Free Will Exists!

When I first read Slaughterhouse Five I made a lot of connections between Billy Pilgrim and Forest Gump. They were both rather plain men who just had extraordinary things happen to them. Now I see that there is a big difference between them. Billy is mean to be a satire, a creature who doesn’t seem to care that he entirely lacks free will. During discussion we made a lot of connections between Billy and Meursault but I think that they are still different people. This is one of the few books that I have read this year where the author’s stance on morals is more clear than most. Vonnegut does not believe in war. He does want his children having anything to do with it. He thinks that people should do everything in their power to stop it. If there wasn’t a clear author point of view in the beginning and end it would still shine through in the text. Billy is unlikeable and lackadaisical. He is the opposite of solider thrown into a war and the lucky witness to many horrifying things which do not seem to faze him. The Trafalmadorians are toilet plungers which ignore everything bad which has ever happened and choose to focus on only good things. That is no way to live life. Even the crude rapper 50 Cent (Yes that is the name which goes by for his public persona) acknowledges that “sunny days wouldn’t be special if it wasn’t for rain/ joy wouldn’t feel so good if it wasn’t for pain.” Just like in Beloved the bad things in the past must be given equal acknowledgement so that they don’t happen again. Before I read the book I had no idea that Dresden was even a place, much less was I aware of the thing which happened there. Oh I knew all about Hiroshima and the concentration camps and everything else but I had never even heard of Dresden. My boyfriend was there today actually and his guide talked about the bombing and even mentioned Slaughterhouse Five. But most of the world still has no idea. I just re-read this post. It mostly has nothing to do with my big question. But that’s OK. I covered a few other things in my own rambling way.

If you can't control your circumstances are you still a bad person?

I would like to begin by saying that I liked Beloved. I think that reading a book and not being able to get past the shocking surface defeats the purpose of reading it. At times it was indeed a little gruesome but it added to the overall concept. I found it enchanting and I loved how twisted the story was, you never knew what you would discover next. With that, it also completely connected to my big blog question. Sethe believed that she was entirely justified in killing all of her children so that they would not have to suffer what she had. Everyone else did not believe so. It seems that a lot of the books that we are dealing with this year focus on a single, isolated character who has different beliefs than the rest of the society in which they live. That is essentially my question, can a person determine their own set of morals, or, do they have to adhere to society’s to be accepted? Sethe was entirely isolated after she tried to murder her children. Even until the very end she believed it was right. She refused to believe that Beloved was a malevolent spirit. So was Morrison trying to show that a person’s morals can become so warped that they are beyond help, like there are things that we simply cannot recover from? Or was she trying to show that a person’s experiences help in forming morals? Either way, Sethe seemed to have inflicted harm on more people than not. Is she a bad person or is it not her fault because she cannot control the experiences which made her that way? I personally think that most people are able to choose whether or not they make themselves a good person, but in some circumstances it is almost impossible to thrive and become a moral hero. Beloved raised many good questions. One of my main ones for much of the time I was reading it was “what the hell?” However, by the end I found that I had enjoyed the book and the many questions it raised.

Meursault, you are not lacking morals

I started out the stranger how I think most people started out the stranger. This is the absolute weirdest thing I have read in my life. Why is he so blunt? Why is the story told so oddly? How come he acts like this? However as the story and our discussions progressed, my jealousy of Meursault grew. I would like to be able to say exactly how I felt and feel however I wanted. He appears to disregard societal norms in terms of feeling but not in terms of behavior. Until he kills someone obviously. So does Meursault’s particular mindset make him appear to the rest of us as though he lacks morals? Or does he simply have his own set of twisted morals? He appears indifferent to his mother’s death, but he may simply have his own way of dealing with it. Perhaps chain smoking, sleeping, and drinking coffee with milk are simply his own particular way of grieving. Perhaps telling Marie that he does not love her, but consoling her that it does not matter is his way of being honest and trying to comfort her. His morals, obviously are different than those which society would normally assign to a person, but it is difficult to say that he lacks them entirely. So does society determine morality or does each individual and each separate situation determine a set of morals? Why do we think Meursault is so weird and is he really that different than us? I know I have been in situations where I know that I am supposed to be sad but don’t really feel sad. Yes great uncle whom I’ve never met, I am so sad at your funeral. But if I hadn’t at least appeared sad or somber my entire family would have thought I was crazy. Even though it is easy to understand why I would not be upset about the death of someone who had not had an impact on me whatsoever. And so Meursault, you appear to be an odd duck, however, I am a little jealous of your power.

Crime and Punishment: The Punishment of Morality

What is morality and how is it determined? In Crime and Punishment, Roskolnikov goes through stages in which he questions his own morality. Some characters in the book are always moral; Razumihin never falters in his loyalty to Roskolnikov or his love of Dounia. It appears as though he is the most content and the least damaged of all the characters in the book. However Roskolnikov’s morality is ambiguous, even to him it seems. He is constantly questioning himself; debating between his logic and his heart. Sonia believes in his morality; she still loves him even after he confesses the murder to her. Even the judge who tries him agrees that it was an odd circumstance and he got only eight years in prison for murdering two people. So why does he not believe it? His confession shows that he no longer believes the murder was justifiable. He managed to get away with it but it weighed so heavily on his conscience that he had to confess. It seems like his punishment was more trying to avoid than trying to get caught; he is in greater turmoil before he is sentenced than while he is actually in Siberia. Then maybe everyone enacts their own morality on themselves, the guilt of doing something wrong tells each person what they believe to be wrong. Some people have a hard time breaking rules, even little ones: pulling through in diagonal parking spots or taking two samples at the grocery store. But is that a morality issue or does morality deal with bigger things? Like murder. What determines the size of morality versus little guilt?

