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WRITING FOR A REAL WORLD

Writing for a

Real World

2008 - 2009

A multidisciplinary anthology by USF students

PUBLISHED BY THE UNIVERSITY OF SAN FRANCISCO PROGRAM IN RHETORIC AND COMPOSITION

Writing for a Real World (WRW) is published annually by the Program in Rhetoric and Composition, Communication Studies Department,

College of Arts and Sciences, University of San Francisco.

WRW is governed by the PRC Publication Committee, chaired by Devon C. Holmes. Members are: Brian Komei Dempster,

David Holler, Michelle LaVigne, Elise Mussman, and David Ryan.

Writing for a Real World: 7th Edition. © 2009.The opinions stated herein are those of the authors. Authors retain copyright for their individual work.

Essays include bibliographical references. The format and practice of documenting sources are determined by each writer. Writers are

responsible for validating and citing their research.Cover design by and cover image courtesy of David Holler.

Images Editor: David Holler.Printer: DeHarts Printing, San Jose, CA.

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

To get involved as a referee, serve on the publication committee, or to learn about submitting to WRW, please contact Devon C. Holmes at <[email protected]>. For back issues, contact David Holler at <[email protected]>. Other inquiries: Writing for a Real World, University of San Francisco, Kalmanovitz Hall, Rm. 202, 2130 Fulton Street, San Francisco, CA, 94117.

Fair Use Statement: Writing for a Real World is an educational journal whose mission is to showcase the best undergraduate writing at the University of San Francisco. Student work often contextualizes and recontextualizes the work of others within the scope of course-related assignments. WRW presents these articles with the specifi c objective of advancing an understanding of academic knowledge, scholarship, and research. We believe that this context constitutes a “fair use” of copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material herein is made available by WRW without profi t to those students and faculty who are interested in receiving this information for research, scholarship, and educational purposes.

Writing for a Real World

2008 - 2009

EditorDavid Ryan

Managing Editor and Cover DesignerDavid Holler

Associate EditorsBrian Komei Dempster

Devon Christina HolmesMichelle LaVigne

Mark Meritt

Publication AssistantElise Mussman

Program AssistantTheresa Newman

Journal RefereesVeronica Andrew, Rhetoric and Composition

Shona Doyle, Arts and Sciences, Offi ce of the DeanVanessa Gamache, School of Business and Management

Joe Garity, Gleeson LibraryDavid Holler, Rhetoric and Composition

Devon C. Holmes, Rhetoric and CompositionSaera Khan, Psychology

Ron Key, Rhetoric and CompositionMichelle LaVigne, Rhetoric and CompositionTheodore Matula, Rhetoric and Composition

Mark Meritt, Rhetoric and CompositionLorrie Ranck, Offi ce of Living-Learning Communities

Tanu Sankalia, Arts + ArchitectureDarrell g.h. Schramm, Rhetoric and Composition

Sara Solloway, Offi ce of Student Academic ServicesFredel Wiant, Rhetoric and Composition


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Reading and Writing in the Disciplines 6 Honorable Mentions 10

Sartrean Authenticity and Contemporary Black Solidarity HEATHER M. FOX 12 “No Sense of Absolute Corruption”: Damien Hirst and the Art Question ANNA ROSE TULL 25

The Experience of Hyper-Modernity in Don DeLillo’s Cosmopolis SHAINE SCARMINACH 35

Tinker v. Des Moines: A Rhetorical Analysis of the Authority Practiced in Court Language KELLY TENN 47

Appellate Brief for the U.S. Supreme Court ANYA WASKO 58

The Misleading Nature of Rhetoric CHELSEA LALANCETTE 71

“Let’s Reinvent the Gods, All the Myths of the Ages”: Jim Morrison and the Return of the Bacchae BETHANY GOODRICH 78

Plato’s Justice and the Social Contract: The Confl ict of the Unjust Agreement DENNIS LAMBERT 90

Karol Wojtyla in the Trajectory of Polish History JOEY BELLEZA 107

Table of Contents


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Lessons to be Learned from Denouncing Lessons BRENNA MCCALLICK 121

Caption Needed: “Afghan” Girl Requires 1000 Words CAROLINE KANGAS 130

How to Be a Real Woman JESSICA CORDOVA 142

No Sex EZEKIEL CRAGO 149

Translating the Language of Science LAURA SANDERS 162

Harvesting the World’s Lungs: Repercussions of Destroying the Amazon Rain Forest ANA CHING 172

An Analysis of Just War Theory MYLES MURPHY 181

Defi ning Terrorism in Anti-Abortion Violence MAGGIE MULLEN 192

A Commitment towards Peace BRYCE SAWIN 200

Chronic Truancy in the Western Addition CELESTE PARISI 213

Direct-to-Consumer Personal Genomics: Promise or Pretense? KATHERINE S. BURKE 226


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Reading and Writing in the Disciplines

Writing for a Real World invites careful reading of the quiet and most diffi cult work that normally occurs in a student’s life. Though

lectures, discussions, and debates give primacy to listening and speaking in our classrooms, students are also challenged to work toward a greater understanding of their subjects by pursuing an excellence related to reading and writing.

In our seventh and largest edition, our authors write on a range of subjects and for a variety of disciplines. In this varied collection, one of the more common kinds of writing is one that responds to reading. As students draw on texts to develop their own ideas, they create a context in which they have to defend their claims, so they cohere their ideas into something supportable, believable, even persuasive. Thus, as writing teachers often argue, there is no better context for improving reading skills than requiring responsive writing, and there is no more eff ective way to improve student writing than to assign challenging readings. Whether the readings are Plato, Cicero, Locke, Sartre, Charles Dodgson (Lewis Carroll), Don DeLillo, George Orwell, Amy Tan, or Jeanette Winterson, students respond by synthesizing and analyzing these sources into the body of their arguments. Working within this dialectical process—of reading, interpreting, analyzing, writing, and revising—is one of the more diffi cult learning contexts facing students. Happily, our authors excel at writing because they are good interpretive readers. These students understand that analysis is a fundamental part of their intellectual vocation, and this work requires moral principle, aesthetic preference, and rational argument, particularly when incorporating texts that hold views contrary to theirs. For WRW’s audience, reading recontextualized work poses many challenges. For one, these papers were composed for specifi c, discourse-related audiences, so knowledge of certain terms and theories are assumed and not always explained. Furthermore, explicit arguments are clear, but the implicit ones (between student and teacher) may leave readers puzzled; at the same time, our authors prompt us to examine our own attitudes toward their subjects, so reading their essays may resist easy comprehension. To help clarify this context, each essay is preceded by introductions from the writers and their teachers. We hope their comments improve the conditions for reading their recontextualized work.


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Notes This year, our staff made a concerted eff ort to increase submissions. As a result, our entries rose by over 40 percent from the previous year. Despite this substantial increase, we know there were many more commendable papers that eluded our notice. Quite regularly, faculty would browse our stack of entries, hoping to fi nd specifi c papers written for their classes. For the most part, faculty were rewarded for their curiosity, but, sometimes, they left disappointed. Though all undergraduates were encouraged to apply, many were just too busy with their end-of-the-semester commitments to submit their work.

For those who did, our referees reviewed carefully 134 entries, and every paper was read by at least two readers, and every winning submission had to pass the review of at least four referees. Here, we present 20 papers written from last year, and we thank our new as well as experienced judges for reviewing the submissions with great care and patience. Our journal referees are listed on page three.

Fr. Urban Grassi, S.J. AwardIn this issue, the Program in Rhetoric and Composition announces its third annual Fr. Urban Grassi, S.J. Award for Eloquentia Perfecta, an award named after USF’s fi rst professor of English and Elocution. This award is given to the highest rated entry. This year’s winner is Heather M. Fox for her essay, “Sartrean Authenticity and Contemporary Black Solidarity,” written for Professor Ronald Sundstrom. Congratulations to Heather for her remarkable accomplishment!

Acknowledgements and GratitudeWith every issue, we renew our gratitude to those folks who continue to support the book at hand. We are deeply grateful to Jennifer Turpin, Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, who created a welcome home for this project many years ago, and Peter Novak, Associate Dean of Arts and Humanities, College of Arts and Sciences, who treats writers and writing with enthusiasm and aff ection.

The instructors of our authors earn our special thanks for composing their introductions during their summer break. This gratitude extends to Brian Komei Dempster, David Holler, Devon C. Holmes, Michelle LaVigne, and Mark Meritt for providing a conscientious and energetic push toward publication. Our program assistant, Theresa Newman, and publication assistant, Elise Mussman, deserve special mention for


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helping WRW meet its many year-round deadlines. Thank you to Norma Washington and John Pinelli for managing the ledger, and a large debt, as well, is owed to Freddie Wiant, Coordinator of the Program in Rhetoric and Composition and Chair of the Communication Studies Department, for shepherding the WRW fl ock.

Finally, our deepest gratitude is reserved for those students who submitted their work. As our Honorable Mention list illustrates on page ten, we received many more commendable papers than we were able to publish. Congratulations to those who earned honorable mention, and, of course, congratulations to our winners, for all of our newest authors bravely enter the realm of published writers writing for a real world. This journal is dedicated to them. —David Ryan, Editor


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Submissions for Writing for a Real World 2009-2010

We announce the eighth annual Writing for a Real World anthology, a publication designed to showcase the best essay, report and pre-professional writing produced by University of San Francisco undergraduates during the 2009-10 academic year. WRW welcomes not only essays and research papers but also scientifi c, business, and technical reports as well as pre-professional writing (e.g., résumés and personal statements). Each published writer will receive a copy of the journal and an individual award; winners and their guests will be invited to an awards reception in Fall 2010. Deadlines for submitting work written for Fall 2009 is December 18, 2009; and for work written for Spring 2010, May 21, 2010. More specifi c submission/contest rules as well as entry forms will be circulated on campus and via USF Connect during the 2009-10 academic year.

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Honorable Mentions

TANYA MARYAM BADAL

The Golden Gate Bridge: When Will the “Mighty Task” Be Done?

written for Written and Oral CommunicationDavid Holler

Rhetoric and Composition

EZEKIEL CRAGO

Hunting Cool in the Urban Junglewritten for Philosophy and Science Fiction

Jeff rey ParisDepartment of Philosophy

MEGAN DRISCOLL

Anti-Zionism and Anti-Semitism: The Quest for Distinction

written for African American PhilosophyRonald Sundstrom

Department of Philosophy

HEATHER M. FOX

Problems of Black Corporatism and the Relative Advantages of Transinstitutional Solidarity



DENNIS LAMBERT

Race and Cooties: The Signifi cance of Dangerous Lies




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MOLLY MALIM

No Child Left Behind: The Commencement of Urban Decay

written for Written and Oral CommunicationDavid Holler

Rhetoric and Composition

TRISSA M. MCCLATCHEY

The Impact of Stress at the Time of Learning on a Delayed Transfer Task

written for Research DesignMarisa R. Knight

Department of Psychology

LETICIA PAGAN

Amount of Contact with a Positive Mentor Predicts Continued Academic Progress

written for Research DesignMarisa R. Knight

Department of Psychology

LAURA SANDERS

Lessons in Quilting: Deconstruction in Sulawritten for Senior Seminar in Literature

Eileen FungDepartment of English

VY TRAN

The Fan Identitywritten for Rhetoric 140

Devon C. HolmesRhetoric and Composition

CATHERINE VERRIERE

Budweiser’s Cultural Literacywritten for Academic Writing at USF

Fran FerranteRhetoric and Composition

SARTREAN AUTHENTICITY AND CONTEMPORARY BLACK SOLIDARITY

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WRITER’S COMMENTS

What most enthralled me in Professor Sundstrom’s African American Philosophy course were questions of whether members of the same race owe anything to one another (as Michael Walzer claims) or inherit some form of pressure to behave in a specifi c way merely because (as Jean-Paul Sartre posits) they have been born a certain race and thus, share a common situation with other members of their given racial group. Though surely philosophical questions, these also undoubtedly pervade popular discourse, phrased in terms of “racial in/authenticity.” In our society, it is deemed almost self-explanatory that racial minorities should behave “authentically” and that racially “inauthentic” behavior is objectionable. In the following paper, using the context of African Americans, I consider whether these popular conceptions and the practice of labeling people in/authentic are ultimately conducive to black solidarity and black America’s effort to achieve worthy goals such as eliminating anti-black racism.

—Heather M. Fox

INSTRUCTOR’S COMMENTS

In societies such as our own, in which ethnic and racial categories play a prominent role, the assumption that members of ethnic and racial groups should act in “solidarity” with their groups and behave in a racially “authentic” manner is very common. Heather Fox skillfully takes apart and criticizes these assumptions through her analysis of Jean-Paul Sartre’s Anti-Semite and Jew. Her arguments against Sartre’s existentialist account of group authenticity are thorough and clarify the conceptual and practical limits of any conception of group authenticity. The end of the idea of group authenticity, however, doesn’t signal the end of the need for group solidarity. Heather recognizes this, and extends her argument by connecting it with contemporary accounts of group solidarity. She incisively argues that although there is a need for some version of solidarity, what solidarity looks like in our world of complex identities and cross-cutting issues is exceptionally different from common and yet ineffective fantasies of ethnoracial unity.

—Ronald R. Sundstrom, Department of Philosophy

HEATHER M. FOX

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HEATHER M. FOX

Sartrean Authenticity and Contemporary Black Solidarity

IN Anti-Semite and Jew, Jean-Paul Sartre declares, the “…Jewish community is based … only on an identity of situation.”1 Although

one may freely choose to “be courageous or cowardly” by either facing his/her condition or evading it, given the existential framework within which all members of the society live, the actions of one racial Other will nevertheless be felt—and potentially suff ered—by all. Many who take seriously this claim that the choices of racialized individuals can potentially devastate the life circumstances of his/her racial peers insist that Others have a moral obligation to behave “authentically.” Sartre, alternatively, denies that individuals have any such obligation, but believes that living authentically can enable Others to both cultivate true solidarity with their fellows and ultimately disempower their oppressors. As Tommie Shelby notes, whether they view authenticity as intrinsically or instrumentally valuable, “…among advocates of black solidarity, collective identity theory is often treated as a truism.”2 In this essay, however, I will argue that despite its alleged intrinsic value or potential pragmatic benefi t to racial Others, the Sartrean conception of existential authenticity as it relates to oppressed racial groups imposes ill-defi ned, and virtually unrealizable demands on individuals; solidarity groups must reject demands for ethnoracial authenticity, an out-dated and potentially highly-counterproductive unity-building mechanism, which is far more likely to undermine solidarity than rally oppressed people to constructive action, enhance group camaraderie or advance important goals.

1. Sartre, Jean-Paul. Anti-Semite and Jew. (New York: Schocken Books Inc., 1948), 85.2. Shelby, Tommie. “Foundations of Black Solidarity: Collective Identity or Common

Oppression?” Ethics 112(2). Jan., 2002 231-266 (235).


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Theoretical Foundation of Sartrean Authenticity

Sartre’s idea of racial authenticity emerges from Anti-Semite and Jew, a work that Michael Walzer introduces as a “Marxist/existentialist morality play,” written to “understand the rootedness of prejudice, hatred, and genocide” in Sartre’s post-WWII France.3 Through his four characters, the anti-Semite, the Democrat and the in/authentic Jews, Sartre constructs a proxy of society in which humans are born into personal existential situations that they have neither chosen, nor can escape, and within which they will live their entire lives, exercise their freedom and choose authenticity or inauthenticity. Ultimately, through the innumerable decisions they make each day, individuals inadvertently create and maintain both their own and others’ situations.

Notably, in Sartre’s drama, one’s racial identity alone determines whether one will live contently or in misery, and thus represents the most determinative aspect of an individual’s life. In the case of the Jew, Sartre posits, the status of racial outsider is his/her “primary reputation.”4 Regardless of what a Jew accomplishes in her life or what her interests or character, it is her socially ascribed racial label that will forever preclude her general happiness and acceptance into the “true” France.5 Throughout the drama, Jews’ racial Otherness uniquely and inalterably alienates them from others and bars them from full-membership to the society.

Sartre holds that the foregoing inextricable connection of the existential conditions of each character and the dominance of race in determining the circumstances of their lives exist, regardless of the fact that Jews do not necessarily share anything in common with one another aside from their Jewish situation. Indeed, in Sartre’s view, Jews are not a “race,”6 and they are not united by a Jewish “essence.” Jews merely (fortuitously) “… live in a community which takes them for Jews.”7 With nothing in common besides their oppression, they are united by a terrifi cally thin conception of race. Jews are, in reality, the wo/men that they believe themselves to be, but they nevertheless live in a society in which to be Jewish is to be mercilessly oppressed by self-gratifying

3. Sartre, (vii). 4. Ibid., 74.5. As Sartre says, “…the greatest success will never gain him entrance into that society which considers itself the ‘real’ one” (80). 6. “If by ‘race,’ is understood that indefi nable complex into which are tossed … both

somatic characteristics and intellectual and moral traits, I believe in it no more than I do in ouija boards,” Sartre mocks (61).

7. Ibid., 67.

HEATHER M. FOX

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racists. Although racial identities are obviously fi ctitious, designed for the sole purpose of aggrandizing one group by oppressing another, they are nevertheless powerful mythologies that invade a racial Other’s life in every conceivable way.

The choices that individuals make within the confi nes of and in response to their situation distinguish each racial Other as either authentic or inauthentic, but neither mode of behavior, both Sartre writes and Walzer prefaces, ameliorate the racial oppression from which Jews are presumed to universally seek refuge. Anti-Semitism, Sartre contends, is symptomatic of class struggle—the unwillingness of the lower-middle class to accept its socioeconomic mediocrity in a rapidly advancing modern society. While racism is the preferred coping mechanism for those who cannot cope with continuous social and economic advancement, the conditions that inspire this racism nevertheless remain. Sartre predicts that until anti-Semites are no longer driven toward racism by socioeconomic pressures and class-discomfort, the ubiquitous oppression of Jews will persist. Given these causes for the anti-Semite’s vehement racism and the Jews’ subsequent racial condition, Walzer aptly notes, “Jewish authenticity is only a way of living well within the Jewish situation; it has no transformative force.”8

Although anti-Semitism will continue to plague Jews no matter how individual Jews choose to behave within their situations, how one Jew behaves still signifi cantly impacts all Jews in both the short and long-term. The Jewish situation, Sartre describes, is one of continual uncertainty.9 If one opts to respond to his/her situation inauthentically, by somehow evading or denying his/her Jewish identity, the anti-Semite will assuredly take notice and gleefully tout the Jew’s uneasiness as proof of his/her unenviable Jewish “nature.” Such (always unsuccessful) attempts to escape, therefore, only succeed in fueling the anti-Semite’s hateful campaign and in further oppressing Jews at large.10 An authentic response to the Jewish condition, in contrast, requires one to resign to his/her status as an oppressed racial Other and to clearly display Jewish solidarity, despite the indignities that s/he will continually endure as a member of a despised group. By accepting the Jewish condition, the authentic “…takes away all power… from anti-Semitism” and consequently, though the Jewish condition cannot disappear without downright revolution, the

8. Ibid., xvii.9. “…his power, and even his right to live may be placed in jeopardy from one moment to

the next” (132).10. Indeed, within this context, by nature of being Jewish, “…it is as if [one’s] acts were

subject to a Kantian imperative” (89).


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authentic ensures that Jewish suff ering is not exacerbated through his/her behavior.11

General Jewish oppression will certainly remain, but so long as Jews do not behave in such a way that the anti-Semite could interpret as fl eeing their condition, Sartre reasons, the racists’ virulence can be somewhat mitigated. Having elaborately constructed the inauthentic’s numerous “avenues of fl ight,” Sartre suggests that anything from exhibiting what could be perceived to be a refl ective attitude, to not behaving in a typically “Jewish manner” in public, to even cultivating one’s mind, could all be construed as inauthentic conduct that could inadvertently become fodder for the anti-Semite’s persecution and Jewish in-group alienation. Jewish authenticity, Sartre says, “… consists in … realizing one’s Jewish condition” and in accepting a life that is perpetually uncomfortable.12 Though he undoubtedly portrays Jewish life in very bleak terms, Sartre’s vision could arguably be defensible—and perhaps even reasonable—if the condition, in which he alleges that all Jews fi nd themselves, were not so terribly unclear. He admits, however, that the Jewish situation upon which he largely groups his entire drama is “almost incomprehensible.”13 Though the situation to which Jews must surrender cannot be coherently defi ned and is thus, presumably, not well understood or universally agreed upon within the Jewish community, Jews are nevertheless deemed inauthentic when they deny or fl ee this condition by somehow acting in “bad faith” and the stigma of inauthenticity harms not only the allegedly inauthentic individual, but also, the entire Jewish community.

Applied Sartrean Authenticity

Indeed, the particular sociohistorical circumstances within which an oppressed group fi nds itself will determine the nature of the universal group situation and correspondingly, what authenticity means and what precisely it demands of would-be authentic persons. Elijah Anderson elucidates this varying nature of racial authenticity in his essay “The Precarious Balance: Race Man or Sellout?,” in which he explores the diff erences between the clear conception of racial authenticity that existed in segregated America through the 1970s and the relatively disjointed black authenticity of more recent times.14 “Race [wo/]men,”

11. Ibid., 137.12. Ibid., 136.13. Ibid., 91.14. Anderson, Elijah. “The Precarious Balance: Race Man or Sellout?.” The Darden

HEATHER M. FOX

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Anderson explains, were certain members of the black community who emerged as leaders in a period of fi erce anti-black racism; they “felt strongly responsible to the black race, especially in front of whites or outsiders to the community” and generally placed the needs of the race before their own. These categorically authentic blacks indeed sought to “advanc[e] the race” and hoped that their example would both inspire downtrodden African Americans and disprove negative generalizations about blacks pervasive in the U.S. The race wo/man, Anderson adds, regarded all other blacks as partners in the struggle for racial justice. Clearly, race, to virtually all black Americans during this time, presented the most pressing challenge and took priority over “all other issues.”15 Thus, though not every black needed to become a race wo/man to be regarded as authentic, it was widely known in rigidly segregated America, what behavior would benefi t—as opposed to hinder—black America’s joint eff ort to eliminate anti-black racism and advance black social equality; one’s actions were deemed authentic or inauthentic accordingly and such judgments could be made rather easily and uncontroversially.

When such clear priorities as the eradication of Jim Crow and the full-enfranchisement of all blacks are universally embraced throughout the black community, racial authenticity appears to be a highly benefi cial and tenable means by which blacks can defend themselves from outside hostilities, advance shared values and goals and generally organize themselves to achieve the greatest possible political infl uence. Despite any black in-group diff erences during the Jim Crow era, most blacks did share, as Tommie Shelby encapsulates, “… more basic interests, political values, and urgent needs in common with other blacks than with any other group.”16

Dilemma: 12 Black Writers on Justice, Race, and Confl icting Loyalties. Ed. Ellis Cose. New York: Harper Perennial, 1997 (114-132).

15. Anderson, Elijah. (116-118). 16. Shelby, Tommie. We Who Are Dark: The Philosophic Foundations of Black Solidar-

ity. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2005 (129). Muhammad Ali actually expresses precisely this notion that as diff erent as blacks were from one another during the pre-civil rights era, they shared the most important aspect of their ex-istence (antiblack racism) in common. His quote, “I know I got it made while the masses of black people are catchin’ hell, but as long as they ain’t free, I ain’t free” gives credence to the presumption that when American antiblack racism was at its peak, the meaning and requirements of black authenticity were much clearer and easily justifi able than today. (His quotation comes from www.brainyquote.com).


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Clearly, when pronounced anti-black racism punctuated the daily experience of most black Americans, racism, above all else, was universally regarded as the primary source of black inequality and overcoming and eliminating this racism was the central priority of virtually all blacks. Given the uncomplicated relationship between unmasked formal and informal anti-black racism and nationwide black oppression, it was quite simple at that time to distinguish the inauthentic from authentic black behavior; individual blacks would have rightly been deemed “inauthentic,” for example, if they were to abet racists in oppressing other African Americans or were to otherwise deliberately hinder black advancement, while they could be deemed authentic for doing such things as demonstrating against anti-black racism or boycotting pro-segregation establishments. The drastic improvement of the black “situation” in the past several decades, however, has shattered the formerly common sense notion of black authenticity that had aided previous generations of blacks in fi nding a behavioral category toward which to strive and in feeling as if they were connected to a purpose-driven national black community. Though it was fairly clear what it meant for blacks to behave authentically in the shadow of Jim Crow, it is far from certain today what black authenticity entails or, more importantly, what use it is for contemporary black solidarity movements.

Now that the black community is no longer oppressed as uniformly as in the past, and with an increasing number of African Americans ascending to the highest social, professional and economic echelons, the meaning of racial authenticity appears as varied as the positions of individual blacks across the socioeconomic strata. Fortunately today, contrary to both Sartre’s ideological foundation of racial solidarity as well as pre-civil rights American history, to be black no longer ensures that anti-black racism will be the most signifi cant determinant of one’s life circumstances or opportunities. The radical transformation of the situation of African Americans at large is partially refl ected in this statistic cited by John McWhorter: Whereas in 1940, “only one in one hundred black people were middle class,” by 2000, nearly half of America’s black population had achieved middle class status.17 For a growing number of African Americans, racial oppression, though certainly still real, is playing a progressively more minor role in their lives compared to other facets of their identity. Elijah Anderson

17. McWhorter, John. Losing the Race: Self-Sabotage in Black America. New York: Harper Perennial, 2000.

HEATHER M. FOX

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observes that as black individuals advance in their careers and cement themselves in the middle to upper-middle class, “…class issues take precedence over public displays of ethnic and racial particularism,” and racial concerns often come second to self-interest and personal upward mobility. Anderson notes that in “race man ideology,” black authenticity is to “… put the black race fi rst,” above one’s personal social or professional advancement and, perhaps, even above one’s affi liation with multiracial groups. This view, however, is only one of countless interpretations of black authenticity.18 As a signifi cant part of the formerly more united African American community breaks away and becomes fully integrated into the broader society, the meaning of, requirements for and very coherence and survivability of “blackness” itself comes into serious question.

Is “Authenticity” Morally Obligatory for Blacks?

Despite the fact that a signifi cant number of black Americans have advanced themselves to so great a degree that race now plays only a minor role in their daily lives, Michael Walzer speaks for many who contend that all members of an oppressed minority group still have a moral obligation to their fellows to behave authentically that arises from their shared condition.19 But within this condition, what kind of loyalty do blacks owe to one another, what constitutes betrayal and who decides any of this? Though Walzer believes strongly that authentic behavior is morally obligatory for all blacks, he provides only a vague idea of how blacks are to derive the content of their obligations. Interestingly, he claims that individual blacks who have successfully advanced themselves in the broader society, have, through their advancement, chosen to be inauthentic; he does not go so far as to label these successful blacks “traitors…in any literal sense,” but admits that he does not think those successful blacks are “quite faithful either.” Having waged this very serious charge against seemingly every black who opted to integrate into the broader society and take advantage of opportunities available to him/her, Walzer predicts that the degree to which these blacks are deemed inauthentic, if at all, and the general obligation that every black has to another, will ultimately

18. Anderson, Elijah. (118-119). 19. Walzer writes that given the nature of racist oppression that all such minorities share,

members of particular racial groups understand one another in a special way that those outside of the group cannot; though blacks, in this case, did not choose to be black, they likewise cannot choose whether or not they have an obligation—they are black and they do have an obligation to other blacks that emerges from their shared minority status (51-2).


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vary. Each black organization will arrive at its own conclusion regarding the content of this black moral obligation “…with very diff erent results in diff erent organizations.” As problematically, Walzer adds, “There is no single correct result [for the content of this obligation] that I or anyone else can stipulate.”20 This last line puts the proverbial kiss of death on racial authenticity as a legitimate concept, much less the source of any serious moral obligation. Given this logic, there is no objective form of authenticity that all blacks must exhibit and what it is for blacks to behave authentically is subject to the arbitrary determinations of various black organizations.21 Since to Walzer, there is no “correct” content to the moral obligation, any of the above versions of black authenticity is presumably acceptable, so long as it has some degree of support from some segment of the black population. Thus, one may be deemed perfectly authentic in the estimation of one black group, but brazenly inauthentic according to another; authenticity, in this context, becomes utterly incomprehensible and meaningless.

Some may think that Michael Walzer is generally right that blacks do have a moral obligation to one another, but that his conception of this obligation fails purely because it is too open-ended; to these people, the meaning of racial authenticity and the content of blacks’ obligation to one another in the contemporary context is plain and simple and hardly much diff erent from earlier historical eras. Though they cannot deny that the sociohistorical setting within which blacks live has certainly changed, they may argue that we would do well not to exaggerate the level to which blacks have actually advanced since the mid-20th century, that anti-black racism is still the greatest determinant of the life chances of every black American or that the only way for blacks to advance as a race is by sticking together and viewing one another as born partners in the black struggle for social justice. Yet as Shelby’s We Who Are Dark illuminates, we must ultimately dismiss these and similar claims.22 In

20. My quotations from Michael Walzer come from Walzer, Michael. Obligations: Essays on Disobedience, War and Citizenship. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1970), 51-52.

21. For example, one black organization may profess that to be authentic is to leave the black community, become as rich as one can and exemplify of how successful any de-termined, hard-working black wo/man can be; another may insist that to be authentic, blacks must distance themselves from members of other races, and establish their own exclusively-black civilization somewhere; another organization may conclude that to be authentically black is to immerse oneself in Negritude, whatever that means.

22. None of this is to claim that blacks are free of racism, that personal and institutional racism does not exist throughout the country and that all blacks are not still (in some way and to some degree) aff ected by anti-black racism. However, blacks have advanced markedly since the mid-20th century by virtually every indicator available.

HEATHER M. FOX

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many ways, such ideas refl ect the classic black nationalism that Tommie Shelby lovingly critiques, which conceives of black authenticity and black solidarity as worthy aims in themselves and not merely means of achieving shared goals of racial justice or black equality. These views communicate misconceptions of the reality of black achievement in contemporary America and a view that black authenticity holds the answer to virtually any and all racial problems or issues that aff ect any black American. Undoubtedly, such an expectation of black authenticity and racial unity—as Tommie Shelby pinpoints—“… is premised on an alleged social fact that no longer obtains.” African Americans today no longer share an inordinate number of things in common with other blacks as they did at the height of Jim Crow when the lived experience of the majority of blacks was similarly miserable and degrading.23

Black Corporatism: False Arbiter of Racial Authenticity and Leaky Conduit for Solidarity

As deeply problematic as Michael Walzer’s conception of black authenticity and its accompanying moral obligation, black corporatism, the brand of racial solidarity introduced above, is infi nitely more troubling, oppressive and unreasonable. Frankly, given its immense potential to utterly corrode black unity and derail a purposeful black solidarity movement, black corporatism demands extended analysis. It will be treated here as an instance of a centralized racial organization that claims to represent the needs and preferences of all blacks, and as a failure both in eff ectively (or democratically) encapsulating a coherent black political voice and in facilitating meaningful black solidarity. Like Walzer, black corporatists do not view racial authenticity as morally optional; contrary to Walzer’s foregoing proposal, however, black corporatism does not take into account the internal diversity of the black community, grant African Americans the opportunity to freely join various black organizations or to work within those organizations to arrive at their own personal conclusions regarding the content of their moral obligation and the moral

The achievements of black Americans are too many to name and as McWhorter points out, today there are virtually no remaining black “fi rsts;” though race certainly hampers the lives of many blacks, that is not the case for all. And as Shelby notes, the notion that all blacks are involuntarily in solidarity by virtue of their shared skin color is almost laughable; to innumerable blacks, race is not a top priority and just because one is black does not mean that one necessarily shares anything in common with other black people. Race really is only skin deep.

23. Shelby, 129.


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minimums that they will observe in their exchanges with one another or that they will employ to guide their behavior generally.

Black corporatism, which Shelby thoroughly critiques, is the preferred black solidarity of classical black nationalists and calls for all blacks to consolidate themselves into one corporate person that will speak with a united voice on behalf of all African Americans. Under black corporatism, to be authentic, blacks must conduct their lives in accordance with the national black agenda, which presumably requires that blacks must also subjugate their own personal needs and preferences to the will of the overarching black corporate organization. While on its face, the black corporatist framework appears to be a promising method for African Americans to politically organize, upon perfunctory examination, it proves to (1) be based upon a fi ctitious conception of black homogeneity, (2) invite severe in-group repression, and (3) result in only a farcical black solidarity that actually undermines the project itself.24

Clearly, black corporatism either utterly fails to recognize or simply chooses to overlook the fact that black America is comprised of millions of individual black plural subjects, each with his/her own personal needs, preferences and worldviews; given the profound internal diversity of the black population, black corporatism cannot possibly adequately represent every black plural subject and will thus, invariably, marginalize the views of numerous minority groups within the broader black minority population. “When persons belonging to the same race are presumed to have the same interests …” David Ingram notes, “Groups can oppress their individual members.”25 Ingram cites Cornel West26, who absolutely nails the fundamental, insurmountable problem of structures such as black corporatism that purport to represent the “authentic” black political agenda; to West, the varying conceptions of authenticity that these structures endorse are not objective representations of universal black beliefs, but are “…contingent on one’s defi nition of black interest and one’s ethical understanding of how this

24. The presumed advantages of black corporatism include the potential of corporat-ism to “facilitate the formation of a collective will, enable coordinated [black] action, and create institutional mechanisms for leadership accountability” (Shelby, 121).

25. Ingram, David. Group Rights: Reconciling Equality and Diff erence. (Lawrence, Kansas: University Press of Kansas, 2000), 51.

26. Ingram took this quote from West, Cornel. Race Matters. (Boston: Beacon Press, 1993), 26-27.

HEATHER M. FOX

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interest relates to individuals and communities in and outside black America.” Thus, the given political agenda and accompanying form of black authenticity that a black corporate body—or any representative body promotes cannot be regarded as the real black political view or as representative of offi cial black authenticity; it is merely one version of black politics and the black conception of racial authenticity that happens to be espoused by a group that claims to have the authority to represent the needs and desires of all blacks. Taking the “offi cial black response” to HIV/AIDS as an example, it is evident, as Cathy J. Cohen argues, that neither every real crisis facing African Americans nor the particular political concerns of individual blacks will receive any attention by the broader black population at all.27 In reality, the issues typically represented by black corporate bodies are those of greatest importance to heterosexual, Christian black males; it is to be expected that the interests of homosexuals, non-Christians, females or other in-group minorities will be sidelined in a black corporatist organization. Instead of creating a vibrant and meaningful black solidarity, black corporatism stands to alienate a number of African Americans by professing a highly specifi c (and exclusionary) black political agenda or view of authentic blackness that is potentially unrepresentative of their personal beliefs and even hostile toward their particular “unconventional” black lifestyles.

Holding onto Racial “Authenticity” Is Too Costly to Black Solidarity

Ultimately, African Americans must either choose to build substantive solidarity movements or set their solidarity goals aside and cling to the practice of arbitrarily estranging certain segments of the black population from the broader group by labeling them inauthentic. As has been established, it is virtually impossible to defi ne the shared existential condition that all blacks are imagined to inhabit, and which they must recognize and begrudgingly accept in order for them to achieve black “authenticity”; race is no longer the most signifi cant determinant of the circumstances of an African American’s life, and consequently, it is unreasonable to insist that blacks must put black authenticity above all else in their daily decision-making and overall life plans; unlike in the Jim Crow era, when race did deeply impact the

27. Cohen, Cathy. The Boundaries of Blackness. (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1999), Preface.


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lives of all African Americans to a serious degree, today, there is no widespread consensus in black America as to what the greatest challenge to the community is or what the source28 of that challenge is; furthermore, there is no black consensus on what the concept of “authentic blackness” comprises, what obligations blacks have to one another (if any), or how a black might even act in/authentically; claims for blacks to be authentic whether mild (Walzer) or extreme (black corporatism) are equally incoherent and divisive and clearly, pose a grave threat to black unity.29

Though defunct strategies for determining the in/authenticity of members of one’s racial group can possibly enable one to attach some degree of meaning to one’s life or to make sense of oneself and one’s behavior in relation to others, this process is hardly more than an illusory exercise and is not a reliable method for distinguishing between un/reliable partners in any black social justice movement. Without such prepackaged racial roles, which compel individuals to rather unthinkingly assume a “one size fi ts all” racial identity, people can more freely decide to what degree they actually identify with their assigned racial groups (if at all). Some who engage in such refl ection will surely discover that they do not “feel black” at all, and may choose to distance themselves from the black community or black political platforms, while others may fi nd that they do feel a strong connection with other black people or organizations. Unless members of the black community commit themselves to banishing the destructive label of “in/authentic” from their casual and formal discourses, however, this important self-sorting process within the black community will be hampered, and the potency of any subsequent black solidarity movement will suff er. Only by retiring this divisive label and its underlying mythology will black solidarity groups be fully capable of attracting people who take the movement seriously, believe in the goals wholeheartedly and will dedicate themselves unhesitatingly to the cause of eliminating antiblack racism and advancing other worthy goals.

28. Shelby notes that no matter what the particular form that a black solidarity movement takes, it “must distinguish the diff erent sources of black disadvantage.” These three sources of disadvantage are “contemporary racism,” “inherited handicaps attributed to past racial domination” and “nonracial structural factors that have a negative impact on the life prospects of blacks” (141-2).

29. As Tommie Shelby very encouragingly points out, blacks (and other minorities) must know that they do not need a common cultural identity in order to launch a power-ful racial solidarity movement; whether or not such a cultural identity exists, certain uniquely black social justice issues—like antiblack racism and black ghetto poverty, for example—certainly remain that dedicated and diverse members of the community must work together to overcome.

ANNA ROSE TULL

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WRITER’S COMMENTS

For generations it has been debated how one should defi ne what can be endorsed with the title of “art,” and even now – especially now – there is no solid answer to that question. In the early 1990s, a young British “artist” named Damien Hirst commenced his reign of terror over the art world. Hirst is known for creating works that no academic is likely to recognize as authentic art, yet his is perhaps the most infl uential and most important name in art today. In my paper, I endeavor to get to the bottom of Hirst’s appeal and, while I do not pretend to suggest an absolute defi nition of the abstract conception of “art,” I do hope to offer a perceptive twist on the many theories of my forerunners, which I have dredged up for the purpose of my research. I am an Art History/Arts Management major with minors in Fine Art and French Studies.

—Anna Rose Tull


Anna’s essay on Damien Hirst analyzes the nature of art, the artist’s vision and how the perceptions of art critics and viewers intertwine with the former two. After noting the diffi culties in determining a universal defi nition of what art is, she then explores how some of Hirst’s most provocative works both exemplify and complicate our personal and academic responses to them and to him. Her keen analyses, particularly of The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living, enlighten us about what Hirst is trying to evoke and touch on that age-old question wrestled with by art scholars and dilettantes alike: This is art?! Anna’s argument is so insightful and persuasive that I wish she’d next turn a similarly critical eye on Lady “Blah-blah’s” (or is it “Gaga”?) “artistic” 21st century contributions to the music world! Given Anna’s objective voice and appreciation for nuance in art, I’m certain she would compose just as effective an argument.

—Tom Lugo, Rhetoric and Composition

“NO SENSE OF ABSOLUTE CORRUPTION”: DAMIEN HIRST AND THE ART QUESTION

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ANNA ROSE TULL

“No Sense of Absolute Corruption”: Damien Hirst and the Art Question

MILLIONS OF PEOPLE from all cultures and backgrounds, all speaking diff erent tongues, can look at daVinci’s Mona Lisa and appreciate

her mystery and majesty. The language of fi ne art is such that a single masterpiece can touch viewers across the ages in the most profound and incredible ways. For millennia, people of all cultures, all nations, and all education levels have utilized artistic vision to create countless works of human expression. Art, much like the human race, has gone through many cycles of change throughout history and continues to evolve today, yet the common thread of art’s ability to touch the human spirit continues unchanged. Since the beginning of mankind, marked by stick-fi gure representations on cave walls, there has been something about artistic expression that resonates with all human beings – something that reaches the very core of human existence and provides all humanity with the common ability to relate art to life.

