Rose's smell Sweet?

Garrett Lambur
“What's in a name? that which we call a rose, by any other name would smell as sweet”

Well actually that does not have a smidgeon to do with the blog I am about to write but I had a deep desire to place that comment there. But now anyways onto the blog itself, discussing the movie in the Name of the Rose. I truly enjoyed this movie. It was filmed well, the characters were developed well and the ending was good. It was the reason all the killing took place that I truly enjoyed. Killed all in the pursuit of knowledge. But perhaps the most interesting thing was the man behind the killings and the reason he so choose to do so. He viewed laughter as a path to the devil. Happiness leads to the devil? Before any go completely dismissing this sentiment there needs to be an exploration into this sentiment.

It seems necessary to look at the source of the happiness. Say this happiness was brought on at the expense of someone’s life, the person experiencing the emotion enjoyed ending another’s. Would this happiness not lead to the devil? But it seems ignorant to say happiness leads to the devil thus I dismiss my example above. It is not the emotion itself that would lead to the devil but perhaps the actions that brought about such an emotion.

“No more; where ignorance is Bliss, ‘tis folly to be wise.” This falls at the end of a poem written by Thomas Gray. I find it fitting to the reason for the death in the movie. All of these monks were dying because they were somehow linked with attempting to read a book none thought existed. In the movie, it was true bliss if you were ignorant to the book for you continued to enjoy life. But how true can this be in real life? I do now know myself whether I enjoy knowing more or not knowing. This does not relate as much to hard knowledge from my perspective but to relations to people. The real question I feel though is, can bliss be achieved without ignorance or are you stuck with either or?