(no subject)

[bardic_lady]

I watched Agora, as one of the essay topics my students could choose relates to the film. I wish very much that I hadn't. Though the story is, I think, of great value and something that people should be exposed to, it was utterly gut-wrenching to watch.

The destruction of the great Library of Alexandria is, to my mind, one of the greatest tragedies that humanity has inflicted on itself. The loss of the books and plays, the knowledge of centuries is senseless and irrational. To burn books because they belonged to someone not of your faith... To destroy centuries of knowledge because one person believes something different than you... It is monstrous and heinous. One can only imagine where we might now be, what we might now know, had we the materials that were destroyed in the Library.

I have always felt a particular irrational connection with the Library of Alexandria, as my father very much wanted to name me Hypatia, after the philosopher-scientist who was, some stories say, martyred defending the Library, or at least the principles of the Library. (He still does, we have semi-annual conversations about how unlikely it is that he'll convince me to change my name.)

Watching a mob, even of actors, destroy just a representation of the Library of Alexandria made me nauseated and tense. I can't stop crying. I just... don't understand what could drive that level of wanton hatred and willful ignorance. I don't understand why it should matter so much if the person next to you believes the same things about the nature of the universe as you do. Which, I suppose, is why organized religion and I get along so very very poorly.

Mostly though, I find myself devastated and upset. I... don't really have more to say than that.

::edit::
Having now read my students' papers on Agora, I am now upset and furious. Of the eight papers on the film, no less than five of them defend the poor poor abused Christians and the "unscrupulous" accusations against St. Cyril (don't get me started on some of the people who are saints), how dare anyone blame them for the destruction of the Sarapeum and flaying Hypatia alive with broken pottery?!
*growl*

Comments

[yakalskovich]

The other half of book losses during late antiquity is simply due to a format change, though, banal though that sounds. Sometime in the third to fifth century, the preferred format changed from scroll to codex (bound book the way we know them, or rather, the way that's now on the way out again in favour of eBooks), and only the things people at the time thought worth keeping were transferred into the new format. The other half, of course, was due to Christian fanaticism. They kept burning 'heathen' books all over the place, in small amounts, as they thought the burning of infidel writings was pleasing to their god, so they spread it out to make it last. There's an excellent article about it in the German Wikipedia that you might get the gist of if you turn Google Translate on on that page.

I know that's still upsetting -- but looking at it from that scholarly point of view might help you deal with it more easily in the context of those essays.

Also, I really need to watch 'Agora'. It's about that 'end of civilisation' thing carolinw and I have been going on about for quite a while now, à propos of the Ostrogoths and Teja.

[dramaturgca.livejournal.com]

I know it isn't all burning and fanaticism, but... I just don't understand the idea of "There is only one way and anything that isn't that way or questions that way must be destroyed." It makes no sense to me. (Nor the idea of "We only keep what we think is important". What kind of stupidass system is that? Individuals can only keep what they think is important. Even I occasionally get rid of books. >:o But as a society, we don't know what will be important later, so everything has to be available.Archive everything, you never know what might turn out to be the key to the problem you don't have yet. )

Agora is very well made. It has a couple of anachronistic concepts that make it problematic plotwise, but on the whole, it's a very compelling film. If you can get through the religion and the willful stupidity. The parts with St. Cyril are just appallingly ghastly.

[yakalskovich]

Neither makes any sense, which is why the current ongoing format change from paper to electronic formats tries to get everything, archived magazines from the 1930s, everything. That's what Google Books helps with, for example. People are trying to avoid making the same mistakes, which is why that article is so very relevant.

Of course, fanaticism will always exist, from Taliban ripping up music cassettes to Christian fanatics trying to ban the Harry Potter books from libraries. But since print and now electronic archival, chances for any one given work to survive have become much better. The more copies there are, the less the chances that every last copy of something is destroyed.