In the early 1990s, however, a daring artist emerged from the British popular art movement, changing the way his contemporaries viewed art. Before Damien Hirst, art was gracefully provocative and, in some way or another, aesthetically appealing to most. Whether by an act of intellectual and revolutionary genius, or by a pure urge to rebel, Hirst made history in art by abandoning all the familiar conventions of what people believed art should look like to, instead, do his own thing, creating works equally as provocative as those of his predecessors, but in a wholly diff erent manner. Instead of creating pieces that viewers want to look at, Hirst fashions repulsive “sculptures” that force viewers to look at them; even when they believe they cannot stand to behold the maggot-infested dead cow’s head any longer, they are compelled to steal a last glance at this compelling parody before moving on to the Warhol prints in the next gallery, which, although completely outrageous for the ‘60s, by comparison seem wholesome, tasteful and tame. There seems to be a dramatic rift in today’s contemporary art between the hard-working and well-trained yet

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depressingly poor artists and fellows like Hirst who throw dead animals into tanks of formaldehyde, give them names like The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living, call it “art,” and garner millions of dollars as well as exhibitions in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

It might be unanimously agreed that what Hirst does is not aesthetically pleasing in the least, but might he be making some sort of philosophical or existential statement by creating such “art” that breaks the socially-accepted ideas of what art looks like or should be? If he is trying to be provocative in some way other than to be aesthetically pleasing, isn’t what he producing, then, actually art? After all, isn’t art supposed to be provocative? So, where does one draw the line between what can and cannot be considered “art”? Does any artist, art critic, or art-lover have the authority to determine the defi nition of that enduring mysterious entity called “art”?

To even partially understand Hirst’s motives, his purpose, or his statement (if he is, indeed, making one), one must fi rst reach a comfortable understanding of what art really is – how, if defi nition is actually possible, it might be defi ned in order to establish a future standard for discrimination – and who, if anyone, has the authority to decide what can or cannot be considered art. Next, one must explore how Hirst might be conforming to that defi nition of art, or, if he is rebelling against the established norms, is this, then, art in itself? Finally, one should discuss existentialism in relation to art and Hirst’s artistic experience as it relates to both the artist and his viewers in order to discover what existential message he is trying to share with the world.

Art is the most important aspect of human nature, and recently it is becoming a much more controversial subject to discuss. Many pieces in some of the world’s most prestigious museums and galleries leave viewers thinking, “I could do that.” The truth is, some of the paint splatters Jackson Pollock has made famous were far more diffi cult to achieve than an untrained painter might think, while perhaps the only skill one need have to produce a plain white canvas bordered in black may be minimal experience with a ruler. Yet, various works of this latter nature populate the walls of museums from New York’s Museum of Modern Art to Paris’s Musée d ’Orsay. Why is that, and how can one discern reputable art from uninspired creations? While many fi nd Hirst’s work gruesome, off ensive, or pointless, I argue that he is, indeed, one of the greatest contemporary artists there is. This paper traces the evidence and names the qualities that, indeed, qualify Hirst’s work as worthy of artistic recognition.

So how does one determine the diff erence between what is “art”


28

and what is just an exercise in household futility? Often, artists are responsible for numerous concept sketches and color exercises before they create their fi nal products, and only the result is considered the artwork. So what diff erentiates the practice from the masterpiece? Why is one recognized as worthy, true art and the other not? Although many theorists have opined on what they believe art to be, there has never been any clearly articulated defi nition of art. This process of reining in the furthest reaches of what can legitimately be labeled “art” has become even more cumbersome in recent decades with the introduction of modern and contemporary art, as these works seem to defy all that past artwork shared – the artist’s sincere attempt to capture and represent the world around him. How is it possible that such works as Picasso’s Les Demoiselles d ’Avignon, an excellent example of the radical Cubism movement of the early 20th century, and Duchamp’s Fountain, a simple urinal laid on its side bearing the graffi ti-style signature of “R. Mutt,” are depicting the same world as that of Michelangelo’s David or da Vinci’s Last Supper?

There is no simple answer, and scores of theorists have posed various ideas as to how to describe the common intent of art, which has unknowingly held together all that has been identifi ed as art until Hirst’s work entered the debate. Interestingly, as much disagreement and confusion as there may be about what art is, a large number of these theorists are easily able to agree on what art is not: objectively defi nable. According to Morris Weitz, a philosopher who has studied the role of theory in aesthetics, “attempting to defi ne art in the traditional way (that is, closing the concept) ‘forecloses on the very conditions of creativity in the arts: … the very expansive, adventurous character of art, its ever-present changes and novel creations, makes it logically impossible to ensure any set of defi ning properties’” (Warburton 73). Thus, there must be something other than physical qualifi cations that may classify something as art, some underlying theory as to the unseen nature of that fi eld.

Renowned art philosopher Arthur Danto clarifi es this renunciation of physical discriminators, best suggesting that “it is theory that makes something a work of art, not some visible element of it: to see something as art requires something that the eye cannot descry – an atmosphere of artistic theory, a knowledge of the history of art…” (Warburton 91). Danto is quite observant in noting that there is an element to the discernment of art that is utterly indescribable. Danto’s statement, however, suggests that one must be in some way, either consciously or subconsciously, predisposed to the trained viewing and appreciation of art to recognize it as artistically meriting. The problem with this claim

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is that laypeople who have never studied art history or picked up a single paintbrush know that Mona Lisa is an excellent work of art. Why is this? It is because there is something more encompassing than this theory of “knowledge” and “atmosphere” of which Danto speaks so eloquently to designate something as, in fact, art. One might recognize that the whole of the artistic experience might be contingent on the individual, on his or her personal experience with, knowledge of, and background in art. However, if we are to assert that art is a deeply personal and wholly subjective experience, which, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder, as many people feel it to be, then, on this premise, anyone could potentially call anything art, and others would be obligated to respect that as his or her opinion. We know that a simple ballpoint pen could not reasonably regarded as, since it remains in its original function, as a writing utensil. So, there must be certain ground-rules that, even if proven incapable of defi ning exactly what art is, may at least hint at how that common thread holds together the universal body of true artworks.

In this sense, art theorist and author Nigel Warburton has much to say about the inconclusive “family resemblance” theory, which allows us to “use the term ‘art’ eff ectively and understand [one another] when we talk about art” (122). In The Art Question, Warburton examines art as a concept – something that does not exist as a classifi able physical entity, only something that can be sensed or intellectually deduced by some inherent human capacity to relate to that which is truly art. This idea reverts to the notion that art is that which has the ability to resonate with multitudes of people worldwide throughout the ages, and perhaps this is the only truly verifi able defi nition of art available. If no better can be achieved, one might be apt to accept that a decent conception of “art” is any artifact that has been put before a universally reachable population as something intended for appreciation and which makes each of those people feel something, intellectually or emotionally, toward either its aesthetics, its context, or its concept. Thus, the person responsible for defi ning a particular work of art is its immediate viewer, and this is an acceptably qualifi ed determinant because of that quality which states that a true work of art will resound with all viewers.

Closely related but fundamentally diff erent from “art as a concept” is conceptual art. Hirst is a self-proclaimed conceptual artist who has declared, “Art goes on in your head” (Young), and for him, this is very true. However, according to Longmont Times reporter Quentin Young, “the problem is [that] art does not go on in your head, ideas go on in your head [and] art goes on when those ideas are given form outside your head”


30

(Young). It is not diffi cult to understand where Young is coming from with this statement. Art, as we have defi ned it, must be an artifact, in other words a physical object, and Young is correct to note that ideas cannot be objects. However, with the introduction of conceptual art as genre, that physical aspect becomes more diffi cult to maintain. A fellow conceptual artist, Sol LeWitt supports Hirst’s claim when he describes that “in conceptual art the idea or concept is the most important aspect of the work [and] when an artist uses a conceptual form of art, it means that all of the planning and decisions are made beforehand and the execution is a perfunctory aff air – the idea becomes the machine that makes the art” (Alberro 35). Thus, for Hirst, and arguably for LeWitt, too, what is produced physically is only a byproduct of the conceptual art they have formed in their minds. This is because the very nature of conceptual art disregards the physical attributes of the piece in favor of the context and idea that made that piece possible. While it is true that Hirst’s or LeWitt’s ideas would not be able to be appreciated as art (a second factor of our defi nition) if those ideas were not given a physical “body” per se, it is apparent that the ideas behind the works take precedence over the object of the art itself and thus, in a way, the ideas are the genuinely artistic part of the work of art.

The problem with this type of conceptual art, however, is that it then can never be wholly subjective for its viewers. Here, the artist has already thought it all out for them; he has left his mark so that they cannot change his intentions to fi t their specifi c intellectual and emotional expectations, which is a vital third part of our aforementioned defi nition of art. So how, if the defi nition of art requires a subjective response, can this be truly valuable art? Because, even if the intentional meaning of the work is already evident, viewers are still provoked to respond personally, bringing in their own experience and thus adopting that last part of our defi nition. Take Hirst’s Saint Sebastian, for example: we get it. We understand that this upright cow struck through with dozens of arrows is a parody on the early Christian fi gure and the respective early artistic theme. All of the information is there, and one beholds the artist’s message; he understands that the artist has been there fi rst and that he cannot wedge his way between the artist and his message. However, because he possesses his own mind, he is able to create his own intellectual experience in response to the image, whether or not it is consistent with the artist’s experience. It is his because his mind created it, and

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that is the resonating, profound truth of the human condition: that we all respond to similar visual cues in similar, yet still personal, ways. Ultimately, this endorsement of the human condition is what makes this type of conceptual art great. The Seattle Art Museum cites one of this sort of contemporary art’s driving tenets to be that “it is the viewer’s own experience and predilections which ultimately guide us to meaningful and satisfactory answers” as to what art will be. Hirst’s work defi nitely tests the predilections and experiences of its viewers; it evokes various mixed emotions that one does not normally get to feel all at once – wonder, disgust, admiration, to name a few – much less regard as art.

Thus, Hirst, undoubtedly, can be recognized as a great artist, but I argue that there is more to him than that. Almost every self-proclaimed art-lover will agree that what Hirst does is not pretty in the least, and many have grasped that the aesthetics of his work must not be where his message ends, but they cannot quite decipher the new language of this medium he has put before them. Nevertheless, as much diffi culty as one might have trying to make any sense of Hirst’s ambiguous works, he is sure that the artist is not simply throwing animals into formaldehyde or pasting butterfl ies onto canvasses because he likes the way it looks (even though his Like Flies Brushed Off a Wall We Fall is somewhat nice in its complimentary arrangement of blue butterfl ies on an orange background, until one remembers those butterfl ies were once alive). An intelligent visionary who is very much concerned with the current state of the world, Hirst is hopeful that, through his art, he might convey a certain important message to viewers about the existential nature of life.

A basic understanding of existentialism is that it regards the human existence as inexplicable and emphasizes the uniqueness of the individual in his or her experience. Hirst explores this uncertainty that lies at the core of human experience through unexpected and unconventional media – for instance, the tiger shark in The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living or the pills and pharmaceutical packaging in his Pharmacy series. One of Hirst’s works, The History of Pain, a sculpture of an infl atable ball suspended on a string over a sea of kitchen knives, seems to be “an allegory of mind and world [where] the ball [is] consciousness and the world [is] knife blades” (Danto 57). One might read this as a statement about the fragility and vulnerability of an individual mind subjected to the corruption of the modern world. Confi rming this idea of societal corruption as being a


32

central theme in Hirst’s work, Mark Dery, a prominent American author and cultural critic, cites Hirst as stating that his 1996 show at Gagosian Gallery in New York City titled No Sense of Absolute Corruption, “refers to the corruption of the fl esh that follows death as well as the moral decay that hollows out lives spent chasing dreams that money can buy” (127). However, viewers get “no sense” of this corruption because the fl esh of his shark and cows are hidden in gallons of formaldehyde, and the eyes of our consumerist society are shut to any sense of moral decay resulting from their materialism. It seems that every step Hirst takes is a parody in some way: from concept to medium to title Hirst presents a witty criticism of the world he observes every day, inviting viewers to join him in satirizing the society that creates such a world.

A major medium used in Hirst’s work is dead animals, and a major theme that inevitably emanates from this medium is death. An intriguingly complex example of how Hirst deals with the idea of death to teach viewers something about human nature is in his infamous tiger shark-in-formaldehyde “sculpture,” The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living. Here, Hirst has captured the shark’s entire essence, it’s his monster persona, even in death. We know the shark is dead and thus is forever stuck in his vitrine, but he appears so real, so close to life, with his mouth wide open, ready to chomp down on whichever gallery visitor off ers him ample opportunity. That abject fear people anticipate with live sharks in the deep of the ocean is still present in their gut, and they cannot shake the idea that any second, it is going to come to life and they will be in its jaws. That inherent human fear of death is still there, even though it is a physically impossible event. Once they have experienced this confusion, the overt meaning of the title emerges: they cannot comprehend death while they are still alive. They refuse to accept the dead state of this animal because it is physically impossible for this shark, if indeed dead, to be looking at them, charging at them, suspended (nay, swimming!) in the tank as it is. It is beautifully horrifi c, and in that SoHo gallery, viewers begin to sweat a little, their adrenaline pumping, because for a minute they forgot that the permanent nature of death is immutable.

Hirst similarly aff ects the thoughts and physical reactions of his viewers in every work he creates. Dery contends that “in our mass-mediated environment… the virtualization of everyday life is undermining our sense of what’s real and what’s not” (129), thus making it fairly easy for Hirst to play on that inability to escape from what we know to be true and to make a parody of our mindset. Ultimately, however, Hirst is “[using] death as a way of expressing thoughts about death [and] his most

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celebrated work has never shied away from the terrible beauty that lies in death” (Danto 53). It is because of this ability to touch the very core of the human condition and its inherent fear of death that Hirst has become such a powerful conceptual artist today.

Some people defi ne what they believe to be art as that which is aesthetically pleasing; however, as with the Mona Lisa, true art is anything that has a way of reaching and resonating with all people across all ages. Therefore, art is an intellectual process, the thoughts it evokes and the way it works on our head. Hirst’s art accomplishes just that; he creates that intellectual experience of art in a way that is very new to our concept of how such a thing should be done. We have grown so accustomed to the representational and abstract painting of previous centuries that our artistic intellects are yearning for something more – something completely diff erent, and Hirst is the fi rst to off er that to us in such a profound, in-your-face manner.

Hirst’s readiness to deal with the complicated subject of existentialism makes him a unique, great artist: he has “created an unforgettable image of life-and-death” (Danto 54), which lends aid to those who are searching for answers as to the meaning of life. He might not have all the answers, but he provides a sense of hope for viewers, especially those who do not mind being challenged intellectually and viscerally. This hope stems from the idea that art can wake people up to the brutal reality of contemporary society and that art, as the core measure of the human experience, can heal. Arthur Danto remarks that “if a body of work comes along that in ambition and achievement puts Hirst in the shade, we are in for a remarkable era” (59). I concur.

Whether it is daVinci’s Mona Lisa or Hirst’s The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living, art is defi ned not simply by its visual appeal, but by the sustainability of its deeper intellectual and emotional resonance with viewers throughout the ages.

Editor’s Note

Damien Hirst’s images are copyright protected. Readers interested in fi nding the images referred to in this essay are encouraged to search Google Images.


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Works Cited

Alberro, Alexander. Conceptual Art and the Politics of Publicity. Cambridge: MIT, 2003.

Danto, Arthur C. “Damien Hirst.” Unnatural Wonders: Essays from the Gap Between Art and Life. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2005.

Dery, Mark. The Pyrotechnic Insanitarium: American Culture on the Brink. New York: Grove, 1999.

Seattle Art Museum. Museum label for Andy Warhol, Rorschach Painting. Seattle, 28 Nov. 2008.

Warburton, Nigel. The Art Question. New York: Routledge, 2003.

Young, Quentin. “Beautiful Inside his Head.” The Longmont Time-Call (7 Nov. 2008). 18 Nov. 2008 < http://timescall.com>.

SHAINE SCARMINACH

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WRITER’S COMMENTS

This paper was written for a course in which we explored the philosophical concepts refl ected in various works of science fi ction. My paper engages specifi cally with one of the works covered that, although strikingly similar, is not readily included in the science fi ction genre. The notion that a work investigating our modern world could so easily be included with those that are chiefl y aimed at exploring radically different worlds was immensely intriguing to me. For all the criticisms lodged against the failures of science fi ction to adequately predict modern existence, it is striking to note how similar that existence is to the ones that so often inhabit science fi ction fi lms and novels. My aim was to analyze the powerful way in which Don DeLillo explores this idea in his novel Cosmopolis, specifi cally addressing the question of how we can come to know ourselves and the world around us when the clues to our existence are increasingly buried amid the complexity and abstraction of the modern world.

—Shaine Scarminach


Brian Aldiss once defi ned science fi ction as “the search for a defi nition of man and his status in the universe which will stand in our advanced but confused state of knowledge (science).” In the past decade, many of the world’s most imaginative novelists – including Margaret Atwood, Don DeLillo, Michel Houellebecq and Kazuo Ishiguro – have blurred the distinction between science fi ction and modern or post-modern literature, which resists a singular “defi nition” of human reality. DeLillo’s work, concerned with satirizing intellectual and consumerist currents amidst scenarios of terrorism and violence, has taken a “quantum leap” with his short novel Cosmopolis, one of the highlights of the Fall 2008 philosophy seminar on Science Fiction Novels. In his essay, Shaine Scarminach intelligently frames DeLillo’s contribution through a close reading of the novel’s themes, particularly the technological collapse of time and space, the abstraction of capital, and the return of repressed corporeality. As Scarminach shows, the victory of the spectacle, which DeLillo prophesied in his best-known White Noise, takes a new step with its integration back into the materiality of human experience. If this integration is ultimately ambiguous in its meaning, it nevertheless must be lived out by each of us in our further encroaching digital age.

—Jeffrey Paris, Department of Philosophy

THE EXPERIENCE OF HYPER-MODERNITY IN DON DELILLO’S COSMOPOLIS

36

SHAINE SCARMINACH

The Experience of Hyper-Modernity in Don DeLillo’s Cosmopolis

A RECENT ASSOCIATED PRESS ARTICLE1reported a total decline in public anxiety over what it terms “Extropians, Transhumanists, Cyber-

Fascists and Doomsayers.” Through interviews with former heads of technology-based businesses, the article describes people not only as no longer fearing things such as artifi cial intelligence or cyborgs, but also that they no longer care. Visions of a world that caused fear and anxiety in the past, images of the natural environment so degraded that human beings are forced to fuse with technology and migrate to other planets, are now seen as decidedly less disturbing and unimportant. Future visions of a cyber dystopia are of no consequence to those who are much more concerned with, as one interviewee said, “the high cost of privatized healthcare and dwindling retirement benefi ts.”

Coincidentally, many modern fi ction writers have produced works that blur genre distinctions much like the line between modernity and post-modernity. These works present pictures of a world in fl ux where features once relegated to science fi ction texts have become, if not normalized, deeply insinuated into modern existence: nations are sublimated to all-powerful corporate entities; technological advance and profi t margins ensure endless war, ecological disaster and depletion of resources; and human identity and consciousness is lost in a fi eld of mass-produced simulacra and virtual reality. They seek to explore what it means to live in a world where the signposts of existence have become so unmoored from their foundations that not only is an apocalyptic vision ever more realistic, but seems the inevitable outcome of a chaotic age.

Centered on the sublimation of the present by the future, Don DeLillo’s Cosmopolis is just such a work. The novel chronicles one day in the life of a billionaire asset manager, Eric Packer, as he takes a cross-town trip in New York to get a haircut. Firmly rooted in the present (an April

1. “Extropians, Transhumanists, Cyber-Fascists and Doomsayers No Longer Able to Scare Public, Forced to Get Real Jobs,” Donovan Gilhume, Associated Press, October 19, 2008.

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day in 2000), Cosmopolis could easily be mistaken for a science fi ction novel, particularly of the cyber-punk variety as its anti-hero traverses through an environment of streaming data and fl ashing screens, seeking to tap into the transcendental power of the cyber world. Undoubtedly, Cosmopolis speaks to a growing awareness of technology’s insinuation into modern existence like the one refl ected in the Associated Press piece. More important, however, is its attempt to explore the larger questions of what it means to live in a period of hyper-modernity. Similar to its setting in a cultural moment where the exuberance of the 1990’s was soon to be shattered, the novel speaks to the larger historical moment we fi nd ourselves in; a modern epoch hyper-extended and poised to shift into a completely diff erent world.

As Packer embarks on his entropic voyage across Manhattan, DeLillo explores what it means to live in a world where technological edifi ces have served to transform the very texture of reality. The confl uence of technology and capital has served to collapse time and space, sublimating the present to a moment persistently poised on manifesting the ever-encroaching future. The pure speed and abstraction of data disrupts the specifi c points of existential reference, leaving subjectivity awash in a stream of unperceivable cyber movement and fl ux. The ultimate question DeLillo poses throughout the chronicle of Packer’s daylong adventure is how can we locate ourselves, our very essence, in this unstable environment?

Throughout the novel, there is a push and pull between the pure abstraction of data and the earthly materiality of the body. Packer continually tries to discover the similarities between organic patterns and those of cyber capital. He is at once enamored with the universalizing world of data and rejects the material vestiges of the past, while similarly drawn to material experience, specifi cally that of the lived body. Another question DeLillo poses has to do with where Packer goes to locate his essence: through the transcendent power of data or through the material decay of the body? Ultimately, the answer given is ambiguous (not unsurprising for DeLillo). DeLillo seems to posit that in a world so transformed by technological insinuation and heading towards an epochal shift the place to locate oneself is neither a return to the body nor a leap into the future of data. Rather, we can locate ourselves in a mysterious space beyond the two that is incapable of being codifi ed according to any modern or post-modern systems of understanding.

Packer is a thoroughly unlikable character: narcissistic, aloof, ruthless and morally indiff erent. He lives in a forty-eight room apartment that


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boasts, among other things, two elevators, a lap pool and a gymnasium. He travels around in a thirty-fi ve foot limousine that is outfi tted with numerous electronic devices, cork lining to reduce sound and a marble fl oor. He speaks several languages, reads serious poetry and fi lls his home with paintings “unknowable to many” (8)2. His characterization refl ects not only the comic exaggeration found throughout the work, but also the larger ambiguities that arise from the confl icts he embodies. Only twenty-eight and already possessing enormous wealth, Packer revels in his ability to understand and exploit complex patterns in fi nancial markets; he is constantly driven to understand things on their most basic level, utilizing his great intellect and fi nancial power to access the enigmas he discovers. At the beginning of the novel, Packer is unable to sleep (a foreshadowing of the anxiety that increases as the novel progresses) and he gives an early glimpse of his inner drive as he regards a gull fl ying outside his window: “admiring the bird, thinking into it, trying to know the bird” (7).

As Packer travels along 47th Street to get his haircut, an added sense of anxiety permeates his journey; he has borrowed huge sums of money against the Japanese yen and as it continues to rise, he moves closer and closer to fi nancial collapse. The fi rst part of the novel contrasts his desperate search to discover the internal logic of the yen’s rise with his search to reconcile the tensions brought on by the counterweight of time in its new technological dimension where it simultaneously tries to push into the future and pull back into the past.

This tension created by the movement of time is embodied in the tension between Packer’s reverence for the transcendent power of data and his urge to indulge in material experience. In the fi rst of his several in-car meetings with his various aides and advisors, he is enamored by the primitive mass of noise seeping in through his limousine: “It was the tone of some fundamental ache, a lament so old it sounded aboriginal. He thought of men in shaggy bands bellowing ceremonially, social units established to kill and eat” (14). Shortly after, he spots his young-wife in a taxi and is fascinated by the missing fi nger of the driver: “Eric regarded the stub, impressive, a serious thing, a body ruin that carried history and pain” (17). He leads his wife from the taxi to a restaurant where they eat breakfast and he is again fascinated with the material experience: “He could feel the glucose entering his cells” (18).

Back in his car, Packer meets with his currency analyst and while they discuss the rising yen, he extols on the fusion of technology and capital.

2. All page references refer to Don DeLillo, Cosmopolis, New York, New York: Scribner (2004).

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After noticing only a moment before that the screens inside his limousine have begun to represent his actions before he takes them, he refl ects on his profound appreciation of technology and its power to transcend mere materiality:

Data itself was soulful and glowing, a dynamic aspect of the life process. This was the eloquence of alphabets and numeric systems, now fully realized in electronic form, in the zero-oneness of the world, the digital imperative that defi ned every breath of the planet’s living billions. Here was the heave of the biosphere. Our bodies and oceans were here, knowable and whole (24).

Following this meeting, Packer leaves his limousine for a liaison with

a female art dealer. Again he moves toward the pleasure of the lived body as he is energized by this sexual encounter: “He felt better now. He knew who he was” (32). Yet in this brief meeting, DeLillo begins to hint at the ambiguous essence beyond both the body and data that ultimately serves as the novel’s endpoint. While discussing her attempts to secure Packer a rare Mark Rothko painting for purchase, the art dealer proclaims that he needs to buy the painting because the very act of looking at a painting “makes you feel alive in the world. It tells you, yes you’re here. And yes, you have a range of being that’s deeper and sweeter than you knew” (30). This early in the novel, Packer is still too deeply rooted in his constant urge to understand and ultimately control the enigmas around him and brushes her insight aside. Instead, he continually chides her to make an off er not for the single painting, but for the entire Rothko Chapel, “walls and all” (30).

Back in his Limousine, Packer returns to technology and its ability to collapse the traditional structure of time. When his Limousine is blocked by some obstruction, he lifts his head out of the sunroof and refl ects on the symbolic power of several distant bank towers:

They looked empty from here. He liked that idea. They were made to be the last tall things, made empty, designed to hasten the future. They were the end of the outside world. They weren’t here, exactly. They were in the future, a time beyond geography and touchable money and the people who stack and count it (36).


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This serves as only one of the many observations Packer makes about the objects around him as representing the quickening pace of time. As his currency analyst departs and Packer begins his next meeting by picking-up his chief of fi nance on a street corner, he demonstrates again the drive to understand the world around him, saying that “he knew what she would say to him, fi rst line, word for word, and he looked forward to hearing it … He liked knowing what was coming. It confi rmed the presence of some hereditary script available to those who could decode it” (38).

Packer’s meeting with his chief of fi nance is one of the more curious scenes in the novel, not only because of what it entails, but also because it presents a convergence of the various tensions operating throughout the novel: bodily experience, data transcendence, and an unquantifi able essence. As he discusses the rise of the yen with his chief of fi nance, a conversation that becomes increasingly sexually charged, he also receives a physical examination, which is mirrored in the many screens outfi tted in his limousine. Here, the lines between digital transcendence and bodily experience are blurred as he is forced to acknowledge the materiality of his body and his enjoyment of the lived experience while simultaneously desiring to move beyond that materiality in the same way time serves to shed its technological advances.

As he experiences pain from the physical exam, Packer is forced to acknowledge his body and the power of pain to bring about physical recognition: “He was here in his body, the structure he wanted to dismiss in theory even when he was shaping it under the measured eff ect of barbells and weights. He wanted to judge it redundant and transferable. It was convertible to wave arrays of information” (48). He further refl ects that, “he could think and speak of other things but only within the pain. He was living in the gland, the scalding fact of his biology” (50). Packer recognizes that the body is accompanied by pleasure as well as pain. As his eroticized conversation with his chief of fi nance reaches a climax, his ecstasy is mirrored on the screens like the pain experienced from his physical exam. The image appears seconds before it occurs in real time, a further indication of technology’s ability to collapse time and reorganize our understanding of everyday life; an indication that the unquantifi able essence comes in the form of his asymmetrical prostate, a condition he has been previously diagnosed with and has persisted in his mind ever since.

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Packer feels “a fear of, a distance from” the notion of his asymmetrical prostate because it is unknowable, an enigma that denies assimilation into his fi eld of knowledge: “There was something about asymmetry. It was intriguing in the world outside the body, a counterforce to balance and calm, subatomic, that made creation happen” (52).

After another sojourn away from his limousine in which Packer again meets his wife and refl ects on his desires to both fi nd an inherent logic in the continual rise of the yen and “live in meat space,” he returns to his limousine for a fi nal meeting with his chief of theory. She is perhaps the only character smarter than Packer and consequently, the only one of his advisors to off er advice that he seriously contemplates. With her dialogue, DeLillo manifests the clearest analysis of technology found in the book; in this sense, she acts almost as an oracular fi gure, laying bare the logic behind Packer’s desire to merge with data. As the Limousine continues to crawl across Manhattan, she freely theorizes on the triumph of data in hyper-modernity, declaring that, “all wealth has become wealth for its own sake … it no longer has weight or shape” (77). She proclaims that “money makes times” and asserts that time has become commoditized by the confl uence of capital and technology; making it so “the present is harder to fi nd” as “the future becomes insistent” (79). In one of the most striking passages of the novel, Packer and his chief of theory look out the limousine at a digital stock ticker affi xed to the side of a building and he speculates on what is passing through her thoughts:

Never mind the speed that makes it hard to follow what passes before the eye. The speed is the point. Never mind the urgent and endless replenishment, the way data dissolves at one end of the screen just as it takes shape at the other. This is the point, the thrust, the future. We are not witnessing the fl ow of information so much as pure spectacle, or information made sacred, ritually unreadable (80).

As his chief of theory continues to theorize on the rise of the

yen, the limousine gets caught in the middle of an anti-globalization protest. After briefl y regarding the action from his sunroof, Packer retreats back into the limousine and watches on screen as the protestors take their aggression out on his car. His chief of theory


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asserts that the protestors are acting as an extension of the very system they are objecting to: “These people are a fantasy generated by the market. They don’t exist outside the market. There is nowhere they can go to be on the outside. There is no outside” (90). With this scene, DeLillo retains the ambiguous essence that is able to exist outside the all-powerful logic of cyber-capital. Among the chaos, Packer sees a man immolate himself as part of the protest. He is torn between the transcendent power of data and the power exuded by the decay of fl esh, as he is transfi xed by the image of the burning man running across the numerous screens in the limousine: “What did this change? Everything, he thought … The market was not total. It could not claim this man or assimilate his act … This was a thing outside its reach” (99).

Following this climatic scene, the fi rst part of the novel comes to an end. The yen continues to rise against the dollar and Packer’s fortune continues to be jeopardized, but he is purifi ed by both the abstract plummeting of the markets and the tangible rain falling upon his face as he again exits his limousine. Packer’s security team established a credible threat on his life which serves to free him even more than the rain or the fall of markets: “It was the threat of death at the brink of night that spoke to him most surely about some principle of fate he’d always known would come clear in time. Now he could begin the business of living” (107). The threat on Packer’s life sends him ever quicker into a present that is reorganized by the quickening pace of the destruction of the past and the emergence of the future, a space where he will be able to access the unquantifi able essence that exists beyond both the digital and the material realms.

The second part of the novel fi nds Packer in a kind of nihilistic submission to the forces around him as he spirals toward the ultimate resolution—an encounter with his would-be assassin. As the yen continues to rise and his fortune continues to dwindle, he precipitates his own downfall as he resolves himself to the forces acting outside of him. In this latter part of the novel, he is cleansed of particularity and able to access pure experience as part of a larger whole, which is manifested by his increasing recognition of others around him, as well as his removal of the material reality that surrounds him.

After another sexual encounter with his new bodyguard, in which he indulges in a hundred thousand volt shock from a stun gun, the shift in Packer’s character begins to become apparent. Returning to his limousine, he refl ects on the feeling of freedom he gets as he watches

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fi nancial markets world-wide collapse as a result of his failing speculation: “he felt even freer than usual, attuned to the registers of his lower brain and gaining distance from the need to take inspired action, make original judgments, maintain inspired principles and convictions” (115). After this brief pause, Packer departs his limousine to share another meal with his wife. As they discuss his dwindling fortune, he begins to turn away from the distant and aloof characterization he held in the fi rst part of the novel and starts to recognize the other people around him. Responding to his wife’s question of what’s important he says, “To be aware of what’s around me. To understand another person’s situation, another person’s feelings” (121).

In these brief scenes Packer begins to relinquish his urgent need to comprehend and control, feeling liberated as the logic of the yen continues to evade him and his fi nancial prospects evaporate. Moreover, he begins to shed his drive to remain isolated from others, recognizing the place of those around him. This shift in his character is perhaps best articulated in the following two scenes in which Packer enters a rave with one of his bodyguards and observes the lavish funeral of a recently deceased rap star.

As Packer and his bodyguard move through the rave, he feels “an otherworldliness, a strange arrhythmia in the scene” as the loud music replaces “skin and brain with digital tissue” and those in attendance dance in drug-fueled euphoria. The atmosphere overtakes him as he begins to feel assimilated into the ebullient mass, saying: “First you were apart and watching and then you were in, and with, and of the crowd, and then you were the crowd, densely assembled and dancing as one” (126). He refl ects, “they melted into each other so they wouldn’t shrivel up as individuals … he felt a little less himself, a little more the others, down there, raving” (127). He emerges from the rave cleansed of particularity, tapping into the sublimation of the individual that can be realized in a moment of mutual connection. He returns to his limousine and continues his trip cross-town only to have it held-up once again by the cavalcade of mourners parading through the streets as part of the Sufi rap star Brutha Fez’s funeral procession. Packer then exits to observe the procession and is brought to tears by the intensity of feeling evinced by the participants.

The parade is “a spectacle he could clearly not command,” and serves to further validate feelings of purifi cation Packer began to experience as he ceases trying to control the world around him: “[his] delight in going broke seemed blessed and authenticated here. He’d been emptied of everything but a sense of surpassing stillness, a fatedness that felt disinterested and


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free” (136). In this scene, his fondness of data’s universality and abstraction persists as he sees these traits in a procession of whirling dervishes: “He thought of the whirlers deliquescing, resolving into fl uid states, into spinning liquid, rings of water and fog that eventually disappear in air” (139). Shortly after, Packer oscillates back towards bodily experience as he responds to a pie in the face by beating the thrower and then attacking a group of photographers capturing the incident: “His body whispered to him. It hummed with the action, the charge at the photographers, the punches he’d thrown, the bloodsurge, the heartbeat, the great strewn beauty of garbage cans toppling” (143).

Following this scene, the urgency of Packer’s course is again made evident as he is seized by the need to cleanse himself of his attachments. He coldly kills his chief of security, the last remaining guard against the credible threat. The collapse of his wealth and threat on his life leaves him wanting “whatever would happen to happen,” allowing him to kill his last bodyguard to clear “the night for deeper confrontation” (147,148). After fi nally reaching his destination at his childhood barbershop, where he reminisces with the barber and his driver, he is again seized by his drive and leaps out of the barber’s chair with only half his hair cut: “He was alert, eager for action, for resolution. Something had to happen soon, a dispelling of doubt and the emergence of some design” (171). Faced with dwindling prospects, he is driven to seize the present, trying to wrest some meaning from it in order to understand the tensions that have existed in him since the start of the day.

Leaving the barbershop, again in his limousine, he stumbles upon a movie set consisting of hundreds of naked bodies resting in contorted positions in the middle of the street. He sees this as his avenue for pure experience, devoid of bodily materiality. He quickly undresses and assumes a place among the mass of people:

He felt the presence of the bodies, all of them, the body breath, the heat and running blood, people unlike each other who were now alike, amassed, heaped in a way, alive and dead together … the experience was a strong one, so total and open he could barely think outside of it (174).

Yet this attempt to merge with the mass of bodies, sublimating himself as a subject, ultimately fails as it resides in the material realm; he continues to be torn between the submission to pure experience and the transcendence of data. At one point, as he rests among the mass of naked

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bodies, he admits that “it tore his mind apart, trying to see them here and real, independent of the image on a screen” (176). Although he desires to merge with the mass of bodies, he is still torn between the mediation of pure experience through simulacra so prevalent in the information age.

Packer returns to his limousine after taking part in the fi lm scene, riding with his driver until they reach the carport where limousines are stored at night. He is then fi nally alone, shed of all material attachments, and left feeling empty: “He stood in the street. There was nothing to do. He hadn’t realized this could happen to him. The moment was empty of urgency and purpose” (180). This lull is shattered by the sound of gunfi re as the threat on his life fi nally materializes, propelling him towards the resolution he has been heading towards. He returns fi re with a gun given to him by the barber and then follows his attacker into an abandoned building. Here Packer confronts his attacker as he emerges from a bathroom and they proceed to have a decidedly relaxed conversation. He discovers that the attacker is not much of a threat and is let down by this fact; he shoots himself in the hand, reducing himself to the material realm. The searing pain of Packer’s hand and the sound of wind blowing through the abandoned building soothe him: “he felt a peace, a sweetness settle over him” (199).

Packer’s attacker, a disgruntled ex-employee, begins to lecture him. As the man’s story unfurls, Packer looks at his watch as it begins to play a video of his apparent future death. He has seemingly been absorbed into the data stream, the future brought on by the confl uence of capital and technology revealed in the image of his dead body on the screen of his watch. Packer’s recognition of this fact is made apparent in DeLillo’s powerful language:

He’d always wanted to become quantum dust, transcending his body mass, the soft tissue over the bones, the muscle and fat. The idea was to live outside the given limits, in a chip, on a disk, as data, in whirl, in radiant spin, a consciousness saved from void … It would be the master thrust of cyber-capital, to extend the human experience toward infi nity (207).

This resolution does not hold; the pain of his hand returns him to his

body, where “his pain interfered with his immortality” (207). His reifi cation into data is staved off by the thrust of his body, the decay of his fl esh: “The things that made him who he was could hardly be converted to data … He’d come to know himself, untranslatably, through his pain” (207). In


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the end, Packer has fi rmly arrived in the present, his resolution residing in the unquantifi able elements of his existence: “He understood what was missing, the predatory impulse, the sense of large excitation that drove him through his days, the sheer and reeling need to be” (209).

In Cosmopolis, DeLillo not only succeeds in presenting a picture of a cultural moment, but also of a larger historical one. The novel centers on various tensions that emerge as Packer’s limousine slowly crawls across Manhattan while his fi nancial portfolio speedily evaporates, he repeatedly indulges in bodily experience, and holds a reverence for the reifi ed realm of data. This presents a picture of a world in fl ux, on the cusp of a signifi cant shift. The novel speaks to the larger problem of modernity and its shift into post-modernity. It represents a world, much like that of our own, that is disrupted by the slow disappearance of its links to the past and the rapid emergence of a newly formed future. The work’s similarity to the genre of science fi ction speaks to the profound alteration the systems of technology have created in the modern world. Novelists no longer have to project into the distant future to arrive at these kinds of settings as the rapid infl ux of the future has already brought them into existence. These similarities are not limited to the themes of the novel. DeLillo’s concise language evokes a feeling of mechanization as his characters speak in a clipped, brusque manner, which refl ect the speed and fragmentation that characterizes the communication of data in the modern world. Moreover, some of the most striking passages in are ones in which DeLillo powerfully melds both organic and digital imagery.

Similar to many of DeLillo’s novels, Cosmopolis examines the ways in which technology can change how we view our social environment and ourselves. Eric Packer is ultimately able to resolve his internal tensions by submitting himself not to the future, but to the present: his discovery elucidates the ultimate power of the individual to withstand the onslaught of the forces around them. Packer ultimately realizes that his constant attempts to master the world have obscured the unquantifi able essence that lies outside the fi eld of understanding. It is this essence that Packer ultimately recognizes and is able to locate himself within. This resolution is an ambiguous one, and rightly so, for DeLillo is not so much trying to provide a solution to the question of subjectivity with his work, but merely trying to explore what it means to live in the epoch of hyper-modernity. It would seem that the ultimate suggestion of the work is to resist the push and pull of one social reality or another and that we can best locate ourselves by adhering to the present in which we reside.

KELLY TENN

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WRITER’S COMMENTS

In an upper division Communication Studies class, Rhetoric of Law, Professor Sarah Burgess challenged students to look beyond the facts of the U.S. Law. By studying past U.S. Supreme Court cases, the aim was to grapple with the complex nature of the law, particularly with the First Amendment, and to analyze how the law has been interpreted by Supreme Court Justices. The challenge in this paper was to not only to construct a review of previous literature on the Supreme Court case, Tinker v. Des Moines, but to critically analyze the language of the Justices. The aim of my rhetorical analysis is to dissect the authority practiced in court language. My paper is based on developing a dialogue for my research question: “How does the Supreme Court defi ne and justify who has the authority to determine what forms of speech are protected under the First Amendment?”

