Adventures with Ideas: Truth, Beauty and the Paradoxes of Life
Juliet Bennett's Blog
  • About
  • My Story
  • Research
  • Photography
  • Modeling
  • 2009
  • 2010
  • 2011
  • 2012
  • 2013
  • 2014
  • 2015
  • About
  • My Story
  • Research
  • Photography
  • Modeling
  • 2009
  • 2010
  • 2011
  • 2012
  • 2013
  • 2014
  • 2015
  • Home
  • Truth
  • Hypatia, my new heroine

Hypatia, my new heroine

7 Dec ’10 1 Comment Written by Juliet Bennett

It was the burgeoning of the Dark Ages – a time where a blog like mine that questioned the “truth” would have me (like my new heroine the philosopher Hypatia was) called a witch, stripped naked, skinned alive, torn into pieces and burned.

Tonight I saw Agora, a movie with Rachel Weisz set in Roman Egypt in the 4th century AD, around the time of the collapse of the Roman Empire. It is based on the book The Rise and Fall of Alexandria (2007) and was a pretty good film that (for better or worse) reminded me of those earlier dark dark periods of human history.

Of course Hypatia wasn’t the only one to experience the wrath of brainwashed barbarians (I need not mention the witch hunts, inquisitions and crusades that followed) but after two hours of admiring this curious and courageous thinker, it wasn’t the most satisfying ending to the epic. Don’t worry, they don’t actually skin her on screen – this was my post-movie research discoveries.

Geez humanity sucks.

“It’s the pyramid,” said my friend as we left the cinema. He’s a touch more cynical than me. “There will always be horrors and injustices, it takes different forms but it’s always there – it’s simply human nature. It’s the way we organise our societies, it’s the way those with power control the masses.”

Not least of the horrors of the movie was the reminder of the oppression of women, when a beloved student of the philosophy teacher is read a bible verse that says a woman is not allowed to have influence over a man.

That being said there are some great quotes, my favourite two:

1. When accused of believing “in nothing,” Hypatia says strongly, “I believe in philosophy”.

2. When her student tries to persuade her to get baptised she explains, “Synesius, you don’t question what you believe, or you cannot… But I must.“

It is worth noting that while the movie is positioned around the burning of the Alexandria Library, my quick googling did reveal a little controversy surrounding the exact historical location of the event. Some blame Caesar 400 years earlier (even though books from the library were recorded to have existed after this date), and others (an anti-Muslim) blame Omar (a Muslim)… I guess everyone wants a scape goat. I definitely wouldn’t want to have the burning of knowledge attached to my name.

Either way the cycle of book burnings, of re-writing history, and of the (ab)use of religion in the name of power, is a story that seems to repeat itself periodically as the next empire rises and falls.

I wonder if next time, now with our growing library of knowledge on the internet, are we more safe or less? Will the fire be replaced with a virus that wipes history from our memory?

What baffles me the most of about such history, is that it happened such a short time ago. 370 AD is less than 18 of my Opa’s lifetimes and the Dark Ages finished only around four of my Opa’s life times ago! So while all this might be classified as “ancient history”, it is really not long ago at all. The deep-seeded collective memories this movie retells reminds us of where we have come from and the psychological issues that have probably been passed onto us and may still be living on today.

I guess the biggest irony of it all is that we stupid humans still allow and go out to fight barbaric wars with guns and bombs and innocent lives being ruined, all of which is convinced to us still under some kind of manipulative fear-driven ideological or religious banner.

All I can say is that I hope my friend’s comments on human nature are wrong. I hope that somehow we humans can smarten up, learn from the past, get over our fears, and reclaim the curious and courageous humanity that Hypatia presents.

Truth
philosophy, The Pyramid
Similar posts
  • Business leadership in climate change — I am consistently surprised by the initiative and leadership taken by businesses to address the climate crisis. Not all businesses obviously (e.g. ExxonMobil, the Koch brothers and the other vested interest that have funded climate denial movement and created vast climate confusion), but MANY businesses and business analysts, scholars and consultants are doing a extraordinarily better job than many governments [...]
  • Orwellian Australia: the “[Un]F... — On 15 April 2016 the so-called “Fairer Parental Leave Bill 2015″ was “Lapsed at prorogation” and the current status on the bill is (thankfully, at this stage) “Not proceeding”. I’m not sure whether this is a permanent status, or whether they just ran out of time and will return to the bill later…  When I see the word “fairer” associated with this bill [...]
  • A new lens to view the world: the wor... — My PhD is essentially an exercise in communicating and examining the potential for an  alternative worldview to the mechanistic materialism offered by process philosophy to contribute to addressing structural forms of violence and working toward peace. Process philosophy is too rarely taught in university philosophy as the current fashion there is divided between analytical or postmodern navel gazing. Yet process [...]
  • Thoughts on a morning walk — On my walk this morning: –       I realised that truth, reality, and illusion, are completely relative and self created –       the truth of a religion is truth for that person, it is made real by the stories that are told, and because each moment is in a way timeless, these truths are eternally real –       yet when truths are examined [...]
  • Boundaries between Self and World — “Your skin doesn’t separate you from the world; it’s a bridge through which the external world flows into you, and you flow into it.” More Alan Watts? Yes, it’s always a good time for more Alan Watts. Over and over and over, repeat. “The whole world is moving through you, all the cosmic rays, all the food you’re eating, the [...]
“The surprising truth about what motivates us”
Yoga – always a good decision

