A Canticle for Leibowitz

On Unrecognized Truths and Lost Traditions

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This essay is going to be speculative (and maybe a bit risky).

It is about keeping certain ideas, ideals, and truths (or apparent truths) alive, with the hope (not necessarily the belief) that in the fullness of time, they will flourish and take root in the world.

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One of the greatest science fiction novels ever written, and possibly the most haunting, is A Canticle for Leibowitz, written by Walter Miller, and published in 1960.

I don’t remember it, but it is unforgettable.

What I mean by that is that I don’t remember the details. What is unforgettable is the central idea: A group of people, a monastic order, preserves old scientific documents, and old truths, over centuries and in the darkest times. They hold onto the documents, and the truths, even when no one else knows about them, or cares about them.

Here’s the amazing opening line: “Brother Francis Gerard of Utah might never have discovered the blessed documents, had it not been for the pilgrim with girded loins who appeared during that young novice’s Lenten fast in the desert.”

You can get a sense of the book’s spirit with the next line: “Never before had Brother Francis actually seen a pilgrim with girded loins . . . .”

The monks treat the documents with reverence, even though they do not really understand them (as I recall). A religious order, the Albertian Order of Leibowitz, preserves science, which is (much) later discovered by secular scholars. (Not by the way, “Albertian” comes from Saint Albert the Great, Albertus Magnus, a mentor to Saint Thomas Aquinas.)

Miller’s book is widely and rightly regarded as theological. “Brother Francis released the crucifix with a small Amen.” And: “You don’t have a soul, Doctor. You are a soul. You have a body, temporarily.” And: “But neither infinite power nor infinite wisdom could bestow godhood upon men. For that there would have to be infinite love as well.”

The Albertian Order of Leibowitz is a Catholic order, founded by Isaac Edward Leibowitz. (Miller himself was a convert to Catholicism.) The novel has a lot to say about sin. It also has a lot to say about truths that are lost, kept alive, and eventually rediscovered.

As I recall, the book is at once melancholy and full of hope.

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A canticle is often understood to be a song with lyrics from the Bible. A Canticle for Leibowitz can be (and has often been) seen, loosely, as something like an extended canticle.

I am going to use the word “canticle” very, very loosely here, to generalize from what Miller brilliantly wrote about.

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A Canticle for Leibowitz is unforgettable for a number of reasons. One is that many groups, past and present, are a bit like the Albertian Order of Leibowitz, in the sense that they keep certain texts and ideas alive, even when those texts and ideas are widely ignored or ridiculed.

(You yourself may be part of one or another Albertian Order of Leibowitz.)

In light of what Miller was talking about, any example might seem small. But I want to draw attention to the countless applications of the basic idea, and the diversity of arguable examples: a small band of people is holding onto a truth, and seeking to understand it better, in a time when it is widely ignored or rejected. (Of course what the small band sees as truth may or may not be truth.)

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In law, there are plenty of examples. One is the Second Amendment. The idea that the Constitution protects the individual right to possess guns was once a kind of canticle (as I am very, very loosely using the term).

No Supreme Court justice accepted that idea. Chief Justice Burger ridiculed it. A small band of people insisted on it, and spoke to each other, and ultimately prevailed.

Another example is the Unitary Executive: the idea that Article II gives the president the authority to remove and control all those who execute federal law. At one point, that idea was accepted by a group of people who seemed, to many, to be a cult. Right now, the idea is ascendant. Was it a canticle? You could so argue.

For a long time, originalism itself was a marginal thing. Many lawyers and law professors thought that those who focused on “original intent” were a bit like cult members. Robert Bork wrote a famous originalist article in defense of “original intent,” back in 1971, but there was a widespread sense that Bork was tilting at windmills, or shouting in the dark. Originalists do not have to shout any more.

I have given examples of right-of-center canticles in law, but there are plenty of left-of-center examples. In the past, consider the idea that the Constitution forbids racial segregation, or that it protects the right to same-sex marriages.

In the present, well, I leave that to you. What are other canticles in law? Right-of-center? Left-of-center? Center? Somewhere else?

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Austrian economists, or those who have kept the flame of Austrian economics burning, have something in common with the Albertian Order of Leibowitz. I say this with admiration. There is a lot to say about the sociology of knowledge here, and about multiple equilibria (though I won’t say it in this space).

In 1981 or so, Randy Barnett, visiting at Chicago, told me about “the Austrians.” (I remember this as if it were yesterday.) I knew a little bit about Hayek, but I knew nothing about “the Austrians.” Thanks to Randy, I learned a bit about them.

A small group of focused and determined people have managed to keep Austrian economics alive. Peter Boettke is one; Peter Klein is another. Bruce Caldwell, focused above all on Hayek, has been pivotal here. Tyler Cowen is evidently interested in Hayek and Austrian economics (his blog is called The Marginal Revolution, after all, and see Carl Menger; though then again, Cowen is interested in everything) - and he deserves credit for keeping a lot of people’s eyes on the Austrian ball.

I might be wrong (and Austrians will appreciate the irony of my venturing this prediction), but I think that Austrian economics is about to have a moment.

Enthusiastic applause, and thanks, to this particular Albertian Order.

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The word “classical” sometimes appears in efforts to resuscitate or popularize certain ideas. Many people think it important to distinguish “classical liberalism,” associated with freedom and market ordering, from modern liberalism, associated with the New Deal and social democracy. For a skeptical discussion, see https://www.amazon.com/Myth-Classical-Liberalism-Political-Identity/dp/3032143187

Many people think it important to emphasize the “classical tradition,” emphasizing natural law. For a terrific and important discussion, see https://www.amazon.com/Natural-Law-Court-History-Practice/dp/0674504585

Those who invoke classical liberalism, and the classical tradition, are in some ways like the Albertian Order.

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For a time, those who loved folk music were a small band, keeping the flame alive. That is itself an amazing tale. Here’s one of many books that cast light on it: https://www.amazon.com/Romancing-Folk-American-Cultural-Studies/dp/080784862X

Bob Dylan became Bob Dylan because he noticed that flame (and was burned by it, in the best way). Speaking of what people called folk music, Dylan said this:

I have to think of all this as traditional music. Traditional music is based on hexagrams. It comes about from legends, Bibles, plagues, and it revolves around vegetables and death. There's nobody that's going to kill traditional music. All these songs about roses growing out of people's brains and lovers who are really geese and swans that turn into angels - they're not going to die. It's all those paranoid people who think that someone's going to come and take away their toilet paper - they're going to die. Songs like "Which Side Are You On?" and "I Love You, Porgy" - they're not folk-music songs; they're political songs. They're already dead.

We can see analogues to what I am noticing here in the many small bands who keep cultural flames burning: flames lit by musicians, poets, novelists, sports, films.

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In North America and Europe, a lot of people (particularly academics, I think) see themselves a bit like Miller’s monks did: as socially marginal, perhaps, but as maintaining certain documents and truths, or perhaps as moving identifiable projects forward, even if there is not a lot of interest in those projects. I speculate that some philosophers and some literature professors see themselves in that way; so, I speculate, do some historians.

They might have substantive ideas. They might focus on certain historical figures. They might prize certain methods. They might care about genres. They might focus on events, periods, and documents to which no one seems to be paying attention.

One of the many haunting features of Miller’s great book is that it casts light on why many people, engaged in work that is now widely ignored, are intensely committed to that work, and have high hopes for its future.

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