—Kelly Tenn


Rhetoric of Law asks students to study law not only to understand constitutional principles of free speech, but also to gain a better understanding of the way in which the law’s language defi nes and justifi es what counts as free speech. In other words, in this upper division course, students study what the law says by studying how it says it. To this end, the task for the fi nal paper was to analyze a U.S. Supreme Court case concerning free speech to understand the effects and implications of the Court’s language. For her fi nal project, Kelly Tenn performed an insightful rhetorical analysis of the Supreme Court case Tinker v. Des Moines to understand who has the authority to limit free speech rights of students in public schools. A sophisticated and well written essay, it highlights the theoretical complexity of how the meaning of speech resides in the relationship between the content of the speech and the context in which it is spoken.

—Sarah Burgess, Department of Communication Studies

TINKER V. DES MOINES: A RHETORICAL ANALYSIS OF THE AUTHORITY PRACTICED IN COURT LANGUAGE

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KELLY TENN

Tinker v. Des Moines: A Rhetorical Analysis of the Authority Practiced in Court Language

IN DECEMBER OF 1965, three public school students were suspended from school for wearing black arm bands that signifi ed their protest

against the Vietnam War (Tinker v. Des Moines, 393 U.S. 503, 503 (1969)). On December 14, 1965, the Des Moines school offi cials made a rule to prohibit the wearing of black arm bands (Brief for Respondents at 4, Tinker v. Des Moines, 393 U.S. 503 (1969) (No.21)) because in eff ect this “demonstration,” they stated, “might evolve into something which would be diffi cult to control” (Brief for Respondents at 11, Tinker v. Des Moines, 393 U.S. 503 (1969) (No.21)), among other reasons. The consequence for wearing the arm band would be, fi rst, to ask the student to remove it. Then, two more chances are given to remove it, in being asked by administrators and the student’s parents. If the student still chooses not to remove it, s/he would be sent home until the arm band was removed.

The plaintiff John F. Tinker, age 15, wore the black arm band to school on December 17, 1965 knowing that there was a rule against wearing the band. When asked to take the arm band off by the principal, Mr. Wetter, Tinker told him he would not take the arm band off . Mr. Wetter then told Tinker that he would have to leave school and “that as soon as he took the arm band off or that there was a diff erent ruling on it that he could come back to school” (Brief for Respondents at 6, Tinker v. Des Moines, 393 U.S. 503 (1969) (No.21)). As a result, Tinker was suspended from school. The petitioners, John Tinker and his family along with a friend, Christopher Eckhardt, who also wore the arm band to school, sought damages for the school’s regulation of student speech. While wearing the arm bands, the petitioners were quiet and passive, and they believed they were not infringing on the rights of others; the school, on the contrary, interpreted their action as an infringement on the rights of other students. Thus, the question is whether the action of offi cials of the Des Moines school district forbidding students to wear arm bands at school as a means of protesting the Vietnam War deprived petitioners of

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their First and Fourteenth Amendment Rights in the U.S. Constitution (Brief for Respondents at 1, Tinker v. Des Moines, 393 U.S. 503 (1969) (No.21)). The extent of authority over free speech was in question in this attempt to defi ne what kind of public place a school is and how speech is defi ned as protected or unprotected under the First Amendment.

The complaint was fi led in the United States District Court by petitioners, for which they sought nominal damages. The District Court dismissed the complaint after a hearing and decided school authorities were reasonable to rule against the black arm bands (Tinker v. Des Moines, 393 U.S. 503, 504 (1969)). On appeal, the Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit considered the case en banc; with the court equally divided (Tinker v. Des Moines, 393 U.S. 503, 505 (1969)). The District Court’s decision was affi rmed, without opinion, and thus certiorari was granted to the Supreme Court. In John F. Tinker v. The Des Moines Independent Community School District, 393 U.S. 503, (1969), the court, with the opinion delivered by Mr. Justice Fortas, concluded in fi ve votes for Tinker and two votes against that the wearing of armbands was protected under free speech. The court agreed that the principals lacked justifi cation for imposing any of these limits on speech. The goal of the courts, as stated by the Supreme Court, is to uphold a school regulation unless it is clearly unreasonable (Tinker v. Des Moines, 393 U.S. 503, 533 (1969)), and the court decided that the school district was not justifi ed in their rule because there was no substantial evidence of interference with school discipline and the orderly process of education.

In attempting to defi ne the measures of this case, it seems necessary to understand how the public place at a school has been defi ned. In “Dissent Yesterday and Today: The Tinker Case and Its Legacy,” Joseph Russomanno argues that achieving free expression requires an open marketplace in which the public is susceptible to varied viewpoints, and, that a school is a form of this marketplace: a place where students are entitled to the privileges of free speech (Russomanno 376). School is a place where the free exchange of ideas may take place as long as it is deemed safe and not disruptive to the academic atmosphere. According to this line of argument, the school offi cials are the gatekeepers to the schoolhouse and may regulate the conduct within it. Bruce C. Hafen advocates that the school is an institution that mediates between the student and society. It is a place that should support growth and maturity so that the child’s eventual participation in a free society is meaningful and rewarding (Hafen 701). Because school is meant for students to learn, a safe educational environment must be maintained (Miller 627). As the


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court in Tinker enforced, schools have discretion to regulate student speech within the schoolhouse (Miller 626-627) in order to maintain this safe, academic atmosphere.

Given that the public space of a school is referred to as an area where free ideas are welcomed, as long as they are deemed safe and not harmful to the academic atmosphere, it is interesting to ask how other theorists have defi ned what is unsafe or harmful to the learning of students. Andrew Miller provides an example, which one way speech can be harmful to other students is if students who are wearing their protest, like the black arm bands, harass students who are not wearing the symbol of protest (Miller 651). Douglas Laycock notes that not allowing students to speak about a subject matter (like the Vietnam War) outside of the classroom would be harmful to the academic atmosphere and that policy change is a legitimate form of free speech, not harmful to other students (Laycock 127). The true matter that is unsafe, according to Russomanno, is the event of forcing students to conform (Russomanno 368). From the dissenting opinion of Justice Black, he said disruptive speech “took the students’ minds off of their class work and diverted them to thoughts about the highly emotional subject of the Vietnam war” (qtd. in Miller 651-652). Miller points to this idea as too pre-emptive and that there needs to be actual evidence of harm, such as violence or threats of violence (Miller 652) instead of something that is just a controversial subject. Many theorists here agree that the wearing of the arm bands in the Tinker case is not harmful to the learning environment or to other students.

To gain a better understanding of this diffi cult context, it is necessary to explore what has been discussed about the authority of these school offi cials. Russomanno discusses the eff orts of authority in controlling speech. He writes that authorities discourage or forbid the expressing of thoughts that are perceived to be contrary to the interests of the institution (Russomanno 368). In Tinker, there is a question about the degree of authority the school offi cials have and the extent of authorization they have to limit the speech of students, or in this case, to limit the wearing of arm bands. There is fear of new ideas, Margaret Blanchard notes, and this may stem from the fear of fellow citizens to make the proper choices in the new ideas being presented (qtd in Russomanno 368). In the context of the school, students are expected to follow the rules and a fear is almost instilled in them so that they do not disobey the rules. Authorities’ discrimination of speech content should be avoided so that a point of view can be more readily available (Williams 620). Ultimately, Russomanno expresses a need for students, especially with a minority

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opinion, to be encouraged and taught democratic values and that school authorities need to be careful about imposing limitations. This argument hits the school offi cials hard in the controversy of the Tinker case because it is said here that students should always be encouraged to speak up and be responsible citizens. With the school taking away certain aspects of student speech, fear is instilled into students about speaking up for their beliefs; and as such, it is probable that the student would miss out on understanding the benefi ts of free speech.

Hafen, with views similar to Russomanno, realizes that the school has a very unique public position, a position that needs a clearer defi nition in relation to the Constitution of how school authorities and students are expected to behave (Hafen 667). This is because the students themselves are complex and cannot be dealt with in abstract terms nor can be ruled over in strict/direct terms to be applied to all. Though the dissenting opinion of the court would agree that they like to have the power they do in the school atmosphere, it is not necessarily fair to the students to be left at the mercy of vague rules that can be changed at any time. Because the extent of school authority lacks clear defi nitions, Hafen and Russomanno argue for educational reform so that the authorities may discuss in more detail of what is allowable and unallowable forms of student speech.

The compelling theme that seems to be repeated in the texts concerns the complexity of the school space. In reference to this case, the school authorities should better defi ne the extent of their power to keep them in check with both local and federal laws. The school can diff er from the public in the sense that it has the academic emphasis, the teachers and administration as law makers and enforcers rather than the government, and the public being minors instead of adults. Rather than discussing the intent of the authority or the extent of the similarities between a public place and a school, I wish to look into the role of the authority. In this paper, I will ask:

How does the Supreme Court defi ne and justify who has the authority to determine what forms of speech are protected under the First Amendment?

The Supreme Court argues that the authority to determine protected speech depends on the context that the speech occurs. I argue that authority is defi ned by context and by the willingness of the of the subjects to follow; and, through drawing on the work of Nealon and Giroux, authority is justifi ed in the way the court constructs its own language in its separate context in court, ultimately suggesting that the interpretation of


52

language can be a tool in giving and retaining authority over speech. First, I will consider how the context can defi ne the authority, and next, how the people subjected to the authority are willing to comply. By looking at Nealon and Giroux’s “Author/ity,” I will decipher the eff ects of authorship on meaning and interpretation based on the language of the authority, followed by a link to how the court defi nes its own authority. And fi nally, I will discuss the power of language in law, providing an insight about the dynamics of studying law rhetorically instead of factually.

Authority is defi ned by the context of the situation. The individual retains the right to free speech because it is ultimately protected under the fi rst amendment of the law. Speech is entitled to “comprehensive protection under the fi rst Amendment,” and is available to teachers and students, as the Court states (Tinker v. Des Moines, 393 U.S. 503, 506 (1969)). Looking in the frame of the schoolhouse, the individual still has a right to speak and should not have to check this right at the door of the school.

The schoolhouse, however, is a unique context where students, in order to learn and feel safe in an academic environment, must not only submit to the authority of the law but also to the authority of the teachers and administration. The Court recognizes that “school offi cials do not possess absolute authority over their students” and “they may not be confi ned to expression of sentiments that are offi cially approved” (Tinker v. Des Moines, 393 U.S. 503, 511 (1969)). Thus, it is the job of both the court and the school to ensure the school offi cials do not suppress speech. The law says that Congress and the states may not abridge the right to free speech, as the Court makes an eff ort to note ((Tinker v. Des Moines, 393 U.S. 503, 513 (1969)), inferring that in general, free speech must be permitted.

The environment of the school diff ers from a general public space, as discussed in the Tinker case, because the school authority may limit speech more strictly from what is in the law. In Tinker, allowable speech means no agitation of the academic atmosphere. The testimony of the school authorities in the court stated that the initial regulation against the wearing of the armband was not due to a fear of disturbance of the academic atmosphere, but it was that they felt “schools are no place for demonstrations.” And if they wished to change the ruling, they should handle it “with the ballot box” and not in the halls of the school (Tinker v. Des Moines, 393 U.S. 503, 514 (1969)). In this context, the schools taught students to respect

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free speech, but there was a lack of clear interpretation of what the wearing of the arm bands meant and if they considered that a form of free speech. From the perspective of the students, who are subordinate to school offi cials, their interpretation of speech was not considered against the interpretation of the offi cials. This context within the distance between the students, the school authorities, and the Court, determines the outcome of how speech is interpreted in this space. The Court, then, must attempt to discern the meaning of the text within this atmosphere of academic authority. The context of the schoolhouse is what determines the line of interpretation.

The Court recognizes that in the school atmosphere, there is a willingness of most students to follow the school authority. Mr. Justice Stewart, with a concurring opinion, states that “a child—like someone in a captive audience—is not possessed of that full capacity for individual choice which is the presupposition of First Amendment guarantees” (Tinker v. Des Moines, 393 U.S. 503, 515 (1969)). This environment is proven to be highly bureaucratic with adult administrators in the superior position because in this case, only seven out of the school system’s 18,000 pupils deliberately refused to obey the order (Tinker v. Des Moines, 393 U.S. 503, 516 (1969)). The Court recognizes that the students are willing to follow the order of the schools. In the dissenting opinion, Justice Black recognizes that students do not have the same power as those who are over 18 or 21 and should not “defy and fl out orders” to school offi cials, especially in the context of this time period in the late 1960s (Tinker v. Des Moines, 393 U.S. 503, 518 (1969)). “Children need to learn, not teach,” Justice Black argues, which is a result of recognizing the movement from children being completely voiceless to a time where they were beginning to reform (Tinker v. Des Moines, 393 U.S. 503, 522 (1969)). It is prevalent that authority is defi ned by the context of a schoolhouse in the late 1960s; in which the school offi cials hold power—but not absolute power—over the students, who are willing to follow. This is the court’s justifi cation for attempting to judge the student speech as they have.

The Justices hold a viewpoint about the defi nition of authority in their own context of the court, authoring a perspective about the situation at hand. Considering the authority of the Court on their own speech, Nealon and Giroux off er a view into how authority is constituted. Their main goal is to decipher how someone becomes an author, considering who counts as an author and how authorial


54

intent is considered by the audience. They discuss the authority of an author and how the public moves from considering someone as an everyday person who writes versus a renowned scholar. In reference to this context, they ask “How does the institutional location of a body of work expand or delimit its impact on culture and society?” (Nealon and Giroux 11). Knowing the author helps to validate the truthfulness of the work; knowing when, why, and the circumstances also help (Nealon and Giroux 17). They provide the idea that perhaps when multiple meanings of a text are opened up that there is less of a gate-keeping function of authorities and more “authorizing [of] who can speak to what issues” (Nealon and Giroux 18-19).

Nealon and Giroux demonstrate that authority is linked to authorship in the way that the audience receives and reacts to the authors. This reading provides a window into the idea that an author’s intent for meaning is not so important as how society interprets diff erent meanings based on the credibility or expertise of the author and how that author speaks. In the Tinker case, the court authors their language and because of the high position the Justices are in, their language connotes a particular viewpoint and signifi cance on the subject. Because the Justices are seen in a powerful position and are consistently defi ning their own authority through the language they use, they are seen as credible in defi ning the authority of others.

The issue at hand in the case is not only who gets the authority (either Tinker or the state), but also how the Court defi nes its own authority. What makes their perspective diff erent is in their interpretation of the situation, which is from the perspective of the law, not from the perspective of the school authorities or from the petitioners. They attempt to claim their authority over other, lesser courts for instance, by pointing out what the others had said, did not say, and what their opinion lacks. When the District Court agreed that the Des Moines school authorities were reasonable in limiting the wearing of the armbands, the Supreme Court noted that the District Court was fearful of disturbance from the academic atmosphere. The Supreme Court said “In our system, undiff erentiated fear of a disturbance is not enough to overcome the right to freedom of expression” (Tinker v. Des Moines, 393 U.S. 503, 508 (1969)). Here, the court claims their authority through pointing out their dedication to and defense for the people. They, in fact, point to their ability to recognize justice and injustice, with a law-oriented perspective, by belittling the decision of the District Court. Through this text, they convey a solid and clear link to credibility because of their drive to protect justice.

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The Justices defi ne their authority over the school’s authority by specifying the school’s past inconsistencies and through the school’s decisions that reveal their willingness to avoid controversy. Justice Fortas mentions “that the school authorities did not prohibit the wearing of all symbols of political or controversial signifi cance,” which begins to discredit the school and credit the Court themselves by pointing out this aspect (Tinker v. Des Moines, 393 U.S. 503, 510 (1969)). The Court makes it clear that the school singled out the petitioners by referencing that “the record shows that students in some of the schools wore buttons relating to national political campaigns, and some even wore the Iron Cross, traditionally a symbol of Nazism,” which was previously permitted by the school offi cials. The interesting aspect lies in the context of the situation, and the example used by Justice Fortas, implying that if the Nazi symbol was permitted (which is probably the most negative and off ensive symbol in America to date), then the school offi cials obviously do not stand up for the law itself, and instead seem to be inconsistent and unable to make the most legitimate decision. The Court’s language reveals that they believe in their own authorized opinion over any other, because it is the law, and consider themselves much more apt to make a proper decision than the authority of the schools.

The people trust and note the Court’s authored opinion based on Nealon and Giroux’s idea that the Court provides a gate-keeping function in the law—promoting some meanings and denying others (Nealon and Giroux 18). The nature of this function of authorities solidifi es what people understand as rules in society. It is possible that the more and more people are able to access the words of the justices, the more they will be able to come to the true, one clear meaning of the law. But Nealon and Giroux would say that despite the Court’s power, they will always have to present new opinions based on context and that they will never have one meaning to promote and live by. The chaotic nature of language is that there are multiple ways to weave words together that presents an author’s idea to the world of limitless interpretations—where the people may understand a text based on their experiences or based on what they already know about society. The nature of speech, to Nealon and Giroux, is that it is forever being authored and interpreted in many ways.

The Court is justifi ed in its own interpretations because the receivers of their authoritative rulings allow it, agree to it, and follow it. Justice Fortas explains the Court’s dedication to the Constitution and to every person who lives under it, students included, as a way to justify its interpretation. The court permits reasonable regulation of speech-


56

connected activities, and they logically make a point to say that they cannot confi ne speech rights to only some public places and not others, like in a phone booth or a classroom (Tinker v. Des Moines, 393 U.S. 503, 513 (1969)). In the language of their interpretation of the situation, with pressure from the public to provide an opinion in favor of the people, the Court appeals to logic. They are to-the-point and attempt to be as clear as possible, giving examples from past cases and being sure to not only address their opinion, but address the dissenting opinion too. Their language constitutes their power.

The language used by the Court is a tool in constructing their authority. In Tinker v. Des Moines, 393 U.S. 503, (1969), the dynamics of power in the school system is not the only authority addressed, and it is not in the mere decision of the court. The rhetorical fascination lies in how the court uses its own language to defi ne its own authority. The courtroom is a stage for using strategic language which the public can interpret in varying ways. Studying the law rhetorically has strength in providing another layer of understanding to speech and text. The idea is to see past the facts and to read deeper into what constitutes the meaning of the situation, speech, words used, and context. Reading Tinker carefully has provided an understanding of how the court uses speech to defi ne its own authority over other existing authorities.

Works Cited

Brief for Respondents, Tinker v. Des Moines, 393 U.S. 503 (1969) (No. 21).

Brief for Petitioners, Tinker v. Des Moines, 393 U.S. 503 (1969) (No. 21).

Hafen, Bruce C. “Developing Student Expression Through Institutional Authority: Public Schools As Mediating Structures.” Ohio State Law Journal 48 (1987): 663-731.

Laycock, Douglas. “High-value Speech and the Basic Educational Mission of a Public School: Some Preliminary Thoughts.” Lewis & Clark Law Review 12 (2008): 111-30.

Miller, Andrew D. “Balancing School Authority and Student Expression.” Baylor Law Review 54 (2002): 623-54.

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Nealon, Jeff rey, and Susan Searls Giroux. “Author/ity.” The Theory Toolbox: Critical Concepts for the Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefi eld (2003): 9-20.

Russomanno, Joseph. “Dissent Yesterday and Today: The Tinker Case and Its Legacy.” Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc., Communication Law and Policy 11 (2006): 367-91.

Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District, 393 U.S. 503 (1969).

Williams, Susan H. “Content Discrimination and The First Amendment.” University of Pennsylvania Law Review 139 (1991): 615-730.

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WRITER’S COMMENTS

One of the fascinating assignments in Professor Weiner’s course Free Expression and the Constitution was our mock Supreme Court case. One of the components of the assignment for those students portraying lawyers was to write a brief using precedent and legal reasoning to argue their position. I was assigned the role of Assistant Attorney General for the State of Oklahoma. In that position, I wrote a brief defending the constitutionality of the state statute limiting picketing at funerals. I learned a great deal about applying facts and law from prior cases to current cases and using these tools of legal reasoning to persuade others and guide them to the position I advocate.

—Anya Wasko


A primary component of Politics 339, Free Expression and the Constitution, is a “mock Supreme Court case” in which students are assigned to play the part of either an attorney or a Supreme Court justice. Students are asked to examine a factual situation and apply the constitutional rules or doctrine covered in the course. Anya Wasko was assigned to play the role of the Deputy Attorney General of Oklahoma and to defend Oklahoma’s recently passed law restricting the time, place, and manner of demonstrations at military funerals. The Oklahoma law was aimed at keeping a Kansas church group, the Westboro Baptist Church (which has no connection to mainstream Baptist churches), who contend that God is punishing U.S. soldiers in Iraq because America condones homosexuality, from picketing at military funerals. Ms. Wasko’s brief is an excellent example of how an intelligent and well-informed advocate can distill lengthy and complex legal arguments into the key issues of constitutional doctrine and public policy, and persuade judges or justices of their position. Ms. Wasko’s brief is crisp, concise, and jargon-free yet still thorough and informative.

—Brian Weiner, Department of Politics

ANYA WASKO

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ANYA WASKO

Supreme Court Brief

IN THE

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

WESTBORO BAPTIST CHURCH, INC.,

Appellant,

v.

THE STATE OF OKLAHOMA,

Appellee.

_____________________________________________________

On Appeal From The United States Circuit Court

For the 10th District_______________________________________________________

BRIEF FOR APPELLEE________________________________________________________

Anya WaskoDeputy Attorney General

State of OklahomaCounsel for Appellee

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60

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page No.

I. SUMMARY OF FACTUAL SETTING 61

II. FIRST AMENDMENT CONSIDERATIONS 62

A. The Issue 62

B. There Is No Absolute Right of Free Speech 62

C. The Standards Under Which the Government Can Regulate Freedom of Speech 63

III. REGULATING NON-CONTENT BASED SPEECH 63

A. The State of Oklahoma Has a Signifi cant State in Regulating Protests at Funerals 63

1. The Captive Audience 64

2. Protection of Health and Safety 65

3. The Right to Mourn 65

4. The Right to Worship 66

B. The Oklahoma Statute Is Narrowly Tailored to Accomplish the Governmental Interest 66

C. There Are Ample Alternate Means for Demonstrators to Express Their Ideas 68

IV. CONCLUSIONS 68

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I. SUMMARY OF FACTUAL SETTING.

Since September 11, 2001, the United States has been engaged in wars in Afghanistan and Iraq as it attempts to disrupt and marginalize radical terrorists intent on infl icting economic and physical injury on Western countries in general and on the United States in particular. Of course, these wars have not been without casualties. American service members have sacrifi ced their lives in our nation’s eff orts to minimize and eliminate the dangers posed by these radical terrorists.

As the bodies of these service members have returned home to their families, the memorials for many have resulted not in the tribute that these men and women deserve, but in additional emotional distress and anguish to their families at one of their most vulnerable moments. On many occasions, memorials have become the forum for demonstrations whose focus is completely unrelated to a soldier’s service or even to the nation’s foreign policy and wars. Followers of the Westboro Baptist Church, Inc. of Wichita, Kansas (“Westboro”) have generally organized these demonstrations. The Westboro demonstrators typically assert in their signs and chanting that the United States has succumbed to some undefi ned homosexual agenda and that the death of these service members is God’s retribution on our nation. They yell out slogans that disparage the soldier’s service and rejoice in his or her death. Their disruption occurs before, during and after the service and is intended for the ears of the soldier’s family and friends. In addition to the Westboro demonstrators, others have organized counter demonstrations to support the families and friends of these fallen soldiers. The result is a cacophony of noise that provides mostly distraction and anguish.

In an attempt to maintain a quiet, dignifi ed and supportive environment for families whose husbands, wives, and children are our nation’s fallen heroes, the State of Oklahoma has passed a statute that reasonably restricts the time and the place demonstrators with any cause can assemble to exercise their free speech rights.

In creating this law, the Oklahoma legislature acknowledged that 1) “families have a substantial interest in organizing and attending funerals for deceased relatives” and 2) “the interests of families in privately and peacefully mourning the loss of deceased relatives are violated when funerals are targeted for picketing and other public demonstrations.”1 In order to guard these interests, the legislature specifi cally stated its desire to 1) “protect the privacy of grieving families” and 2) “preserve the peaceful character of cemeteries, mortuaries and churches.”2

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In order to achieve these objectives, the Oklahoma statute prohibits protests within 500 feet of a cemetery, church or mortuary from one hour before a funeral until one hour after a funeral. The statute also includes a provision that makes violations of the law a misdemeanor that is punishable by a $500 fi ne, a thirty-day jail sentence of both. The court may also award damages, including punitive damages, against those convicted under the statute. These limitations on the activities of demonstrators and protesters are reasonable limits that allow mourners the peace they deserve to grieve for their loved ones and yet preserve the rights of the protestors to get their message out.

II. FIRST AMENDMENT CONSIDERATIONS.

The First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States states:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or the right of the people to peaceably assemble, and to petition the Government for redress of grievances.

The proscriptions of the First Amendment are applicable to state legislatures under the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution. Lovell v. City of Griffi n, 303 U.S. 444, 450 (1938).

A. The Issue.

The issue presented to this Court is straightforward: Does the Oklahoma statute violate the Westboro demonstrators’ right to freedom of speech?

B. There Is No Absolute Right of Free Speech.

While the language of the First Amendment is unqualifi ed in the scope of freedom of speech, this Court has acknowledged that this right is not absolute. In Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire 215 U.S. 568, 572 (1942), this Court noted that “certain well-defi ned and narrowly limited classes of speech” are not protected by the Constitution including “the lewd, the profane, the libelous, and the insulting or ‘fi ghting words’”3 because these statements would likely cause a disturbance of some sort. The court explained:

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[S]uch utterances are no essential part of any exposition of ideas, and are of such slight social value as a step to truth that any benefi t that may be derived from them is clearly outweighed by the social interest in order and morality.4

While this conclusion seems eminently reasonable, what speech actually fi ts within this description is not always so easy to determine.

C. The Standards Under Which the Government Can Regulate Freedom of Speech.

Where the government seeks to regulate the right to speak particular words, in a particular manner, in a public forum traditionally used to express ideas, the rights of the State to limit such activity are sharply circumscribed. Perry Education Association v. Perry Local Education Association, 460 U.S. 37, 45 (1983). In order to regulate content-based speech, the State must demonstrate a compelling state interest and show that the regulation is narrowly drawn in order to achieve its goals. Perry Education Association v. Perry Local Education Association, 460 U.S. 37, 45 (1983).

In the case currently before this Court, however, the Oklahoma statute does not regulate the content of the demonstrators’ speech. It treats all demonstrators equally whether they are there to promote the views of Westboro or to support the soldier’s family and friends.

III. REGULATING NON-CONTENT BASED SPEECH.

In order to regulate non-content based speech, the government must demonstrate that there is a signifi cant state interest, that the regulation is narrowly tailored to accomplish the governmental interest, and that the regulation leaves suffi cient alternative methods of communication. Ward v. Rock Against Racism, 491 U.S. 781, 791 (1989).

A. The State of Oklahoma Has a Signifi cant State in Regulating Protests at Funerals.

Oklahoma has a signifi cant interest in protecting mourners from protestors. This interest is established on any of four bases.

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1. The Captive Audience.

First, mourners at funerals are akin to a captive audience.5 They are present at the cemetery or church at a prescribed time and they stay for a generally prescribed period. In entering onto the cemetery grounds or into the church, they only have only limited approaches. During a service, they must listen to the chants of the protestors. There is no choice. They can only leave the scene and abandon the opportunity to honor their family member or friend.

This court initially articulated the captive audience concept in Kovacs v. Cooper, 336 U.S. 77 (1949). In that case, the City of Trenton, New Jersey, enacted an ordinance that prohibited the use of sound trucks and comparable mobile equipment. With respect to the public, it stated:

The unwilling listener is not like the passer-by who may be off ered a pamphlet in the street but cannot be made to take it. In his home or on the street, he is practically helpless to escape this interference with his privacy by loud speakers except through the protection of the municipality.6

The Court concluded that the ordinance did not breach rights under the First Amendment as long as it did not concern itself with, or focus on, the content of the speech from the sound trucks.

The Court expanded that concept in Frisby v. Schultz 487 U.S. 474 (1988). There, a town passed an ordinance that prohibited picketing on a public street “before or about a residence or dwelling of any individual.”7 The object of the picketers was a doctor who worked in a clinic that off ered abortion services. The court pointed out that the state has an interest in protecting the “well-being, tranquility and privacy of the home”8 and acknowledged that unwilling listeners may be protected by the government when they are within their own homes. Where the picketing is focused as it was in Frisby, it is directed at a specifi c individual and not the public generally. The picketers are not really trying to communicate with the public at all. The Court concluded that the focused picketing directed toward a particular individual does not allow that individual to avoid the “speech.” Therefore, the state had substantial and justifi able interest in banning it.

In Hill v. Colorado 530 U.S. 703 (2000), this Court extended the captive audience concept even further by holding that an ordinance creating a 100 foot buff er zone in front of a health care facility and an 8 foot buff er zone around a patient of the facility was constitutionally

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suffi cient because it balanced the interests of the unwilling listeners against the rights of law-abiding speakers. The importance of this case is that the Court extended the concept of the captive audience to a public venue that had no residential component.

Based on the analyses in these cases, mourners at a funeral are an unwilling audience and constitute a captive audience. The state has a signifi cant interest that permits it to protect the mourners and to regulate the speech as contained in demonstrations.

2. Protection of Health and Safety.

The State has a legitimate interest in protecting the health and safety of the public. In Madsen v. Women’s Health Center 512 U.S. 753 (1994), the court considered the constitutional adequacy of diff erent buff er zones around a clinic at which counseling services and abortions were available to patients and noise restrictions on the picketers. In affi rming in part and reversing in part, the court agreed with the Florida Supreme Court that the state has a “strong interest in protecting a woman’s freedom to seek lawful medical or counseling services in connection with her pregnancy.”9 Irrespective of its conclusions regarding the buff er zones, this case is important because it recognized that the State has a legitimate interest in protecting the health of its citizens.

In the case currently before this court, mourners, particularly family members, experience extreme anguish and additional emotional distress as a result of the chanting and disruption caused by demonstrators at funerals. Based on the discussion in Madsen, the State has a clear interest in protecting the health of these mourners and should be permitted to regulate demonstrators with respect to the time, manner, and place in which their protests can occur.

3. The Right to Mourn. Although this Court has not recognized a specifi c right to mourn,

such a right would be consistent with other interests protected by the Court. Njeri Mathis Rutledge explained that the right to mourn is based on “the need of an individual to mourn in peace.”10 It consists of a privacy component and protecting it and a health component by precluding additional emotional distress.11 It is a right that is consistent with the right of privacy articulated by Justice Brandeis when he discussed the “right to be let alone.”12 The Court engaged in a very similar discussion in cases

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such as Frisby and Hill where the right to privacy was the cornerstone of the right to be let alone. The right to mourn is not so diff erent from the basis on which picketers have been excluded from demonstrating in front of residences and patients have been protected from protesters following them into a health clinic.

With respect to the present case, the right to mourn would enable states to enact more artfully constructed and focused statutes that would withstand constitutional challenge. As Ms. Rutledge explained: There is no time when the right to be let alone would be more poignant than when one is grieving the loss of a loved one and attending rituals related to burial.

4. The Right to Worship.

Finally, by their nature, funerals contain ritual. They usually have a religious aspect to them that speaks to a family’s traditions. Again, this is not a right that the federal courts have recognized. However, a state court has considered whether such a right should be recognized. In St. David’s Episcopal Church v. Westboro Baptist Church, Inc. 921 P.2d 821, 830 (Kan.Ct.App. 1996), the court considered whether the weekly picketing by followers of Westboro at services conducted at St. David’s infringed on its congregations right to worship. In applying the test in Madsen, the court found a legitimate interest for the government to protect. It concluded that Westboro did, in fact, infringe on the congregations right to worship and endorsed the language of the lower court which stated that “a place of worship would be a close second to one’s residence when it comes to the right to worship and communicate with the maker of one’s choice in a tranquil, private and serene setting.”13

So too in this case, the mourners have a right to worship as they bury their dead. Chanting and other distractions that destroy the serenity of the moment should not interrupt them.

B. The Oklahoma Statute Is Narrowly Tailored to Accomplish the Governmental Interest.

In analyzing whether or not a statute is narrowly tailored, the time, manner and place restrictions on the speech must be reasonable.

In Ward v. Rock Against Racism 14, the court considered whether sound guidelines enacted by the city of New York that required users of the band shell in Central Park to use a city sound technician violated the free speech rights of those that used the band shell and desired to have control

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over the sound equipment. It concluded that the city’s regulation was satisfactory in that “[t]he city’s sound-amplifi cation guideline is narrowly tailored to serve the substantial and content-neutral government interests of avoiding excessive sound volume and providing suffi cient amplifi cation within the bandshell concert ground, and the guideline leaves open ample channels of communication.”15

In considering whether or not regulation is narrowly tailored, the court looks to the manner in which the regulation aff ects the time, manner, and place for the speech.

In Phelps v. Hamilton 122 F3d 1309, the District Court considered the time limitation for protest contained in the Kansas funeral picketing law. The court found that the statute prohibiting demonstrations “before or after” a funeral was unconstitutionally vague on it face.16 Clearly, there must be standards as to what amount of time constitutes “before” and what amount of time constitutes “after.” Otherwise, demonstrators do not have any notice as to what behavior constitutes a violation of the statute. No case has been decided by this Court that has specifi cally approved the limitations that can be imposed on time for demonstrations before and after funerals. However, those restrictions must be reasonable. As the court explained in Albertini v. United States 472 U.S. 675 (1985), the “validity of such [time] regulations does not turn on a judge’s agreement with the responsible decisionmaker concerning the most appropriate method for promoting signifi cant government interests.”17

In the case before this Court, the Oklahoma statute precludes demonstrations one hour before and one hour after a funeral. These time limits are reasonable. They allow mourners time to come to and leave a funeral in peace and without intrusion from demonstrators. Given the instruction in the Albertini case, the court should defer to the legislators determination that these time provisions best serve to accomplish the goals of the statute.

A second consideration in whether a statute is narrowly tailored is the distance from the place of the actual funeral that demonstrators are permitted to exercise their rights. The Federal District Court in Phelps-Roper v. Taft 525 F.Supp.2d 612 (N.D.Ohio 2007) found a 300 foot buff er included in the Ohio funeral picketing statute acceptable, but concluded that a 300 foot fl oating buff er to protect a funeral procession was not acceptable. In McQueary v. Stumbo 453 F.Supp 975 (E.D.Ky 2006), the court found the Kentucky limit of 300 feet too great and a risk to unrelated communication.

This court has not ruled on this question of distance buff ers in funeral picketing cases. However, this Court has considered a similar distance

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issue in Boos v. Barry 485 U.S. 312 (1988). In that case, District of Columbia code prohibited displays of signs denigrating a foreign government within 500 feet of the embassy of that foreign government or to congregate within that buff er zone and refuse a police order to disperse. This Court struck down the display clause and limited the application of the code as it relates to police dispersal. However, and importantly, it did not conclude that the 500-foot buff er was greater than necessary to protect the governmental interest.

Based on the Boos case, Oklahoma’s buff er zone of 500 feet within which demonstrations cannot take place for one hour before and one hour after a funeral is a constitutionally acceptable distance.

C. There Are Ample Alternate Means for Demonstrators to Express Their Ideas.

The fi nal hurdle for the state to legitimately exercise its power to limit speech is whether or not those who are regulated by the state have suffi cient and ample alternate ways and means to communicate their ideas to the public.18

In this case, those aff ected by the statute have the option to set up a website to explain their views. They can hand out fl iers and pamphlets. They can call a press conference or send out faxes to news organizations including radio and television stations. Ultimately, they can continue to picket at the funerals of deceased soldiers as they have in the past. The only diff erence is when and where they can demonstrate.

IV. CONCLUSIONS. Regulating speech should not be done lightly. Freedom of speech

is not only an important right of each American today, it is also one of those basic rights that allowed the colonists long ago to communicate with their fellow colonists and to build the movement for independence. Freedom of speech is truly one of the most basic rights Americans have as citizens.

Sometimes, however, speech must be regulated. American history is replete with fact situations that justifi ed limiting the right to free speech. In the particular case before this Court, the State of Oklahoma has enacted a statute intended to protect mourners, and particularly those who mourn for our fallen service members. It is intended to regulate demonstrations at funerals that not only distract them from the solemnity

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of the occasion, but also infl ict additional emotional distress on family and friends at a time when they are most vulnerable. The Oklahoma law fully complies with this court’s prescriptions to create an enforceable statute regulating speech. The state has demonstrated a signifi cant government interest that is supported by the captive audience doctrine, the state’s right to protect the health and safety of its citizens, the mourners’ right to mourn and the mourners’ right to worship. In addition, the statute is narrowly tailored to accomplish is purposes and imposes reasonable time and distance limitations on demonstrators that this court has endorsed in other cases where free speech is the issue. Finally, it leaves available to the demonstrators many and varied alternative means to communicate their positions to the public at large. The State of Oklahoma respectfully requests that this Court approve its statute in all its parts.

Footnotes

fn1 Okla. Stat. Ann., tit. 21, § 1380.

fn2 Okla. Stat. Ann., tit. 21, § 1380. fn3 Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire, 315 U.S. at 572.

fn4 Id.

fn5 Rutledge, Njeri Mathis. A Time to Mourn: Balancing the Right of Fee Speech Against the Right of Privacy in Funeral Picketing. Maryland Law Review, 67 Md. L. Rev 295

fn6 Kovacs v. Cooper, 336 U.S. at 86-87.

fn7 Frisby v. Schultz, 487 U.S. at 447.

fn8 Id. at 484.

fn9 Madsen v. Women’s Health Center 512 U.S. at 767-768.

fn10 Rutledge, supra at 309.

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fn11 Rutledge, supra at 309.

fn12 Olmstead v. United States 277 U.S. 438, 478.

fn13 St. David’s Episcopal Church v. Westboro Baptist Church 921 P.2d at 830.

fn14 Ward v. Rock Against Racism 491 U.S. 781 (1989).

fn15 Id. at 803.

fn16 Phelps v. Hamilton 122 F.3d 1309, 1315 (10th Cir. 1997)

fn17 Albertini v. United States 472 U.S. at 689.

fn18 Ward v. Rock Against Racism, supra, at 802.

CHELSEA LALANCETTE

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WRITER’S COMMENTS

The following paper was the second of four major assignments in RC 140, Seminar in Rhetoric and Composition, taught by Professor Brian Komei Dempster. The assignment was to rhetorically analyze a text. I looked through our class reader for inspiration and gravitated immediately towards “Mother Tongue” by Amy Tan, a personal essay on language by the daughter of Chinese immigrants and “Politics and the English Language” by George Orwell, a funny and insightful essay on what constitutes quality writing. I enjoyed both pieces; as I re-read them, I thought of them in terms of my own experience and relationship with language. The essays present two opposite sides of a spectrum and yet convey a similar theme: eloquence and quality of content are not necessarily related and the relationship between language and power is not always a simple or straightforward matter —Chelsea Lalancette INSTRUCTOR’S COMMENTS

Full of insight and strong examples, Chelsea’s essay raises the bar for Major Assignment II, which asks students to do a critical analysis. In this impressive piece, she moves well beyond a superfi cial or generic reading; instead, she engages in rigorous, independent thinking by skillfully comparing two texts and their claims—both explicit and implicit—about the power of language and rhetoric. Her approach is savvy: she demonstrates each essay’s considerable strengths in order to make a case for their respective shortcomings. Never straying from the important matter at hand, Chelsea’s superb argument shows our misperceptions of and ethical responsibility towards language.

—Brian Komei Dempster, Rhetoric and Composition

THE MISLEADING NATURE OF RHETORIC

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CHELSEA LALANCETTE

The Misleading Nature of Rhetoric

BY THE TIME we graduate high school, most all of us have “bullshitted” a paper or assignment, skirting a subject we don’t really understand

or care to understand in an eff ort to fool our teacher into giving us a decent grade. One of the most important strategies in bullshitting a paper is using “big words” and complex sentence structure whenever possible, creating a sense of intelligence that distracts from the paper’s lack of substance. I have defi nitely employed this strategy and seen results. When given an assignment that I do not care about, I focus my energy not on understanding it but on crafting complex and eloquent sentences that vaguely refer to a point I never really make.

