Herein I will get my thoughts on past readings out of the way. If anyone's interested in reading them, by all means, do so for whatever sort of amusement you derive from them. If you are thinking along the same lines as me, however, I can only express my deepest sympathy. My mind is a strange place.
Up at bat first is Diderot's Supplement to the Voyage of Bougainvile. It's remarkable how my human geography, history, and literature classes overlap. We talk about ethnocentrism and European misconceptions concerning the Indies in human geography, and then we have a reading on that sort of topic in literature. Dr. Brewton talks today about the Spartans flinging non-Spartan-ideal babies off cliffs, and guess what Dr. Makowski was talking about the other day.
I have a confession to make, though. No, I did the reading. It's not that. It's the name Bougainville. I can't get over it. I'm a German person who finds French bewildering/incomprehensible/hysterically nonsensical, take your pick, so I take one look at 'Bougainville' and start laughing. It just had no dignity left once I saw the pronunciation and mentally connected it with 'boogers'. (I have two younger brothers. These things happen.) And so I was reading about the voyages of Boogerville.
Sorry. I'm trying not to snicker audibly as I type this.
Anyway, I think Diderot set up a strawman argument in hiw whole story about Orou and the Almoner. I'm not sure how serious Diderot was with the whole thing, but the way he gave such an elevated diction and an eloquent manner of articulating his ideas to Orou, who is supposed to be nothing more than an uneducated islander, seems to me to indicate that the whole is a bit of an Author Tract. The Almoner barely presents an argument in his own defense and caves in to the girl. Orou goes on and on in a Wall of Text about his 'natural law' (which isn't much like the definition of natural law I know).
It certainly seems to me that Diderot has fallen prey to the idea of the 'Noble Savage', possibly influenced by Rosseau, who believed that people are naturally good and if left to their own devices, away from the corrupting influences of society, religion, etc., will do good things. This is in contrast to philosophers such as Hobbes and Schopenhauer, who believed people are irredeemably wicked.
This is why I love Christianity. It doesn't just settle for a lukewarm medium, it takes both and runs with it, achieving the crazy balance described in G. K. Chesterton's Orthodoxy. Christianity believes that people are very good creations that have been terribly warped. We will more easily do bad things than we will ever do good things.
It reminds me of a line from the Narn i Hin Hurin, 'The Tale of the Children of Hurin', by J. R. R. Tolkien, where the old lame guy (whose name I cannot recall at the moment, thought I want to say it began with an s) tells Turin, "They have learned far more quickly from the orcs than we have learned from the elves."
It's sad, isn't it? But it's true. Clothing it in sweet words does not help any matters, as Soren says in Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance. However, at least I haven't lost all faith in people. I don't have unshakeable optimism, though.
I'd also like to add to what I touched on in my previous post about the quest for home. I think the quest theme is so prevalent in world literature since the beginning of time since we are all on little quests of our own. We are all searching for a meaning and a purpose to our lives and to all life in general. Also, we are searching for our home, a home that we miss without knowing clearly why or how- our very own Paradise Lost, our original state of innocence that we have lost and which we cannot fully regain on our own.
And we go on searching, nevertheless, even in the worst places of society. We search for meaning and completeness in drugs, in alcohol, in various other vices, and yet we never find it there. You cannot gain happiness by seeking it directly. If you do, it eludes your grasp and turns into the deepest bitterness and unhappiness. If you forget yourself, however, and aim for the good, then happiness will be added unto you...
Oh, and I have to add this about the Basho stuff. This is all I know of Zen Buddhism, and (any actual Buddhists out there are probably actually rolling in their graves):
"There is a knocking without!"
"A knocking without what?"
"A knocking without the door, stupid!"
"A knocking without a door? Is this some kind of Zen?"
It's from Wyrd Sisters, by Terry Pratchett. The quote continues, but I can't remember the rest and can't seem to find it on the Internet at the moment, either...
Today, however, we covered Gulliver's Travels. I find it amusing that Gulliver's first name is 'Lemuel', because, as far as I can remember, it is King LemENuel who is referenced in the Bible. (Knowing about 17th and 18th century Protestants' love of giving Old Testament names to their children).
Anyway, you may dissect the levels of satire in Jonathan Swift's works all you like, but I still don't care for him. I do believe he was misanthropic, and I submit as my evidence this quote in the book itself, page 231: "But principally I hate and detest that animal called man, although I heartily love John, Peter, Thomas, and so forth."
I find it curious that he loves individuals but hates the race. The race is an abstract concept, which would seem easier to love than individuals. At least, I see it that way. The exact opposite of Swift is Dr. Weston from Out of the Silent Planet, by C. S. Lewis. Weston has lost all the rules of natural law except one, the love of his race. As the Oyarsa (angelic ruler) of Malacandra (Mars) points out, that one rule has been exalted in Weston's mind to the detriment and loss of everything else, becoming "a little blind Oyarsa" ordering Weston to do insane things for the propagation of mankind across the stars.
It's a good thing Ransom stopped him. I like Ransom, at least in Out of the Silent Planet and Perelandra. (I don't know what happened in between Perelandra and That Hideous Strength, but I don't advocate reading the latter. I just don't. It's bewildering and not even interesting, save for one good chapter, 'The Descent of the Gods', and the bit where the villains get killed in various horrible ways.) I like Ransom's name- Elwin Ransom. The fact that a lot of people think he was based off of J. R. R. Tolkien doesn't hurt (and I subscribe to this theory myself).
Well. I think I have the majority of my thoughts out of the way, in no cohesive or logical order. Anyway. Apologies for rambling.
In Pace Christi,
Elyse
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