On Pierre Abelard and his World

It is always interesting to me to try to understand how people from different perspectives perceive reality, and to try to understand those people better. This can of course mean just trying to understand one's roommate or neighbor, but it is much more difficult and in some ways more fascinating with respect to people from different eras.

By all accounts, including his own, Pierre Abelard was a brilliant lecturer and teacher, and a great debater, but not a major philosophical originator. He was too brilliant and not particularly adept at making allies of those around him, so that while he was successful at whatever he did with respect to teaching, he made many enemies, and was rarely at peace because of them. This aspect of his life is not unlike what many modern people describe as their own work environments, with the constant backbiting and vicious competition between coworkers over seeming trifles. The part about his enemies having him attacked and his genitals cut off is a bit extreme, and was so in his day, too. Also I doubt most monasteries these days have issues with unruly monks trying to poison their abbot, or stealing everything to support their concubines and children. We only have his side of his story, so perhaps he was not as ill-treated as he makes himself out to be. In any case it is interesting to read about how vitally important ideas were to people then. They weren’t talking about science yet, but they were debating the nature of the universe, and really trying to determine by logic and faith the power the church ought to hold, and the outcome of these seemingly idle philosophical debates would in their world change the fortunes of nations. It would be as if the ‘arguments’ Andrew and I used to have about the nature of the universe could result in tangible changes to the universe itself, and to our places within it, besides just upsetting us both and damaging our romance and our friendship.

It seems my reading is becoming a bit thematic, at least from the online books. My next book is Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres, by Henry Adams. Abelard features in it, and it is a broader sketch of the century within which he lived and wrote, though Adams does not focus on Abelard. He so far is discussing the century's architecture, and the Song of Roland, from whence my cat's name was produced. I am amused by the thought that the name I originally suggested for him, Oliver, is the name of Roland's friend, in that ancient poem. He certainly looks like he could be a French cat, and his attitude fits in very nicely with the Norman aesthetics, even if he is a bit small for his age, and far too cute.