If I had to choose an experience that was the total opposite of creating an apparently complex idea through bullshit, it would be attempting to express an actual complex idea without the requisite language skills needed. A personal example that stands out to me is a discussion I had with my host mom a few months into my year-long exchange in Germany. The discussion was about the European Union and her opinion that Turkey shouldn’t be allowed to join because “Die Türken aren’t like the British, French, and Germans; they’re just too diff erent.” This statement went against everything I was: a sixteen-year-old idealist whose beliefs about intercultural understanding and the inherent goodness of humanity had inspired me to spend a year immersed in a foreign culture. As I saw it, her belief went against everything that had brought me to Germany and into her home. With my limited German, I couldn’t even begin to explain the irony of the situation to her and was left wordless and frustrated.

In reading George Orwell’s essay “Politics and the English Language” and Amy Tan’s essay “Mother Tongue,” I was off ered broader context for the personal experiences I have described and shown that I am not alone. Orwell and Tan approach the issue of language and meaning from very diff erent directions in very diff erent styles but come to the same basic conclusion: the perceived correlation between complexity of language and depth of thought is a misconception. Both writers give specifi c examples

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to back up their claim: Orwell’s examples are of lofty rhetoric that lacks meaning; Tan’s examples are of profound and direct thought that is not fully expressed due to fl awed or simple language. Orwell’s writes in a dry, satirical tone about the “mixture of vagueness and sheer incompetence,” which he believes “is the most marked characteristic of modern English prose, and especially of any kind of political writing” (282). His evidence comes in the form of various samples of writing that exemplify the great fl aws in modern writing, such as “Dying Metaphors,” “Operators or Verbal False Limbs,” “Pretentious Diction,” and “Meaningless Words” (282-284). He claims that such tactics demonstrate that “The writer either has a meaning and cannot express it . . . or he is almost indiff erent as to whether his words mean anything or not” (282). The authors he showcases have essentially mastered the skill of bullshitting. He also gives examples of modern rhetoric used in political writing as “defense of the indefensible” (287). He goes on to claim that “if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought” (288).

Whereas Orwell uses reasoning and writing samples to prove his point, Tan uses her own personal history to illustrate her claims. She tells the reader about her own linguistic development as the daughter of Chinese immigrants and about the two Englishes she speaks: the “‘broken’” English (82) that she learned from her mother, and the conventional English that she learned in school. She refl ects on how her mother was treated due to her “broken English,” how her own linguistic background aff ected her ability to perform well in English class, how rebellious she had to be to overcome this discouragement to pursue writing, and how these experiences shaped her writing.

Both Orwell and Tan are eff ective in proving their points and in writing enjoyable essays, but each essay has distinct strengths and weaknesses. Orwell’s essay has a dry, emotionless feeling and becomes monotonous due to a lack of variation in style; he does, however, do an excellent job of analyzing evidence to support his point. Tan, on the other hand, writes a highly personal essay that varies between argument and story telling but lacks a little in evidence and analyses. Even more important to proving their points would have been an integration of each other’s subject matter. In an eff ort to prove that eloquence and meaning are not necessarily correlated, Tan writes about deep meaning expressed through simple language and Orwell writes about complex language with no real meaning. Each author does an excellent job of presenting the argument through examples from the extreme about which they write, but neither author really bothers to explore the other extreme. Although Tan writes


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a generally better-rounded essay, both authors would have benefi ted from combining one another’s writing styles and evidence to create a wider appeal and more convincing argument.

Orwell’s piece, though it is enjoyable, often funny, and well-supported, contains very little emotional appeal. He criticizes dry texts for their “staleness of imagery” and “lack of precision” (282) along with their dry tone. The only time he diff ers from his unexciting style is to give examples of alternatives to the analyzed texts. This serves mostly to provide examples of political speech, such as “defense of the indefensible” (287). He gives the following examples in what I fi nd to be the most eff ective section of the essay:

Defenseless villages are bombarded from the air, the inhabitants driven out into the countryside, the cattle machine-gunned, the huts set on fi re with incendiary bullets: this is called pacifi cation. Millions of peasants are robbed of their farms and sent trudging along the roads with no more than they can carry: this is called transfer of population or rectifi cation of frontiers. (287)

I fi nd this passage eff ective because it inspires an irrepressible emotional response; no reader can help but to feel sympathy when “defenseless villages are bombarded from the air” and outrage at such a brutal practice being called “pacifi cation.” This example does an excellent job of showing the reader just how large the gap can be between the apparent and actual meaning of a phrase and provides a clear contrast to the type of writing that the essay critiques. If Orwell’s own writing had been consistently vivid and exciting, it would have provided a better contrast to the texts that he analyzed and increased his credibility. He would have benefi ted from using Tan’s more personal approach and emotional appeal. A few paragraphs of personal history, for example, would not only have contrasted with the boring texts he analyzes but also would have broken the essay’s monotonous rhythm. “Politics and the English Language” consists largely of sample texts followed directly by analyses. Following his introduction, Orwell provides fi ve example paragraphs in a row, which he refers back to throughout the essay. Almost all of his body paragraphs contain few short lists of fl awed or useless words or phrases to exemplify his point. The excessive examples he lists prevent Orwell from escaping the monotonous rhythm and feeling that characterize his essay. Tan writes a much more varied essay in this respect.

“Mother Tongue” reads like a story and manages to provide suffi cient evidence with only two examples of the broken English about

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which she writes. The fi rst example is a story her mother told, which Tan transcribed word for word. She includes it when she says, “so you’ll have some idea of what this family talk I heard sounds like . . .” (81). It opens: “‘Du Yusong having business like fruit stand. Like off the street kind. He is Du like Du Zong — but not Tsung-ming Island people. The local people call putong, the river east side, he belong to that side local people’” (81) and continues for a full paragraph that, though comprehensible, is very diffi cult to understand. Her other example is a sentence of her own broken English, which she falls into when telling her mother “‘Not waste money that way’” (81). There other direct quotes from her mother in the essay, but they function as dialogue and do not break the fl ow of her story or announce themselves as examples. By using only two well-chosen examples of the language about which she is writing, Tan is able to prove her point and provide a reference for the reader while leaving room for a variation in mood and format. She could, however, have benefi ted from Orwell’s strategy of directly analyzing the examples provided. Instead of just saying that her mother’s language “as [she] hear[s] it, is vivid, direct, full of observation and imagery” (Tan 81), she could pick a single line of the text and explain it more fully, describing the imagery that it conveys to her in words the reader can understand. Orwell and Tan could learn not only from one another’s stylistic approaches but also from one another’s subject matter.

Both Orwell and Tan attempt to disprove the common belief that complexity of language represents the validity of the speaker’s meaning by off ering counterexamples. Tan refutes the opinion that many, including herself, have held that her mother’s English “refl ected the quality of what she had to say . . . That is, because she expressed them imperfectly her thoughts were imperfect” (82). She disproves this by showing how her mother’s English as she hears it “perfectly clear, perfectly natural . . . the language that helped shape the way [she] saw things, expressed things, made sense of the world” ( 81). She also shows that her mother’s “expressive command of the English language belies how much she actually understands. She reads the Forbes report, listens to Wall Street Week, converses daily with her stockbroker . . . all kinds of things [Tan] can’t begin to understand” (81). Orwell battles the common misconception by showing examples of excessively complex language that either do not say anything or are used to cover up something that no one could face. Both writers present one of two opposite sides of the situation: Tan writes about deep meaning expressed through imperfect language, and Orwell writes about eloquent language that lacks meaning.


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Both authors would be able to prove their points more eff ectively if they explored examples from the other extreme. Orwell makes no acknowledgement of those who can not do justice to their thoughts due to a limited linguistic ability. The example of a person struggling to express complex thoughts in his second language would have helped Orwell better represent the entire spectrum. Tan, on the other hand, acknowledges the uselessness of excessively complex language and illustrates her point, once again, with a story. After having teachers who steered her “away from writing and into math and science” and being “told by [her] former boss that writing was [her] worst skill,” she turned to “wittily crafted sentences, sentences that would fi nally prove [she] had a mastery over the English language” (84). She provides one such sentence from much earlier in her career: “‘That was my mental quandary in its nascent state’” and describes it as “A terrible line, which I can barely pronounce” (84). Through this story she off ers an explanation of why writers are tempted to resort to such forced eloquence and allows us to sympathize and give even Orwell’s professional bullshitters the benefi t of the doubt. Like her stylistic approach, Tan’s subject matter is more comprehensive than Orwell’s but would be strengthened by some of Orwell’s arguments. Tan and Orwell argue that the complexity of rhetoric does not parallel validity of argument or thought, but Orwell takes this a step further in saying that complexity of rhetoric may indicate a less valid or even non-existent argument or thought. Tan could easily have taken this extra step and made the argument that elevated rhetoric is not only useless, but can function as a replacement for true meaning or a mask for a harsh reality. Including this argument would make “Mother Tongue” much more thought-provoking and give Tan the opportunity to tell the reader something he or she doesn’t already know and, if not adopt, at least consider an opinion he or she otherwise would not have been exposed to.

I say this because Orwell’s argument surprised and intrigued me. It is an argument I had never heard stated so directly but could immediately associate and agree with. I, however, like Tan am “fascinated by language . . . the way it can evoke an emotion, a visual image, a complex idea, or a simple truth” (80). For people who do not share my fascination with language, Orwell’s essay would be rather boring. By coupling his argument with the kind of personal, emotional appeal that Tan includes in her essay, Orwell could have made his essay appeal to a larger audience and made a more lasting impression upon his

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readers. I believe that Orwell’s and Tan’s opinion about the misleading complexity of language should be more widespread. If the common belief that eloquence indicates intelligence continues to dominate, we will continue to mistakenly judge one another based on the perceived complexity or fl aws of our language. My experience in school has shown me how easy it is to impress people (namely teachers) with eloquent bullshit. During my time in Germany I experienced countless times how it feels to have one’s opinion disregarded due to one’s inability to express it eloquently. As a teacher, I would assign my students Orwell’s essay in an attempt to discourage them from bullshitting their assignments or being swayed by arguments whose only strength is their apparent eloquence. As a parent, I would teach my children to pay attention to what a person is saying rather than to the accent or grammar with which they speak. As an individual, I try to remain aware of the rhetoric that surrounds me: of its intended eff ect and its true meaning. By reading both “Politics and the English Language” and “Mother Tongue,” we get a good idea of some of the misconceptions that language can cause and how we can avoid misjudging an argument or speaker based on their language alone.

Works Cited

Orwell, George. “Politics and the English Language.” Fields of Reading. Eds. Nancy R. Comley, David Hamilton, Carl H. Klaus, Robert Scholes, Nancy Sommers. Boston: Bedford/St. Martins, 2007. 280-291.

Tan, Amy. “Mother Tongue.” Fields of Reading. Eds. Nancy R. Comley, David Hamilton, Carl H. Klaus, Robert Scholes, Nancy Sommers. Boston: Bedford/St. Martins, 2007. 80-85.

“LET’S REINVENT THE GODS, ALL THE MYTHS OF THE AGES”: JIM MORRISON AND THE RETURN OF THE BACCHAE

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WRITER’S COMMENTS

When asked in Professor Black’s Classical Mythology class to trace values across three cultures by comparing Greek and Roman gods with a modern day fi gure, I quickly thought of Jim Morrison. After all, many have compared Morrison with Dionysus. However, I quickly realized that the correlations are far more abound and far more important than the obvious similarities of sex appeal, bouncy curly hair, and a passion for intoxication and fornication. Both “gods” dawned a culture, a taboo culture that provided sanctuary for emotionally abused followers as they abandoned societal roles to fi nally revel in ecstasy. In this essay, I explore Dionysus, Liber/Bacchus (the Roman counterpart of Dionysus), Jim Morrison, and their respective cults to illustrate how humanity’s dependence on emotion fosters signifi cant shifts in power.

—Bethany Goodrich


Bethany wrote this paper for our course, Classical Mythology. The assignment was to research a deity from ancient Greece and to explore that god’s role and function in Greek society. Students were then to trace the change in how that same god was portrayed in Roman mythology. The purpose of the exercise is to show that the stories of these gods were not “static” but rather that subtle and not so subtle shifts in emphasis reveal the cultural values in which the stories were told. The next step in the assignment was to choose a contemporary fi gure (either historical, or from art, literature, or fi lm). who either embodies the same characteristics or functions similarly in our culture. Bethany chose Dionysus/Bacchus and Jim Morrison. Her essay is a delight to read not only because it is well written but also because of the way she contextualizes these three “gods” while demonstrating the similar ethos of Maenads (female worshippers of Dionysus) in ancient Greece and the fans of Jim Morrison in America. If you are a fan of The Doors, or appreciate Greco-Roman mythology, or—better!—both, you are in for a treat.

—Stephen Black, Department of Classical Studies

BETHANY GOODRICH

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BETHANY GOODRICH

“Let’s Reinvent the Gods, All the Myths of the Ages”1: Jim Morrison and the Return of the Bacchae

Introduction

Human emotion threatens reason, order, and stability. For this reason, those in power often attempt to protect political order and prevent those of the “powerless” from overthrowing existing order, by limiting the nourishment of human emotion. Ancient Greek men wanted to preserve their powerful identities as the rulers of politics and society in ancient Greece. They therefore prevented the cultivation of female sensation by domesticating them to the home (Goff 25). However, ancient Greek society still respected human emotion, allowing females (termed maenads), led by Dionysus, to reestablish minimal power by utilizing fear in men. Rome on the other hand, devalued all human emotion and practiced detachment from personal identity to benefi t the greater good. In response, the powers of Dionysus associated with ecstasy and mania became limited to the less signifi cant and “more reasonable” roles of Liber (Staples 88). In the 1960’s, Jim Morrison and his “modern day maenads” restored ecstasy to a largely stoic and conservative America. Dionysus protected human emotion and liberation in Greece, Liber represented the shift to Roman stoicism, and Morrison led an American revolution from conformity to ecstasy. All three “gods” represented the liberation and oppression of emotion, expression, and elation within their respective culture. By comparing each god with the context, formation, and treatment of their respective cult, I will show how human emotion has been used to oppress, empower, and liberate three vastly diff erent cultures.

1. Jim Morrison, Robby Krieger, Ray Manzarek, John Densmore. “An American Prayer.” An American Prayer. Elektra, 1978.


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“Jumped, Humped, Born to Suff er, Made to Undress in the Wilderness”2: Women in Ancient Greek Antiquity

IN GREEK ANTIQUITY women were a suppressed group, domesticated and protected from the intensities of outside life. Women could not engage

in war, succumb to lust, contribute to public discourse, or escape civility to participate in the hunt (Goff 1). All these facets of society presented men with intense sensation and served as mechanisms for emotional release- Greek men encountered justice as politicians, brutality as warriors, and conquered radical human emotion of diff erent varieties each day. Through their active participation in all aspects of Greek life, Greek men were able to develop powerful individual identities. By preventing female participation in social and political life, Greek men limited more than just the physicality of women to the home: female mentality and ability to cultivate human emotion was also forced captive beside the hearth. I argue that because women were unable to participate in varying degrees of stimulating activity, females were left intellectually and emotionally oppressed by their forced naivety. Members of suppressed groups who are kept academically naïve3, emotionally ignorant, and politically inactive do not develop the self-identity and power required to conquer or question existing political systems. By preventing females from engaging in human emotion, refl ection, and identity, Greek men successfully achieved their goal of controlling women.

The introduction of Dionysus’ cult provided women with minimal insight into the identity-forming sensation felt by their male counterparts. Maenads, under the worship of their patron god Dionysus, experienced sexual role reversal and became a “female model for male behavior” (Carpenter 98). Women, who were prohibited from political and social interaction in their daily life, were able as maenads during Bacchic rituals, to assume political positions that were typically only assumed by Greek men (Keller 175). While arranging the rituals, maenads utilized organization skills and leadership roles to form alliances and networks that extended beyond their immediate families (Goff 215). These women experienced degrees of “fantasized citizenship” (Goff 220). Although these roles were far less important than the roles of citizenship assumed by their male counterparts, participation still enabled females to form some political identity. During the rituals, women could fi nally “identify

2. “The Ghost Song.” An American Prayer. Elektra, 1978.3. Often kept illiterate, the majority of Greek women were also incapable of connecting

with Greek society through literature (Goff 25).

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with the hunter rather than the hunted” (Keller 192). In lines 118 and 1667-75 of The Bacchae, Euripides illustrates how maenads, “stung by the goad of Dionysus” abandon their congenial feminine roles at the “loom” to fi nd “more serious work” hunting wild beasts. Maenads attacked the resistance imposed on them by Greek males by “refus[ing] their assigned feminine roles, attack[ing] men who came near them, and celebrat[ing] their own superiority in the masculine acts of hunting and warfare” (Goff 214). During the ceremonies, maenads abandoned the oppressions and mindless duties of the home to experience movement into self-expression, dance, intoxication, celebration, and hunt. Dionysus provided women, the majorly oppressed group of Greece, with liberation and an opportunity to assume masculine roles; through possession and the Bacchic rituals, maenads were able to connect personally with the god, their religion, and themselves. Dionysus’ cult empowered females through role reversal and the ability to express and cultivate human emotion previously only enjoyed by Greek men.

In response to Dionysus and his maenads, Greek men became overwhelmed and weakened by one of their most prominent fears: “losing control of their women” (Keller 176). Women abandoning their controllable feminine roles within the home to seek revelry on mountainsides caused Greek men to fabricate and fantasize what the rituals actually consisted of. In this respect, many of the myths portraying the maenads show more about the Greek men who wrote them than the actual historic rituals of the women within the stories. The fabricated and excessively ravaging literary representations of the maenads and their cult overshadow the actual far less manic and bloodthirsty historical cult practices (Rehm 12). Euripides’ The Bacchae shows the exaggerated eff ects Greek men potentially believed female liberation would have on the polis. Pentheus remarks that Thebes is in utter disorder while women have left their homes to engage in “pretend worship” of Bacchus through sacrifi ce, while they “actually” rank “Aphrodite’s pleasure before Bacchus” and service “the lusts of men” instead (222-225). The notorious depiction of the cult ends with Agave unknowingly tearing apart the body of her defenseless son and then carrying the severed head as a trophy to show her father proudly, how she has arrived with a “prize of valor” (1239). Agave is only returned to sanity upon her father’s reference to her “marriage bed”: an allusion to domesticity (Euripides 1273; Goff 351). Euripides’ maenads are murderous, deceptive, and adulterous sluts. Agave’s failed attempt at the male craft of hunting epitomizes the male perception that female empowerment threatens Greek order. Greek men believed women were inept and incapable of handling male power and


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that order could only be maintained/restored when women are bound to the home. The extent of disorder Euripides portrays his maenads as causing shows the “common Greek nightmare of women’s refusal to accept their subordination” (Goff 215). In response, writers like Euripides portrayed maenad practices as extreme, and the disorder that would result if women were given a chance at equality as even more extreme. However, by instilling fear in men, the female followers of Dionysus’ cult were able to achieve some power over men because, as made clear through the fabrication of these texts: Greek men felt threatened by maenads and female power. Because Greeks respected human emotion, Greek men were vulnerable to this power shift and by succumbing to fear, Greek men lost a degree of power to their female counterparts.

Dionysus provided liberation for the entire Greek culture. Men, recognizing their duty to uphold the will of the gods, and valuing the quest for human identity and human emotion, limited the power of Dionysus for the sake of order but still continued to worship him. Dionysus represented “animate forces that were well worth celebrating, but also needed pacifying” (Rehm 12). Greek women were able to gather and celebrate their Bacchic rites every two years and Dionysus’ festival was celebrated annually (Rehm 12).

The Homeric Hymns show that Greeks respected Dionysus because he was held responsible for “many lovely, desirable things” (12). Dionysus nourished emotion through expression, aided Greek citizens to establish personal relationships with the gods, and provided deliverance and freedom from everyday stress (Carpenter 243; Black “Dionysus: God of Wine and Ecstasy”). Because ancient Greek culture valued the power of emotion, liberation, and the quest for individual identity with oneself and with the gods, the Greeks valued Dionysus as the worshipped and respected Olympian of divine ecstasy.

“Led to Slaughter by Placid Admirals”4: The Sacrifi ce of Personal Identity for the Roman Empire

When shifting Dionysus to Roman context, the Romans excised his positive associations with ecstasy. Ovid’s interpretation of The Bacchae provides little to no imagery of the celebrations preformed by his maenads and their participation in overwhelming elation. While Euripides pays homage to the happiness and blessedness of those who “join his soul to the cult group”(75) and describes sweet rejoicing with Dionysus’ ability to “put

4. “An American Prayer.” An American Prayer. Elektra, 1978.

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an end to anxieties” (382), Ovid does not. Rather, Ovid focuses the major portion of his short text on Pentheus’ response to the cursed followers and emphasizes the heinous and disgusting crime Agave performs at the will of Bacchus. Pentheus ridicules the male followers of Bacchus (Liber) who utilize their “Bacchic wands” instead of martial arms and who wear “loops of leaves instead of helmets (545-546) Agave tears her son’s head off in triumph and the Theban women only honor Bacchus because of the lesson they learned from Agave’s example, not as a result of any positive liberation his cult provided for them (731-733). Later in Metamorphoses, Ovid, makes the presumptuous remark that while true gods have the power to “do all things…Bacchus is not one of them” (280). Romans realized how ecstasy and submission to human emotion threatened social and military order. By limiting the amount the gods (specifi cally Liber/Bacchus) and their cult indulged in such libations within Roman text, the Romans promoted the more conservative beliefs of frugalitas, moderation, and seriousness (Black, “Vergil’s Aeneid: Creation of a National Epic”).

Romans also narrowed Dionysus eff ect on their respective culture by limiting the liberations associated with his cult ceremonies. Liber was honored as the patron for the ceremonial male passage from boy into manhood, termed “Liberalia” (Staples 88). In contrast to the freeing and liberating eff ects of Dionysus’ Grecian ceremonies, Liberalia tended to stress “the political, military, legal, and fi nancial responsibilities that the new adult male would henceforth assume [as a Roman citizen]” (Staples 88). Celebrated worship of Liber became associated with stress and the maenads with Dionysus’ ecstatic and frenzied cult were forced underground. The Roman Republic banned the cult in 186 BCE and prosecuted worshippers for “conspiracy against the state” (Tommasi). These limitations represented the shift from the value of emotion and personal identity between the individual and the god (represented by Dionysus to the Greeks), to the value of “life in the service of the state and of civilization”: an emphasis on reason, stoicism, and the sacrifi ce of personal identity to benefi t the imperialist and militant Roman Empire (Johansen 30; Black “Vergil’s Aeneid: Creation of National Epic”). Romans could not worship a god that represented “the irrational in man, chaotic feelings and uncontrolled instincts, the wish for death, and the yearnings for unifi cation with the divine” (Johansen 14) because Roman offi cials feared that the irrational in man, his varying and uncontrollable emotions, threatened and weakened Roman imperialism and order.


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“Enter Again the Sweet Forest, Enter the Hot Dream. Come With Us, Everything is Broken Up and Dances”5: The Return of the Bacchae

In response to WWII and the great depression, the generation that raised Morrison and his followers was vastly traditional, compliant, obedient, and conservative. Similar to how the Roman’s sacrifi ced self-expression and individuality to achieve civic power, the United States required a cohesive and militant force of citizens to overcome the serious threats that challenged the nation. In response, American citizens de-emphasized ecstasy, personal identity and emotion, to pursue uniformity and subordination for the sake of survival; the US achieved power by oppressing the emotion of its citizens. Morrison’s father was a decorated navy pilot and his mother existed as her husband’s conservative and subservient counterpart. Together, they represented the “prisonlike conformity to social and sexual norms” Morrison strived to deprogram (Davis 1). Similar to how Greek society suppressed females through forced naivety of emotions, the compliance, conformity, and parental and political authority of the older generation suppressed the nation’s youth and their freedom to delve into emotion. Young Morrison was overwhelmingly passionate and lustful; he constructed his identity on the work of philosophers and poets. He could not conform to the generation of his parents; he chose to rebel. Morrison’s oppressors were vastly stoic in nature, ostracizing a young and highly passionate Morrison who felt “lost in a Roman wilderness of pain” where “all the children are insane”. Morrison functioned as the leader of this generation of “insane children” who were unwilling to suppress the ache for identity and the lust for self-expression to adopt assigned societal roles as “drag stripperfi cials” or “lustful-fuck salesmen”6. Morrison’s generation was hungry for the ecstasy Dionysus’ cult presented to the Greeks and Morrison was more than perfect for a 1960’s deifi cation: the Dionysus of modernity.

Music was the perfect construct for freeing the nation’s youth and for forming a liberating culture like that of the Bacchae. Similar to the personal connection Greeks were able to establish with Dionysus through intoxication and possession, Morrison used the power of music and the intimacy of his lyrics to build personal connections with his audience. Both “god’s” followers responded to suppressed

5. “The Ghost Song.” An American Prayer. Elektra, 1978.6. “Black Polished Chrome.” An American Prayer. Elektra, 1978.

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emotion with revelry; when interviewed, Morrison explains: “Music is so erotic…to call our music ‘orgasmic’ means we can move people to a kind of emotional orgasm through music and words” (Davis 228). Jimmy and his “modern day maenads” were sick of being told what to do: when to go to war, where to get a job, how to uphold the family business, when to settle down, and what, when, and to what extent it was appropriate to feel; this generation refused to be domesticated. They responded and were empowered by feeling whatever whenever and however they wanted to, and like maenads, disregarded the confi nes of their home, the duties and services they “owed” to their nation, and their traditional responsibilities as family members to “enter again the sweet forest” 7.

In congruence with the fear Greek maenads ensued on their oppressors, Morrison and his followers were feared by the older, authoritative, and more traditional generation. His performances were often fabricated, with the most infamous example being the supposed public exposure of his penis to a Florida crowd. Because most of the actual “rituals” associated with both cults are shrouded in fabrication and intoxication, Dionysus, Morrison, and their respective cultures are preserved almost entirely as myths. Obedient onlookers felt threatened by the ecstasy and freedom Morrison and his cult represented, and like Greek men responded to their maenads, Morrison’s oppressors also turned to fear and fabrication. In this fashion, Morrison’s maenads were also empowered by threatening and instilling fear in their oppressors. Unlike the maenads of antiquity, however, Morrison and his cult had the power, as the baby-boom generation to outnumber their parental generation “fi ve to one”:

The old get old, And the young get stronger, May take a week and it may take longer, They got the guns but we got the numbers, Gonna win, yeah We’re takin’ over, Come on!8

By utilizing this power, Morrison and “his gang” radically threatened and questioned the nation’s obedience to a “vegetable law”9 more radically than ancient maenads were able to.

Jim Morrison’s music appealed to raw human condition, instincts, and sensation regardless of the “appropriateness” of such feelings. His

7. “The Ghost Song.” An American Prayer. Elektra, 1978. 8. “Five to One.” Waiting For the Sun. Elektra, 1968.9. “A Feast of Friends.” An American Prayer. Elektra, 1978.


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lyrics questioned the traditional facets of society that many doubted, but few had the guts to question. For example, in Morrison’s American Prayer poetry, he questions religion to a vastly religion-oriented nation. To many, religion functions as the “spiritual glue” that holds the constructs of life together. Out of respect, or for fear of “going to hell” few, especially during this state of uniformity and compliance, challenge the sanctity of religion. Unlike Liber and Dionysus who were traditional religion, Morrison a “rock-god” often represented an “anti-religion”, lyrically alluding to “heartache and the loss of god”10. Jim Morrison blatantly questions the roots of traditional religion as he illustrates a post-sex scene where he lies on “stained wretched sheets with a bleeding virgin”. He claims he could “plot a murder or start a religion”11. Morrison’s culture diff ered from the cultures of antiquity because ancient citizens could not question religion for fear of prosecution; rather, Greeks had to use religion and traditional gods (Dionysus) to regain emotional rights, whereas religious deviation and Morrison’s slanders were and remain protected by constitutional law.

Morrison and his followers “[came] of age in a dry [and emotionless] place, [with] holes and caves”12; Morrison returned ecstasy to his country by calling upon his followers “to anoint the earth”13. Through participation in a cult, “soft driven, slow and mad, like some new language”14 he asked his listeners to “picture what will be, so limitless and free”15. He was the “stranger’s hand” he sang about in his infamous song, The End; he encouraged a nation “desperately in need” to question the structures that held society together in obedience and subordination. Lives are too short to accept tradition as fact and to suppress emotions because they are impolite or inappropriate. Our lives are precious, and Morrison aimed to “get his kicks before the whole shithouse [went] up in fl ames”16. He sang odes to his “cock” and laughed at society’s infatuation with death. He sang of murder, drugs, violence, and brought his audience to a state of “possession” and revelry. Morrison reestablished the belief that our lives are for the taking and that “no eternal reward will forgive us now for wasting the dawn”17; we must engage in “great golden copulations”18, “awake, shake dreams from [our] hair, chose the sign of [our] day” and

10. “Stoned Immaculate.” An American Prayer. Elektra, 197811. “Angels and Sailors.” An American Prayer. Elektra, 197812. “To Come of Age.” An American Prayer. Elektra, 197813. “Newborn Awakening.” An American Prayer. Elektra, 197814. “Stoned Immaculate.” An American Prayer. Elektra, 1978.15. “The End.” The End. Elektra, 1978.16. “The World On Fire.” An American Prayer. Elektra, 1978.17. “Stoned Immaculate.” An American Prayer. Elektra, 1978.18. “An American Prayer.” An American Prayer. Elektra, 1978.

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“laugh like soft mad children, smug in the wooly cotton brains of infancy”19. We can not “waste the dawn” by accepting the oppressive shackles that obstruct the most precious aspect of humanity: our ability to feel.

Conclusion

Across all three cultures, emotion has been used to oppress, empower, and liberate. Each society suppressed the cultivation and importance of emotion and personal identity to obtain power over citizens. By indulging in emotion under the protection of their cult leader, Greek women and Morrison’s generation were able to regain power over their oppressor through revelry in ecstasy. The signifi cance of elation across a culture rises and falls in waves; however, one theme stays constant: humans are sentient and largely emotion based creatures. Instinctually we strive for sensation and passion and in response to the uniformity and suppression of personal identity, we rebel. Whether in the public eye as in the case of Morrison, on mountainsides for Dionysus and his maenads, or underground in Rome, humans seek revelry. Humans cannot take for granted our short lives—we must question, obsess, seek passion and lust, feel pain and pleasure, question god and death, and succumb to the varying and irrational emotions that separate us from all other creatures. Humans are irrational whether it benefi ts the “greater good” or not, and because humanity is inherently weakened by emotion, politicians and civilians have, and will continue to use this facet as a means to oppress. In response, others will continue to use emotion to regain power through the pursuit of ecstasy: this central relationship shows, that in all instances, humans are inescapably ruled by our emotion.

19. “The Ghost Song.” An American Prayer. Elektra, 1978.


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Works Cited

Primary Sources

Bacchae. Trans. Stephen Esposito. In Eurpides. MA: Focus Classical Library Focus Publishing, 2004.

The Daughters of Minyas. Trans. A.D. Melville. In Ovid Metamorphoses. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986.

Pentheus and Bacchus. Trans. A.D. Melville. In Ovid Metamorphoses. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986.

The Son in Love. Trans. A.D. Melville. In Ovid Metamorphoses. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986.

I. Hymn to Dionysos. Trans. Jules Cashford. In Homeric Hymns. London: Penguin Books, 2003.

Secondary Sources

Black, Stephen. “Dionysus: God of Wine and Ecstasy.” Classical Mythology. University of San Francisco. San Francisco, California. 26 February 2009.

Black, Stephen. “Vergil’s Aeneid: Creation of a National Epic.” Classical Mythology. University of San Francisco. San Francisco, California. 23 April 2009.

Carpenter, Thomas H. Dionysian Imagery in Fifth-Century Athens. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997.

Davis, Stephen. Jim Morrison: Life, Death Legend. New York: Gotham Books, 2006.

Goff , Barbara. Citizen Bacchae: Women’s Ritual Practice In Ancient Greece. California: University of California Press, 2004.

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Johansen, Karesten Friis. A History of Ancient Philosophy: From the Beginnings to Augustine. New York: London and New York, 1991.

Keller, Mary. The Hammer and the Flute: Women, Power & Spirit Possession. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002.

Rehm, Rush. Greek Tragic Theatre. New York: London and New York, 1994.

Staples, Araidne. From Good Goddess to Vestal Virgins: Sex and Category in Roman Religion. New York: London and New York, 1984.

Tommasi, Chiara Ombretta. “Orgy in the Ancient Mediterranean World.” Encyclopedia of Religion. Ed. Lindsay Jones. Vol. 10. 2nd ed. Detroit: Macmillian Reference, 2005.

PLATO’S JUSTICE AND THE SOCIAL CONTRACT: THE CONFLICT OF THE UNJUST AGREEMENT

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WRITER’S COMMENTS

I was inspired to write this paper after researching what is commonly known as the Apology-Crito problem of Plato’s work. In Crito, it seems that Plato is declaring one must obey the law absolutely, and it is just to do so even if the law itself is unjust; while in the Apology, he portrays Socrates telling a jury that if he were ordered to cease philosophizing, he would certainly disobey. The confl ict is this: is it just to obey an unjust law? Is it unjust to disobey it? These questions brought me to inquire as to what makes a law legitimate in the fi rst place as opposed to a tyrannical command. Thus, the social contract theory arrives on the scene. Because justice and the Good are ultimate aims of Plato’s philosophy, this paper examines what the relationship is between Plato’s notion of justice and his notion of the social contract.

—Dennis Lambert

EDITOR’S COMMENTS

Dennis Lambert’s admirable analysis of Plato’s ideas about social contract theory employs a number of rhetorical strategies—defi nitional analysis, comparative and contrastive interpretation, and theoretical examination—as a way to raise more questions and come to some measurable conclusions about Plato’s arguments about whether or not people are obligated to obey unjust laws. Throughout his essay, there is ample evidence of Mr. Lambert’s deep sympathy for philosophy, politics, semantics, and scholarship, for he is right in determining that Plato’s ideas are best studied when we closely examine his work in relation to the arguments of others. —David Ryan, Editor, Writing for a Real World

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DENNIS LAMBERT

Plato’s Justice and the Social Contract: The Confl ict of the Unjust Agreement

IT WOULD SEEM justice is something that everyone desires. Yet, if this is the case, then why is it that time and time again one hears of

infamous cases in which what is seemingly just is not what is law? After all, governments (and, by extension, the people), which supposedly desire justice, create the law. Laws are meant to order society for the betterment of society, yet if the laws are unjust, then this certainly cannot occur. Plato believed human beings are good by nature, but while they are good seeds, they often grow in bad soil: “[T]he best nature fares worse, when unsuitably nurtured” (Rep. 419d). Laws, and understandings of laws, form peoples’ lives in signifi cant ways; they are the soil. In order to ensure that that soil is good, one must also make sure that the order under which they are made is good. That is to say, the social contract, which today is usually acknowledged as the legitimizing source of law, must also be good; that is to say, the social contract itself must be just. Plato is well known for his theory of justice, but he also had a social contract theory. The question to be addressed here is: what is the relationship between justice and the social contract? For Plato, the social contract exists to serve justice in ensuring a just society which will promote the creation of just souls; if it doesn’t serve this function, then whether it can be called a social contract at all is put into doubt.

In beginning an analysis of Plato’s social contract, however, one ought to examine what the social contract theory is in general; in today’s world, the theory is commonly connected with the ideas of Thomas Hobbes and John Locke. Hobbes, who grew up during the tumultuous time of the English Civil War, believed that human beings are naturally selfi sh and warring, i.e., humans are naturally “bad” and driven by their appetites. Without a government whose laws demanded absolute obedience, people would exist in a State of Nature that has been famously characterized as “nasty, brutish and short”; it is a “state of utter distrust…[and] perpetual and unavoidable war” (Friend). Despite the fact that “[w]e are infi nitely


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appetitive and only genuinely concerned with ourselves,” Hobbes also recognized that humans are rational; but “reason does not…evaluate their given ends, rather it merely acts as ‘Scouts, and Spies, to range abroad, and fi nd the way to the things Desired’” (Friend). Being able to recognize how terrible the State of Nature is and that in it “[t]hey have no capacity to ensure the long-term satisfaction of their needs or desires,” in order to maximize the achievement of their desires, people enter into a “social contract,” agreeing not to war with each other (Friend). A governing body is created to ensure that this contract is followed, and that body is legitimized by this agreement. People give up certain freedoms against each other, such as retaliation, so that a governing body may protect other freedoms, via laws, and punish those who break the social contract. Thus, Hobbes believes that “justice” is not part of an objective, moral, metaphysical reality, but merely a product of social convention; “Prior to the establishment of the basic social contract, according to which men agree to live together and the contract to embody a Sovereign with absolute authority, nothing is immoral or unjust—anything goes” (Friend). Hobbes also believed that the State of Nature is far worse than any oppressive sovereign, and so people should always obey the laws of the governing body; rebellion is never justifi ed.

John Locke, on the other hand, believed that humans are naturally inclined toward good, and social contracts are established only once they begin to war over private property. He believed that people initially form societies not out of a social contract, but for a reason that is very similar, if not identical, to Plato’s idea: people come together out of a natural need for each other “as partners and helpers” (Rep. 369b-c). Locke recognized that “the State of Nature is not a condition of individuals…Rather, it is populated by mothers and fathers with their children, or families…These societies are based on the voluntary agreements to care for children together” (Friend). He believed that there is a morality, a ‘Law of Nature,’ which is given to us by God, before any social contract is formed; “The State of Nature is pre-political, but it is not pre-moral” (Friend). This Law of Nature commands humans to “not harm others with regards to their ‘life, health, liberty, or possessions’” (Friend). However, despite the fact that the State of Nature is not the same state of war that Hobbes recognizes, for there does exist a morality to keep people from harming each other, it is a state in which people have complete liberty to pursue what they believe they want. And, eventually the “state of war begins between two or more men once one man declares war on another, by stealing from him,” and once this warring begins, it is not inclined to stop

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by itself (Friend). Thus, for Locke, private property is the linchpin. This is how social contracts and civil government come to be. While people are not “bad” by nature, in order to protect their property and beings, they “agree to each give up the executive power to punish those who transgress the Law of Nature, and hand over that power to the public power of a government” (Friend). Furthermore, Locke believed that the social contract comes to be by explicit consent, and like Hobbes, he recognized all human beings as being essentially equal before the social contract is formed (Friend). However, unlike Hobbes, Locke had a view that humans are good by nature and that there is an objective morality guiding them, not merely a convention. Signifi cantly, Locke believed that if a ruler becomes too corrupt, if “a government devolves into a tyranny, such as by dissolving the legislature and therefore denying the people the ability to make laws for their own preservation, then the resulting tyrant puts himself into a State of Nature, and specifi cally into a state of war with the people, and they then have the same right to self-defense as they had before making a compact” (Friend). Thus, he believed that rebellion could sometimes be justifi ed, if not morally required, when the governing body breaks the social contract.

In general, it seems the social contract theory involves people giving up some freedoms to a governing body so that that governing body may protect their other freedoms from other people. So, now one must examine Plato’s social contract theory. However, many might claim that he does not have one at all, and indeed opposes any such theory, citing Socrates’ arguments against Glaucon in Book II of the Republic. Glaucon presents a view very similar to that of Hobbes, stating:

They say that to do injustice is naturally good and to suff er injustice bad, but that the badness of suff ering it so far exceeds the goodness of doing it that those who have done and suff ered injustice and tasted both, but who lack the power to do it and avoid suff ering it, decide that it is profi table to come to an agreement with each other neither to do injustice nor to suff er it. As a result, they begin to make laws and covenants, and what the law commands they call lawful and just. This, they say, is the origin and essence of justice. It is intermediate between the best and the worst. The best is to do injustice without paying the penalty; the worst is to suff er it without being able to take revenge. Justice is a mean between these two extremes. People value it not as a good but because they are too weak to do injustice with impunity. Someone who has the power to do this, however, and is a true man wouldn’t make an agreement with anyone not to do injustice


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in order not so suff er it. For him that would be madness. This is the nature of justice, according to the argument, Socrates, and these are its natural origins (Rep. 358e-359b).