Lear: Right or Wrong?

And so, we reach the end of a tragedy. It seems that end of tragedy would a good thing; the misery is over and we begin to see things rebuild. However in King Lear it appears that everyone just dies; there is one person left to rule the kingdom. I found that it did indeed lack the catharsis of a normal tragedy but I think that is what I liked about it. That’s how it made its point: some things are just too wrong to ever be fixed. Some things such as universal social and family structure are what help establish right and wrong. Parents should be respected. Kings should be respected even more. Obviously Regan and Goneril and Edmund missed this memo. Or they decided that they were above it. No matter who you are, right and wrong exists. However some people are under the impression that these are somehow different for them. Like we talked about in class, some politicians being believing that the normal rules do not apply to them. Sure, they can cheat on their wives. They have power. So in their minds it is not wrong. Regan and Goneril both seem to be having similar thoughts. They think that they can treat their father as they wish because all of the sudden they are in power. They do not need be faithful to their husbands and can instead lust after Edmund. Their worlds are warped. And so, we see that power has the ability to warp right and wrong. Or it has the ability to warp perspective on such matters. Either way, power is one of those funny things that can throw off the balance of society or families. It changes people and it changes what they think about right and wrong. The universal truths of what we believe to be right and wrong are changeable based on perspective.

Oedipus: Immoral or Fated?

Are the ideals of right and wrong universal or situational? Does Oedipus not being able to control his fate make the things that he does wrong? Does this make him immoral? Sleeping with one’s mother and killing one’s father would be considered universally wrong, but because Oedipus is fated to do so is it still wrong? If someone cannot control their fate is what they end up doing wrong? Then comes the idea of trying to fight one’s fate. Oedipus’ parents as well as Oedipus try to fight their fate and in doing so, set their fate into action. They see their fate as wrong and therefore trying to fight it sets it in action and they end up doing things that would be considered “wrong?” Must we then look at them as moral characters because they have tried to do the “right thing” and failed or is what they have done simply wrong? The choragus seems to believe that he should not be pitied, “Let every man in mankind’s frailty/ Consider his last day.” This thought seems to echo that people are tied to their fate and nothing they can do will change that. Whether they fight their fate or not does not affect the fate because they are pre-destined to do so and therefore will end up with their fate anyway. This brings up the idea of having one character flaw. As Aristotle pointed out, it is Oedipus’ hubris which “does him in” and sets his fate in motion. Which then makes him do “wrong” things. Can doing a thing so horrid truly be blamed on a character flaw as Aristotle thinks? It seems that Oedipus is otherwise a good person. He truly cares about the people he rules, “I have sent Kreon… to learn there… what act of mine might save the city.” He truly wishes do all that is in his power to stop the plague. He is not entirely bad and this is what makes him a tragic hero. So, if Oedipus trying to change his fate makes him wrong, or having a single character flaw makes him wrong, then it seems that everyone at some point is wrong, it simply is not in our fate to become incestuous murders. It was in his. Therefore Oedipus is not immoral, he is simply fated.

The image above would be one of Oedipus. As the one in class did, this one makes his blood appear to be tear-like. I liked this because it is less stereotypical of a picture of Oedipus. It does not show any human features; therefore it only represents the story behind Oedipus. The crown is exactly as long as the face because his hubris and his nobleness are equally part of his character as his downfall is. The bandage concealing the face seem to represent his shame and horror which has taken place in his life.

The First Ideas

If a man stole all of your belongings and you find him is it right to then take all of his belongings as well? When there are no technical rules what becomes correct? Where is the line drawn? If there is no longer any food in the world, is it acceptable to eat people? How does society, or a lack thereof, shape one’s understanding of what is right and wrong?
In our society we seem to have decided what is right and wrong. Is it right for some people to spend hundreds of dollars on a single meal while others die of hunger? In The Road Cormac McCarthy strips down everything which has been created by society to reveal, at its finest and worst, human nature. Throughout the book, the nameless main characters refer to each other as “the good guys.” They don’t eat people. They do things which may not be considered right in our society today, however the reader views them as the most moral in the story. Other characters have turned to cannibalism, forming gangs, and taking slaves.
When there is no longer society it is up to the individual human being to decide what is right and wrong.
In America prostitution is frowned up and illegal. In Japan it is largely accepted and illegal. Sometimes what the government says is illegal is still acceptable. So what makes society in general decide if something is wrong? The Dave Matthews Band has a song which states “Funny the way it is, if you think about it. One kid walks ten miles to school and another’s dropping out. Funny the way it is, not right or wrong.” Maybe sometimes the things that we cannot control are not right or wrong but simply are. Is watching a crime happen and not doing anything about it as bad as committing the crime? Is not doing a good deed as bad as doing a bad deed?
In Government we are learning about the different types of democracy and how there is no perfect way to have a society. There is no perfect way to agree on what is right and wrong then. Maybe anything is justifiable if the situation is right. It may be up an individual to decide what is right or wrong with the opinion of society or without it. Maybe we should all try to be the one moral “good guy” in our society and do things that we see as right even if doing the opposite is not punishable?