Soda, or pop? It's a simple question, with a seemingly simple answer: soda. Unless, of course, you live in western Pennsylvania. Then the answer is clearly pop. So, which is the true answer? If you had asked me an hour ago, I would've replied that there was no true answer, because the difference in vocabulary was simply a difference in culture. How can one culture be more right than the other? They can't, obviously. That part of my answer hasn't changed. However, after reading the excellent article "The Challenge of Cultural Relativism" by James Rachels, I can no longer say that there is no truth, as easy as it that is to say. The soda vs. pop example is obviously not very dramatic, but there are indeed some aspects of life that are right and wrong. To illustrate this concept, let's look at Things Fall Apart, shall we?
While reading this book for the first time, I went through three "stages" of comprehending the text. The first stage was my initial reaction to everything. Okonkwo's multiple wives, his beating of them, the killing of twin babies, etc. It was general culture shock. After a while, I entered what I considered stage two of my reading, which was the "Cultural Relativism" phase. I watched as Okonkwo repeatedly beat his wives for not performing duties I found akin to those a slave would perform, and told myself, "I can't judge these actions, because they're acceptable within the culture they're surrounded by, and it's just different from mine, and that's okay." I watched Okonkwo kill the boy he had come to see as a son in order to cement his manhood, and thought "It's just part of a culture that isn't my own, that's why it seems wrong and I can't blame them for that." But then, I read Rachels' article. That led me to the third stage of Things Fall Apart.
As the article states, there are serious problems with the theory of Cultural Relativity. I believe the foremost among those problems is the false sense of security, if you will, that comes with the theory. If all we ever say is, "We're different, therefore there's no right or wrong here", we allow for wrong to exist when it should not. Things are wrong, as the article points out. Across the board, we as humans, in every society, have deemed murder and lying inherently wrong. But according to the Cultural Relativism theory, nothing can really be "wrong", because everything merely becomes "different", and people cannot be judged for their differences. Having been enlightened to the dangers of fully getting behind the theory of Cultural Relativism, I reexamined some aspects of Things Fall Apart. Certain things that bothered me before, such as leaving the twins in the forest to die, still upset me, but made more sense when I looked into the reasons behind such an act, instead of just saying "Well, it's different, so I don't have to worry about it." If the village believed that twins were a source of evil, doesn't it make sense that in order to protect their society, they would remove this threat? I believe it does. I also believe that under the protection of Cultural Relativity, I was allowing myself to forgive too easily the hand Okonkwo played in murdering Ikemefuna. I had been willing to accept that it wasn't something I could have done, but in a cultural that prized manliness, if Okonkwo needed to take part in killing his foster child, that's just a different culture and I can't judge. Well, as it turns out, I can judge, but not because the culture of the Igbo people is different from my own. I can judge Okonkwo for striking the fatal blow because he willingly participated in murder. I don't care where you're from or what your traditions are, as the article points out, killing people is not accepted by humanity as a whole. Okonkwo's voluntary part in the murder of Ikemefuna is not "different", it is wrong. And just as the article suggests we look past the Cultural Relativity theory to better understand each other, so too should we look past it to better understand literature.
Thursday, January 10, 2013
Wednesday, January 2, 2013
Yes, Virginia, you DO relate to Hamlet.
At this point, this blog post is so late, it shouldn't even be given any credit. I'm just forcing myself to sit down and do it to clear my guilty conscience. Someone else suffering from a guilty conscience is my good friend Prince Hamlet. Hamlet knows all about the emotions that come with letting things go too late: regret, anxiety, and most powerful of all, guilt. Throughout the play, we see the prince assign himself the task of avenging his father's death. It seems pretty clear cut, but Hamlet struggles to accomplish his goal. It may be frustrating for modern teens reading the play to understand Hamlet's delay in acting. They simply get annoyed by his waffling and toss the book away in disgust, not wanting to "waste" their time reading Shakespeare, least of all Shakespeare in which "nothing happens". But if Hamlet's character was examined a bit more closely by my peers, I believe they'd find they have quite a bit in common with the gloomy prince.
First, let's talk about the regret aspect of Hamlet's character. What, exactly, does he regret? The death of his father, of course. But more than that, Hamlet regrets his own weakness. He regrets the fact that even though he knows (or believes he knows) what he has to do, he can't bring himself to do it. In his admittedly long-winded soliloquies, Hamlet expresses frustration and regret that he struggles to take action against Claudius, bemoaning the fact that a fictional character in a play can "force his soul to his own conceit" faster than he can. This leads in to the next emotion getting in our hero's way: anxiety. One would think that the young, well-liked heir to the throne of a powerful country wouldn't have too much to worry about, but this is a tragedy we're talking about here. Following Hamlet's regret at his plight comes the anxiety. Why hasn't he taken his revenge yet? Did he pass up the only chance he'd ever get to kill his uncle? Is he even capable of avenging his father's murder? Why would his father assign him this task if he couldn't follow through? Does that make him a worthless person, or worse, a worthless son? These are the types of questions I picture flying through Hamlet's head while he hems and haws and schemes and doesn't take action. After all, when something goes wrong, especially one's plans for revenge, we like to look for somebody to blame. And for every cynic who says we only blame others, there are two people like Hamlet who know from experience that the doubt and anxieties never truly leave your own shoulders. Completing Hamlet's vicious trifecta of crippling emotions is guilt. Despite his mandatory heroic flaws, I would argue that Hamlet really is a good prince and son. He recognizes that what Claudius and his mother have done is bad for both Denmark as a nation and the royal family. What child wouldn't be willing to come to the defense of their parent (or carry out a revenge killing in their honor, as the case may be)? That's where Hamlet stumbles into the wicked swamp that is guilt. As Shakespeare makes painfully obvious, Hamlet really wants to do his father's (ghost's) bidding. He wants so badly to kill his traitorous uncle and set things right in Denmark. And as we see, he does, eventually. But it takes him so long. And all along the way, he's hating himself for it. The responsibility placed upon his shoulders is a cut and dry deal, yet he cannot bring himself to do it, and that's when the guilt starts piling on. His father's well-being in the afterlife is riding on Hamlet, and he's failing. There could be no worse feeling for the poor prince, and to me, that's where the tragedy in this play truly lies: watching this young man fall apart, only receiving a Pyrrhic victory for his struggles.