According to this view, “justice” is mere convention and a result of the social contract, and, therefore, it isn’t really justice at all nor does it have any inherent worth. Indeed, it is presented that “justice” is even contrary to human nature (Drefcinski). As a result of being mere convention rather than a metaphysical reality, what is law is also called justice. But Socrates (and Plato) fl atly rejects this; Plato most certainly believes there is a Form of Justice (Drefcinski). So does this mean Plato is rejecting the social contract theory? Well, no, but he does reject it as an explanation for morality and justice. As an explanation for laws, however, is still an issue that has to be addressed.

Thus, Plato’s social contract theory is fi rst presented in the Crito. The story begins after Socrates has been sentenced to death, having been convicted of the crime of impiety, and is waiting in his jail cell for the time that he should be executed. Crito, a friend of Socrates’, enters his jail cell and tries to convince Socrates to escape, which he could have done easily. However, Socrates rejects such a proposition, saying even if his sentence was unjust, in escaping he would be breaking the law and it is always just to obey the law; it is always unjust to disobey it. Why is this? Well, he believes that legitimate laws, that is to say laws that are actually laws, come about as a result of a social contract, and the social contract is a just agreement. Despite the fact that it seems Socrates is speaking about a relationship between himself and the laws in Crito, more accurately, he is speaking about his relationship between himself and the state which makes the laws. He explains that the laws have given him much; that through them his father and mother were married and he came to be born, and that because of them he was able to live his philosophical life (Cri. 50d-e). Furthermore, Socrates states, personifying the voice of the laws, “You have had seventy years during which you could have gone away if you did not like us, and if you thought our agreement unjust,” but as it is he did not leave Athens (Cri. 52e). Socrates explains that he implicitly agreed to live under its laws by living in Athens (Richter). What is more, the relationship of the citizen to the state is even more strict and one sided than that of the slave to the master or the child to the parent (Brickhouse & Smith 236). Socrates states, “You must either persuade it or obey its orders, and endure in silence whatever it instructs you to endure…It is impious to bring violence against your mother or father; it is much more so to use it against your country”; this is Plato’s famous “persuade or obey”

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doctrine (Cri. 51b). Thus, in one sense Plato’s social contract theory seems like Hobbes’, for it commands that one always obey the law; in another sense, it seems more like Locke’s, for justice is a morality that exists objectively and independent of the state.

Before continuing, a few things need to be made absolutely clear. Plato believes people are naturally inclined toward good and the state does not form out of the social contract. Rather, he believes that “the state has a natural origin [and] Plato shows that (1) man is by nature a social being (2) because no man is self-suffi cient; (3) so the principle of division or specialization of labor is dictated by nature” (Gorospe 153). Indeed, in the Republic Socrates states, “I think a city comes to be because none of us is self-suffi cient…[So] because one person calls on a second out of need and on a third out of a diff erent need, many people gather in a single place to live together as partners and helpers” (Rep. 369b-c). When the social contract comes about, it seems to do so along similar lines as Locke hypothesized it. In the Republic, Plato initially envisions a healthy, seemingly utopian city in which justice seems to come about naturally, and with everyone acting according to his or her reason, no laws are necessary; essentially, the social contract does not exist for it has no purpose. However, once Plato introduces that the common, realistic person would want to “recline on proper couches, dine at a table, and have the delicacies and desserts that people nowadays eat,” what he is doing is introducing luxuries into the city (Rep. 372d). That the necessity for the social contract begins with the introduction of luxuries is very much akin to Locke’s idea that it begins with private property. It is the luxurious city, that is, a sick city, which is in need of a social contract; in examining such a city, “we might very well see how justice and injustice grow up in cities” (Rep. 372e).

So, now it must be made very clear what Plato means by justice. Any reader of the Republic will recognize that in the soul there are three parts: reason, spirit and appetite. To begin, justice in the soul is the condition in which one’s reason rules, one’s spirit enforces the rule of reason, and the appetite it regulated by such rule, and each of these parts of the soul only performs its own function and doesn’t meddle with the functions of the others. The appetite drives the person to make sure he or she will have the material means for survival, i.e., that the person will do such things as eat and drink. However, appetite must be controlled under the rule of reason otherwise it may go too far and become irrational and gluttonous. As Plato states:


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One who is just does not allow any part of himself to do the work of another part or allow the various classes within him to meddle with each other…He binds together those parts…and from having been many things he becomes entirely one, moderate and harmonious…And he believes that the action that destroys this harmony is unjust, and calls it so, and regards the belief that oversees it as ignorance. (Rep. 443d-e)

As Plato divides the parts of the soul, so does he divide the parts of the city. He says that all people are naturally inclined toward certain things. Those who are primarily wisdom loving, i.e., those who are ruled by reason, should be the guardians (i.e., rulers) of the city; those who are primarily honor loving, i.e., those who are ruled by spirit, should be the auxiliaries (i.e., soldiers); those who are primarily lovers of wealth and property, i.e., those who are ruled by appetite, should be the craftsmen and farmers. A just city is one that is then divided up in this way so that the guardians, auxiliaries and craftsmen/farmers only do what they are naturally dictated to do; “It is the original principle, laid down at the foundation of the State, ‘that one man should practice one thing only and that the thing to which his nature was best adopted’” (Bhandari). Measures should be taken to make sure that the guardians, auxiliaries and craftsmen/farmers do not meddle into each other’s functions; thus, lovers of wealth and money should not be guardians. Plato states:

[I]t turns out that this doing one’s own work—provided that it comes to be in a certain way—is justice…It is the power that makes it possible for them to grow in the city and that preserve them when they’ve grown for as long as it remains there itself…[I]t is, above all, the fact that every child, woman, slave, freeman, craftsman, ruler, and ruled each does his own work and doesn’t meddle what is the other people’s (Rep. 433b-d).

It should be clear that, for Plato, justice is the condition of being well-ordered.

What is more, Plato emphasizes that to corrupt the best is the worst. That is to say, corrupting reason within one’s soul, or corrupting the philosopher-guardians within a city, is the worst thing to do because it leads to a complete destruction of justice. If a craftsman were corrupt within a city, the eff ect would not be nearly as disastrous as if a guardian were corrupt. Thus, it will also be emphasized that to

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be just is to be reason-ruled. What is more, it should be emphasized that what is just is heading toward the Good, or facing the Good, or Good-inclined. The “person with the harmonious [i.e., just] soul will…only be governed by principles, and most importantly, will derive those principles from her knowledge of the Form of the Good” (Wein); the good person will be the just person and visa versa.

At this point, one should note a problem: what if the state should command someone to do something unjust? Should a just person obey the law, and thus act unjustly, or should a just person, in following his or her agreement with the state, follow the law absolutely? This confl ict is commonly known as the Apology-Crito problem, for in the Apology Socrates states before his jury that if they should command him to cease philosophizing, “I will obey the god rather than you and as long as I draw breath and am able, I shall not cease to practice philosophy” (Ap. 29d). In the Republic, it is assumed that philosophers are the guardian-rulers of the state and since they themselves are just and true lovers of wisdom, they will only enact just laws. Thus, in this ideal city, it is assumed one will never have to face the confl ict of doing what is just or obeying an unjust law. However, as it is in the real world, governments are usually not headed by philosophers. Without going into too much detail, it should be made clear that Plato (and Socrates) believes one should always obey the law, as long as it is a legitimate law, for the relationship between the state and the citizen is more one-sided than that of a slave to a master. So, most importantly, it needs to be recognized that Plato believes a person does not act unjustly by obeying an unjust law; the law (and the state) may be unjust, but not the person in obeying the law. For “in obeying their parents or masters, neither children nor slaves ever do wrong—even when what they are commanded to do is wrong—for when they are under the commands of their superiors, they are not responsible for the wrong they do…Unjust laws may be passed; but in obeying them, the citizen does not act unjustly” (Brickhouse and Smith 245). The state is assumed to be the moral superior; if it is not, that is not necessarily one’s fault. And of course, Plato always assumes one could leave the state. One may try to persuade the state to change its laws, but if one fails at this, then one must obey; and one must never willingly disobey. All of this, of course, hinges on what defi nes a law as a law.

It is obvious that, “[f]or Socrates, in order for a command of the Assembly to be binding, it is not enough that the majority of Athenian citizens agree to it;…general agreement about something…does not make what is agreed upon legal” (Brickhouse & Smith 240). If not majority agreement, then what is it? As already stated, it is the social contract; it


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is an agreement about the relation between citizen and state. Yet, at the same time, there seem to be ‘natural laws’ for Plato (Gorospe 155); that is to say, if a government should create “laws” that made it illegal to try to persuade the state to change the laws or made it illegal to leave the state, then the social contract is compromised. If citizens are not even allowed to attempt to persuade the laws of the state nor are they allowed to leave the state (before breaking a law), then how can it ever be said that they come to the social contract willingly, and thus make it a genuine contract rather than a forced arrangement? Perhaps Socrates would then say that the agreement he entered into is no longer a just agreement. These natural laws ensure the validity of the social contract in the fi rst place; if the social contract is not valid, then none of the laws created through the “social contract” are valid. It would seem, then, that justice plays a part in the role of laws, i.e., if the laws are ever egregiously unjust, then it could be said that the state is egregiously unjust and has fallen into tyranny. As Thomas Brickhouse and Nicholas Smith state:

Socrates’ point is that the State itself can survive only if its commands are regarded as ultimately authoritative…[W]e can imagine a State whose commands are so corrupt that the State is not worth preserving. Perhaps a State in which philosophy was forbidden by law would qualify as not worth surviving in Socrates’ eyes (B&S 247-248).

Then, one may suppose that if Socrates were ordered by an initially legitimate law to cease philosophizing, which is very much akin to outlawing the ability to persuade the laws, he may consider the city to be suffi ciently unjust, and so the social contract would cease to be legitimate. He would then simply leave the city; thereby, he would not cease philosophizing but he would not be breaking the law because the law would also cease to be legitimate.

But this still doesn’t seem entirely clear. Why must the law, which is only legitimately a law as a result of the social contract, be obeyed absolutely? To put another way, what justifi es the rule that says “Don’t break contracts” (Richter)? Why is the relation of the citizen to the state that of a slave to a master? This is because the social contract is not merely an agreement—it is a just agreement (Cri. 49e-50b). But what does this actually mean? One can shed some light on this if one notes that just means well-ordered, reason-ruled, and Good-inclined. Thus, a well-ordered (i.e., just) person is one whose reason rules, spirit enforces and appetite is regulated; the three parts do not meddle with each others’ roles and so they are in harmony. The well-ordered (i.e., just) city is one in which the

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wisdom-lovers rule, the honor-lovers enforce and the money-lovers are regulated. But what does this mean for a just agreement? Or, say, a just command? Does this mean there are parts to an agreement or a command the way there are parts to a person or a city, and that those parts are well-ordered? This doesn’t seem to be quite right. It should be recognized, then, that there are two ways to interpret a just agreement. On the one hand, it would seem that this means the agreement is derived from just (i.e., well-ordered) souls; after all, wouldn’t just people, in being good and knowing that justice (well-orderedness) brings people/cities toward the Good, see the value in justice and so make just agreements? On the other hand, it would seem that a just agreement is one that establishes, supports and fortifi es well-orderedness; after all, in the case of a just law, must it not be that the law supports justice in the society as a whole and is not merely derived from just souls? When one speaks of a just agreement then, one is speaking of an agreement which is created by well-ordered, reason-ruled, Good-inclined souls for the purpose of creating a well-ordered, reason-ruled, Good-inclined city. So when one says, “To obey the law is just,” it seems more accurate that what the person is saying is “To obey the law is derived from the well-ordered and creating well-orderedness.”

Well, for a well-ordered, reason-ruled, Good-inclined (i.e., just) city, what does this mean? If one were to ask again what justifi es the rule “Don’t break contracts,” such as the social contract, one might fi nd that this is because, under the well-ordered city, the social contract is just (i.e., derived from the well-ordered and supporting the well-ordered). This must mean that the social contract serves to keep the city well-ordered. This makes sense; laws that are created out of a social contract would keep the craftsmen and the auxiliaries from meddling in things they should not. Even the guardians have laws, which they essentially set up for themselves (really the guardians regulate themselves), in which they are not allowed to have private property and share everything in common; in this way they keep themselves from loving wealth or anything else besides wisdom.

However, there are some problems with this analysis, for it seems only the perfectly just, well-ordered, wisdom-loving philosophers could ever enter into a social contract that was a just agreement. The agreement must derive from the well-ordered. But even though the auxiliaries and craftsmen in the Republic are not perfectly well-ordered themselves, this cannot be said to be completely true. After all, justice in this city involves not only people doing their own natural functions but fully accepting them; they do not meddle into the others’ functions. Thus, the craftsmen and auxiliaries must necessarily see the value in having the city be led by the


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well-ordered philosophers or else they would never accept the rule of the philosophers. In a way, the philosophers posit reason into the craftsmen and auxiliaries through a dialogue. And indeed, “The authority of the Philosopher King is absolute, but, as is often forgotten, it is represented as derived from the subjects” (Lewis 81). Thus, perhaps it could be said that while the craftsmen and auxiliaries are not perfectly well-ordered, they are inclined toward being well-ordered; and so a social contract agreement they enter into is created by those who are inclined toward well-orderedness and made with the intent of creating well-orderedness. It seems, in some way, the craftsmen and auxiliaries are individually unjust (unwell-ordered), but within their society they are just (well-ordered) for they perform their proper functions.

However, there is another problem that is akin to this. It seems that while only the philosophers, the truly well-ordered people, are able to make the social contract, they are also the ones who would have precisely no need for it. Amongst themselves, they do not need laws, for their reason guides them; while the luxurious city in the Republic is not a utopian city, it seems that Plato slips in a utopian vision of the guardians as perfectly just, perfectly reason-ruled human beings (of course, he also recognizes that this cannot exist permanently). It seems that if they entered into a social contract, it would only be with the craftsmen and auxiliaries. What is more, the philosophers would only enter it as the rulers that are essentially above the law, not as citizens underneath it; of course, the philosophers would never go against their laws because the philosophers are well-ordered (just) as are the laws they create.

But what occurs in the unwell-ordered, not reason-ruled, not Good-inclined (i.e., unjust) city? For the craftsmen and auxiliaries, it would indeed seem just (derived from the well-ordered and well-ordering) to follow the law absolutely. In following their own natural duties to be craftsmen and auxiliaries, they must assume that those in power are well-ordered and that their orders are well-ordering the city. However, in following the unjust (unwell-ordering) laws of the city, which exist in an unwell-ordered city, they are inherently contributing to the injustice (unwell-orderdness) of the city by fortifying and legitimizing the unwell-ordered (unjust) souls in power. No words would be necessary for this—only obedient action. Of course, as already explained in Crito, they are not to be blamed. It is most certainly just for them to follow an unjust order of the city. Wait—what? Wouldn’t that mean that, “It is most certainly creating well-orderedness (and derived from well-orderedness) for them to follow an order of the city that is not creating well-orderndness?” This is a logical contradiction. Moving on from this for a moment, one

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must now look at the philosophers. For the philosophers, in following their natural functions dictated by justice, and ultimately dictated by the Good, must they obey the unjust (unwell-ordering) laws?

It would seem that, no, in trying to follow their function of being rulers, in the case that they are not rulers and are not able to perform their proper function to its fullest extent, and essentially not being above the law as they are meant to be, philosophers should then not follow an unjust law. In today’s world, if a lower ranking soldier were to follow an unjust command, one might think his obeying the command to be permissible; however, if a higher ranking offi cer obeyed an unjust command, such as one that required him to purposely kill innocent civilians, one might think that he would be acting unjustly. One might think the higher ranking offi cer is justifi ed in disobedience; in reality, the higher ranking offi cer is a philosopher-guardian who has been put into the position of soldier. Unlike the craftsmen and auxiliaries, who are merely tending toward the well-ordered, the philosophers are actually well-ordered. And as the well-ordered seek to spread well-orderedness to the rest of society as the Good dictates to them, as those who have seen the light of the real world are compelled to go back into the cave, it seems that the only way they can try to fulfi ll their function as rulers is to try to persuade the populace and, if commanded by a law to do something unjust, then not obey it. Unlike how Socrates characterizes the relation between the citizen and the state in Crito, that between a slave and a master, the philosopher is meant to be the master of the state. Perhaps Plato’s philosophy then advocates the possibility of civil disobedience. As it was for the craftsmen and auxiliaries, it is for the philosophers; in obeying an unjust law, they would be inherently contributing to injustice (unwell-orderedness). A law commanding people to kill all philosophers would certainly be unjust (unwell-ordering) for, if followed, it would eliminate the people most necessary for keeping a city just (well-ordered). However, for the philosophers, they know better. They do not merely assume that the state is well-ordered (just) and that those in power are well-ordered (just); they know that this is not the case.

As such, perhaps the philosopher, the perfectly well-ordered person, would never enter into the social contract, or at least he or she would never do so if he or she was not going to be in power. So, at least it could be said that the philosopher, the perfectly well-ordered person, would not enter into the social contract as the average person does. As it has already been stated, if the social contract is a just agreement, then the philosopher would not agree to it for him or herself as he or she is already well-ordered. He or she would also not make an agreement that he or she knows will only


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bring disorder; the philosopher knows unwell-ordered souls are ruling the state and so the agreement could only do harm. Perhaps, then, as far as the philosopher is able, he or she should renounce any benefi ts that may come from laws in an unjust city. The philosopher would have no implicit agreement to be subject under the laws within a city, for the philosopher would be there out of an obligation, dictated by the Good, to rule the city and make it just (well-ordered). Perhaps in the Crito, then, Socrates was not obeying the law out of an obligation to a social contract and the state, but rather out of his natural obligation, as a philosopher, to lead the masses toward the Good.1 In accepting his punishment of death and declaring himself to do so out of an obligation to a just agreement, perhaps he was telling a “white” lie so that the masses (the auxiliaries and craftsmen) might follow in his example and obey the law. If he did not accept the punishment, then he would have been perceived as unruly and corrupt as the jury of the Apology had declared him; the rest of his teachings might have been brought into serious question. As Socrates states, again personifying the laws, “You will also strengthen the conviction of the jury that they passed the right sentence on you, for anyone who destroys the laws could easily be thought to corrupt the young and the ignorant…As for those conversations of yours about justice and the rest of virtue, where will they be?” (Crito 53b-c, 54a). Socrates could do better with his action than he could with any words, and so, in order to lead society toward justice and the Good, as he is naturally dictated to do, he accepted his death.

Keeping all of this in mind, it is important to next consider Plato’s Laws. Many would say that there is a fundamental contradiction between the Republic and the Laws, as in the former Plato advocates for the absolute rule of philosopher kings that are above the law and in the latter he seems to advocate that constitutions and laws should be above everyone (Stalley 13). However, rather than complicate matters, a comparison of these two works will shed some light on the diffi culties previously mentioned. As stated earlier, despite the fact that the luxurious city of the Republic is not a utopia, it undeniably has some utopian aspects in how it presents the philosopher-guardians; the Laws, on the other hand, is widely recognized as containing a more practical approach. There is not necessarily a confl ict in this because in the Republic, “the ideal state is off ered as a heavenly

1. It is also a possibility that Socrates obeyed the law absolutely because, even in his old age, he still did not consider himself completely just; he is merely inclined toward justice, just like everyone else. Perhaps it is not so strange after all that, in Crito, Socrates speaks of his slave-master relationship with the laws, personifying them in the process, rather than with the state. As explained further in the essay, the law may be seen as the dictates of some truly just philosopher-guardians of long ago.

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model for ourselves (not for our cities)” (Stalley 17). It is recognized that one can never fully ensure that rulers will be the well-ordered, wisdom-lovers of the Republic. So, R.F. Stalley writes regarding Plato’s thoughts:

Since it is impossible to provide any institutional guarantee that the ruler will be wise, two diff erent, but compatible strategies appear to be available to those who hold politics to be a matter of knowledge. The fi rst is political education: if those likely to gain power are given an appropriate training there is a chance that the state will be wisely governed. [And indeed this is an approach Plato has in the Republic.] The second strategy is to adopt constitutional forms that encourage wise decisions or, at least, help to prevent foolish ones (Stalley 15).

The laws are meant to be forged to refl ect the reason of justice. In refl ecting on Plato’s Statesman, David Williams states, “[W]e can still live meaningful and just lives under human legislation. The task of political and legal construction is the task of articulating the indeterminate Forms in a manner that will promote Justice to the greatest extent” (Williams). While they are only second best to the rule of the philosopher king, they are the best thing people could have.

So, one might imagine the philosopher king as a doctor who is going to be away from his or her patient. Given how the doctor has evaluated the patient’s condition thus far, in his or her absence he or she will leave a set of instructions for the patient. Of course, it would be better if the doctor was there in case the patient’s condition changed, but without the doctor it would be better to follow the instructions (Stalley 18). The law may be personifi ed as the perfectly just rule of the philosopher kings. If the laws are held above everyone and are forged to refl ect justice then it may be that a society will not fall into tyranny simply because the current leaders are not completely just. Perhaps it is because the laws are meant to rule in the absence of philosopher kings that Plato places “the insistence that laws should have preambles designed to persuade the citizens voluntarily to give their obedience…[T]hey are primarily intended to provide moral exhortation” (Stalley 10). Thus, the laws continue to emphasize that all people should use their reason to move toward morality.

In the Republic, it seems that the just city is doomed to fall, in diff erentiated steps, into tyranny as the guardians begin to be corrupted into being unwell-ordered souls; with only education alone to prevent this from happening, one might suppose it would occur fairly quickly. Perhaps this is what supremacy of law does: it prevents the just city (or something


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close to it) from falling deeper and deeper into tyranny. It regulates so that even a would-be tyrant is inhibited from doing anything he or she wants; it provides citizens with a more solidifi ed standard and a reason to look upon, and it brings people to refl ect upon a glorious, reason-ruled time. Of course a potential problem in all of this is creating a populace that blindly follows the law as if it were justice. But even this is not such a problem, for it can’t be said that the philosopher-guardians are completely absent in the Laws. As R.F. Stalley states:

It is clearly intended that the ‘guardians of the laws’ a body of thirty-seven very senior magistrates should exercise the greatest power. So, although ultimate responsibility may rest with the citizen body as a whole, in practice the main infl uence on policy will be exerted by a small group of elderly men, distinguished by their long experience and their moral and intellectual excellence (Stalley 8).

What is more, there is a “nocturnal council” that “is to act as the reason of the state by discerning the aims of legislation and the means of achieving them. To this end, it will engage in philosophical research, concerning itself particularly with the unity of virtue and the nature and existence of God” (Stalley 7). This most defi nitely sounds like the philosopher-guardians. It should seem clear that “the Republic presents a ‘theoretical ideal’ while the Laws ‘describes, in eff ect, the Republic modifi ed and realized in the conditions of this world’” (Stalley 14).

Finally, in both the Laws and the Republic, Plato believes it is the fundamental purpose of the state and the laws to lead people toward virtue (Stalley 5). As H.D. Lewis comments, “The primary function of the State…is not merely to prevent us from injuring one another, but also, and in the fi rst instance, to enable us to help one another” (Lewis 79). And as the state leads people toward virtue, virtuous people lead the state toward the same. This is the cycle of a just city. After all, the well-ordered city is fi rst formed, through the mouth of Socrates, by Plato; being a philosopher, he is presumably well-ordered. This city will, if it follows justice, continue to produce well-order and, it must be thought, this will spread into the souls of all the citizens. As H.D. Lewis comments, “[Justice’s] ultimate embodiment is found in the ordering of the individual soul…But this individual perfection is refl ected in the acquiescence in a social order whereby it is best attained. Justice is ‘writ large’ in the city. Hence the emphasis on free and informed co-operation between ruler and subject” (Lewis 81). It can be said that the purpose

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of making the sick, luxurious city just is to return it to the state of the healthy, utopian city that Plato fi rst imagines in the Republic.

Thus, the relationship between justice (well-orderedness) and the social contract seems to be that the social contract comes out of justice, and not the other way around, and the social contract is only good if it creates and bolsters justice in society. Starting from the well-ordered (just) soul, the social contract must serve a purpose in trying to imprint well-orderedness (justice) upon society; “Justice, therefore to Plato is like a manuscript which exists in two copies, and one of these is larger than the other…Individually “justice is a ‘human virtue’ that makes a man self consistent and good: Socially, justice is a social consciousness that makes a society internally harmonious and good” (Bhandari). The social contract may be the “basic feature of one special instrument for the promotion of moral ends, namely, the State” (Lewis 80). It still seems to be maintained that, for Plato, the social contract is an agreement. However, a problem has been hit upon that is also highlighted in the dialogues of the Phaedo and the Republic. The problem is such:

Plato argues that we cannot really understand anything until we know how it is related to the good. In other words we need to know what purpose it serves…We cannot know what a knife is without knowing the purpose or function for which it is designed—in this case cutting. A knife may therefore be said to be defi ned by its function. It is characteristic of such items that the line between being a bad specimen of its kind and not being a specimen at all is blurred. For example, we can say that a good knife cuts well and a bad knife cuts badly. But what do we say if we come across a knife-like object that is quite hopeless at cutting? Do we call it a very bad knife or say that it is not really a knife? (Stalley 27).

Thus, there is a question of whether a social contract that is merely an agreement, and not a just agreement, is actually a social contract at all. After all, though it may appear to be serving the function of a social contract, i.e., to establish and maintain justice in a city, it may very well be doing the opposite if the city is already unjust. However one takes it, in the Crito it seems clear that the only reason one has an obligation to follow the law is because the social contract is a just agreement; if it were not just, and therefore ultimately creating injustice, then one would not be obligated to follow it (assuming one has enough philosophical insight to recognize it as unjust in the fi rst place).


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Works Cited

Bhandari, D.R. “Plato’s Concept of Justice: An Analysis.” J.N.V. University. 05 Dec 2008.

Brickhouse, Thomas C., and Nicholas D. Smith. “The Socratic Doctrine of ‘Persuade or Obey.’” The Trial and Execution of Socrates: Sources and Controversies. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002.

Cooper, John M., ed. Plato: Complete Works. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing, 1997.

Drefcinski, Shane. “Why Socrates Rejects Glaucon’s Version of the

Social Contract.” University of Wisconsin, Platterville. 04 Dec. 2008 <http://www.uwplatt.edu/~drefcins/233PlatoSocialContract.html>.

Friend, Celeste. “The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy.” 2006. Hamilton College. 05 Dec. 2008 <http://www.iep.uftm.edu/s/soc-cont.htm>.

Gorospe, Vitaliano R, S.J. “Plato’s Natural-Law Theory in the Republic.” Modern Schoolman 43 (1965-6):150-157.

Lewis, H.D. “Plato and the Social Contract.” Mind Association. 48.189 (1939): 78-81.

Richter, Duncan. “Social Contract Theory.” Virginia Military Institute. 01 Dec. 2008. <http://academics.vmi.edu/psy_dr/social%20contract%20theory.htm>.

Stalley, R.F. An Introduction to Plato’s Laws. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 1983.

Wein, Sheldon, “Plato’s Moral Psychology.” Saint Mary’s University. 05 Dec. 2008.

Williams, David Lay. “Justice and the General Will: Affi rming Rousseau’s Ancient Orientation.” Journal of the History of Ideas 66.3 (2005) 383-411.

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WRITER’S COMMENTS

In Professor Jorge Aquino’s class, Panamerican Saints: Hagiography and Politics, we considered sociological and religious factors which fueled the charismatic spirit of critical historical fi gures and their effects on popular movements. The fi nal project was a textual synthesis of our studies on a chosen “saint.” In choosing to study Pope John Paul II and his infl uence on Poland’s Solidarity movement, my fi rst course paper covered the relevant historical events of his papacy. While comprehensive in scope, my personal affection for the pontiff signifi cantly tinted certain parts, giving the appearance of a “fl uffy hagiography,” in Prof. Aquino’s words. He urged me to “adopt a more critical posture” as well as to articulate a proposition I asserted without signifi cant expansion: the role of Catholicism as a unifying force in Polish history. My entry was my fi nal project for this class. It is a reading of the life and activism of John Paul II and how he used his personal charisma, the power of his offi ce, and his understanding of Polish ecclesiastical history to effectively confront Soviet oppression.

—Joey Belleza


The course seeks to reassess traditional ideas of spirituality to consider how spirituality is grounded in everyday life through what liberation theology would call “liberating historical projects.” Thus, we consider how charismatic social movements create a highly politicized spiritual fi eld in the service of social change. Mr. Belleza decided to take up a study of Pope John Paul II, early drafts of which I critiqued for its uncritical and ahistorical celebration of an undoubtedly great pontiff. I then urged him to research the history of Polish Catholicism. His fi nal study is nothing less than a skeleton key to John Paul’s papacy, showing how John Paul deployed the motifs and values of ten centuries of Polish Catholicism to inspire the Solidarity movement. It could be argued—substantially on the basis of Belleza’s work—that John Paul’s Polish-Catholic politics caused a temblor in the social order of Cold War Eastern Europe that would lead decisively to the breakdown of Soviet Communism. In this respect, Belleza’s work exemplifi es excellent undergraduate scholarship. —Jorge Aquino, Department of Theology and Religious Studies

KAROL WOJTYLA IN THE TRAJECTORY OF POLISH HISTORY

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JOEY BELLEZA

Karol Wojtyla in the Trajectory of Polish History

I. Introduction

IN THE POST-COLD WAR global political confi guration, Poland has emerged as a signifi cant actor on the world stage, actively participating

in the European Union and NATO alliance while exercising expeditionary military power on a scale unseen since the time of King John III Sobieski (1629-1696). Its recent resurgence from an unfortunate tradition of foreign domination is accompanied by a hitherto unseen institutional and governmental stability, and this newfound political longevity signals the increasing improbability of a return to its colonized past. Yet the Polish eye to the future never loses sight of the path which has led to this point. In fact, the course of Polish history exhibits what might be called an “eschatological trajectory” which (like the Christian conception of salvation history) culminates in a decisive break from a past wrought with subservience and violence, all consummated through a leader of inherently peaceful disposition.

The history of Poland, much like the biblical history of the Jews, depicts a people in perennial subjection to foreign powers, save those few instances in which strong kings achieved a measure of prestige and stability, only for national integrity to expire with the death of the monarch who achieved it. Poland’s geographical location, sandwiched between aggressive Germanic peoples to the west, warlike Russians and Cossacks to the east, and (later) the Ottomans to the southeast, made the Polish soil the site of partition after partition. Yet despite this disposition, the Polish race managed to avoid complete cultural absorption into these other more powerful entities. II. Church and state in Poland: A history of an indissoluble union

The preservation of their heritage lies in the fact that the Polish people’s historical development is totally coincident with, or largely dependent

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on, the history and presence of the Catholic Church in Eastern Europe. Ecclesiastical infl uence, in fact, might be considered the lifeblood of the Polish nation. The two major formerly pagan Slavic tribes which inhabited present-day Poland prior to Christianization, the Polans and the Vistulans, were simply loose confederations of nomadic clans which, prior to the late 10th century, had intermittently banded together only as necessary to repel invasion from Tartars and Cossacks from the east1. Only when Mieszko I, duke of the Polans, had conquered the Vistulans and other local tribes, did the geographical area of Poland become consolidated under one secular power. His marriage in 965 A.D. to Dobrawa, daughter of the Christian duke of Bohemia, Boleslav, precipitated Mieszko’s own conversion to Latin Christianity, followed by a state-wide conversion to Roman Catholicism in 966.

Poland’s initiation into the Christian faith was simultaneously a baptism into statehood2. Christianization granted offi cial diplomatic recognition from the Holy Roman Empire and the Holy See, with Mieszko’s territory centered on a capital at Gniezno. Christianization also put Poland in closer contact with the Mediterranean world, opening the way for signifi cant cultural and intellectual exchanges which facilitated the transformation of the Polish people from a quasi-nomadic collection of warrior tribes to a more stabilized socio-political entity.

Missionaries and bishops sent from Rome provided centers of culture and administrative stability throughout the reign of the Piast dynasty (the line of kings descended from Mieszko). Despite Poland’s establishment as a state, borders remained porous and nomadic Tartars still plundered the countryside. The eastern border regions suff ered thanks to their distance from Gniezno, and in the absence of strong secular administration, abbots and bishops became the de facto civil guardians of the frontier plains.

The fi erce adherence of the Polish people to the Church was seen even in the earliest centuries of their history. When Bishop (later Saint) Stanislaus of Krakow (+1079) publicly condemned and excommunicated Piast King Boleslaw II for adultery and other vices, the king ordered the bishop’s death. The martyrdom produced a massive insurrection in Poland in which Boleslaw was deposed, exiled to Hungary, and succeeded by his brother Wladislaw I.3 In this story, we see emphatically the undisputed primacy of religious loyalty over secular authority. The Stanislaus narrative, therefore, serves two purposes: fi rst, it depicts the almost inseparable

1. Morton, J.B. Sobieski. Eyre and Spottiswood, London: 1932, p. 9.2. Morton, p. 10.3. Calendarium Romanum. Libreria Editrice Vaticana. Rome, 1969. p. 122.


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convergence of Polish national identity and Polish religious history; second, it functions as a stern caveat to political leaders who might dare threaten the dignity of ecclesiastical power. These are motifs which survive unto the present day, and it is fascinating to remember this point when, 900 years later, a successor of Stanislaus will fi nd the courage to raise his voice in opposition to another troubling political order.

Years later, another Piast, Boleslaw III (+1138), radically shifted the geographical makeup of Poland by instituting a complex and almost arbitrary system of succession where the land was divided between four of his sons. Wladislaw II, the eldest son, immediately moved to deny his brothers their possessions and thus began the fragmentation of Poland into opposing camps. The state of intermittent war in the 12th and 13th centuries once again left the cathedrals and monasteries as centers of civilization and learning as castles and palaces became battlefi elds and graveyards. While the secular makeup of the divided Polish lands depended largely on the royal personalities which governed them, the strict hierarchical organization of the Church allowed for effi cient administration despite the factionalization and civil turmoil which lasted almost two centuries.

It was not until the rise of Ladislaus the Short (+1333) that allowed Poland to reestablish to its long-lost security. This strong king, writes J.B. Morton,

had rescued the country from the anarchy of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. This had been possible only because he had the backing of the Church and because throughout this period of darkness and dissolution the Church had remained the repository of everything that was meant by Western civilization.4

During the reign of his son Casimir III, the last Piast King, Poland enjoyed reunifi cation and relative stability. Through tactful diplomacy combining concessions to the southward Bohemians with eastward territorial expansion, Casimir (the Great) solidifi ed his nation’s status as a formidable European power. He established the Academia Cracoviensis (the Academy of Krakow, the future Jagellonian University which would later count Karol Wojtyla among its illustrious alumni) in 1364 with the blessing of Pope Urban V, making Krakow a new center of faith, culture, and education. Yet the bliss enjoyed by Poland in this period would prove fl eeting, as Casimir died in 1370 without a male heir, thus ending the Piast dynasty5.

The death of the Piasts was followed by the rise of the Jagiellon

4. Morton, p. 16 (emphasis mine). 5. Ibid.

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dynasty, the union of Poland with Lithuania, and the rule of elective monarchy. The union created a massive consolidation of territory and power, allowing the new commonwealth a more formidable posture against the creeping Ottomans to the southeast and the Teutonic Knights from the north. Furthermore, the system of elective monarchy increased the infl uence of the Church in Poland. In the fi rst place, bishops enjoyed the right to vote in the election of a king. Secondly, in an interregnum period (similar to the sede vacante period between the death of a Pope and the election of his successor), the administration of the Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth fell to the Primate of Poland, the Archbishop of Gnzieno.6 The constitutional designation of the interregnal function as an ex-offi cio privilege of that primatial see further served to seamlessly blend the spiritual and temporal realms while defi nitively testifying to the enduring power and prestige of the Polish Church.

The expansion of the Ottomans into the Balkans in the 17th century plunged Europe into an unprecedented economic, political, religious, and cultural crisis. Polish armies fought against Turkish forces not only to protect its homeland from foreign occupation but also to save the heritage of Christian Europe. John Sobieski, already a famed military commander who had commanded decisive victories against invading Muslim Turks and Protestant Swedes, was elected King of Poland in 1676 with the overwhelming support of the nobles7. From the start of the Turkish onslaught in 1682, the Ottomans only needed less than one year to cut through the heart of Europe and encircle Vienna by July 1683. Although Sobieski was obliged by a treaty hastily concluded the previous winter with the Hapsburgs to come to Vienna’s aid, the Polish king mobilized his forces primarily in response to Pope Innocent XI’s call for a Holy League to defend Europe from Saracen invasion. It was the specter of Christian obliteration, more than any other political obligation, that compelled Sobieski to leave his own nation almost completely defenseless by marching the entire Polish army to Austria.

The 87,000-strong Polish contingent commanded by Sobieski became the undisputed centerpiece of the Christian relief force, supported by various Austrian and German armies. The decisive engagement of September 12 began with a massive infantry battle with Turks simultaneously fi ghting Vienna’s defenders and elements of the relief army. By evening, with the Turks fatigued from hours of a two-front

6. “Gnesen-Posen”. Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1913.7. Palmer, Allen. The Decline and Fall of the Ottoman Empire. Barnes & Noble Publishing,

1992. p. 355


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battle, Sobieski led the 20,000 Polish and German mounted soldiers in the largest cavalry charge in history towards the Turkish right fl ank and into their rear encampment, breaking the back of Ottoman forces and forcing their frenzied retreat. Through Sobieski’s climactic fi nal stroke, Vienna was relieved, and from this point onward, eventual Turkish withdrawals from Transylvania and Hungary would follow. The frightening terror symbolized by the Ottoman crescent waned dramatically, having lost a ferocity never again to be seen in Europe. Yet despite this spectacular victory by which Sobieski was practically apotheosized by Christian Europe (Innocent XI had dubbed him salvator Europae after the battle), the victorious king displayed the Polish people’s humble loyalty to his Christian faith by uttering his famous mutilation of Caesar’s motto: venimus, vidimus, Deus vicit—“we came, we saw, God conquered.”8

In all these events we fi nd the Church a constant and decisive presence in the history of Poland. It functioned as a cohesive force in times of trial and foreign domination, an arbiter of power and peace among feuding nobles, and a source of cultural and educational development. It is into this historical heritage that Karol Wojtyla was born. Coming of age in the 20th century’s interwar period, he witnessed, just as centuries of Poles preceeding him, the loss of sovereignty thanks to the encroachments of Russians and Germans. Like the fl eeting periods of stability squandered by the old Piast and Jagiellon kings, he stood helplessly as the blissful conclusion of World War II gave way to yet another form of foreign dominance.

By virtue of his devout theological upbringing, we might not be unreasonable in thinking that in the plight of his nation, Wojtyla saw a struggle parallel to that endured by the people of the Old Testament whose hopes were fulfi lled in the New. And in the comparison of these struggles, he had to extract some sense of hope——that despite the tremendous adversity, the promise of the futility of the gates of hell would prove true. If the Church was indefectible, neither was Poland, and this was proved as the culture and the people survived eras even when their country was not mapped. Ever since Miezsko I set the infantile Polish state into the cradle of Holy Mother Church, this mother continuously nursed her child, sustaining the perennial perseverance of the Polish people. In the depths of his heart, Wojtyla probably believed that a complete separation of Church and state would prove fatal for his homeland. The struggle against the hammer

8. Ibid.

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and sickle, therefore, would not be won from the turrets of tanks but from the pulpits of parishes.

