A Canticle For Leibowitz Essay Research Paper

Nicholas Sine Period 4 5/11/98 A Canticle for Leibowitz Throughout the history of mankind, man has wanted to learn. It was the knowledge that has been kept with him for generations that has also kept the human race from not progressing. More and more generations of man have evolved and yet one element of life has lived on through the roughness of nature, plagues and even world wars. Knowledge proves to be indestructible and unstoppable. In the first section of A Canticle for Leibowitz, Fiat Homo, knowledge makes an introduction by demonstrating its capability of surviving the first nuclear fallout via books stored by the saint, Issaic Leibowitz. Now monks are memorizing and copying texts and pictures that held the knowledge to the reproduction of society. The monks contributed tremendously in the process of keeping knowledge indestructible. All of the surviving people in the world have dedicated themselves to knowledge by turning into doctors, scientists and any sort of men of study. Once again, knowledge proves unstoppable. In Fiat Lux, knowledge is progressing at an incredible rate. The church realizes that everything it needs to enhance civilization has been passed down from the generations, and they just need to interpret it. “For twelve centuries, a small flame of knowledge had been kept smoldering in the monasteries; only during the last age of reason, certain proud thinkers had claimed that valid knowledge was indestructible–that ideas were deathless and truth immortal.” The church members keep learning more and more as they study the old texts that they can now understand. Brother Kornhoer developed a dynamo that was capable of producing an electrical current strong enough to power a light bulb. This point in the book seemed to really show that knowledge was indestructible and unstoppable because civilization had gone from ruins where there was nothing, to the recreation of electricity. Now in Fiat Voluntas Tua, another holocaust was in effect and a small team of teachers were gathered together onto a space ship. They planned to leave when the second nuclear holocaust began, thus ensuring the existence of knowledge. In A Canticle for Leibowitz, three time zones of civilization that were hundreds of years apart were able to keep the same knowledge and documents that the last had used. Wars and mass destruction were not a problem for the battle between knowledge and its destruction, knowledge is unstoppable.