So we've established that Hamlet is a pretty miserable guy. Understandably so. But what does that have to do with connecting modern youngsters to this 400 year old play? Everything. Because as much as we teenagers moping through English class don't want to admit, we are all Hamlet. People don't change; regret, anxiety, and guilt are all emotions to which those of us are accustomed. I'll use myself as an example. Without boasting, I am a very good student. I love my classes, and I want to do well in them; much like Hamlet was a good prince, who loved his father very much, and wanted to do right by him. Yet sometimes, the pressure I feel and the workload I am given causes me to make a mistake and miss assignments. Despite my best efforts, I often struggle to make them up due to intense feelings of guilt, shame, etc. One would think that feeling guilty would encourage one to redress the issue sooner, but for me at least, it just adds to the quagmire and slows everything down. My point that I'm attempting to make here is that everyone can relate to the tragic hero of Hamlet, because the emotions he feels and expresses throughout the play are ones that everyone, especially teens in high school, have felt before.
First, let's talk about the regret aspect of Hamlet's character. What, exactly, does he regret? The death of his father, of course. But more than that, Hamlet regrets his own weakness. He regrets the fact that even though he knows (or believes he knows) what he has to do, he can't bring himself to do it. In his admittedly long-winded soliloquies, Hamlet expresses frustration and regret that he struggles to take action against Claudius, bemoaning the fact that a fictional character in a play can "force his soul to his own conceit" faster than he can. This leads in to the next emotion getting in our hero's way: anxiety. One would think that the young, well-liked heir to the throne of a powerful country wouldn't have too much to worry about, but this is a tragedy we're talking about here. Following Hamlet's regret at his plight comes the anxiety. Why hasn't he taken his revenge yet? Did he pass up the only chance he'd ever get to kill his uncle? Is he even capable of avenging his father's murder? Why would his father assign him this task if he couldn't follow through? Does that make him a worthless person, or worse, a worthless son? These are the types of questions I picture flying through Hamlet's head while he hems and haws and schemes and doesn't take action. After all, when something goes wrong, especially one's plans for revenge, we like to look for somebody to blame. And for every cynic who says we only blame others, there are two people like Hamlet who know from experience that the doubt and anxieties never truly leave your own shoulders. Completing Hamlet's vicious trifecta of crippling emotions is guilt. Despite his mandatory heroic flaws, I would argue that Hamlet really is a good prince and son. He recognizes that what Claudius and his mother have done is bad for both Denmark as a nation and the royal family. What child wouldn't be willing to come to the defense of their parent (or carry out a revenge killing in their honor, as the case may be)? That's where Hamlet stumbles into the wicked swamp that is guilt. As Shakespeare makes painfully obvious, Hamlet really wants to do his father's (ghost's) bidding. He wants so badly to kill his traitorous uncle and set things right in Denmark. And as we see, he does, eventually. But it takes him so long. And all along the way, he's hating himself for it. The responsibility placed upon his shoulders is a cut and dry deal, yet he cannot bring himself to do it, and that's when the guilt starts piling on. His father's well-being in the afterlife is riding on Hamlet, and he's failing. There could be no worse feeling for the poor prince, and to me, that's where the tragedy in this play truly lies: watching this young man fall apart, only receiving a Pyrrhic victory for his struggles.
So we've established that Hamlet is a pretty miserable guy. Understandably so. But what does that have to do with connecting modern youngsters to this 400 year old play? Everything. Because as much as we teenagers moping through English class don't want to admit, we are all Hamlet. People don't change; regret, anxiety, and guilt are all emotions to which those of us are accustomed. I'll use myself as an example. Without boasting, I am a very good student. I love my classes, and I want to do well in them; much like Hamlet was a good prince, who loved his father very much, and wanted to do right by him. Yet sometimes, the pressure I feel and the workload I am given causes me to make a mistake and miss assignments. Despite my best efforts, I often struggle to make them up due to intense feelings of guilt, shame, etc. One would think that feeling guilty would encourage one to redress the issue sooner, but for me at least, it just adds to the quagmire and slows everything down. My point that I'm attempting to make here is that everyone can relate to the tragic hero of Hamlet, because the emotions he feels and expresses throughout the play are ones that everyone, especially teens in high school, have felt before.
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