Brian Coyne: If you were a late 21st Century intergallactic explorer and you were allowed a limited allowance of personal reading or videos to take on your journey to start a new colony in a new galaxy what would you choose to take with you?

Say you were allowed to take a maximum of four books or videos. Which one's would you choose?

Yes, I know, this is a variation of the Stranded on the Desert Island story. It'd make an interesting topic for conversation on our forum at some stage though.

I introduce this commentary in this way because I'd like to talk about one of those books I would definitely include in my allowance. I wouldn't mind taking either a copy of the book or the dvd and in fact will be borrowing from both in what I am about to write here.

It was not actually my idea to write a commentary like this at this time. How it has come about is this. A few days ago my fiance and creative/business partner, Amanda McKenna, was searching for a video or dvd for an hour or so's entertainment. A couple of months ago I had purchased a copy on dvd of what is perhaps my all-time favourite production. I'd not yet viewed it as I already have the book and have copies on tape I'd recorded many years ago from the on-air broadcasts. I purchased the dvd set from the ABC shop principally so that I have an archivable record of this production that will last many decades' longer than any videotape.

The program is the BBC series The Ascent of Man which was written and presented by Professor Jacob Bronowski. It consists of thirteen 50-minute episodes and when originally screened was spread over a quarter of a year. It was originally screened on the BBC in 1973 and in Australia on the ABC a short time later. It has continued to be repeated at regular intervals in the decades since. It has only been in the last year or so that it has been released on DVD.

Amanda had never seen this production. She had often heard me talk about it.

She took the dvd and went off to her studio and the next time I spoke to her was about six hours later. She'd become so engrossed in the series she ended up watching about half the episodes in one sitting. I cannot describe the personal joy I have experienced in finding a partner who has become as enthusiastic as myself about Dr Jacob Bronowski and what he had to say in this television series. Our conversation, and life, in the days since has taken on a new meaning.

In the midst of all this, some days later, Amanda watched the last episode. It was this episode that led to her suggesting that we write a joint reflection. Very animatedly she was enthusiastically describing to me how there were so many points of intersection with what Bronowski had been saying in 1969 and much of the discussion that is to be found in the commentaries and discussion on Catholica. We sat down and watched this episode, which is the last in the series, together and it is from that joint viewing that we have prepared this reflection.

Let me now hand over to Amanda and let her describe the relevance she sees today in Jacob Bronowski's Ascent of Humankind...

Amanda McKenna: I have been moved deeply by the entire series The Ascent of Man but the last episode in particular – which Dr Bronowski titled "The Long Childhood" – had particular poignancy. It intersected with some of our recent conversations on Catholica in a powerful way for me. Dr Bronowski was drawing attention 37 years ago to the crucial importance of our ability to question. Listen to this...

History, of course, did not stand still between the nomad and the Renaissance. The ascent of man has never come to a stop. But the ascent of the young, the ascent of the talented, the ascent of the imaginative : that became very halting many times in between. Of course there were great civilisations. Who am I to belittle the civilisations of Egypt, of China, of India, even of Europe in the Middle Ages? And yet by one test they all fail : they limit the freedom of the imagination of the young. They are static, and they are minority cultures. Static, because the son does what the father did, and the father what the grandfather did. And minority, because only a tiny fraction of all that talent that mankind produces is actually used ; learns to read, learns to write, learns another language, and climbs the terribly slow ladder of promotion. In the Middle Ages the ladder of promotion was through the Church ; there was no other way for a clever, poor boy to go up. And at the end of the ladder there is always the image, the icon of the godhead that says, 'Now you have reached the last commandment: "Thou shalt not question".'

In our discussions on Catholica recently, this question of questioning has been a focus of some attention, particularly since KateD's 28th August reflection: A Journey To Spiritual Maturity, and the follow-up from Peregrinus on 30th August, The value of Questioning in the maturation of faith.

I, too, have memories of how things were 'back in the day' when the sisters ran the show. I, too, learned how not to question. If you did things the way sister said, then you'd get top marks … and I was a girl who loved top marks. At the same time, I had parents who encouraged questioning as a way of breaking open and appropriating an issue. I learned from them that the only way to really understand something was to get down to the nitty-gritty to understand why something is, as opposed to simply what. Thankfully, by the time I got into high school, we had sisters who were passionate about their (and by extension, our) faith and were also passionate questioners.

When I look around the world today and hear the various attitudes expressed about religion, and the Catholic Church in particular, I am constantly gobsmacked by the attitude of some who seem to think that asking questions – particularly of religious authorities – brands one as some sort of 'traitor to the cause'. We're all supposed to just do as we're told.

And I can't help thinking: I wonder where we'd be if they'd said the same thing to Sts. Paul or Augustine? Where would that have left Sts. Francis and Clare? Still, I suppose Sir Thomas More would still have his head, at least.

Listen to what Dr Bronowski had to say about More...