1 Comment

  1. FLJustice
    7 Dec ’10    

    A very thoughtful review. I saw Agora when it first came out in NYC and loved Weisz’ performance as Hypatia. The film was beautifully shot and a bit uneven. Amenabar distorted some history in service to his art (the Library didn’t end that way and Synesius wasn’t a jerk), but that’s what artists do. I go to the movies for entertainment, not history. For people who want to know more about the historical Hypatia, I highly recommend a very readable biography Hypatia of Alexandria by Maria Dzielska (Harvard University Press, 1995). I also have a series of posts on the historical events and characters in the film at my blog – not a movie review, just a “reel vs. real” discussion.

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

TRUTH

BEAUTY

ADVENTURE

ART

PEACE

  • Popular
  • Recent
  • Comments
  • Is “God” a Fractal?
    15 Feb ’11
  • Is Lindt chocolate slave chocolate?
    11 Sep ’09
  • Creativism – a philosophy for life
    10 Sep ’09
  • Free Documentaries: The Truth Is Free
    17 Apr ’10
  • Coming to grips with the elephant in the room
    28 Jun ’10
  • Optimum Trajectory, swimming against the current, and man who stare at goats.
    4 Aug ’10
  • A short biography
    2 Sep ’09
  • Sex or chess? Peace, the world’s trump card
    13 Apr ’10
  • Alan Watts Fan Club
    3 Dec ’12
  • Big History Blog Series: Chapter 1 – The Big Bang
    25 Mar ’10
  • My policy wishlist for Australia’s response to climate change
    17 Jan ’20
  • Business leadership in climate change
    1 May ’19
  • A story of (mis)fortune: the farmer and his son
    8 Oct ’18
  • What is life really about?
    1 Mar ’17
  • Why the right (brain) is right…
    22 Feb ’17
  • New life: reflections on being a new mum
    29 Dec ’16
  • Orwellian Australia: the “[Un]Fairer Parental Leave Bill 2015”
    1 May ’16
  • Alan Watts’ ‘dramatic model’ and the pursuit of peace
    18 Mar ’16
  • A new lens to view the world: the world as process
    14 Jan ’16
  • 2015 in review
    1 Jan ’16

Adventures with Ideas... on Facebook

Archives

Categories

  • Academic (35)
  • Adventure (119)
  • Beauty (23)
  • Featured Posts (10)
  • Peace (124)
  • Random Life Stuff (102)
  • Truth (164)
Constitutional Recognition

Rights of Indigenous Peoples: A Personal Statement

As a "non-indigenous" Australian living on what was once the land of the Cadigal and Wangal Wangal communities, I wish to acknowledge the inter-generational responsibility that I feel toward the colonial past. As a beneficiary of "White Australia", to the Eora people of Sydney, I request your forgiveness. I stand in solidarity with your rightful demands to self determination and active participation in governmental decisions, and I hope I may learn from your eco-spiritual connection. May we, as Tom Trevorrow of the Ngarrindjeri puts it, learn to 'respect, care and share' the gifts that our planet offers us.

Tags

Alan Watts Atheism Big History Bridge Series Central America Chocolate climate change Conflict Transformation Creativism Ecology Europe God Health India India/Nepal inspiration Life in Oz Life philosophy Meaning of life Modeling My Brazilian My Christian Journey Narrative Narratology Occupy optimal trajectory Panentheism peace philosophy Photography Politics population Potentialism poverty religion slavery social construction South America The Pyramid Travel United States War What is God Wikileaks Yoga

Related posts

  • philosophy
    • Is “God” a Fractal?
    • Optimum Trajectory, swimming against the current, and man who stare at goats.
    • Joseph Campbell – The Hero’s Journey
    • Modeling Tips: Where to Begin
    • Are the laws of science and “God” the same thing?
  • The Pyramid
    • Preserving “The Pyramid” – the reason things are the way they are…
    • The gap between school and real-life
    • Legitimate & Illegitimate Authority
    • Population Growth and Climate Change – A Debate
    • Youtube & The Global Pyramid

Donation

evolve theme by Theme4Press  •  Powered by WordPress