On “A Canticle for Leibowitz”
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On “A Canticle for Leibowitz”
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Re: On “A Canticle for Leibowitz”
#2> If the failure by “A Canticle for Leibowitz” to predict the nuclear holocaust tells us anything, it’s that this is indeed possible.
The nuclear holocaust wasn't really a prediction of that book; it was a premise.
Re: On “A Canticle for Leibowitz”
#3> If the failure by “A Canticle for Leibowitz” to predict the nuclear holocaust tells us anything, it’s that this is indeed possible. The nuclear holocaust wasn't really a prediction of that book; it was a premise.
The book itself is the prediction.
Re: On “A Canticle for Leibowitz”
#4Most of what you read on the news and social media would have you convinced that civilization is declining or collapsing. If you actually measure the world, however, then by almost any measure things are better now than they have been in the past (two notable exceptions are climate change and democracy vs autocracy).
What does this mean? Why the difference between the measurable state of the world and the doomer discourse? I think its rooted in two things.
The first reason is that both social media and news media are monetized by your attention, and attention is far higher when things are presented as terrible than when things are presented as good. Bad news goes viral far better than good news.
The second reason is that being highly online is correlated with depression. The people who are most likely to be spending their time posting online are more likely to be depressed and lose perspective about the world around them.
What's the solution? I don't know for sure but I think a good first step is to limit the time you spend consuming news media and social media, and instead spend time offline living life. What's the point of a constant stream of information if it leads to inaccurate perceptions of the world?
Re: On “A Canticle for Leibowitz”
#5Easily one of my favourite novels. It's riddled with beauty; there is a lens held up to the shepherding of knowledge that made me really appreciate what it means to be a scholar.
It's a wild ride and I think a book people should read.
My fav quote,
"When you tire of living, change itself seems evil, does it not? for then any change at all disturbs the deathlike peace of the life-weary.”
Re: On “A Canticle for Leibowitz”
#6> If the failure by “A Canticle for Leibowitz” to predict the nuclear holocaust tells us anything, it’s that this is indeed possible. The nuclear holocaust wasn't really a prediction of that book; it was a premise.
The book itself is the prediction.
> The book itself is the prediction.
The book itself is literature. To see it as a prediction and especially as a failed prediction seems simpleminded (in the techie-futurist way).
Re: On “A Canticle for Leibowitz”
#7People keep complaining about "The End of History" but never for good reasons. It predicted president Trump as the sort of "megalothymia" that that might come to power in the end of history! It's just about the lack of alternative credible opposing ideologies. I still found it an incredibly disappointing book but not for any of the reasons that everybody dumps on it for.
Re: On “A Canticle for Leibowitz”
#8Most of what you read on the news and social media would have you convinced that civilization is declining or collapsing. If you actually measure the world, however, then by almost any measure things are better now than they have been in the past (two notable exceptions are climate change and democracy vs autocracy). What does this mean? Why the difference between the measurable state of the world and the doomer disc…
> two notable exceptions are climate change and democracy vs autocracy
"Notable" is quite the understatement IMHO.
Re: On “A Canticle for Leibowitz”
#9> If the failure by “A Canticle for Leibowitz” to predict the nuclear holocaust tells us anything, it’s that this is indeed possible. The nuclear holocaust wasn't really a prediction of that book; it was a premise.
It's a poorly constructed sentence (and unfortunately the last, intended to inspire hope).
Re: On “A Canticle for Leibowitz”
#10> If the failure by “A Canticle for Leibowitz” to predict the nuclear holocaust tells us anything, it’s that this is indeed possible. The nuclear holocaust wasn't really a prediction of that book; it was a premise.
Yeah I think Miller was using the nuclear holocaust as a vehicle to reflect on original sin (i.e., the inevitable tendency of human beings to engage in self-destructive behavior) and the antidote to it offered by the Catholic Church. If he had written the novel today it probably would have been something other than MAD that nearly wiped out civilization twice.