In Cold War Poland, the Communists had tried to separate God from daily life and, in doing so, represented a threat to the faith which the Poles held dear. In a similar manner, the incursions of the Turks constituted a mortal threat to that same Christian religion which had bound the Polish people throughout its tumultuous history. Sobieski and Wojtyla, therefore, were giants who astutely understood the necessity of ecclesiastical presence in Polish life. In 1683, she was able to call for men and arms to save Vienna and Europe. 300 years later, she was able to sustain and encourage the Poles to strike and force government acceptance of fairer working conditions through the 1981 Gdansk accords9. Yet, due to the system of elective monarchy of that time, Sobieski’s success did not survive the epoch-defi ning moments of the 18th and 19th centuries. Today, what Wojtyla helped to accomplish continues in a system of government more stable than anything Poland had experienced prior. What separates these two great men are centuries of shifting political winds and hastily redrawn national boundaries. But what binds the two and what made both of them so eff ective was the innate understanding that no foreign power could maintain a sustained hegemonic control over Poland so long as the Church remained standing. It is indicative of the characteristically ferocious Polish loyalty to the faith which gave birth to its statehood. Morton’s comment concerning the ineff ectiveness of the Reformation on the Poles can easily apply to the repeated resurgence of Polish Catholicism in the face of foreign powers:

It will be interesting to remember this when, later, we see these peasants, who are little more than slaves, rise against a foreign invader in defense of their religion, and by personal example remind all men that the Polish cause and the Catholic cause are one.10

III. John Paul II: The Decisive Actor

At his Mass of Installation as Bishop of Rome, Pope John Paul II spoke in his homily words that since then have become famous: “Non abbiate paura! Aprite, anzi, spalancate le porte a Cristo.”11 This phrase has

9. Bernstein, Carl. His Holiness. Doubleday, New York: 1996. pg. 377.10. Morton, p. 16 (emphasis mine).11. John Paul II, homily for Inauguration Mass: “Do not have fear! Open, or rather,

open wide the doors to Christ!”


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been oft-quoted by itself, and, in doing so, it is easy to interpret it as an innocuous admonition toward goodness and peace. Yet the very next words surely must have sent tremors through the Kremlin.

To his saving power open the confi nes of states, economic systems as well as political, the vast fi elds of culture, of civility, of development. Do not have fear! Christ knows what is within man; only he knows!12

This was no benign religious statement: John Paul knew very well the tyranny of political and economic systems which aimed to separate Christ from culture, for these same systems had thrust his beloved homeland into the subservient position in a parasitic relationship. It became quite apparent, from the very beginning of his pontifi cate, that he intended to use the overwhelming moral power of the Church to help topple Communism.

The fi ght against Communism continued fi ve months into the pontifi cate with the release of John Paul’s fi rst encyclical, Redemptor Hominis. The Pontiff decried “atheism that is programmed, organized, and structured as a political system”13; it was a nuanced euphemism, a clear albeit indirect reference to Soviet communism—the new pope would not yet dare to directly confront the vast political-military might of the USSR so early in his career. But it sowed the seeds of what was to come: a pontifi cate marked by unswerving loyalty to Christ the Redeemer and, on the basis of this Christology, a systematic repudiation of Marxism, the new socio-economic serfdom which held Poland captive.

The people of Poland found comfort in the words of their brother Pope, and more encouragement was to come. Mere weeks after the release of Redemptor Hominis, John Paul returned to his homeland on his fi rst Apostolic Visit, greeted by throbbing crowds unseen in papal events. The reality of not only a non-Italian but a Polish Pontiff electrifi ed the nation that held Catholicism as the primary unifying force among its people. Hearing Mass in Warsaw’s Victory Square, his homily reinforced the fears of communist authorities as passionate, angry citizens cheered the Pope’s words. He told them:

Christ cannot be kept out of this part of the world: To try to do this is an act against man. We want God—we want God in the family circle, in books, in schools, in government orders…

12. Ibid.13. Redemptor Hominis 1, offi cial Vatican translation.

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It is not possible to understand the history of the Polish nation without Christ.14

The words were no mere rhetorical fl ourish, given the decisiveness of the Church in Polish history. His speech continued, invoking the memory of the martyrs St. Stanislaus, bishop of Krakow, and of the priest Maximilian Kolbe, not yet canonized, in words that were sure to stir sentiments of Polish nationalism. Yet he did not incite them to violence, and, in his reference to martyrdom, John Paul reminded the angry crowd that suff ering would be an inevitable part of the continuing eff ort. He instilled in them a hope not blindly tied to this world but a hope in the promise of a greater spiritual promise. To be sure, Pope Wojtyla longed to see a free Poland but not a free Poland only for the sake of political liberty. The freedom he saw as paramount was the freedom to worship; this needed to be achieved not as an end in itself, but as a precursor to the restoration of what he considered Christ’s rightful place in Polish life.

In 1980, the price of meat (almost all of which was imported from Russia) in Poland reached intolerably high levels while coal shortages left Poles unable to heat their homes. As a result, 17,000 workers led a massive strike at the shipyards at Gdansk beginning 14 August. It was a continuation of the outrage expressed by Polish workers at the July strikes in Lublin, but this time the national response was more than overwhelming. The Polish workforce rallied behind Lech Walesa, a charismatic, unemployed electrician who fi rst came to fame as a leader in the 1970 riots which resulted in the deaths of 42 Poles and the resignation of Party First Secretary Wladyslaw Gormulka. A series of sit-in strikes all over Poland ground the economy to a halt, and, for over two weeks, the world observed the most vigorous (and successful) anti-Moscow political uprising in Eastern Europe since the Iron Curtain was drawn. Warsaw’s hand was forced and by September 3, the Polish government and workers had signed agreements in which the government acquiesced to labor’s demands. Out of the success of the strikes emerged Solidarity, a nationwide labor union with Walesa at its forefront. He became the visible head of Polish nationalism and opposition, and he led a delegation of fourteen Solidarity leaders who were received by John Paul in an audience granted in January 1981. The highly publicized meeting granted Poland a much needed image of undeniable ecclesiastical support.

In the aftermath of the audience, Polish opposition coalesced into a more formidable unity. Catholic academicians organized under the banner

14. John Paul II, homily in Victory Square, Warsaw, 1979.


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of Catholic Intellectual Clubs (KIK) had already appreciated Wojtyla’s staunch anti-Communism during his tenure at Krakow. They, like their Pope, depicted the plight of Poland in the context of a Christian struggle for human rights. Members of KIK integrated freely with Solidarity, and what was once a purely social-political movement now gained an eschatological framework which appealed to the historical consciousness of Poles. From Castel Gandolfo in the previous summer, the Pope publicly granted blessing to the strikes. The fusion of Magisterial will and public disgruntlement with socialism delivered a body blow to the Polish Worker’s Party (the Communist Party of Poland) from which it would never recover. As the loyalty of the people shifted toward Solidarity, Moscow’s grip on Eastern Europe inevitably grew more and more tired.

The turn of the decade marked a historical kairos moment in which world events seemed to converge in a decisive fashion. Thatcher and Reagan had come to power in the UK and US, respectively; Wojtyla became Pope; the Egyptian-Israeli peace accords of 1979 played to American advantages; and on the other side of the Muslim world, Soviet forces were hotly engaged in an economy-crippling guerilla war in Afghanistan. The fact that the 1980 strikes in Poland did not end with violent Soviet intervention like the 1956 uprising in Budapest or the 1968 riots in Prague only served as further evidence that the Iron Curtain was beginning to buckle. While the Western Powers found ways to engage Communism from without, Wojtyla led the charge against the hammer and sickle from within. The hot political skirmishes continued when the Kremlin pressured Polish Prime Minister General Jaruzelski into declaring martial law, which came into eff ect 12 December.

The next public steps of the Pope were aimed at the revitalization of a peaceful Polish nationalism. Elements of Solidarity were becoming radical and violent as Polish dissidents were captured, tortured, and executed, fi nally resulting in Solidarity’s dissolution; John Paul understood that this anger needed to be tempered lest Poland suff er full-scale Soviet intervention. In a personal letter written to Jaruzelski, the Pope implored the general to halt the bloodshed and to restore normal civil rule. Within the letter, he (perhaps unwittingly) assumed the position as Poland’s spokesman and cited a revocation of martial law as essential to fulfi ll humanity’s desire for world peace. In the most explicit terms, the letter informs Jaruzelski that “the Church”, not just the Pope, “speaks out for this desire”15.

In concert with his personal Marian devotion, his 1983 visit to Poland

15. Bernstein, Carl. His Holiness. Doubleday, New York: 1996. pg. 345.

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included a pilgrimage to the monastery at Jasna Góra in Częstochowa served to rouse the Polish consciousness. It was the site where in the winter of 1655, a handful of monks and volunteers, with Maccabean tenacity, fended off a month-long siege by thousands of Swedish invaders16. The victory, attributed to the miraculous image of the Our Lady of Częstochowa (aka “the Black Madonna”) staged there, was once again implored by John Paul to sustain the people of Poland. The icon was a clear, public reminder of Poland’s place as a quasi-eternal underdog in history but also as a symbol of hope against a deluge of unfortunate odds.

During the same 1983 visit, John Paul beatifi ed the priests Stanislaw Brzoska and Raphael Kalinowski, who had died in the failed 1863 uprising against the Russians. The act was a clear fusion of political aims and religious sentiment, and it gave the Polish people new heroes to venerate and new examples to follow. The same was done one year prior with Maximilian Kolbe, the Franciscan martyred by the Nazis at Auschwitz, through a canonization which extolled the virtues of service and sacrifi ce in the face of external dominance17. These acts resulted in a resurgence of Polish piety, not unlike that which occurred as Sobieski marched for Vienna, with Masses and pilgrimages to the Black Madonna being prayed for the success of the enterprise.

With Solidarity gone underground by 1983, the Church was now the single voice of the Polish people which dared to cry out. John Paul heard Mass for crowds of millions of people who fl ocked to his presence. In his homilies, he spoke of the need for human rights, for respect for life, for social stability, and love of neighbor, all veiled but pointed criticisms of the Communist regime. In a televised speech later during the visit, the Pope unequivocally asserted Poland’s “proper place among the nations of Europe, East and West,” saying that “social agreements stipulated by the representatives of state authorities with representatives of the workers”18 were the only way to achieve a true sense of Polish sovereignty. Every Pole understood that the “social agreements” cited by the Pope referred to the Gdansk accords which ended the 1980 strikes. His reference to the stunning popular victory of the past galvanized support both for the Church and for anti-Soviet resistance. Lech Walesa, still under house arrest, gained more positive popular sentiment than ever. Neither Jaruzelski nor Brezhnev could ignore the Pope or his beloved people, and nor could they continue the policy of systematic oppression which had paralyzed the nation without consequence. Walesa was awarded the 1983 Nobel Prize for Peace, and Solidarity continued to function as an underground organization. Tensions

16. The siege of Jasna Gora 1655. (http://www.kismeta.com/diGrasse/Czestochowa/jasna_gora_1655.htm).

17. St. Maximilian Kolbe. (http://www.catholic-pages.com/saints/st_maximilian.asp).18. Bernstein, pg. 377.


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between Church and State intensifi ed, culminating in the assassination of pro-Solidarity priest Jerzy Popieluszko by Polish security agents. The sentiments of Polish nationalism inspired by John Paul from his recent visit were made manifest in the hundreds of thousands who attended the funeral. It is no surprise that soon after John Paul’s second Apostolic Visit to his homeland, the government lifted martial law.

The release of a new social encyclical, Laborem Exercens, breathed new life into the Polish resistance by providing a Catholic framework for Solidarity’s mission. The text contained innumerable references to the virtue of “solidarity” and praised the value of human work as an extension of divine creation. Laborem Exercens implicitly but forcefully decried the Poland’s status, where John Paul pointed out the paradox of that Marxist nation: the workers were against Communism. By unequivocally stating that Christ “belongs to the world of labor” where “he has appreciation and respect for human work”19, he once more galvanized the anti-Soviet movements across Eastern Europe by reassuring them of the justice inherent in their cause.

The 1985 ascent of Gorbachev onto the political scene signaled an ever-more clear indication of the Eastern Bloc’s imminent decline. The fresh air blown in by perestroika and glasnost created a ripple eff ect throughout the nations of the Warsaw Pact, and, for the fi rst time since martial law, Solidarity was once again demonstrating publicly and openly despite their illegal status. Polish optimism experienced a renewed outburst when, in 1987, John Paul returned for a third time to his homeland. This time he said Mass in Gdansk, the hometown of Walesa and the site of the landmark 1980 strikes. In his homily, characteristically and frequently interrupted by the applause and cheers of his compatriots, he exhibited his astute rhetorical abilities when he told the crowd, “There cannot be a struggle more powerful than solidarity. There cannot be an agenda for struggle above the agenda of solidarity”20. At these words, the masses went wild. It was apparent that, as a Christian, he extolled solidarity as a virtue, but at the same time, as a Pole, he praised Solidarity as an organized social movement. The offi cial Vatican texts, both in Polish and in its Italian translation, keep the words solidanosc and solidarietà in the lower case, but in the context of a public speech which is heard—not read—the elegant ambiguity of the word was like sweet, affi rmative lyricism spoken from the lips of the poet-Pope. The ever greater numbers of people who journeyed once again to see John Paul in 1987 demonstrated both the obsolescence of the Polish Worker Party and the new prestige of Solidarity, which had

19. Laborem Exercens 118.20. Homily at Gdansk, 1987, from Vatican Italian translation.

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de facto become the true representative organization of the Polish people.The Polish Communists were left with no choice; a stable government

required the participation of Solidarity. In 1988, the Polish Worker Party held round table talks with representatives of Solidarity and both parties agreed to quasi-democratic elections in 1989 which guaranteed the Communists a certain quota of seats, and, therefore, considerable infl uence in the new parliament. The elections, however, brought an unexpected result with Solidarity winning 99 of 100 seats in the Senate and 35% of all possible seats in the lower house. In that instant, the end of the Eastern Bloc began.

The Soviet Union relied on major railway and air corridors through Poland to supply its massive garrisons in East Germany. The sudden election of a government now favorable to the United States eff ectively cut off Soviet forces closest to NATO borders. One month after the July elections, the Berlin Wall fell and all of communist Europe would follow soon after. It would seem that John Paul’s message from the beginning of his pontifi cate fi nally saw fulfi llment in a concrete way; doors to Christ had been opened, and from the inside, Christ had shattered the walls.

IV. Conclusion: The Liberation of Poland

In the debates concerning the predominantly Latin American phenomenon of liberation theology, the ambassadors of doctrinal orthodoxy (to include John Paul II and Benedict XVI) have frequently warned against an over-secularized approach symbolized by the preference of sociological methods over theological ones. From his allocution to the assembly of Latin American bishops at Puebla in 1979, we can infer his sentiment that the term “liberation” had been “hijacked” by popular liberation theologians who seemed to leave the eschatological dimension behind, limiting the concept of liberation to empirically observable, purely political (and often partisan) success, even if it means betraying the traditional tenets of Christian morality through recourse to violence.

The impressiveness of John Paul’s contribution to the liberation of Poland is a product of the homogeneous fusion of political objectives and religious purpose in a manner consonant with the constant moral teaching of the Church. This philosophical consistency, embedded in the spirit of the Solidarity movement, is what allowed the anti-Communist resistance to function as an almost united front, remaining formidable and infl uential despite open repression. It is the same force which preserved Polish identity and culture despite centuries of intermittent prosperity and subjugation. Yet in the age of John Paul II, something new occurred. The Church, as a


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maternal protectress, had always been suffi cient in simply maintaining Polish identity without guaranteeing a political stability with feasible longevity. It would seem that under Wojtyla’s pontifi cate, Poland fi nally came of age, for in the image of the Polish pope, we fi nd a novel icon which eloquently symbolizes what it means to be Polish and Catholic. As Archbishop of Krakow, he was successor of St. Stanislaus, the primordial patron of Poland; as Bishop of Rome, he was successor of St. Peter, the point of reference for ecclesiastical union. Through both titles, he personifi ed an unprecedented development of the unity between Poland and the Church. When Wojtyla ascended to the papacy, it was almost as if Poland was raised up with him, revitalized, resurgent, and resurrected in a way never before seen. The collapse of Soviet communism can thus be considered the culminating political-eschatological moment of Polish history wherein that nation at last found its “proper place among the nations of Europe, East and West.” Poland’s transfi guration from serial victim to emerging world power is ultimately a product of and a tribute to John Paul’s fundamental insight that it is “not possible to understand the history of the Polish nation without Christ.”

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WRITER’S COMMENTS

After reading Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass in Professor Schramm’s Advanced Writing Practicum class, we spent a great deal of time discussing the man behind it all, Charles Dodgson (more commonly known by his pseudonym Lewis Carroll). Being of a playful nature, his tales of Alice’s adventures broke the traditional mold of didactic, moralistic fairytales. In my essay, I tried to determine Dodgson’s message about childhood—a theme he clearly cherished. In conducting my research, I focused particularly on Dodgson’s conceptions of Victorian childhood. I argue that with the Alice books, Dodgson strove to free children from the burdensome dullness of a life of strict order and repetition. I further argue that Dodgson’s stories, intended to relieve children of the stifl ing practices of Victorian childrearing, are still valuable today in a world where parents continue to deprive their children of necessary freedoms. — Brenna McCallick


In Writing Practicum II, a St. Ignatian Institute course, I teach students that in research it is not good enough to fi nd and use only those sources that confi rm their thesis or thinking, that to fi nd and use writers or other sources whose views differ from their own creates tension in the writing and, therefore, interest in the reading. And it is not enough merely to connect those sources or writers to their own ideas. A good research writer will add complexity to the discourse by also linking the sources to each other in a dialogue. Thus, I teach the students to make intertextual connections among their sources. Brenna does an outstanding job of all the above. For this assignment, based on the Charles Dodgson (Lewis Carroll) books of the Wonderland Alice, students were given several prompts from which to choose. Brenna chose to answer, “What does Dodgson in the Alice books suggest about concepts of childhood? How different are the Victorian notions from our own notions of childhood? What might Dodgson have to say about our ways today? What is your commentary on both Victorian and contemporary U.S. ideas of childhood? Make your views the focus of the argument.” Brenna’s response integrated all we had studied and practiced all semester. The essay fl ows so smoothly, despite all her varied source material, that one comes to the end of it before quite realizing that it is nine pages long. —Darrell g.h. Schramm, St. Ignatius Institute and Rhetoric and Composition

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BRENNA MCCALLICK

Lessons to Learn from Renouncing Lessons

FROM THE TIME I could walk up until I was about fi ve years old, I was a leash kid. In other words, I was one of those unfortunate children

kept fi rmly in my parents’ reach by a fi ve-foot cord attached to my wrist. I grew up thinking this was a perfectly normal, rational form of child protection. Now that I am older, however, I see the practice of leashing children for what it really is: an absurd, almost cruel way for overprotective parents to control their children. Even parents who do not actually use child leashes are guilty of keeping their kids on a metaphorical leash through cell phones, GPS tracking devices, and nonstop supervision. Charles Dodgson, better known as Lewis Carroll, author of the wildly imaginative Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass, would no doubt be appalled at the thought of keeping a young girl or boy on a leash. We can gather from his writing that he believed childhood was a precious, fl eeting time during which children should be allowed to dream, explore, and follow their curiosity wherever it took them. He criticizes the Victorian society’s treatment of children through his characterization of Alice and description of the Wonderland to which she escapes. Ultimately, we can see from his writing that Dodgson not only valued childhood so much that he wished desperately to return to it, but he also believed that the way his society raised its youth stifl ed the essential spirit of childhood. Furthermore, Dodgson’s criticisms remain valid today in our society because parents still need to reexamine the measures they will take to ensure their child’s safety in what is arguably one of the safest times to raise a child.

In order to fully understand Dodgson’s criticisms of his society, we must fi rst examine the society itself – particularly, the raising of middle and upper class children such as Alice Liddell. I argue, along with Dodgson, that the environment in which children were brought up during the Victorian era was one of fear and suppression. Eugene Black, author of Victorian Culture and Society, examines the lives of children within middle

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and upper class Victorian households. He describes family life stating, “The family – that congerie of father, mother, aunts, uncles, and servants – taught the creed of obedience, morality, loyalty. Discipline lay at the heart of socialization” (200). Thus we can see that education of the child was so important that the entire family contributed to it. Also, punishment and discipline were prevalent practices within the culture. Black continues his description of the child’s education, claiming, “Each child must learn order and self-restraint through encouragement and suppression. Enforcement of the culture was simple and direct” (200). The family, in other words, did not mask their methods of instilling self-restraint and obedience in their children. They were forthcoming with their children, and subsequently the young members of the family understood exactly what was expected of them.

Next, Black inserts a passage from a Victorian author, Augustus Hare, into his description of the life of Victorian children. Hare wrote of his childhood:

But, to return to our own life, at one we had dinner—almost always roast-mutton and rice-pudding—and then I read aloud—Josephus at a very early age, and then Froissart’s Chronicles. At three we went out in the carriage to distant cottages, often ending at the rectory. At fi ve I was allowed to “amuse myself,” which generally meant nursing the cat for half-an-hour and “hearing it its lessons.” All the day I had been with my mother, and now generally went to my dear nurse Lea for half-an-hour, when I had tea in the cool “servants’ hall” (where, however, the servants never sat—preferring the kitchen), after which I returned to fi nd Uncle Julius arrived, who stayed till my bedtime. (201)

From this description of everyday life by a man who lived the lifestyle of an upper class Victorian child, we can see that the days were structured rigorously, and routine was clearly observed, leaving the child with only a short time to “amuse” himself. Hare was evidently quite educated at a very early age, reading aloud Froissart’s Chronicles (records of 14th century England and France written in French) and books by Josephus (a fi rst century Jewish historian) as opposed to, say, storybooks or fairytales. Victorian families placed great emphasis on the education of the child, both scholarly and social, and gave little consideration to a child’s natural inclination for play and fun.

Like Black, author Florence Becker Lennon, in her book Victoria Through the Looking Glass, describes the Victorian life of a middle class or upper class child as stifl ing. Lennon claims, “So much of the academic


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training of children then consisted in mere passive memorizing that it fatigued the most active minds” (16). Unlike Black, Lennon hones in on the diff erences in education between boys and girls, stating, “Girls fared even worse than boys, since their learning was more passive, less accurate, and often confi ned to mere memory work and ‘accomplishments’” (17). Children, especially girls, were confi ned to an education that consisted almost entirely of memorization. Needless to say, little value was placed on imagination. Lennon too includes an excerpt from a Victorian man writing of his childhood. G.G. Bradley, the Dean of Westminster, wrote of his education: “Lists of kings, of metals, of planets, were all repeated without interest and without discrimination…I learned by heart the chief countries of Europe, and provided I said them in a sense correctly, was allowed to simplify matters by saying the columns separately or in pairs” (qtd. in Lennon 17). From Bradley’s description, as well as Lennon’s commentary on Victorian education, we see that children were instructed chiefl y through the process of repetitive, uninteresting memorization.

Dodgson, in contrast, enjoyed a signifi cantly diff erent childhood. Though Dodgson was raised in a conservative household, there are a few important diff erences to note between his and the majority of other Victorian households. Firstly, Charles Dodgson was taught from an early age that God was not a harsh ruler and deliverer of punishment; rather, God was compassionate and merciful. Lennon describes Dodgson’s home as “full of love. Dark gods hovered over England – gods of original sin, of infant damnation, of eternal punishment; but the Dodgson family worshiped the God of Love, who showed his stern face only in the presence of evil” (10). If, unlike the great majority of traditional Victorian families, Dodgson was brought up believing that the ultimate giver of power and dealer of justice was kind-hearted and forgiving, then we can surmise that he had a much diff erent understanding of what power and authority ought to be. Additionally, coming from a middle class family, Dodgson had signifi cantly more freedom than upper class Victorian children. Lennon informs us that “he liked to climb trees and scramble in the marlpits, but his principle diversions carried the creative principle even into adult life: photography; mending music-boxes; endless, never successful attempts to draw; infi nite games and puzzles” (16). Thus we see that Dodgson’s childhood allowed for play as well as creative expression. Nevertheless, he struggled within the strictures of a Victorian childhood, enduring monotonous lessons day after day.

The Alice books, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass, are Dodgson’s attempt at liberating children from the

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stifl ing environment of endless proprieties and punishment, memorization and monotony. Lennon argues that “Charles never lost interest in children, or in alleviating their suff erings by any device common or uncommon sense could contrive…. The keen memory of his own miseries made him sympathetic with children whose suff erings, like his, were of the mind” (18-20). While Dodgson’s family life was “one of gentleness and graciousness” (21), he still had to endure the “suff erings of the mind,” like all other middle or upper class Victorian children. But, because he also experienced the simple childhood pleasures of climbing trees and playing games, he knew well that childhood could be a time of joy and peace of mind.

Subsequently, a prominent theme within the Alice books is the importance of play as opposed to the didacticism of the age. Dodgson’s books boldly broke the traditional fairy tale mold of the Victorian era. In her essay, “Fairy Tales with a Purpose,” critic Gillian Avery describes the state of children’s literature in England up until 1840, claiming “fairy tales were frowned upon, and only grudgingly admitted to the nursery shelves if their morals were impeccable” (322). She goes on to describe how a reluctant acceptance of fairy tales began after this point, though the main characters in the stories almost always underwent some sort of moral reformation after making a wrong decision (323). Though there was magic in these stories, Avery points out that “invariably the supernatural is used to point to the moral” (323). From Avery’s description we can see that fairy tales pre-existing Dodgson’s are very unlike fairy tales as we know them now. The purpose of the Alice books is, as Lennon and Avery both suggest, to free children from the burden of didacticism.

Dodgson clearly believed that some things, like literature, should not exist for the purpose of instruction; some should merely exist for the purpose of fun. The Alice books are fi lled with nonsensical situations and wildly colorful characters, none of which exist to teach morals. For example, in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, the Mad Hatter embodies the spirit of play completely devoid of any instructive purpose when he asks Alice to solve a riddle. When she decides she cannot fi gure it out and asks to know the answer, the Hatter replies, “I haven’t the slightest idea” (56). Alice, a product of her society, grumpily responds, “I think you might do something better with the time than wasting it in asking riddles that have no answers” (56). Dodgson, however, clearly thought that pondering unsolvable riddles was anything but a waste of time. Riddles, games, and play, though not the traditional form of instruction, are valuable in that they foster imagination and creativity in the child. Kathleen Blake, in her book Play, Games and Sport: The Literary Works of Lewis Carroll, elaborates


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on the signifi cance of play in Dodgson’s writing, claiming, “The Alice books are famously non-didactic and playful. Games abound in them, at various levels…. The creatures share a mania for play, from the caucus-race on. Humpty-Dumpty treats conversation itself as a game. Cards, croquet, and chess establish the narrative frameworks of the novels” (12). By illuminating the inherent playful nature of the books, Blake asserts that Dodgson’s use of games is not something to be overlooked. Rather, she argues that games and play are central themes in his books and reveal his belief “that a great deal was missing, maybe everything, from a life of mechanical eating, work, and sleep, unless there was play” (12). Blake thus argues that Dodgson believed there was value in simply allowing a child to escape to a wonderland where rules could be broken and silliness became the order of the day.

Some critics argue that the books were a means of escape for Dodgson, or a regression. While I agree, I argue that this desire to regress reveals not only Dodgson’s love and nostalgia for childhood, but also his critique of Victorian childrearing. Peter Coveney, a critic of Dodgson’s writing, wrote in an essay entitled “Escape,” that Dodgson’s main purpose for writing the Alice books was just that – to escape. He writes, “The justifi cation of secular art is the responsibility it bears for the enrichment of human awareness...The cult of the child in certain authors at the end of the nineteenth century is a denial of this responsibility. Their awareness of childhood is no longer an interest in growth and integration…but a means of detachment and retreat from the adult world” (328). Of course we discover that Coveney included Dodgson in this group of “certain authors at the end of the nineteenth century.” Thus Coveney claims that Dodgson wrote the Alice books as a sort of release from his unhappy adult life, a method of returning to the pleasant times of childhood. Robert Polhemus echoes Coveney’s claims in his essay “Lewis Carroll and the Child in Victorian Fiction,” but states further that Dodgson “actually loved and wanted to be the girl-child, the other, the not-self in a way that his distinguished older contemporaries in fi ction did not” (597). Polhemus also takes Coveney’s analysis further when he claims that Dodgson wished to “give pleasure to a child – to children – whom he adored and idealized, to make his specifi c audience happy, and to seduce its goodwill and aff ectionate regard for himself ” (583). In other words, Polhemus believes that Dodgson wished to earn the aff ection of children through his literature. While this may be true, I believe

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that this was not Dodgson’s main purpose for writing the Alice books. I maintain the belief that one of Dodgson’s primary goals, if not the primary goal of his writing, was to criticize the Victorian methods of educating children through repression and discipline. In so doing, he attempted to liberate children (and himself) with his writing.

Dodgson’s criticisms of his society still resonate today. Modern day parents, like Victorian parents, are guilty of repressing their children and barring them from the “simple joys” and “happy summer days” Dodgson so nostalgically describes at the end of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Today, while children’s literature is no longer tailored to fi t within strict moral standards and educational methods have been redesigned so that emphasis is placed on comprehension rather than memory, society continues to curtail its children’s inherent need for freedom and play. Parents today have adopted overprotectiveness as a means of easing their anxieties and controlling their children. In her article, “Helicopter Moms vs. Free-range Kids,” Newsweek magazine writer Louise Crawford explores the onslaught of overbearing parents and the eff ects their obsession with safety is having on their children. She begins the article referencing a story published in the New York Sun by columnist Lenore Skenazy who let her nine-year-old son ride the subway by himself. Crawford writes, “The episode has ignited another one of those debates that divides parents into vocal opposing camps. Are modern parents needlessly overprotective, or is the world a more complicated and dangerous place than it was when previous generations were allowed to roam unsupervised?” (1). While some might argue that the apparent danger paranoia is justifi ed, Crawford points out that we live in a much safer world than we think:

Nationwide, stranger abductions are extremely rare; there’s a one-in-a-million chance a child will be taken by a stranger, according to the Justice Department. And 90 percent of sexual abuse cases are committed by someone the child knows. Mortality rates from all causes, including disease and accidents, for American children are lower now than they were 25 years ago. According to Child Trends, a nonprofi t, nonpartisan research group, between 1980 and 2003 death rates dropped by 44 percent for children ages fi ve to 14 and 32 percent for teens aged 15 to 19. (2)

Thus Crawford suggests that while caution is always necessary, obsessive worry is not. She proceeds to encourage parents to allow their children more independence, but discourages “one size fi ts all”


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parenting. Every child is diff erent, and therefore parents need to assess their child’s unique comfort level, maturity, and emotional makeup. She then encourages parents who remain uneasy to use cell phones and even GPS tracking devices to keep tabs on their children.

Lenore Skenazy did not give her son a cell phone. Her approach to parenting is more extreme than Crawford’s. After the incident with her son and all the feedback she received from outraged parents, Skenazy decided to start a blog called “Free Range Kids.” In her mission statement, she explains that she and those who have aligned themselves with her “are not daredevils. We believe in life jackets and bike helmets and air bags. But we also believe in independence. Children, like chickens, deserve a life outside the cage. The overprotected life is stunting and stifl ing, not to mention boring for all concerned.” While I see the value in parents keeping vigilant watch over their children, I do not believe such a practice is healthy for either party. The child is stifl ed and given the impression that the parent does not trust him or her. The parent, in turn, does not learn how to let go. I agree with Skenazy that children who are brought up in such a way are stifl ed and even impaired.

Though modern parents typically allow their children signifi cantly more freedom than Victorian parents, they are still guilty of inhibiting their children’s enjoyment of the fl eeting joys of childhood. I believe this is the message we ought to take from Dodgson’s Alice books. One might ask, what is the moral behind stories criticizing the teaching of morals? What lesson can we learn from books that renounce lessons? From all the evidence I have gathered, it appears to me that Dodgson wished to teach us the value of nonsense, the importance of play, and the necessity of allowing children to dream, imagine, and create. He was evidently strongly opposed to the stifl ing environment of his age in which parents dismissed the value of play and focused all their eff orts on educating the child in matters both scholarly and moral. His books seem to be a plea for freedom – freedom for children to climb trees and play games, to be let out of the cages their parents kept them in. He would criticize parents today for their lack of sympathy toward a child’s inherent need for freedom and independence – a need he himself understood all too well.

The moral of the story? Let children be children.

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Works Cited

Avery, Gillian. “Fairytales With a Purpose.” Alice in Wonderland. Donald J.Gray ed. NY: Norton, 1992. 321-324.

Black, Eugene C. “Socialization: Child and Family.” Victorian Culture and Society. New York: Walker & Co., 1974. 200-201.

Blake, Kathleen. Play, Games, and Sport: The Literary Works of Lewis Carroll. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1974.

Carroll, Lewis. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Alice in Wonderland. Donald J. Gray ed. NY: Norton, 1992.

Coveney, Peter. “Escape.” Alice in Wonderland. Donald J.Gray ed. NY: Norton, 1992. 327-334.

Crawford, Louise. “Helicopter Moms vs. Free-range Kids.” Newsweek.com. 21 Apr. 2008. Retrieved 12 Nov 2008. <http://www.newsweek.com/id/133103/page/1>.

Lennon, Florence Becker. Victoria Through the Looking Glass: The Life of Lewis Carroll. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1945.

Polhemus, Roger. “Lewis Carroll and the Child in Victorian Fiction.” The Columbia History of the British Novel. New York: Columbia University Press, 1994. 579-606.

Skenazy, Lenore. “Why FreeRange?” Free Range Kids. Retrieved 19 Nov 2008. <http://freerangekids.wordpress.com/about-2/>.

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WRITER’S COMMENTS

For our fi nal paper in Professor David Holler’s Rhetoric and Composition class, we were to read a nonfi ction book and then write a paper inspired by said book. No Caption Needed: Iconic Photographs, Public Culture, and Liberal Democracy discusses iconic American photojournalism, including examples such as the “Migrant Mother,” the Hindenburg explosion, and “Accidental Napalm” and what they say about the American public that has turned them into icons and sources of social commentary. In my essay I decided to continue Robert Hariman and John Louis Lucaites’s work by explicating the 1985 National Geographic cover photo “Afghan Girl” by Steve McCurry. I picked this photo because it is such a famous image and I wanted to fi gure out why Hariman and Lucaites had chosen not to explicate it. This paper showed me how much research was involved in such a project and I am grateful to Professor Holler’s fl exibility in the assignment so that I was able to explore such a topic I had never thought of before.

—Caroline Kangas


Caroline, in her fi nal essay assignment, created an enormous challenge for herself: contextualizing a haunting and truly iconic image that cuts to the core of the incalculable human cost of Afghanistan’s troubled history. Caroline, in this essay, truly succeeds in connecting and analyzing images in a way that would honor both Hariman and Lucaites, whose work inspired Caroline’s fi ne work. Indeed, Caroline’s essay arrives at a “way of seeing” (to co-opt John Berger’s famous phrase) that allows her readers to consider some of history’s ugliest episodes through a very human lens. The editors at Writing for a Real World offer profound thanks to Steve McCurry for generously allowing us to reprint his most famous image. —David Holler, Rhetoric and Composition

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CAROLINE KANGAS

Caption Needed: “Afghan Girl” Requires One Thousand Words

“As it is a mode of seeing, public culture is defi ned by an ongoing variation of objects and perspectives. Thus, the outline of civil society is reproduced through the practice of photojournalism. Over time one sees a myriad of separate things in a common frame that is neither private nor defi ned by the state. An intensively public orientation emerges out of a range of conventions that include displaying offi cials, representing ordinary people, and iconic representations of citizenship. Thus, photojournalism inculcates a way of seeing that recognizes and reproduces the constitutional relationships of the public sphere.”— Robert Hariman and John Louis Lucaites, No Caption Needed: Iconic Photographs, Public Culture, and Liberal Democracy

IF THERE WAS ANY QUESTION of the importance of photojournalism, No Caption Needed: Iconic Photographs, Public Culture, and Literature

Democracy very clearly proved its place in American culture. Robert Hariman, a professor of communication at Northwestern University, and John Louis Lucaites, an associate professor of communication and culture at Indiana University, illustrate a much more signifi cant point: Not only is photojournalism important, it helps defi ne the American public and is a vital component of our democratic society. Just as a phrase can defi ne a generation or movement, an iconic photograph can instantly be recognized and identifi ed with. “Photojournalism,” Hariman and Lucaites argue, “when it is operating as a form of ritual performance in a literate society, acquires the capability to reveal or suggest what is unsayable or at least not being said or seen in print”(33). Not only do photos say what cannot be said, they also draw out responses from their audiences: “photography operates not just as a record of things seen but also as a way of seeing that is attentive to what is aesthetically distinctive, socially characteristic, and emotionally evocative” (Hariman and Lucaites 36).


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Each iconic photo is identifi able by the entire public but can hold many diff erent meanings among diff erent groups and movements. One of the most important parts of an iconic photo is the copies and adaptations that are made to it—commentary ensured by the First Amendment. Linda Zirelli, who has done extensive studies into the classic American icon, the Statue of Liberty, says that “American democracy is kept alive by translation, augmentation, refoundings—in a word, by copy that is not One” (qtd. in Hariman and Lucaites 38). In their book, Hariman and Lucaites thoroughly explicate nine iconic American photographs, as well as their many reproductions and transformations, through the lens of the American public and how they represented diff erent aspects of American democracy and social actions. They even go so far as to argue that “by looking carefully at the leading photographs in U.S. public life … the reader can see what potential liberal democracy has for nurturing social justice and the common good” (Hariman and Lucaites 48).

One undeniable icon that Hariman and Lucaites do not discuss in their book is that of Steve McCurry’s “Afghan Girl” whose eyes have haunted the United States and the rest of the world since she appeared on the cover of National Geographic in June of 1985. I believe there are a few reasons why they chose not to include this icon in No Caption Needed, the main one being that although the “Afghan Girl” is obviously an example of iconography in American photojournalism, there was not much of an actual movement built up around the picture. This may have been due in part to American apathy towards the rest of the world—an attitude that was encouraged by the government; the “Afghan Girl,” after all, represents a very controversial area and a complex situation. Although Hariman and Lucaites discuss how their icons have been used to criticize America, they themselves do not really criticize the American public’s ideals. Which leads to another reason why they might have chosen not to include “Afghan Girl”: although you can fi nd her face on coff ee table books and even on carpets, there are very few, if any, adaptations of her image to be used as social commentary. Her face is so widely recognized and so avidly idolized that the “Afghan Girl” has become, in a sense, untouchable. Despite there being no transformations of McCurry’s picture, this fact alone is very telling. The picture is similar in style to Dorothea Lange’s 1936 “Migrant Mother” and in theme to Nick Ut’s 1972 “Accidental Napalm,” but the main distinction is that both of these pictures, especially the latter, have been reinvented many times over. I fi nd the diff erences between the “Afghan Girl” and the pictures that Hariman and Lucaites chose to explicate very fascinating and this is why, although my explication will

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not be as thorough a process as theirs, I chose to look at Steve McCurry’s photograph.

Personally, I react more to an image that I can emotionally identify with, which seems to be the American public’s response as well. Early in No Caption Needed, Hariman and Lucaites establish an idea that in journalism and politics, emotion is looked down upon; furthermore they assert that we demand that our leaders lack feelings so that they will keep their personal opinion out of politics and simply represent their constituents. Despite this endorsement of emotional detachment, as a public, Americans are very emotional and consequently respond well to tugs on the heart strings. For example, “Accidental Napalm,” which depicts the tragedy of the Vietnamese village of Trang Bang, “was capable of activating public conscience at the time because it provided an embodied transcription of important features of moral life, including pain, fragmentation, moral relationships among strangers, betrayal, and trauma” (Hariman and Lucaites 175). Certain examples of photojournalism gain power from show of emotion: the girl’s raw agony in “Accidental Napalm,” the fragile strength of the “Migrant Mother.” Both images motivated a nation to come together: in one case to fi nally force the government to give up the war in Vietnam and, in the case of the other, to support each other and their governmental aide programs during the Great Depression. The deep emotion of the children in “Accidental Napalm” is juxtaposed with the seemingly nonchalant attitude of the soldiers in the background of the image and this representation of Americans is what the U.S. public so fervently opposed. In the case of “Migrant Mother” however, Americans drew power from her strength to try and help others in the same position. Clearly, images fi lled with such emotion elicit a response and the American republic responds specifi cally to how Americans are depicted in the images.

