Saint Joan · Chapter
The Modern Education Which Joan Escaped explained
This chapter contrasts the medieval education Joan received, centered on Catholic saints and spiritual visions, with the modern scientific education she would undergo if reborn today.
What happens
This chapter contrasts the medieval education Joan received, centered on Catholic saints and spiritual visions, with the modern scientific education she would undergo if reborn today. Shaw argues that modern science, despite its genuine achievements, has replaced religious iconography with a credulous worship of medical and psychological quackery, and that Joan's sanity and spiritual health compare favorably to the degraded condition of modern society.
Themes in this chapter
Faith and Reason
The chapter explores the conflict between medieval religious faith and modern scientific reason, questioning which offers a healthier foundation for the mind.
Heresy and Sanctity
Shaw redefines heresy and sanctity by comparing Joan's saintly iconography to modern worship of scientific figures, suggesting modern credulities are a form of heresy.
Characters to notice
- Joan of Arc
Joan is the central figure of the chapter, discussed as a model of sanity and spiritual health compared to modern scientific materialism.
- St. Catherine
St. Catherine is referenced as a figurehead of virtues and as part of Joan's medieval iconography of religious belief.
- Galileo
Galileo is mentioned as a martyr of science, whose persecutors are considered ignoramuses in modern education.
- St. Margaret
St. Margaret is implicitly part of the Catholic hagiology that modern science would dismiss as obsolete myths.
Key passages
“If Joan were reborn today she would be sent, first to a convent school in which she would be mildly taught to connect inspiration and conscience with St. Catherine and St. Michael exactly as she was in the fifteenth century, and then finished up with a very energetic training in the gospel of Saints Louis Pasteur and Paul Bert”
If Joan were born in the modern era, she would initially receive a traditional religious education, but would then be rigorously indoctrinated in the secular gospel of science.
Shaw contrasts medieval and modern education systems, highlighting the shift from religious to scientific authority.
“To Joan and her contemporaries we should appear as a drove of Gadarene swine, possessed by all the unclean spirits cast out by the faith and civilization of the Middle Ages, running violently down a steep place into a hell of high explosives.”
From Joan's perspective, modern people would seem like a herd of possessed swine, having abandoned medieval faith for a destructive and chaotic modern condition.
Shaw uses a biblical allusion to argue that modern society is more degenerate than the medieval world it condemns.