Erasmus made two lifelong friends, Sir Thomas More in England and Johann Frobenius in Switzerland. From More he got what I got when I first came to England, the sense of pleasure in the companionship of civilised minds. From Frobenius he got a sense of the power of the printed book. Frobenius and his family were the great printers of the classics in the 1500s, including the classics of medicine. Their edition of the works of Hippocrates is, I think, one of the most beautiful books ever printed, in which the happy passion of the printer sits on the page as powerful as the knowledge. What did those three men and their books mean — the works of Hippocrates, More's Utopia, The Praise of Folly by Erasmus? To me, this is the democracy of the intellect; and that is why Erasmus and Frobenius and Sir Thomas More stand in my mind as gigantic landmarks of their time. The democracy of the intellect comes from the printed book, and the problems that it set from the year 1500 have lasted right down to the student riots of today. What did Sir Thomas More die of? He died because his king thought of him as a wielder of power. And what More wanted to be, what Erasmus wanted to be, what every strong intellect wants to be, is a guardian of integrity.

If these people had not had the freedom to question would it have furthered the mission of Christ? I suspect not. Worse, it would have interfered with the work of the Holy Spirit. And yet, this atrophied attitude is still bandied about by an increasingly vocal minority today. And the more fear-filled the world becomes, the shriller the cries. Questioning itself is branded as some sort of 'failure to trust God' – as if the Church actually were God – and the whole thing is just a vehicle to some quasi-new-age 'anything goes', liberated philosophy. Well, I can't speak for anyone else's motivations, but that certainly hasn't been my experience.

I would argue strongly that it is the silencing of questions that actually interferes with the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives. I would go even further and suggest that our call to follow Jesus Christ actually calls us to question. The irony is that the questions 'liberate' us only insofar as they deepen the call to take up our own 'crosses' and follow Christ, the One in whom true Liberation is found, and do our best to live with the questions.

Just look at where we have come from. Listen to these words from Dr Bronowski, a man of Jewish faith background, describing his encounter with Jesus...

There is an age-old conflict between intellectual leadership and civil authority. How old, how bitter, came home to me when I came up from Jericho on the road that Jesus took, and saw the first glimpse of Jerusalem on the skyline as he saw it going to his certain death. Death, because Jesus was then the intellectual and moral leader of his people, but he was facing an establishment in which religion was simply an arm of government. And that is a crisis of choice that leaders have faced over and over again: Socrates in Athens; Jonathan Swift in Ireland, torn between pity and ambition; Mahatma Gandhi in India; and Albert Einstein, when he refused the presidency of Israel. I bring in the name of Einstein deliberately because he was a scientist, and the intellectual leadership of the twentieth century rests with scientists. And that poses a grave problem, because science is also a source of power that walks close to government and that the state wants to harness. But if science allows itself to go that way, the beliefs of the twentieth century will fall to pieces in cynicism. We shall be left without belief, because no beliefs can be built up in this century that are not based on science as the recognition of the uniqueness of man, and a pride in his gifts and works. It is not the business of science to inherit the earth, but to inherit the moral imagination; because without that man and beliefs and science will perish together.

My parents taught me that real truth can not only withstand scrutiny, but it is illuminated by scrutiny — that the life of faith is one of discernment every single day. There is nothing to fear from questions. It is, as Professor Bronowski points out, how we learn and expand our understanding as a human species. Teachers question us because they know it is a way to engage us to explore the subject at hand. Jesus, the Great Questioner asks the ever-pertinent question: "Who do you say I am?"

Both Brian and I would urge you to buy or borrow the book or the DVD on Dr Bronowski's The Ascent of Man. Brian argues that it is one of those key reference books any home needs like a Bible, like a good dictionary, like Sir Kenneth Clark's television series, Civilisation, or like Paul Johnson's, A History of Christianity. We would urge you to refresh yourselves on the whole series if you haven't viewed it recently. In particular though the closing Episode, The Long Childhood, is particularly prescient as a commentary, even prophesy, of some important issues we face as individuals, as a Church, and as human civilisation. I think they are particularly poignant words in the light of Cliff Baxter's commentary yesterday. Here are Dr Bronowski's closing words to the series...

We are all afraid — for our confidence, for the future, for the world. That is the nature of the human imagination. Yet every man, every civilisation, has gone forward because of its engagement with what it has set itself to do. The personal commitment of a man to his skill, the intellectual commitment and the emotional commitment working together as one, has made the Ascent of Man.

Brian Coyne: And to end this reflection I asked Amanda to find a suitable song from her repertoire that somehow captures the sentiments and ideas we have endeavoured to elicit through this production. She chose "The Dance of Balance" a song she wrote in 1995. This version was recorded in 2002 but this is its first public release. You can download the recording HERE.
 

CREDITS:
The Ascent of Man television series and book were produced by the BBC. The DVD and Book are available in Australia from The ABC Shop and most leading book retailers. They should also be available for loan through most public libraries. Catholica acknowledges the BBC as the holder of the copyright in these works and the usage of extracts and images from these works in this commentary are by way of critique and we trust might enhance sales of the work for the copyright holder and are not intended to exploit this resource for our own commercial gain.

The words and music of the song, The Dance of Balance, were composed by Amanda McKenna.

The image of Budapest used in the title header comes from stock.xchng the free web photo source – www.sxc.hu. Photographer: Bernard Mukarubibi, Merelbeke, Ovl, Belgium [Image ID #607120]
 

Amanda McKenna can be contacted at amandamckenna@catholica.com.au

Brian Coyne can be contacted at editor@catholica.com.au
 
 
 
 

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