One fascinating process is the transformation of an icon and all of the diff erent reasons why an artist would transform an iconic photograph in a particular way. The photos that Hariman and Lucaites chose to explicate are examples of photojournalism that became icons because of their ability to resonate with an entire nation, which is impressive in the case of a nation as diverse as the United States. Naturally, however, with each image, some groups took issue with what the iconic photographs established as “normal.” One avenue for illustrating the complexities an icon represents, and consequently, within our society, is through transforming the image to take on a diff erent message. As Hariman and Lucaites note: “The varied appropriations demonstrate that common


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images are used to model normative behavior but also for satiric mimicry to challenge those norms, strategic improvisation to change them, and other forms of artistic invention for purposes both serious and silly” (39). These cartoons, paintings, and statues, are all “part of a larger process of imitation that refl ects a continuing struggle over embodied citizenship, as well as the permeable boundaries of popular culture and private life” (Hariman and Lucaites 80). Because, truly, if an image is supposed to represent the norm in a society and, in the case of the icons in No Caption Needed, the American public—then what does it mean if the viewer is not represented in that image? The commentary on a culture through changing an image and giving a purpose that perhaps was not present in the original can have a strong eff ect on the public. Consider, for example, “Accidental Napalm,” which, as Hariman and Lucaites assert, “managed a rhetorical culture of moral and aesthetic fragmentation to construct public judgment of the war, and how it embodies a continuing tension within public memory between a liberal-individualist narrative of denial and compensation and a mode of democratic dissent that involves both

Fig. 1. Ut, Nick. “Accidental Napalm.” 1972. Associated Press Images. Reprinted with permission. This image alerted the American public to the true horrors enacted under the American fl ag in Vietnam.

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historical accountability and continuing trauma” (175). Even today people are aff ected by this image and question many aspects of our culture through it. The norm established in Nick Ut’s photo is that Americans can enact crimes on civilians without any apparent eff ect on their conscience—even the title of the image, “Accidental Napalm,” describes the nonchalance of the U.S. Army in Vietnam. The American public rallied around this picture because they wanted to reject it but, as our government and military continue to carry out crimes in America’s name, artists continue to remind the public of a screaming girl and the terror the United States infl icted on her and her village.

Another aspect of iconic photographs is the story behind the characters in the picture. Often do not know their subject’s identity, but as the image reaches icon status, the American public yearns to know what happened to this person whose face is ingrained in their minds. Sometimes, as in the case of “Accidental Napalm,” guilt causes the American public to wish to apologize and absolve themselves of their indirect involvement. After Kim Phuc was identifi ed, Americans attacked her again, this time with journalists instead of bombs; however, as the book The Girl in the Picture suggests, the public was ultimately “redeemed through empathic identifi cation with her suff ering. The traumatic ‘scars [that] war leaves on all of us’ are then ameliorated by a narrative of her life after the war” (Hariman and Lucaites 184). The futures of some icons are not all as neat and fulfi lling, however.

When Florence Thompson, the “Migrant Mother” was found, the American public was confronted with someone quite diff erent than their imagined icon: “the woman in the photograph is contemplative, apparently concerned about her children and family; Thompson is bitter, angry, alienated not so much by her past as a migrant worker but by the commodifi cation of the image that completely divorced the woman in the photograph from the living Thompson” (Hariman and Lucaites 62). Instead of revealing a New Deal success story, the public’s introduction to their “Migrant Mother” unveiled a story that they didn’t want to associate with. An image that had provided such strength and hope for so many had been negated by the ignored protagonist. Unfortunately, the true story is, more often than not, much less fulfi lling than the imagined life of an icon. Florence Thompson explained it very succinctly: “What good’s it doing me?” (qtd. in Hariman and Lucaites 62).


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Another piece in the story of many icons is the myth around the circumstances that led to the photograph. There are many accounts of how Steve McCurry was smuggled into Afghanistan without a passport and fi lm sewn into the lining of his pants and how later, in Pakistan, he walked through a school in an Afghan refugee camp and snapped a few pictures of the children there, saving a fi erce but shy girl for last. There was no interpreter present so McCurry did not learn the girl’s name, but after the June 1985 edition of National Geographic came out the world instantly became mesmerized with the “Afghan Girl” and her eyes that dared the viewer to look away from her and her situation. Even though McCurry and the American public did not know the girl’s identity until 2002, she still managed to inspire “a young generation of American aid-workers and led to thousands of calls to the magazine off ering help, aid, money, even proposals of marriage” (McGinty). The woman that McCurry and a

Fig. 2. Lange, Dorothea. “Migrant Mother.” 1936. Library of Congress. From a series on life in the Dust Bowl, this photo became the quintessential image for the Great Depres-sion and the New Deal.

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fi lm crew from National Geographic found in 2002 was Sharbat Gula, a woman looking much older than her late twenties, hardened by a harsh climate. (A harsh climate referring to not only the weather, but also the situation of war that Gula’s home of Afghanistan has been in for close to thirty years.) In No Caption Needed, although Hariman and Lucaites question and even occasionally criticize American norms, they essentially stay loyal to the American public. However, in the case of the “Afghan Girl,” an undeniable icon, the Western world’s fascination with her has done little to improve her situation and it is time to ask some tough questions. (Please see the Appendix at the end of this essay for images of Sharbat Gula in 1984 and 2002.)

When Sharbat Gula graced the cover of National Geographic in 1985, the story by Debra Denker that accompanied her picture spoke of tens of thousands of Afghan refugees living in Pakistan in fl ight from Soviet invasion of their native land. Those remaining in Afghanistan were the mujahidin or holy warriors and those who fed and sheltered them. According to Denker, from 1980 until 1985 when the article was written, “325 million dollars in covert U.S. aid [had] reportedly been channeled to the mujahidin, mostly in the form of smuggled Soviet-made small arms, along with a few anti-tank missiles and SAM-7 anti-aircraft missiles.” Denker goes on to describe in detail the harsh life of the Afghan refugees, including the story of an Afghan woman who had lost one leg to a mine but “was refused admission to Afghan hospitals on grounds that her husband, then in prison and later executed, was a terrorist.” Since then, the Soviets have been removed from the Middle East and the Taliban have been thwarted with help (acknowledged or not) from the United States. The American public’s opinion of the mujahidin has since been profoundly aff ected after the attacks on our country on September 11, 2001, and the word “terrorist” began to control many more people’s lives. It was shortly after these attacks, just the next year, when Steve McCurry and Sharbat Gula had their second encounter and photo shoot. The 2002 National Geographic article featuring past and present pictures of Gula shows that the harsh life of an Afghan refugee that Denker so vividly described has certainly taken its toll. “Consider the numbers,” says National Geographic’s Cathy Newman: “Twenty-three years of war” (now almost thirty), “1.5 million killed, 3.5 million refugees: This is the story of Afghanistan in the past quarter century” (Newman). The eyes that had captivated the world still held their ferocity, but had lost hope in a change for the future. In a CNN interview McCurry explained that, according to Gula, the only day she had ever been happy was the day she was married. And although she had never felt safe, she explained “life under the Taliban was better. At least there was peace and order” (qtd. in Newman). When asked if there was anything she wanted, the fi rst thing


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Sharbat Gula asked for was that America “help rebuild our country and let us have peace there.”

The image of the “Afghan Girl” is reminiscent of the “Migrant Mother” as they both inspired support from the American public by showing beauty and strength in a situation it does not deserve. “Migrant Mother” was the poster-image for the New Deal and public aid programs and Americans came up around her image to provide what she was unable to provide. The more recent photo of the “Afghan Girl” is similar in the way that it inspired aide and has become the poster-child for groups like Amnesty International but the response that has come up around her has not been nearly as successful as that of the “Migrant Mother.” The fi rst reason for this, I believe, is that Sharbat Gula is, as she used to be called, the “Afghan Girl.” She is not American like Florence Thompson; in fact, her discovery was, to many observers, even more of a disappointment than Thompson’s. The “Afghan Girl’s” exotic beauty that had inspired aide and inquiries to save her was gone seventeen years later and she was not even thankful for the help that the United States had given her country. Although, of course, the United States also tries to avoid drawing too much attention to Afghanistan or any U.S. interest there. Now, not only is the “Afghan Girl” not American but she is not even really an American interest now—especially since she has aged so “terribly” (Edwardes).

After studying the story of the “Afghan Girl,” it is easy to see why Hariman and Lucaites avoided her piercing green eyes. Although it could be argued that they had already covered similar explications in the pictures of the “Migrant Mother” and “Accidental Napalm,” the stories behind these pictures, while critical at times, still off ered a positive look at the United States and the American public. Even if Florence Thompson was bitter about the reward (or lack thereof) from being idolized, at least she became the face for positive changes and rebuilding of our country during the New Deal. Despite the fact that America’s defense of South Vietnam was a disaster, Kim Phuc’s scream helped end the Vietnam War and she now lives in Canada with her beautiful, healthy baby. Sharbat Gula and the ferocity in her eyes were not enough to dare our nation to commit to helping her country and as soon as our handiwork aged her much before her time, we left her to fend for herself.

Works Cited

Charny, Joe, Boyd Matson, and Steve McCurry. Interview. Q&A with Zain Verjee. CNN International. 18 Mar. 2002. Lexis Nexis. U of San

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Francisco Lib., San Francisco. <http://www.lexisnexis.com>.

Denker, Debra. “Along Afghanistan’s War-torn Frontier.” National Geographic. June 1985. <http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2002/04/ afghan-girl/original-story-text>.

Edwardes, Charlotte. “The Eyes Say It All: The latest portrait of Sharbat Gula shows the ravages of time on the face of a once beautiful Afghan girl. But it’s not the war that makes a 29-year-old look 45.” Sunday Telegraph (London). 17 Mar. 2002. Lexis Nexis. U of San Francisco Lib., San Francisco. <http://www.lexisnexis.com>.

Hariman, Robert and John Louis Lucaites. No Caption Needed: Iconic Photographs, Public Culture, and Liberal Democracy. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 2007.

Lange, Dorothea. Migrant Mother. 1936. Library of Congress. <http:// memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/I?fsaall:1:./temp/~ammem_Np3W::displ ayType=1:m856sd=fsa:m856sf=8b29516:@@@fsaal>.

McCurry, Steve. Afghan Girl. National Geographic Online. Apr. 2002. <http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2002/04/afghan-girl/index- text>.

McGinty, Stephen. “The Saga Behind The Green Eyes.” The Scotsman. 16 Mar. 2002. Lexis Nexis. U of San Francisco Lib., San Francisco. <http://www.lexisnexis.com>

Newman, Cathy. “A Life Revealed.” National Geographic Online. Apr. 2002. <http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2002/04/afghan-girl/index-text>.

Ut, Nick. Accidental Napalm. 1972. Associated Press Images. (Reprinted with permission.)

Appendix

The author and editors thank Steve McCurry for generously allowing us to reprint his images on the following pages. More images can be found at www.stevemccurry.com.


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Peshawar, Pakistan. 1984. © Steve McCurry. Reprinted with permission.

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Pakistan. 2002. © Steve McCurry. Reprinted with permission.

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HOW TO BE A REAL WOMAN

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WRITER’S COMMENTS

Unattainable images in the media are not new. Clothing ads, commercials for alcohol and shoes, and magazine cover stories all tend to depict women who are unrealistically thin and beautiful. Most women are aware of how misleading these ads are and how impossible it is to reach the standards they set, but the effect is still present. In Professor Dempster’s Seminar in Rhetoric and Composition (RC 140), where we were given the freedom to write about socially relevant topics of personal importance, I decided to explore the rampant problem of women in the media. I wanted to clarify that “beauty” does not have a single defi nition and that the signifi cance our culture places on it is harming the collective female psyche. The way the paper is written—a little lofty in both approach and tone—portrays how ridiculous the issue is and brings attention to how troubling it continues to be.

—Jessica Cordova


Jessica’s exceptional essay takes a much discussed issue—the infl uence of the media on the self-images of women—and completely makes it her own. She does so in a variety of ways: by creating an intertextual dialogue between her argument and multiple sources; by deftly linking her essay’s main topic to subject areas diverse as psychiatry, radio, and advertisements. Writing with an authoritative voice that uses excellent syntactic variation, Jessica combines in-depth analysis with striking details, imaginary scenarios with real-life ad campaigns. This well-crafted piece underscores the challenge of women, and by extension all of us, to “remain comfortable in our own skins.”

—Brian Komei Dempster, Rhetoric and Composition

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JESSICA CORDOVA

How to Be a Real Woman

“MAN is the only animal for whom his existence is a problem which he has to solve,” observed Erich Fromm in 1947 (Camp).

Developing with stealth-like speed and effi cacy over the decades between 1947 and now, the media has provided us with a countless number of ways to better our existence. We can hide our receding hairlines, buy shirts and shoes made of fi ne, synthetic material, tone our legs and stomachs, and establish fruitful connections with money and attractive men and women. To begin, though, our fi rst and most important hurdle is set before us: we must become beautiful. Only then can we defi ne, distinctly and meaningfully, our existence.

In our culture today, one only needs to look at daily routines and patterns to obtain a defi nition of what “beauty” is. In a woman’s world, she might fi rst begin by bathing. She washes her hair and her body with scents that she hopes men walking to work will fi nd attractive, and she contemplates breakfast. In the end, she chooses to forgo the fi rst meal of the day. She sorts through her closet and holds, for one uncertain, frisky moment, a skirt that reaches halfway down her thighs. Uncertainty nudges her decision, and she chooses jeans over the skirt. She wears a shirt that off ers a glimpse of cleavage, worrying that her bust is not bountiful enough to glory in the full eff ect. When she steps outside to catch the bus to work, she notices a dozen diff erent ads in a dozen diff erent directions: Abercrombie & Fitch models looking slim and sensual, and wine-sipping women appearing giddy and genial with a close group of similarly wine-sipping friends, all with shining hair that falls in pretty shades and complements their slender shoulders. She goes to work feeling slightly more defl ated than she did when she woke up, and for some reason her stomach feels a little pudgier. This tale may or may not be true, but visual media is adept at making fi ction. It provides us with a defi nition, it tells a story with beautiful images, and the largest audience, women, is prodded to adjust accordingly, and to sacrifi ce the natural beauty they already knew, or thought they knew. While the prospect of


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a shining, beautiful world full of beautiful people is attractive, it is also harmful to those who believe they need to change in order to be accepted in this new world. Today’s media and culture has dictated what beauty is, fi ctions for consumers have been woven, intimacy has been exploited, and there is no uplifting evidence or action being taken to hint that we are on the path to a better place.

Clearly, the media has defi ned “beauty” for us. It has become a distant but shallow idea, a concept that is hard to grasp and a reality that is even more impossible; it is Barbie. Despite the gender-specifi c appeals made in all mediums of advertisement, the message, regardless of gender, is the same: we must be beautiful. We are prompted to “become somebody,” and to achieve something, and, to do this, the route we are given is physical development and grace. “The fi rst step to cranking up your career is looking the part—with these sophisticated styles,” advises the October 2008 edition of Cosmopolitan (“Winning Fashion,” 232). Men are encouraged to fi nd prestige in muscle, and women are encouraged to be long and thin, as an unspoken golden rule above all other facets of life. As compared to men, however, “whose success can be sealed with a mega paycheck, powerful position or great renown,” (Rogers, 116) generally for a woman, “You can be the best debater in the school, but if you’re fat, no one is going to respect you.” While men are understandably aff ected by the media as well, this paper will focus chiefl y on women.

Visual media gives us women a means of comparison and a goal to reach. The appearance of Barbie, for example, presented women with an image to strive for. While Barbie represents a commendable ability to portray a range of occupations and cultures, her body has held the most attention and admiration over the years. Her bodacious legs and trim waist are level with what a woman would prefer herself to look like, or what a man might expect her to look like. Women want to be wanted, and as author Carole Spitzack has noted, “Desired women are those who appear to be something other than women . . . the bodies of women are replaced by replicas or ‘fi ctions’ of women” (Rogers, 115). When we see an Abercrombie & Fitch ad, a moody, typically monochrome image of an attractive group or of a couple smiling or dancing on the edges of an intimate moment, we wonder how diffi cult it might be to have a moment like that for ourselves. When we see that the woman is thin and by being so is the apple of an equally attractive man’s eye, we draw a connection, and we weave a story to bridge the distance between us and them. “Distance not only sustains and protects the magical property that is commonly recognized in glamour but also heightens desire through

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the tension generated by the separation of the glamour object and the beholder,” Peter Baily describes (Rogers, 114).

Consider underwear, what was once a woman’s private domain. Until angelic Victoria’s Secret models descended with their glistening, curving bodies, what a woman looked like in her underwear did not cause anxiety, because she was the only one to see herself in it (or if she wasn’t, it was usually a case of privacy in the dark: a moment of intimacy during which apprehensions were broken by something much more profound, with a touch of magic). That “magic” has been capitalized on, however, when models such as Barbie or Bianca Balti of Victoria’s Secret appeared in the media and proved that magic has a name and make. The magic of beauty as it is beheld in the intimacy of two people is plastered on bus stops and billboards, and we are taught that beauty is only achieved through bronze arms, hairless legs, and clothing that exposes perfect parts of a perfect body. To convince ourselves that we can be beautiful in a world of advertisements, some of us ruin natural habits, such as regular eating, and some stumble over repeated disappointments as we discover that the ideals fl ashed before us are not real, but fi ctions. Widely read magazines, like Cosmo, pride themselves on being the keepers of the magic, and the secrets that will make women beautiful: “Cosmo knows what qualities make a woman alluring: healthy, glowing skin; lush, shiny hair; smoldering eyes and lusty lips” (“Winning Fashion,” 40). Because, after all, “what no beautician would ever tell a woman is that the secret to being beautiful is thinking the right thoughts.” This comment, made on WNBC radio in 1979 during a discussion of women’s issues, is documented in Barbie Culture (Rogers).

Psychiatrists Rosalyn Meadow and Lillie Weiss explained in 1992 that “images of successful women are images of youth, beauty and slimness” (Rogers 116). Mental astuteness and determination are not portrayed or celebrated in the same ways beauty is; you do not typically fi nd a poster of a female optometrist heralded in magazines. There may be one exception to this rule, of course. “I can feel beautiful,” encourages a cardboard ad in the middle of Cosmo magazine’s October 2008 issue. “And with Walmart’s low prices on the beauty brands I love, I can feel pretty smart too” (“Winning Fashion”). How inspiring. In the world of advertising, a woman may be intelligent if she is crafty enough to know how, in a pretty, suave way, to make herself shine. “The overall message,” surmises Marian Meyers, author of Mediated Women, “may be that girls and women can be strong, smart and independent as long as they . . . maintain traditional standards of feminine beauty” (6).


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Studies of media-induced anxiety have in the past been centered on women. According to Daniel Dellis Hill, advertising itself is overwhelmingly centered on women, because ever since the Civil War, when America experienced a “second industrial revolution” of mass marketing due to technology advances, it was “mothers, wives and daughters [who] were unquestionably the consumers in their households” (Advertising to the American Woman, vii). Men achieved a degree of success by having money to earn and women in their lives to spend it, and so it was the women who made up the bulk of advertising’s audience. While the social role of women in society is frequently changing—from attaining the right to vote, to working full-time, to becoming athletically involved—they experience the pressure to remain culturally in-tune by altering the physical body as well. As women are “invited to be chameleons,” change and development are expected (Rogers 115). As the modern world continues to grow and become increasingly plastic, women’s bodies best display the canvas for adapting to a particular occasion or to a long new trend.

Regardless of the painfully distant images the media thrusts at women, which are increasing with the growing volume of television and internet users, all hope does not appear to be lost. It has been proposed that “women do 85% of the purchasing of all goods” (Hill, 15), and so we can see, as stated before, how women are digesting the media. It is laudable, then, that producers are acknowledging the defacement of beauty and are beginning to change their ways. Philippe Harousseau, the marketing director for Dove’s “Campaign for Real Beauty,” a project that prides itself on using models of average stature, shares that, “It is our belief that beauty comes in diff erent shapes, sizes and ages,” which greatly contrasts past and recent depictions of Barbie-esque women with tapering waists and slick, toned legs. “Our mission is to make more women feel beautiful every day by broadening the defi nition of beauty” (Dove). As it happens, because the media has long since held the rights to defi ning beauty, they also have the power to change it. As green empathy for the earth and moral concepts begin to unspool and lace our lives, it is for the better that producers and their advertisements have taken up the moral gauntlet. The production undertones are not so bright, however: the aim of the Dove ads is to sell fi rming cream to reduce the appearance of cellulite.

Our families and friends make the attempt to guide us to a haven of natural beauty, too. In this haven, no ads exist and no profi t is made on the sale of beauty creams or diet supplements. I’ve had a glimpse of this place, because my mother, like every mother, has told me that I am beautiful. She uses a solid, verbal artillery to convince me that I have a

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pretty face and legs that are not the size of tree trunks. I believe her when I am at home, when the only eyes to judge and weigh me are the eyes of my family. I believe my friends when they coo and encourage me to smile about my static-fried hair or pouched cheeks, because in our circle we share something that has sprouted and rooted at a depth that cannot be reached when meeting the eyes of strangers on the street or in magazines. My friends see my sound reason in a bad situation, and they know what I look like dancing to “Get Low.” Once those bonds have been tied, it is diffi cult to be repelled by physical imperfections. My aunts and brothers have played with me in mud and ball pits, and my mother has seen the rewards I’ve reaped for geekish studying; she’s been beside me to laugh at people who slip on ice and she’s seen my best and worst moments.

Generally, our friends and our family know us too well to gauge our beauty in terms of society and culture. With them, we have a deeper, richer understanding of what is beautiful and how it makes us feel. As soon as we step outside the warm ring of comfort created by friends and peers, into an aloof landscape where our lips and shoes are judged before our hearts, we fi nd it challenging to remain comfortable in our own skins. Not to worry, because “American Laser Centers is the nation’s largest and most experienced provider of Laser Hair Removal, Cellulite Reduction Therapy and Skin Rejuvenation. Our broad array of non-invasive services help you look and feel your best. It’s confi dence. It’s attitude. It’s being comfortable in your own skin” (“Winning Fashion,” 269). The substance of what our friends and family tell us is not always positive and supportive, and instances of malevolence or jealousy can blossom into worse things, the types of corrupt mindsets that are complex enough to be discussed in a separate paper.

The media has succeeded over the years in manipulating and molding our defi nition of beauty. Women have learned to view their bodies as nearly separate from their minds: vessels that display their level of success. Superfi cial signifi cance placed on buns and thighs, directly or not, is constantly in focus in the majority of advertisements: for automobiles, alcohol, clothing, or wall paint. The unattainable nature of the modeled bodies we see on television, on internet page ads and on billboards as we drive home is what makes them so enticing; we have to fabricate stories for ourselves in order to rest assured that we, too, can someday be as successful as them.


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Works Cited

Camp, Wesley D. Word Lover’s Book of Unfamiliar Quotations. Paramus, NJ: Prentice Hall Press, 1990.

Dove ads with “real” women get attention. 29 Jul. 2005. Associated Press. 15 Sept. 2008. < http://www.frankwbaker.com/dove_ads_get_attention.htm>.

Hill, Daniel Dellis. Advertising to the American Woman. Columbus, Ohio: Ohio State University Press, 2002.

Meyers, Marian. Mediated Women: Representations in Popular Culture. Cresskill, New Jersey: Hampton Press, 1999.

Rogers, Mary F. Barbie Culture. Thousand Oaks, California: SAGE Publications, 1999.

“Winning Fashion.” Cosmopolitan. Oct. 2008: 232+. Print.

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WRITER’S COMMENTS

In Professor Crawford’s class, we read works that ranged from the poetry of Sappho and a dialogue by Plato to a graphic novel about strained family dynamics and sexual repression. Toward the end of the semester, Dr. Crawford asked us to write about what, if any, connection existed between the eclectic texts that we covered. I wrote that they all described the longing of desire and differed largely due to varying cultural restrictions on the expression of desire, many of these restrictions being attached to gender roles. I chose to analyze Jeanette Winterson’s novel for my fi nal essay because I think that her description depicts truths about desire that transcend these cultural boundaries. I was also intrigued that she uses the text of her narrative to explore the limitations of language to express what seems to be a central part of our existence. By using a fi rst person narration in a sardonic, confessional voice, Winterson shows that language will always fail us. Through her erotically charged poetic prose, she ultimately transforms language itself into the object of the reader’s desire. The desire to articulate compels us to use language to express ourselves, but, ironically, language impedes as much as it facilitates expression. —Ezekiel Crago

INSTRUCTOR‘S COMMENTS

Early in Zeke’s essay, he remarks that, through its failure to communicate fully, language creates the truth-value of an event: “There was nothing aberrant about Oedipus’ marriage until he learned that his wife was also his mother. Thus, linguistic categorical knowledge brought about his guilt.” Despite its failure to communicate fl awlessly, language constitutes the power to create, or, as in the case of the Oedipal drama, to draw boundaries or domains; yet a signifi cant aspect of the power of language, the production of desire, exists because language has a dual function as creator of metaphysical domains and because of its location at the site of failure: in our desire to express truth and accuracy, failure produces desire or want in the ineffable longing to follow the linguistic events that magically elude us. Zeke’s essay is an act of discovery. From event to event, he reaches conclusions about the nature of love—a linguistic and symbolic category that results from categorical dissonance. His perceptions follow the nature of love rather than defi ning it and then supporting his conclusions: like Oedipus, he must discover love’s qualities by following the loss at the heart of language.

— Rachel Crawford, Department of English

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EZEKIEL CRAGO

No Sex

JEANETTE WINTERSON wrote the novel Written on the Body as a test on the limits of language to express desire. Her postmodern prose, steeped in

metaphor and multiple layers of symbolic mimesis, teases out the deeper meanings of clichés and stereotypes, altering them and commenting upon their truth value. For example, using erotic language in one scene, she metaphorically transforms food into a symbolic system that represents the body of a lover (Winterson 36-37). The act of eating becomes a sex act. She compares the fi ery passion of desire to the lulling domesticity of a long-term relationship. The novel’s narrator relates,

Over the months that followed my mind healed and I no longer moped and groaned over lost love and impossible choices. I had survived shipwreck and I liked my new island with hot and cold running water and regular visits from the milkman. I became an apostle of ordinariness. I lectured my friends on the virtues of the humdrum, praised the gentle bands of my existence and felt that for the fi rst time I had come to know what everyone told me I would know; that passion is for holidays, not homecoming. (Winterson 27)

The oblique reference to Odysseus bewitched by Circe on her island serves as covert foreshadowing to the rambling journey that follows. Every passage in the book, like this one, drips with irony and cynicism. Winterson describes “the slop bucket of romance” (21).

Gender is a text written on our bodies in invisible ink. Winterson critiques this text by limiting her use of language; her narrator speaks with an un-gendered voice. Her technique of gender obfuscation in this novel questions categorical assumptions regarding gender, desire, and sexuality. She demonstrates the subjective nature of gender by using a confessional voice. The narrator relates the story of a love aff air without ever revealing

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their own identities. Desire has no gender. Winterson shows us that gender as a symbolic system exists within language. This way of writing the novel tricks the reader into questioning the assumptions they may have regarding their own gender. Not only does language fail in adequately defi ning gender; it can never fully express notions of love and longing. The novel represents Winterson’s allegorical struggle with language. She strives to express sexuality as textuality and in so doing reveals the erotic nature of language itself.

Gender identity relies on subjective judgment rooted in the use of categories and stereotypes. Human beings perform many roles in life; gender performance remains unique because we do not commonly recognize it as performative. We assume gender to be “in” a person. Gender identity consists in the ways that we are recognized by others. This recognition subverts the notion of an objective gender identity, as the subjective judgment of recognition relies heavily on arbitrary stereotypical categories. Charles Scott, in his article, “The Birth of an Identity: A Response to Del McWhorter’s Bodies and Pleasures,” reasons that “stereotypes and recognitions are real and powerful—they arise from real things, and they create other real things” (Scott 107). Thus, we base the categories that we use to recognize each other upon experience that must be treated as actualities in their eff ect on people: “they can occasion suff ering, success, and multiple aff ections” (Scott 107). We perform gender, yes, but the performance relies on the assumptions, preconceptions, and interpretations of our audience.

A writer can overcome reliance on stereotypes by using a confessional voice. Writing in the fi rst person assumes subjectivity. Scott argues that McWhorter defi es objectivity, subjectivity, and stereotypes by writing her book in this confessional voice. By doing so, she makes a “declaration, owning, and avowal not only by her regarding her self, but by the acknowledgement and recognition of her and us by many powerful forces in our society and its histories’ (Scott 108). She writes about being a lesbian in the modern world and what this means to her. Her personal confession becomes a confession for our society and a recognition of fear and prejudice. She accomplishes this by “confess[ing] such things without shame and with the intention of owning [her]self publicly” (Scott 109). Scott’s response attempts to match her declaration. Her confessional voice “seiz[es] these stories [about identities] […] so as to overcome the storytellers through their own stories” (Scott 109). Winterson’s narrator relates his/her story with the same kind of seemingly stark unrelenting honesty. The narrator describes such sentiments as, “I felt reprieved and

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virtuous. Now I could sit in my own fl at by myself and be pragmatic. Sometimes the best company is your own” (Winterson 31). We learn that the intended audience for this confession is the love object herself, Louise. The novel is a love letter to a lost lover.

Winterson also challenges the storytellers. Perhaps she even challenges the act of storytelling. She wrote Written on the Body in such a way that the reader never learns the narrator’s full identity. Her ingenious use of non-gendered language prevents the reader from forming any kind of gender identity in the voice of this fi rst-person narrative. Without this cue, sexual identifi cation remains elusive. We are never given a name for the main character, who serves as both storyteller and protagonist. On more than one occasion, the narrator tells the reader that s/he is lying (Winterson 39). Their words are unreliable, not to be trusted. S/he shares his/her thoughts with us, taking us into his/her confi dence, but we never receive a description of the narrator’s physicality. S/he exists within the descriptions of his/her sensual experience. The narrator’s body becomes a vehicle for experience; it is the medium for this text. S/he has boyfriends. S/he has girlfriends. The narrator seems to lack sexual preference. S/he loves deeply but fi nds commitment diffi cult as s/he has a wandering amorous eye. Not only through the language of the narration, but also through the actions of the narrator-character, his/her gender, sex, and sexual orientation are obscured. Bodies, and the sex type attached to them, are treated as the vehicles of desire, but not their object. When Winterson describes a character’s body, the description contains the text of the character’s life. Relating Elgin’s childhood, she writes, “He was small, narrow-chested, short-sighted, and ferociously clever” (Winterson 33). Signifi cantly, Elgin falls in love with Louise because she bests him in a verbal match of wit. He desires her use of language more than her body (Winterson 33-34).

Winterson, like McWhorter, utilizes a confessional voice to reach past stereotypes and to demonstrate that desire is not contained by the boundaries of gender. Her narrator owns his/her self without shame but not without remorse. In addition, her technique questions the role of gender in the author. In one sense, her novel responds to the question of women’s role in literature. In “Written on the body: meaning, gender,” Natasha Distiller explores the concept of a gendered voice by examining text by early modern female writers. She notes that “the category of ‘women’s literary history,’ with its imperative to hear the essentialist ‘woman’s voice,’ is a creation of a twentieth century historical moment” (Distiller n. p.). Thus, the idea of a “woman’s voice” is a modern concept.

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Winterson’s postmodern literary style openly questions this notion of an “essential woman’s voice.” Although this novel was written by a woman, one would fi nd it diffi cult to uncover in it a “woman’s voice.” Her novel speaks with the voice of desire and love.

We defi ne gender through the use of language. Gender is a symbolic entity. There was nothing aberrant about Oedipus’ marriage until he learned that his wife was also his mother. Thus, linguistic categorical knowledge brought about his guilt. The crime was a crime of categorical dissonance. His wife could not also be his mother; they existed in two distinct categories. The Christian doctrine of “original sin” describes the same process. Adam and Eve ate from the source of knowledge of good and evil. The adverse reaction to deviance from gender norms is due to the blurring of these boundaries, a questioning of the stability that linguistic categories are supposed to supply. Brian Finny argues, in “Bonded Language: Jeanette Winterson’s Written on the Body,” that this novel “is a deliberate attempt to dispense with distinctions of gender and to meditate on the nature of love stripped of its specifi cally hetero- and homosexual features” (23). Desire does not exist within the object, but in the mind of the one desiring.

Winterson’s novel forces the reader to question the meaning of their own gender identity. Scott observes that social identities are recognized “within a lineage of values, policies, procedures, institutions, and methods that [compose] at once the structure of their own recognitions” (109). Winterson’s narrative, by refusing an easy recognition, breaks with this lineage and, by doing so, allows a distance that calls for a new perspective of gender. The problematic nature of a genderless narrator induces a cognitive dissonance that focuses this nature on the reader’s own identity. As you read the novel, you are forced to picture the events narrated in your mind, but the mind recoils from the ambiguity revolving around the central character. Jennifer L. Hansen, in “Written on the Body, Written by the Senses,” writes that “Winterson’s protagonist is too unknown to foreclose the possibility in advance that we may not wholly be able to identify with the protagonist” (370). Winterson’s careful use of language prevents a reader from fully imagining who narrates this story. Indeed, we are impelled to identify with the protagonist—this polymorphous entity that confesses to us. S/he bares his/her tortured soul. In the novel, the narrator chases the ever-receding form of Louise. As readers, we are forced to do the same with the form of the narrator/protagonist. Hansen explains that “we cannot make this protagonist into an object of consciousness because we cannot generate a concept that distinguishes

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us from this character as an object of possible experience […] we are invited to occupy this space ourselves” (367). The ambiguous narrator creates a negative space within the novel.

The ambiguously sexed narrator of this text drew large amounts of criticism from the lesbian community. The critics argued that Winterson’s novel somehow betrayed her own status as a lesbian. In Finny’s article, he explains that “critics read into the work what they know about the author” (24). It seems that readers cannot help assuming a gender for the narrator and applying the identity politics implied by this assumption to the text. Finny notes that “many critics, like reviewers, choose to assume that the narrator is a thinly disguised lesbian lover. They promptly foreclose on a text that Winterson has deliberately left open” (25). The reader reads what they want to read and the text allows such activity. Winterson herself has said “that it doesn’t matter which sex the narrator is, because the gender of the character is both, throughout the book, and changes” (Finny 25). She no doubt refers to scenes like the one where the narrator hits Jacqueline, since violence is usually a masculine-gendered action, but this assumption can also be challenged (Winterson 86).

Written on the Body explores the limits of language to describe love, desire, and sexuality. In the beginning of the book, Winterson writes that “love demands expression” and then proceeds to demonstrate how language lacks the ability to express love (9). She follows this observation with the declaration that “a precise emotion seeks a precise expression,” but then she demonstrates the diffi culty of precision when expressing things that cannot be fully articulated (Winterson 10). The emotions involved in love may not be so precise. Hansen explains it this way: “Written on the Body begins with a protagonist showing us the limits of language to accurately convey the truth of the experience of love” (368). By using this deliberately ambiguous narrator, Hansen believes that “a dialogue takes place between the text and the reader over the nature of love” (368). Indeed, at one point, the narrator enters into a dialogue with his/herself and the conversation speaks allegorically “over the nature of love.” Walking up the steps to a girlfriend’s house, the narrator notices a papier-mâché snake sticking out of the letterbox. The debate consists of Me and I discussing the reality of apparent danger:

ME: Don’t be silly, it’s a joke. I: What do you mean it’s a joke? It’s lethal.

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ME: Those teeth aren’t real. I: They don’t have to be real to be painful. ME: What will she think if you stand here all night? I: What does she think of me anyway? What kind of a girl

aims a snake at your genitals? ME: A fun-loving girl. I: Ha Ha. (Winterson 41-42)

Love’s teeth “don’t have to be real to be painful.” The narrator spends most of the book describing the eff ect of

Louise on his/her senses. Hansen argues that “love is a knowledge of oneself, grasped not by intellect, but through loving” (376). The narrative depicts a process of self-learning through love and loss. As the narrator says, “Context is all” (Winterson 36).

Winterson describes love in this novel as a kind of disease. Having a thistle removed at a clinic after an outdoor tryst, a doctor tells the narrator, “You know, love is a very beautiful thing but there are clinics for people like you” (Winterson 20). In “Winterson’s Written on the Body,” Molly Hoff treats Louise as a carrier of this disease, which she equates linguistically through a pun on Louise’s name to the French word for syphilis. She observes that “the pronouncements Louise utters consist in communicating the disease she personifi es” (Hoff n. p.). After falling in love with Louise, but deciding that s/he needs to stay with Jacqueline, the narrator awakes “sweating and chilled” (Winterson 42). S/he suff ers from lovesickness, but lovesickness can also be word sickness because “words can ‘poison you’” (Finny 28).

Louise exists exclusively within the narrator’s imagination. The text of Written on the Body consists of a series of remembrances. Before the narrative begins, Louise has already left. As the narrator remembers Louise, she becomes more indistinct, until we are reading a description of Louise in the strange language of biology; but Louise ultimately cannot be defi ned, even with the precise tools of science. In trying to recreate Louise with his/her imagination, the narrator reduces her to essential anatomical details and distinct sensations. Louise becomes more an abstract idea than a person. By the end, Louise has completely disappeared. When she reappears at the conclusion, the event seems suspect, ghostlike, and insubstantial. Louise is a “textual artifact” (Finny 27).

Winterson expresses sexuality as textuality. Finny relates that she “not only describes humans as textual artifacts, but also thinks of works of literature as if they were living beings” (27). He argues that

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“Winterson, in godlike fashion, seeks to turn fl esh back into word” (Finny 29). Written on the Body contains many references to other texts; Winterson uses several varying discourses, such as: “meteorology, biology, anatomy, chronobiology, physics, astrophysics, zoology, [and] the Bible” (Finny 26). Since the only knowledge that readers can have about the narrator comes via the text, the narrator “is constituted by language” (Finny 27). The narrator, like Louise, is also a textual object; he/she is part of the discourse. Finny explains that “Winterson’s strategy […] is to deliberately evoke textual precedents only to establish a distance from them” (26). She invites the reader to examine how much they themselves are “constituted by language.” She hints that we all may be “textual artifacts.”

Winterson’s writing takes a diff erent form from the typical narrative structure of a novel. The narrator relates their story as a kind of self-examination, a psychoanalysis. S/he relates such insights as “I still remember that night with shame and rage,” after one of his/her relationships dissolves (Winterson 45). Every remembrance carries emotional baggage. Finny argues that Winterson “build[s] a structure that is bonded by language” (quoting Winterson 23). Narrative and plot do not hold this book together. But she runs the risk of being trapped in “the prison house of language” (Finny 28). Indeed we all risk such confi nement.

When the narrator’s aff air with Bathsheba ends, s/he wants Bathsheba to return the letters that s/he wrote. The narrator confesses, “Perhaps it was wrong to climb into her lumber-room and take back the last of myself. […] I took them into the garden and burned them one by one and thought how easy it is to destroy the past and how diffi cult to forget it” (Winterson 17). The narrator destroys the textual evidence of the aff air that was written on paper in a vain attempt to nullify the aff air itself, but the text of memory remains. The aff air is “written on the body,” etched into the cerebral cortex. The narrator cannot destroy the text of his/her life; the text of desire burns slowly.

The narrator struggles with language as if it contains malice. S/he fears to be trapped by the endless repetition that words represent because language represents domestication: a cage. Winterson herself wrestles with the limitations of language by the strict choice allowed when trying to use un-gendered words. In “Fantastic language: Jeanette Winterson’s recovery of the postmodern word,” Christy Burns analyzes Winterson’s linguistic choices, elucidating this struggle. Quoting David Lodge, she says that Winterson’s use of language “transports the reader into new imaginative territory” (Burns n.p.). Burns addresses one eff ective

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technique utilized by Winterson: repetition. She observes that “repeated phrases work like musical motifs associatively accruing diff erent levels of meaning across the text” (Burns n.p.). In Brian Finny’s analysis of Winterson’s language, he notes that the phrase “It’s the clichés that cause the trouble” is repeated six times in the book (Winterson 10, 21, 26, 71, 155, 180) (Finny 25). This particular use of repetition accumulates irony until the phrase becomes truth. Louise repeats the phrase “I will never let you go” fi ve times and then she ultimately does (Winterson 69, 76, 96, 100, 163; Hoff n.p.). The narrator fi ghts against clichés during the narrative but the clichés ultimately win out. Winterson’s writing reveals that clichés are unavoidable. Finny says, “To describe the language of love necessarily plunges any narrator into a world of intertextuality, of language already long inhabited and become automatized” (25). The region of love is a well-traveled space. As Finny writes, “neither words nor actions can avoid being derivative in the fi eld of love” (26). Winterson writes something original because she “seizes on the cliché and turns it to her own purpose” (Finny 26). She twists the cliché, squeezing out concentrated drops of irony. In her adept hands, the cliché becomes a trope. While leaving “the Clap Clinic,” the narrator relates,

On the way out I bought myself a large bunch of fl owers. ‘Visiting someone?’ said the girl, her voice going up at the

corners like a hospital sandwich. She was bored to death, having to be nice, jammed behind the ferns, her right hand dripping with green water.

