s fullness. Of course, it is Pentecost…...
I don’t know if any of you career Catholic apologists have noticed or not, but Bishop Olmstead of Phoenix is getting absolutely trashed in every corner of online commentary for announcing the ex-communication of Sister McBride for authorizing a direct abortion as a healing measure at a Catholic Hospital. Would one of you please take a moment to offer some counter perspective?!!!
I’m sure Mark is too busy counting the huge piles of filthy lucre that he accumulates as a “career Catholic apologist” to get around to such a thing. If he cared about medical ethics, he would have gone into medicine, not into the high stakes, billion dollar industry of Catholic apologetics.
Andy,
It was impolite of me to try to hijack the thread and draw some attention to the raging debate about Bishop Olmstead’s announcment of the excommunication of Sister McBride. Mark Shea, in particular, has recently blogged on a critical bioethical issue (The Universe Just Changed and Nobody Noticed: http://markshea.blogspot.com/2010/05/universe-just-changed-and-nobody.html) and he is noteworthy for tackling many cutting edge and controversial topics.
The NCR does employ, however, a team of at least eight bloggers and I can’t believe this case does not merit some discussion or analysis. I don’t find a single article or post about the issue on the site (save my combox gripe)! The issue of “excommunication” alone should be well within their wheelhouse (and not require an advanced medical degree to comment).
I am always amazed when people call it the “Dark Ages”. The “Dark Ages” were actually an “Age of Faith” where the subsisting, disorganized, pagan tribes of Europe were shaped into a prosperous civilized people.
I once heard that they were called the Dark Ages as we very limited knowledge about what happened during that time (perhaps compared to other times). Nothing to do with the level of civilisation of the people at the time. While not explicitly using this understanding of the term in its coverage of the Dark Ages, Wikipedia (or, more accurately, whoever wrote the section) does indirectly agree when it says: “The rise of archaeology and other specialties in the 20th century has shed much light on the period and offered a more nuanced understanding of its positive developments.”
It does help to read the primary sources, even in translation. When the pagan temples were sacked, for example, those in the cities were largely unused and abandoned. Those in the countryside were not - paganus comes from a term for country folk - and there were genuine injustices by the Egyptian monks; at least according to the pagan writer who described them.
But the sacking of the Serapeum was ordered by the emperor after a riot in Alexandria. An old pagan temple that had apparently already been used as a church by Arians was being renovated and some of the old cult objects were found, including a giant phallus that was an object of worship for Priapus. Exposed to the light of day these things seemed ridiculous and the Christians paraded through the town letting everyone see what they really were. This outraged the pagans, who rioted, killed a number of Christians, took hostages and barricaded themselves in the Serapeum. Beseiged, they executed their hostages. The emperor ordered no retaliation because that would besmirch the martyrdom of the dead hostages; but he did order the Serapeum be razed.
But these things are always portrayed as sui generis: mindless spasms having no antecedents.
Hello :), nice article that you have elaborated, you are emphatically supplying important knowledge by your point of view of this kind of things.
I´m Lindsay, I´m presently living in Leicester, I love swimming as well as movies, and I also play a lot Shakira on my parties.
Such remarkable writting like this has to be praised so don´t thank me….
I write pages in many places and it is what I´m writing at the moment, lol!:) and it was the reason I came here on your page…to search for ideas.
By the Way, I was born In Salvador there it started my different behaviour, an my nickname associated to poker!!!!:)
Like the poet once said “Negativity and positivity is a debatable issue which could go either way”
Good morning to all of you, Bye bye
Post a Comment
By submitting this form, you give The National Catholic Register permission to publish this comment. Comments will be published at our discretion, and may be edited for clarity and length. For best formatting, please limit your response to one paragraph and don't hit "enter" to force line breaks.