This morning, on NPR's "Morning Edition," they broadcast an interview with the Always Un-Insightful Stephen Greenblatt, who shared his non-insights on Lucretius' De rerum natura.
The interview implies that Lucretius' philosophy (which Greebblatt fails to identify as Epicureanism) was stifled in the early centuries AD because it contradicted the dogma of the Christian Church. However, any competent historian of ancient philosophy knows that Epicureanism was always a minor player in the world of Greco-Roman thought - much less popular than its principle rivals, Stoicism and Platonism (in all its various forms). The philosophy of Lucretius failed to catch on not because it was un-Christian, but because pagan Greek and Roman thinkers found its dogma of the Randomness of the Universe so intellectually and spiritually unsatisfying.
The interview implies that Lucretius' philosophy (which Greebblatt fails to identify as Epicureanism) was stifled in the early centuries AD because it contradicted the dogma of the Christian Church. However, any competent historian of ancient philosophy knows that Epicureanism was always a minor player in the world of Greco-Roman thought - much less popular than its principle rivals, Stoicism and Platonism (in all its various forms). The philosophy of Lucretius failed to catch on not because it was un-Christian, but because pagan Greek and Roman thinkers found its dogma of the Randomness of the Universe so intellectually and spiritually unsatisfying.
Stoicism and Platonism were very different, but both were convinced that we live in a Cosmos, not a Chaos. Our world is not an infinite collection of atoms bouncing around randomly and forming temporary - and meaningless - conglomerates of Being. It is the product of Providential Wisdom. Every being we contemplate - including ourselves - is the effect of Divine Intellect. It has coherence and purpose.
The cosmos is Beautiful and Good, not only because it exists, but because it is Wise.
I'm listening to Greenblatt on a local NPR station in Seattle just now. It's not likely I'll read Lucretius or this book about him. I haven't your background to comment on either, but I do have enough reading to have a great suspicion of any modern popular (well, trying to be popular?) author claiming that some "ancient wisdom" was "lost" or even more sinister, "suppressed". Dan Brown comes at once to mind, and is a complete fraud. Or the "religion" prof who writes that very old scholarship on the New Testament (nothing new at all) leads him to conclude that every Christian belief is wrong.
ReplyDeleteLucretius is as likely to make a splash now as he was around 2000 years ago, isn't he? NPR will do its best to do otherwise, but then it is a *very* Lucretian organization. This writer and Luc will get flogged for a few more months. Christmas stocking stuffer.....Then for a cheap copy keep your eye on the remainder table next to The Complete Encyclopedia of Hockey Stick Collecting.
I'm glad I found your comments on Amazon. I operate on hunches about books too! Hence recommendations on Amazon or anywhere else.
As you know, I don't disagree with your criticism of the book (my own are posted now: http://www.amazon.com/review/R1SCVFQAKV8KRL/ref=cm_sw_r_fa_asr_9yooC.0ECXE7R) but I wonder how you reconcile your own faith with your revulsion toward what I'll call "crudely constructed Christian political conservatism." I think Greenblatt would see you as sharing with Michelle Bachmann the core diseases of theism and providentialism. There's something to be said for that, but as my commentary of The Swerve indicates, I think Greenblatt is too disengaged from any living or dead Christian intellectuals whom he automatically seems to regard as fools, villains, or irrelevant.
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