Philosophy In Literature Spring 2009, Highlights and Lowlights

Please note that the “Lowlights” include extracts from some of the best papers, and the “Highlights” include extracts from bad papers. What matters most is that a paper is well thought out as a whole: a good paper is not merely a collection of good comments, it is one that can succeed even if it contains some errors. A bad paper is one that cannot be redeemed by an occasional moment of insight.

Lowlights:

“I will assume that everyone reading this paper has already read Nineteen Eighty-Four, and therefore no summary of the book will be provided.”
For the record, you should assume that your readers assume that you will assume this. Don’t even waste words pointing out that you won’t waste words with a summary.

“The perfect example of Images in nowadays ruling a country is the image of Hugo Chavez and Fidel Castro.”
First, some points of grammar: there is no need to capitalize “Images”, nor for any italics in this sentence. Nor is there any need for “in” before the word “nowadays”, which is, in any case a little too colloquial. More importantly, this sentence introduces a theme that is worn-out and obvious, leading to the conclusion:

“Each of them created and followed a party with idealistic methods of living and managing inside the society as also their own laws for their advantage. This is my point of view regarding what George Orwell tried to explain us in the novel 1984 about people acceptance for an Image towards a party that almost everyone didn’t liked naturally.” 
This is just not interesting enough for an essay in a Junior-level class. I’d expect a twelve year old to be able to think of this. It isn’t that its wrong, it is too obviously right to be worth making the central point in your paper. (As I noted in class, it is easy to find leaders from either end of the political spectrum who can be compared to Big Brother).

“For there would be millions of people being caught by the thought police and taken to room 101 simultaneously. Making it impossible for the proles and the outer party not to rebel., therefore, I find it completely irrational.”
Again, I note some points of grammar. “Thought Police” and “Room 101” should be capitalized. “Making it impossible for the proles and the outer party not to rebel” should be part of the previous sentence – it is clearly a subordinate clause. It is the fact that millions of people would be in Room 101 that makes it impossible for there to be no rebellion. The combination of period and comma after “rebel” is a blatant error that should have been spotted when proof-reading the paper. The over-all impression is that this sentence was written hastily and wasn’t corrected afterwards.
Also, the conclusion “I find it completely irrational” is far too strong. It would be sufficient to describe the situation as “rather implausible” or “highly unrealistic.” The evidence supports such a conclusion. To describe it as “completely irrational” suggests that Orwell did not merely make a mistake, but that his error was utterly absurd. One wonders why so many people have taken the novel seriously if it is this bad. As Carl Sagan said, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

“Like that of Christopher Columbus that said that world was round when everyone thought it was flat, and that of Isaac Newton with his theories about gravity, etc. the truth is that the mind is bombed with random images all day long, some may not make any sense but eventually it is all about different things we experience or see and has nothing to do with language.”
The comment about Christopher Columbus is a cliché, which is bad in itself. Furthermore, it is a historical misconception. The fact that this error was immortalized in a song that was written by George and Ira Gershwin and introduced by Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers is no excuse for perpetuating it.
Even worse, the argument of this sentence is a bad one. We are presented with new images on a regular basis (although I wouldn’t say that I am “bombed with random images all day long”, not unless I spend the whole day watching MTV), but perceptions are not thoughts. What set Newton apart was not that saw things other people did not, but that he tried to make sense of them, and in doing so, came up with new thoughts. Those new thoughts were expressed using the language of mathematics; Newton was capable of expanding the realm of science because he had invented a new form of mathematics, calculus. Ask yourself, could Newton have invented calculus without, in the process, inventing a notation for it, that is, a new language? My complaint about this extract is not that the student gives the wrong answer to this question, but that the question is not even posed. We are just told that Newton’s scientific contributions had nothing to do with language as though this were an obvious fact. It isn’t.

“To define human nature while ignoring the results of showing that nature, would be ineffective to the point.”
I can’t figure out what this means. I’m pretty sure that the comma is not needed. The sentence starts to make sense if you eliminate “to the point.”

Highlights:

“Through the novel, Winston makes these sorts of remarks about the proles, as if he were placing the blame on them, for not doing something to change the current situation.”
This sentence would be even better if the sentence cited from the novel really had been about the proles, but still, it is an interesting suggestion and one can find textual support. The failure of the proles to fulfil Winston’s hopes is a source of frustration. Is Orwell trying to reflect the sense of despair that many middle class socialists have about the failure of the proletariat to live up to expectations? This is a thought that leads in a new, unexpected direction.

“It doesn’t matter if the Capitalists were considered “evil,” any child would fantasize on what it would be like to own everything and everyone and live in a beautiful house…” An interesting thought about how the Party’s propaganda might be self-defeating. This is also a problem that concerns the monks in The Name of the Rose: how does one represent what sin is without making it seem attractive?

“So, if Orwell didn’t believe in a God, then why do I write about comparing God and big brother? Well, I think that the way in which Orwell characterized the inner party and Big Brother he shows his atheism by “deifying” Big Brother…and of course how he sees “God” as a fictitious entity …”
We will be considering this analogy further as we explore The Name of the Rose. Many students initially identify Big Brother with the Pope, the Emperor or, in the case of The Brothers Karamazov with the Czar. Identifying Big Brother with God shows a much deeper understanding of Orwell’s world-view. Of course, the extract would be even better if the capitalization were consistent.

From the same paper: “The idea of a virgin having a child and still being a virgin after birth is almost exactly the same as believing that 2+2=5, and surprisingly as it sounds about 1.131 billion people around the globe still believe this story…”
An even better example than virgin birth would have been transubstantiation: the view that, during the Mass, bread and wine become the body and blood of Jesus: faith in transubstantiation completely contradicts the clear evidence of the senses. In the words of St. Thomas Aquinas (translated by Gerard Manley Hopkins):

Seeing, touching, tasting are in thee deceived:
How says trusty hearing? that shall be believed;
What God's Son has told me, take for truth I do;
Truth Himself speaks truly or there's nothing true.

Statements of faith such as this are seen by some sociologists as a means of signalling one’s adherence to the group, by placing complete trust in the group’s leader. During the Reformation, belief in transubstantiation became a symbol of loyalty to Catholicism. Winston is required to show similar trust in O’Brien and, ultimately, Big Brother.

Orwell, I suspect, would have seen not merely an analogy, but a moral equivalence between medieval Catholicism and 20^th Century totalitarianism. However, one can accept the parallels without accepting the moral equivalence – one might argue, for example, that 1984 presents a world with what is, in effect, a Satanic religion, where hatred rather than love is the primary religious emotion.

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