‘Yes, myself. I want to fi nd out how I am.’ She raised her eyebrows and squeaked, ‘You all right?’ ‘I shall be,’ I said, throwing her a carnation. At home, I put the fl owers in a vase, changed the sheets and

got into bed. ‘What did Bathsheba ever give me but a perfect set of teeth?’

‘All the better to eat you with,’ said the Wolf. I got a can of spry paint and wrote SELF-RESPECT over the

door. Let Cupid try and get past that one. (Winterson 48)

This paragraph subverts several well-worn clichés, putting them to novel and cynical usage. The novel repeats this process up to the last sentence: “I don’t know if this is a happy ending but here we are let loose in open fi elds” (Winterson 190).

Language is erotic. Winterson writes about sexuality and sexual acts,

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but since the language that she uses can never refer to the gender of the narrator, it restricts the kind of references that she can make. She must describe erotic scenes without gender bias. Her description lends itself to voyeurism, such as the fi rst erotic encounter in the novel. In this scene we are kept from realizing the sex of the other as well by her specifi c genderless language:

You laughed and waved, your body bright beneath the clear green water, its shape fi tting your shape, holding you, faithful to you. You turned on your back and your nipples grazed the surface of the river and the river decorated your hair with beads. You are creamy but for your hair your red hair that fl anks you on either side. [….] You stood up and the water fell from you in silver streams. I didn’t think, I waded in and kissed you. You put your arms around my burning back. You said, ‘There’s nobody here but us.’ (Winterson 11)

Winterson has made this person desirable without really describing this fi gure. We know only that the person has pale skin and red hair because this description contains more details about the water. She transforms water into an erotic metaphor and uses it to make this person desirable. The personifi ed water holds and caresses this person as if the water itself desires to touch this person. Burns argues that “Winterson’s sensate and erotic words are both pleasurably self-directed but always and only at the moment of being spoken (or read)” (n. p.). According to Burns, passages like this one become erotic because “speaking another’s words is sex” (n.p.). Winterson directs eroticism at language itself and “it is through this eroticism (language that ‘appears to want to please itself ’) that Winterson works to revitalize postmodern language” (Burns). Finny observes that “this novel is less about desire than it is about the language of desire” (23). Winterson energizes language with erotic potential. As Finny relates, “The indirectness of these allusions to the lover’s bodies only adds to the erotic charge and demand on the reader’s imagination” (28). Describing Louise, the narrator says,

She was wearing a red and green guardsman stripe dressing gown gloriously too large. Her hair was down, warming her neck and shoulders, falling forward onto the table-cloth in wires of light. There was a dangerously electrical quality about Louise. I worried that the steady fl ame she off ered might be fed by a current far more volatile. Superfi cially she seemed serene, but beneath her control was a crackling power of a kind

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that makes me nervous when I pass pylons. She was more of a Victorian heroine than a modern woman. A heroine from a Gothic novel, mistress of her house, yet capable of setting fi re to it and fl eeing in the night with one bag. I always expected to see her wearing her keys at her waist. She was compressed, stoked down, a volcano dormant but not dead. It did occur to me that if Louise were a volcano then I might be Pompeii. (Winterson 49)

The form of Winterson’s writing often says more than the content. When the narrator describes infi delity at the beginning of the novel, s/he uses the form of a stage play. By using this form, the scene carries the implication of endless repetition. Plays are performed over and over again in front of an audience; s/he thereby includes the reader. The scene consists of a silent, unidentifi ed lover and a woman lying in bed. The reader can assume the lover to be the narrator by the sheer lack of description. The woman relates her confl icting emotions over the aff air. Her description becomes metaphoric and textual: “I’ve been trying to get you out of my head but I can’t seem to get you out of my fl esh. I think about your body day and night. When I try to read, it’s you I’m reading. When I sit down to eat, it’s you I’m eating” (Winterson 15). The scene ends with the ambiguous lover alone in the bathroom, crying. This same process of visceral invasion infects the narrator after leaving Louise. Signifi cantly, the narrator works as a translator but fi nds it impossible to function in that capacity after the aff air. “When [s/he tries] to read, it’s [Louise she’s] reading.” In many ways, Louise is the text of this novel.

The text describes the narrator’s odyssey of longing and loss. In a very real sense, the narrator becomes the narrative. The narrator relates, “You were driving but I was lost in my own navigation” (Winterson 17). The fi rst time that the narrator addresses their object of desire by name, s/he says,

Louise, in this single bed, between these sheets, I will fi nd a map as likely as any treasure hunt. I will explore you and mine you and you will redraw me according to your will. We shall cross one another’s boundaries and make ourselves one nation. (Winterson 20)

The audience becomes lost along with the protagonist. Later, the narrator asks, “How could I cover this land? Did Columbus feel like this on sighting the Americas?” (Winterson 52). In the beginning of the

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novel, the narrator asks, “Why is the measure of love loss?” (Winterson 9). This question lingers, but as Winterson explains, “Bigger questions, questions with more than one answer, questions without an answer are harder to cope with in silence” (13). Scott argues that “perhaps the modern knowledge of pleasure is far too centered in an essential state of being that is recognized as desire, and perhaps pleasures are far more dispersed throughout physical experiences than can be accounted for or appreciated by a discourse of desire” (112). Winterson dissects the discourse of desire to fi nd, “the measure of love [is] loss” (9). As Finny observes, “The conclusion of Written on the Body celebrates the transformative eff ects of art itself […] Textual love necessarily sacrifi ces sexual love [but] we are left with the consolation of language” (30).

Winterson leaves us “with the consolation of language,” but provides such elegant language that the consolation seems a prize. The language that she chooses elucidates many of the “bigger questions” in life without answering them. Indeed, she demonstrates how inadequate language can be when answering such questions. She shows us that desire and sexuality exist outside of the confi ning boundaries of gender. While exploring the text of sexuality, she struggles with language, subverting clichés and stereotypes into new meanings and wider classifi cations. She argues that love is known through the act of loving; love is a journey that you undertake from yourself in order to explore the depths of another. This means that a lover risks everything. Whether we learn about ourselves from this process remains open to debate.

Works Cited

Burns, Christy L. “Fantastic language: Jeanette Winterson’s recovery of the postmodern word.” Contemporary Literature. Vol. 37 No. 2 (Summer, 1996): 278-306. Academic OneFile. Gale. University of San Francisco. 16 Feb. 2009. <http://0-fi nd.galegroup.com.ignacio.usfca.edu/ips/start.do?prodId=IPS>.

Distiller, Natasha. “Written on the body: meaning, gender.” Shakespeare in Southern Africa. No. 17 (Annual, 2005): 35-43. Academic OneFile. Gale. University of San Francisco. 12 Feb. 2009. <http://0-fi nd.galegroup.com.ignacio.usfca.edu/ips/start.do?prodId=IPS>.

Finney, Brian. “Bonded Language: Jeanette Winterson’s Written on

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the Body.” Women and Language. Vol. XV no.2: 23-31. Academic OneFile. Gale. University of San Francisco. 14 Feb. 2009. <http://0-fi nd.galegroup.com.ignacio.usfca.edu/ips/start.do?prodId=IPS>.

Hansen, Jennifer L. “Written on the Body, Written by the Senses.” Philosophy and Literature. No. 29 (2005): 365-78. Academic OneFile. Gale. Project Muse. University of San Francisco. 14 Feb. 2009. <http://0-fi nd.galegroup.com.ignacio.usfca.edu/ips/start.do?prodId=IPS>.

Hoff , Molly. “Winterson’s Written on the Body.” The Explicator. Vol.60 no.3 (Spring 2002): 179-81. Academic OneFile. Gale. University of San Francisco. 14 Feb. 2009. <http://0-fi nd.galegroup.com.ignacio.usfca.edu/ips/start.do?prodId=IPS>.

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WRITER’S COMMENTS

In Dr. Crawford’s Special Topics course, Gender and Sexualities, I began to think about illness and its relationship to language. I found that physical metaphors provided a way of coping with feelings of vulnerability. Through the works of Winterson and Powell, I began to re-learn the human body and appreciate its complexity. When confronted with loss, the body fi nds and invents meaning. Although I had often heard these metaphors used prior to Dr. Crawford’s course, I did not fully understand their implications. I hope this essay will inspire awareness in regard to the way we shape metaphors, especially when speaking about illness. I dedicate this essay to my grandmother, Charlene Sanders, who passed away from cancer on April 18th, 2009. Always the voice.

—Laura Sanders


Laura Sanders examines the role of translation in Jeanette Winterson’s text, Written on the Body and D. A. Powell’s “[this little treatment has side effects: side effects.]” In these texts, Laura saw an unorthodox potential for studying translation, fi rst through Winterson’s sexless narrator, a translator in a double sense: s/he engages in translation for his/her living, and also spends the narrative translating the body of his/her lover into the body of desire. In Laura’s words, “With a series of metaphors, the narrator establishes the body’s complexity and capacity for meaning. Essentially, he/she personifi es translation.” Laura seamlessly juxtaposes Winterson’s text with Powell’s: for Powell translation occurs through metaphors, which translate meaning from one domain to another. Powell, she comments, “employs metaphors to defamiliarize but also to construct meaning.” Yet because Powell and Winterson “will not stay silent, they must translate their experience.” Laura’s argument thus moves from literal to mythic to metaphoric translation, all of which express the meaning, to bear across. Her fl awlessly astringent argument demonstrates her ability to read the silent fi gures of language, and attunes our ears to the necessity of becoming not merely readers but translators of texts.

— Rachel Crawford, Department of English

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LAURA SANDERS

Translating the Language of Science

“Postmodern fi ction precisely refuses to be silent in the face of what cannot be said.” —Catherine Belsey, “Postmodern Love: Questioning the Metaphysics of Desire”

WINTERSON’S Written on the Body is itself a translation. In English it carries meaning from one domain to another. As Burns articulates,

“[Winterson’s] narrator…battles with the language of science in an attempt to reclaim the body, and language, for romance and memory” (296). Essentially, I will argue that through his/her recollections of Louise the narrator is able to create meaning. He/she creates a new language through physical metaphors. In addition to Winterson’s novel I will look closely at D.A. Powell’s “[this little treatment has side eff ects: side eff ects].” Like Winterson’s narrator, Powell’s narrator too “battles with the language of science in an attempt to reclaim the body.” Entirely at the mercy of medicine, the narrator uses the language of metaphors as a way to control the chaos of AIDS. I will explore Written on the Body and “[this little treatment has side eff ects: side eff ects]” by looking at how the body fi nds and invents meaning through the experience of illness and loss. More specifi cally, I will consider the role of absence and desire in translating the language of science to the language of the body. Finally, I will explore the dangerous, and perhaps deadly, implications of these metaphors when used to reconcile illness.

Because Winterson’s narrator is also employed as a Russian translator within the novel, he/she naturally gravitates towards the tools of translation when articulating his/her feelings for Louise. As a translator he/she also knows, as Belsey suggests, that “not only nuances but pronouns, genders, tenses, and distinctions can be untranslatable […] meanings are not held in place by objects in the world, or by concepts independent of language” (684). As a result, in order to capture the depth of his/her desire he/she must create something new.


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The narrator’s new metaphorical language is responsible for the novel’s title. As he/she describes,

Written on the body is a secret code only visible in certain lights; the accumulations of a lifetime gather there. In places the palimpsest is so heavily worked that the letters feel like Braille. I like to keep my body rolled up away from prying eyes. Never unfold too much, tell the whole story. I didn’t know that Louise would have reading hands. She has translated me into her own book. (89)

Here, Winterson’s narrator fi rst uses his/her own body to demonstrate language’s ability to deconstruct the barrier between mind and body. He/she articulates the mental and physical fl uidity between him/her and Louise. With a series of metaphors, the narrator establishes the body’s complexity and capacity for meaning. Essentially, he/she personifi es translation.

As Burns suggests, the narrator battles against the language of science. He/she refuses to accept the “commonplace.” As is seen in her analysis of Louise’s anatomy, he/she begins with the bold language of science and breathes into it life. “At school, in biology” the narrator explains, they were asked “[w]hat are the characteristics of living things?...I was told the following: Excretion, growth, irritability, locomotion, nutrition, reproduction and respiration” (108). Unsatisfi ed with this response, he/she develops it into more. Kirmayer’s words support the narrator’s desire for more:

The body and its passions are viewed as disruptions to the fl ow of logical thought, as momentary aberrations or troublesome forms of deviance to be rationalized, contained, and controlled. Yet, in everyday life, bodily experience preempts our rational constructions. Through the pain and suff ering that foreshadow its own mortality, the body drives us to seek meaning, to take our words as seriously as our deeds. Ultimately, the body insists that we fi nalize our temporary mental constructions, committing ourselves to some view of reality. (325)

Like Winterson’s narrator, Kirmayer establishes the language of the body’s importance. He emphasizes the necessity for language beyond science. When faced with trial the body must be relearned and rebuilt.

In response to Louise’s cancer, the narrator contorts the language of science as a way of coping. By fusing science and art, he/she creates a

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way to keep Louise alive, a way to join the past with the future. As he/she describes,

Within the clinical language, through the dispassionate view of the sucking, sweating, greedy, defecating self, I found a love- poem to Louise. I would go on knowing her, more intimately than the skin, hair and voice that I craved. I would have her plasma, her spleen, her synovial fl uid. I would recognize her even when her body had long since fallen away. (111)

In response to the narrator’s lyrical approach to medical anatomy, Harvey fi nds, that “To describe the heat and movement of the blood or the rhythmic pulsing of the heart in a dead body requires both an act of imagination and rhetorical sleight of hand, for it is a kind of transmutation from death to life, a translation” (339). The metaphors of Winterson’s narrator sustain Louise. During the middle section of the novel, when Louise is defi ned by her components, the narrator facilitates a transfusion. As Burns emphasizes, “The body is not a literal, scientifi c object in the middle section; it is only real through imagination, as it is metaphorically recalled and erotically invoked” (297). Our attention during this intimate examination is on the eyes of the narrator, not Louise’s decaying corpse. “… [I]t is not the body dissected that is naked but the lover/anatomist’s eye” (Harvey, 338). Ultimately, these metaphors provide the narrator a sense of security; they build an illusion.

D.A. Powell’s “[this little treatment has side eff ects: side eff ects],” as the title suggests, deals with the fi ght against AIDS both literally and metaphorically. He articulates his body’s reaction to treatment. Essentially, he depicts the eff ects of the black, red, and yellow pill: his Cocktail. Like Winterson, Powell uses the language of metaphors to articulate the chaos of his condition. He weaves irony into the treatment’s side eff ects. Powell elaborates, “side eff ects / including [but not limited to] Poseidon emerging from the sea / striking his patinaed trident against the shore of my muscle / beach party: tremulant. a quake. a tension and slack in the arches” (1-4). By fusing the language of medication, “including [but not limited to]” with images of Poseidon, Powell deems the language of science insuffi cient. The massive physical and mental side eff ects demand a new and entirely raw language.

When faced with loss, patients and their loved ones often depend on metaphors as a form of translation. Metaphors provide continuity; they provide hope. In his study of women and men faced with infertility, Becker traces how patients use metaphors to reconstruct their decaying


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worlds. He fi nds,

After a physical disruption, the body is in an unknown terrain that must be relearned: fl awed and distorted, it becomes the focus of identity, the shaky ground on which new order- if there is to be order- must be built. Routines of everyday life and the taken-for-granted assumptions that sustain them have been undermined, severing a sense of connection with an array of personal meanings and leaving a void. To fi ll the void, relationships between self, body, environment, and daily life have to be redrawn. (385)

Winterson’s narrator built her world around Louise. Therefore, when he/she learns of her cancer the narrator’s life also crumbles; “the centre cannot hold” (101). She/he attempts to fi ll this void with metaphor. “Metaphor,” according to Fernandez, “has specifi c qualities, including the ability to bind the past and future together and the ability to give the impression of coherence or ‘return to the whole’ when exploration of the metaphor is fulfi lled” (Becker 385).

Becker’s study applies not only to Winterson’s narrator as an individual experiencing loss and feelings of impotence, but also directly to Louise’s inability to bear children (101). “Infertility,” Becker emphasizes, “strikes at one of the most basic expectations women and men have for themselves- their biological potential to reproduce. When this expectation is not realized, not only do the assumptions around which they have structured their lives suddenly collapse, but their assumptions about the body collapse, as well” (394). With Becker’s fi ndings we understand that the narrator rebuilds Louise not only as a person and as a lover, but as a woman. With metaphors, she/he also attempts to reinstate Louise’s sexuality.

Unlike Winterson’s narrator, Louise’s husband Elgin does not rely on metaphors. He speaks the language of science, fl uently. “Cancer,” he tells the narrator, “is an unpredictable condition. It is the body turning upon itself. We don’t understand that yet. We know what happens but not why it happens or how to stop it” (105). This “brutal and toxic” truth is diffi cult to accept. However, it cannot be ignored. Metaphors though natural, and perhaps initially helpful, can ultimately be detrimental. As Sontag argues in Illness as Metaphor, “metaphoric trappings that deform the experience of having cancer have very real consequences: they inhibit people from seeking treatment early enough, or from making a greater eff ort to get competent treatment” (14). Sontag recognizes the appeal of metaphors when faced with illness. She recognizes their power. However,

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she considers this mental distance they create to be deadly. With her writing, Sontag wants to give those who are ill and those who care from them a tool to “dissolve metaphors” (14).

Sontag’s main concern is with fi ght metaphors. She explains,

…the wars against diseases are not just calls for more zeal, and more money to be spent on research. The metaphor implements the way particularly dreaded diseases are envisaged as an alien ‘other,’ as enemies are in modern war; and the move from the demonization of the illness to the attribution of fault to the patient is an inevitable one… (11)

Essentially, what Sontag fears is the patient’s eventual loss of identity. The illness will represent her; it will overwhelm her. The distinction between patient and disease will become blurred and the target of this “battle” will therefore become confused.

Winterson’s narrator often employs fi ght metaphors. He/she asks, “Will you let me crawl inside you, stand guard over you, trap them as they come at you? Why can’t I dam their blind tide that fi lthies your blood?” (115). Although his/her questioning does not insinuate blame, it is possible to see how part of Louise has become evil. The narrator wishes to protect Louise’s body from itself. As Harvey argues, “Where science attempts to enter the body and control its cellular processes, imaging its encounter with cancer as a military exercise, so, too does the narrator long for combat with the traitorous T-cells” (341). However, it becomes an impossible task distinguishing the good from the bad. Referring to the white blood cells, the narrator warns, “Here they come, hurtling through the bloodstream trying to pick a fi ght. There’s no-one to fi ght but you Louise. You’re the foreign body now” (116). “Louise” according to Burns, “is now the body to be invaded not with disease but with desire” (296).

Becker too explains the “fi ght metaphor.” He fi nds, a patient’s or loved one’s “hope and determination may will a change in the course of an illness, [they refl ect] eff orts to control and order illness through rational determinism and [create] a specifi c cultural response to illness: to fi ght the illness and overcome it” (396). He fi nds that patients often use fi ght metaphors to generate a sense of control. Patients turn to these fi erce metaphors hoping to fi nd a new strength. However, when this battle against language fails, the patient also


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becomes a failure. Because Powell’s fi ght metaphors result from “competent

treatment,” they off er an interesting perspective when considered in regard to Sontag’s argument. Though Powell’s narrator does distance himself from his condition through metaphors, he does so in a diff erent way than Winterson’s narrator. Rather than actively engaging in combat, Powell’s narrator articulates what he feels. Though clearly aff ected by the battle, he is outside the ring, or rather, he is the ring. The treatment takes over his fi ght. During his interview with Cooperman, Powell explains his relationship with language:

I’m not at any distance from my language; I allow for the poem to break and falter and fail. I don’t court ‘closure,’ in fact, I can’t even imagine closure. I like a rough edge not because it’s my desire but because it’s what I see. Even when I’m working in a form as stringent as terza rima, I’m pushing the rhythm, pushing the image, pushing the rhyme so that everything is slant, off , unnerving […] I fi nd the suff ering beauty. (272)

Powell is very much aware of metaphor’s power and the points of Sontag’s argument. For him, language is not used as an escape from suff ering but rather, a way to expose it.

In their created language, Winterson and Powell seek continuity. They wish to bring meaning from one domain to another. Both comment on religion’s role when faced with loss. After deciding to attend Church, Winterson’s narrator explains her attraction to the “The slow moving of the seasons, the corresponding echo in the Book of Common Prayer. Ritual and silence” (151). He/she fi nds comfort in the ritual and appreciates its mechanical nature. The Church’s consistency, rather than its association with God, provides comfort. “As to prayer,” he/she writes, “it help[s] me to concentrate my mind…It help[s] me to forget myself and that [is] a great blessing” (153).

In this same way, Powell describes his treatment:

the tablet I accept as a gift from god. must be crushedabsorbed without food. in this way it is like faith: senselessyet entirely restorative. mind you: the urge to crap is immediate(Lines 8-10)

Powell’s narrator considers his treatment a type of prayer. Like

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a mental game and focuses his attention. Ingesting the tablet is a ritual. However, the restorative nature of this ritual is always exposed, always disrupted. Just as the line is suddenly and painfully interrupted, so is his condition: “the urge to crap is immediate.” Through metaphors, Powell fi nds a way to be brutally honest.

Powell’s narrator feels “a tension and slack in the arches / or the seawall in me breaks: torrents. did I mention horses? / they whinny snort and neigh up my pipes…” (4-6). He employs metaphors to defamiliarize but also to construct meaning. In contrast, Winterson’s narrator engages in battle with Louise’s cancer. He/she demands, “Nail me to you. I will ride you like a nightmare. You are the winged horse Pegasus who would not be saddled. Strain under me. I want to see your muscle skein fl ex and stretch” (131). Though they position themselves diff erently within the text, the narrators of both Powell and Winterson successfully express what was before impossible through metaphor. The experience of illness demands a new language. Because they will not stay silent, they must translate their experience.

Though both Written on the Body and “[this little treatment has side eff ects: side eff ects]” deal with illness, Winterson focuses on cancer while Powell focuses on AIDS. According to Sontag, there are important diff erences between these two conditions. She fi nds,

Because of the countless metaphoric fl ourishes that have made cancer synonymous with evil, having cancer has been experienced by many as shameful, therefore something to conceal, and also unjust, a betrayal by one’s body. Why me? the cancer patient exclaims bitterly. With AIDS, the shame is linked to an imputation of guilt; and the scandal is not at all obscure. (24)

With AIDS, according to Sontag, ““The unsafe behavior that [generates it] is judged to be more than weakness. It is indulgence, delinquency—addictions to chemicals that are illegal and to sex regarded as deviant” (25). Powell’s language subtly addresses this stigma. Through the side eff ects of his treatment he expresses feelings of isolation. Powell writes,

the black and red pill comforts me. the yellow one[I have to think: was that the one for sharon tatein valley of the dolls?] induces dreams: I am hecubaachilles. three ugly fates in combination: spin measure cut(Lines 11-14)


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The three fates, Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos decide his future. He is powerless and must rely entirely on the medication. As he imagines the simple actions of them “spin[ning] measur[ing] (and) cut[ting],” his life leaves his domain. The three pills, like the three fates, expose his mortality. Like the contraction of AIDS, his future relies on one decision. Like Hecuba, he is defeated. As Hecuba loses both her son Troilus and Troy to Achilles, the narrator’s battle also comes to a close.

In his fi nal question for Powell during their 2004 interview, Cooperman asks, “In listening to a number of your new poems I’m inclined to think about translation, not in the traditional sense, but in the notion of genre…Do you see your new work as courting translation? What is the project of your new collection, which I believe is called Cocktails?” To this question, Powell responds,

I don’t think of it as translation. Rather, this is the ongoing operetta I sing to myself about what the world is like. The reader gets to overhear my arias, the way an audience member is eaves-dropping on Isolde when she sings Liebestod. The relationship I have with the reader is not the relationship that a translator has to his audience—I’m not telling you what it’s all about. I’m just spinning this yarn and the reader gets to hold a skein for a while. (281)

It is a rare privilege to know a writer’s intentions. In this beautiful response, we are included in Powell’s private experience. Though his response contradicts my thesis, I believe there is room for both our arguments. Powell may not view himself as a translator. And, he may not be intentionally “telling [me] what it’s all about.” However, for the short time the reader “gets to hold a skein,” Powell’s language undoubtedly reaches a new domain. Powell may not be a translator but his poetry makes translators of his readers.

Winterson and Powell alter the language of science. They make it real. Their inspiration is the human body.

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Works Cited

Barthes, Roland. A Lover’s Discourse: Fragments trans. Richard Howard. London: Vintage, 2002.

Becker, Gay. “Metaphors in Disrupted Lives: Infertility and Cultural Constructions of Continuity.” Medical Anthropology Quarterly, New Series, Vol. 8, No. 4, Conceptual Development in Medical Anthropology: A Tribute to M. Margaret Clark (Dec., 1994). 383-410.

Belsey, Catherine. “Postmodern Love: Questioning the Metaphysics of Desire.” New Literary History, Vol. 25, No. 3, 25th Anniversary Issue (Part 1) (Summer, 1994). 683-705.

Burns, Christy L. “Fantastic Language: Jeanette Winterson’s Recovery of the Postmodern Word.” Contemporary Literature, Vol. 37, No. 2 (Summer, 1996). 278-306.

Cooperman, Matthew. “Between the Brackets: An Interview with D.A. Powell.” Chicago Review. Vol.50, Iss. 204;.265-82.

Harvey, Elizabeth D. “Anatomies of Rapture: Clitorial Politics / Medical Blazons”. Signs, Vol.27, No. 2 (Winter, 2002).315-346.

Kirmayer, Laurence J. “The Body’s Insistence on Meaning: Metaphor as Presentation and Representation in Illness Experience.” Medical Anthropology Quarterly, Vol. 6, No. 4 (Dec., 1992). 323-346.

Sontag, Susan. AIDS and Its Metaphors. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1988.

HARVESTING THE WORLD’S LUNGS: REPERCUSSIONS OF DESTROYING THE AMAZON RAINFOREST

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WRITER’S COMMENTS

In Written and Oral Communication, Professor Holler repeatedly instructed our class to write about issues that deeply concerned us. The idea was that we would fi nd it easy to both research and communicate our subject matter if we truly cared about it. And Professor Holler was right. I was easily enthusiastic about every topic I chose to research, including the depletion of the Amazon Rainforest, which I explore in this essay. The enormity of the Amazon and the complexity of the issues surrounding it were both intriguing and overwhelming, and I could by no means encapsulate all the Amazon’s riches and problems in anything short of a textbook. But I have done my best to analyze the most important causes and consequences of its deforestation, including many factors that are often neglected from common discussions.

—Ana Ching


Ana Ching, one of my many stellar students in a yearlong Written and Oral Communication sequence, consistently chose to challenge herself by taking on daunting but essential issues. Already a strong writer when she arrived in my class in Fall 2008, Ana demonstrates here, as she did in all her other essays, a strong sense of style which reinforces her strong convictions. Given Ana’s habit of conducting relentless research, I am also impressed here, as I was in her other essays, how she drives right to the most interesting and essential information, leaving on the cutting room fl oor anything that does not contribute to her argument. Incidentally, the research for this essay was incorporated into a moving speech. Then, as now, I applaud Ana’s considerable skills.

—David Holler, Rhetoric and Composition

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ANA CHING

Harvesting the World’s Lungs: Repercussions of Destroying the Amazon Rainforest

BENEATH A SINGLE CANOPY of sky-high trees in South America, sits one tenth of all species on the planet (Barreto, et al. 19). Under the thick

umbrella of the Amazon rainforest, billions of plants, animals, insects, and people intertwine to form the most species-rich biome on earth. Fifty-fi ve million years in the making, the Amazon rainforest is unparalleled in its diversity. But what took nature millennia to create, humans have ravaged in less than a century. Sparked by ever-increasing world consumption, profi t-seeking loggers and farmers have spent the last fi fty years hastily chopping down trees and destroying habitats. Unwavering in their quest for money, they neglect to calculate the eff ects of their actions on the Amazon’s abounding wealth of life.

Three geographic areas comprise the entirety of the Amazon: the Amazon Basin, the Brazilian Amazon, and the Legal Amazon. Encompassing more than 6.8 million square kilometers (km), the Amazon Basin carves its way across nine diff erent nations: Brazil, Peru, Columbia, Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia, Guyana, Suriname, and French Guiana, an overseas department of France. Sixty percent of the Amazon Basin lies within the boundaries of Brazil, and this portion is accordingly known as the Brazilian Amazon. The Legal Amazon is an administrative assembly that also exists largely within Brazil’s boundaries, encompassing the Brazilian states of Acre, Amazonas, Roraima, Amapá, Pará, Rondônia, Mato Grosso, Tocantins, and Maranhão (Barreto et al. 23). Logging and farming ambitions drive the current destruction of the Amazon Rainforest, which envelops the nine aforementioned nations. Though jurisdiction of the forest is parceled out among the governments of these nine nations, they hold little power over the wealthy entrepreneurs who clear-cut it. Rich businessmen chop it for timber, clear it for farming, destroy its wealth of diversity, then push onward to repeat the process. They share the profi ts, and the world shares the consequences (www.colby.edu).


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Current clear-cutting in the Amazon is driven by three large enterprises: logging, cattle ranching, and soy farming. The three industries form a cycle, working together to produce catastrophic results. Though nations like Brazil have some of the strictest deforestation laws in the world, the sheer size and density of the Amazon makes enforcing such laws diffi cult. Consequently, illegal logging is extremely prominent. As of 2001, an estimated 47% of all timber harvesting in the Brazilian Amazon was conducted illegally (Barreto et al. 14). Often, logging companies simply move in where they like and start chopping. Once a logging company has harvested all that its parcel of land has to off er, it sells the “land rights” to a cattle farmer at a low price. The farmer then bulldozes what is left of the natural vegetation and plants fast-growing African savanna grasses for his cattle to graze. Once his cattle have exhausted the pasture, the farmer re-sells the land to a soy farmer, who converts it to soy fi elds. This process is extremely ineffi cient; it takes nearly seventeen square meters of cleared tropical forest to produce enough beef for a single quarter pound hamburger (Gaard and Gruen 281). Such ineffi cient practices quickly exhaust the land’s nutrients and cause businesses to rapidly push farther and farther into the rainforest, creating a constant cycle of destruction (www.mongabay.com).

Although this exhausting cycle accounts for a large portion of Amazon depletion, other factors contribute to its destruction as well. For example, an ever-increasing amount of forest fi res have upset 28% of the Brazilian Amazon, demonstrating a converse relationship with logging and human settlement; two-thirds of fi re zones (defi ned as the 10-km radiuses around forest fi res) are located near deforested or urban areas (Barreto et al. 31-33). And while many Amazonian forests are apt to resist burning to a certain extent, once-burned forests are highly susceptible to repeated fi res and are likely to experience heightened impact from such fi res.

Mineral exploration also poses a serious threat to the Amazon. As of 1998, only 2% of the Brazilian Amazon was designated for mineral exploration and mineral reserves—most of it gold mining in the Brazilian state of Pará (Barreto et al. 31-33). However, this comparatively small area is the result of economic unachievement rather than environmental concern. And should the licensed mining areas become economically viable in the future, the expanse of Amazon mining would likely increase.

Legal agrarian reform settlements create another major risk. The Brazilian government’s Agrarian Reform Institute (INCRA) has been granting landless families the right to use Amazonian land as part of an agrarian reform system since the 1970s (Barreto et al. 29-31). While a few

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environmentally conscious organizations like the World Bank oppose the agrarian reform system in the Amazon, the situation is controversial as many of Brazil’s poor depend on the system for survival. Although Brazil’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is the ninth largest in the world according to the Central Intelligence Agency, it is also plagued by one of the world’s highest social inequality rates and overpopulation; nearly 100% of the world’s population growth (85 million people per year) occurs in underdeveloped areas like Africa, Asia, and Latin America (Population Reference Bureau). These factors have left a large amount of the Latin American population impoverished and landless. One major way the government seeks to aid these people is through agrarian reforms (Information Services Latin America).

Each year the Brazilian government places thousands of impoverished families onto agrarian reform lands (Land Research Action Network). Between 1994 and 2002, the average growth of families participating in the Legal Amazon’s agrarian reform projects was 52,500, with each family holding user rights to anywhere from 50 to 100 hectares. The large income from initial timber sales makes agrarian reform plots attractive to many families. However, once timber resources are exhausted, household incomes tend to reach extreme lows and many families illegally sell their lots and seek housing elsewhere (Barreto et al. 29-31). Once again, such activities continue to go easily unnoticed in the colossal rainforest. Though the vast Amazon Rainforest may seem endless, it is anything but infi nite. Current deforestation rates of the Amazon are alarmingly high; experts estimate that by 2030, more than half of the Amazon will have disappeared (news.mongabay.com).

From above, the Amazon seems an endless sea of green—a 1.7 billion acre expanse of evergreen and semi-evergreen deciduous tree species. But hidden beneath this evergreen surface exists an unparalleled diversity of life. Giant insects and prehistoric sloths hang among the Amazon’s thousands of species of trees. Toucans and marmosets sail through the canopy, jaguars and giant armadillos stalk the understory, and otters, caiman, and pink river dolphins glide through the waters of the Amazon River; every layer of the forest is a jumble of life forms, all interdependent on one another to uphold the delicate balance of the ecosystem. Current logging and farming operations in the Amazon, however, threaten to throw off this stability forever.

The destruction of tropical and sub-tropical moist broadleaf forests, like the Amazon, results in the extinction of more and more species every year. And while ecosystems generally possess a certain amount of plasticity, the


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extreme deforestation currently taking place in the Amazon has pushed the biosphere past the point of self-correction, and species extinction is the consequence. Countless Amazonian species, many of them endemic to the region, have become either extinct or endangered—a direct result of deforestation. According to the 2009 International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species, more than 40 species of mammals are “endangered” or “critically endangered” in the Brazilian Amazon alone. Many more fall under the category of “vulnerable,” meaning the species is likely to become endangered unless measures are taken to reduce threats to its survival. The threatened status of the jaguar, the Amazon’s most famed symbol, epitomizes the problems occurring in the Amazon Jungle. As the region’s top predator, the jaguar exemplifi es how harming any layer of the food chain essentially works its way through to all other layers as well. Jaguars need vast roaming areas in order to survive. Deforestation fragments these roaming areas as well as reduces habitat for their prey, and consequently, their numbers are dwindling.

Plants and animals are not the only ones who suff er from deforestation, however. The environmental organization Greenpeace International asserts that between 280,000 and 350,000 indigenous people comprised of 400 diff erent societies make their home in the Brazilian Amazon. Of those indigenous people, 180,000 still live traditionally, completely dependent on the rainforest for survival. These people rely on the rainforest for food, shelter, medicines, tools, and cultural life. But deforestation poses a serious threat to their way of life as well as to their survival. According to the Brazilian anthropologist and politician Darcy Ribeiro, 55 indigenous groups disappeared in the fi rst half of the twentieth century alone. And the current threat to existing societies is infi nitely worse than it was in the twentieth century.

Though problems in the Amazon have been spiraling out of control for decades, the governments of the Amazonian nations have only recently begun to take signifi cant action. However, it seems like Brazil at least, is fi nally ready to take long-term protective measures. In 2002, environmentally conscious organizations like the Global Environment Facility, the World Bank, and the World Wildlife Foundation (WWF) teamed up with the Brazilian government in creating the Amazon Region Protected Areas Program (ARPA) with the hopes of tripling the amount of Amazon Rainforest under federal protection. The ARPA aims to set aside 50 million hectares of the Brazilian Amazon over the course of a decade. And as of July 2006, it had successfully

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set aside numerous wildlife parks totaling 21 million hectares. The largest of these parks is the Tumucumaque Mountains National park, which is now the second biggest national park in the world and equivalent in size to Switzerland. The park’s borders were strategically chosen to protect its high diversity, including endangered species like jaguars, macaws, and harpy eagles, which all require vast roaming areas for survival. According to Greenpeace, the program is estimated to cost $395 million over its 10-year course, and funding for the program was secured from a variety of partners including the WWF, the United States, and the German agency Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau (WWF 2006).

The majority of Brazilian people have also become supporters of rainforest conservation. According to a 2000 national opinion poll, 88% of the populace supports an increase in forest protection, demonstrating that the trend in Brazilian society is shifting to favor conservation eff orts (Instituto Brasileiro de Geografi a e Estatística). As of now, however, public support and government intervention have not been enough to signifi cantly hinder deforestation, as illegal logging remains a serious problem.

Extremely harsh laws exist to prevent illegal logging and farming in many areas: The fi ne for illegal deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon is nearly $700 per hectare and the maximum fi ne per event is $22 million. However, illegal deforestation is still prominent as such activities often go undetected. Though the Brazilian Space Agency (INPE) utilizes satellite technology to map deforested areas, they also report not being able to detect deforested areas smaller than 3 hectares. Consequently, small-scale agricultural operations often go undetected until they reach larger sizes, by which time damage to the forest is irreparable (Barreto et al. 20).

It is clear that the Amazon needs worldwide support as well as funding in order to survive, and many countries are willing to lend their support as well as their advice; the United States contributed $81.5 million to the ARPA project (WWF). However, the Brazilian government shows no sign of letting other countries in on the decision-making process any time soon. “Stay out of our business” always seemed to be their general sentiment, and the Brazilian and other Amazonian governments are still as annoyed as ever with international advising and often condemnation (for a job repeatedly not well done). However, they fail to realize that the Amazon Rainforest aff ects the entire world. Chief Executive Offi cer of the Global Environment Facility Mohamed T. El-Ashry pointed out that the Amazon Rainforest provides “the largest and most important source of freshwater for Brazil and the region,” and that its continuance is “important for the people of Brazil, as well as for the region and the world.”


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While it is true that the Amazon Basin contains one-fi fth of the world’s fresh water, the Amazon is globally signifi cant in many other ways as well. Known as “the lungs of the world,” the Amazon rainforest acts as a weather regulator for the entire planet, helping to fi ght global warming, among other things. Brazilian and American scientists teamed up for a twenty-year study on the eff ects of human deforestation in the Amazon, and found that “undisturbed Amazonian forests appear to be functioning as an important carbon sink, helping to slow global warming.” They also concluded “pervasive changes in tree communities could modify this eff ect” (BBC News 2004). According to a study released by the California Institute of Technology, the Amazon forests withhold 86 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide—11 years’ worth of CO2 (Butler, 2007). When logging companies chop down forests, not only is all that carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere, but the planet’s overall ability to absorb carbon dioxide is also diminished.

Furthermore, the Amazon is the source of a large portion of modern medicine. A study conducted at Colby College found that 25% of all Western pharmaceuticals are at least partially derived from plants found in the rainforest, yet only 1% of rainforest plants have even been scientifi cally tested for medicinal properties. As the Amazon comprises more than one half of Earth’s remaining rainforests, the eff ects of destroying such a colossal ecosystem extend beyond the South American ecological community, and are likely to aff ect the everyday lives of people around the globe.

Depleting the Amazon aff ects every living being on the face of the earth. And now more than ever, international cooperation is needed to produce viable solutions for saving the Amazon Rainforest and all the treasures it holds. Regardless of how Latin American governments view international intervention, repercussions of destroying the Amazon are worldwide, and the world deserves a say in what happens to it.

Works Cited

“Amazon carbon sink eff ect ‘slows’” BBC News. 10 Mar. 2004.10 Dec. 2008 <http://news.bbc.co.uk>.

“Amazon Region Protected Areas Programme.” World Wildlife Foundation. 21 Oct. 2008. 8 Dec. 2008 <http://www.panda.org>.

“Animal Info - Brazil.” Animal Info - Information on Endangered Mammals. 3 Jan. 2007. 11 Nov. 2008 <http://www.animalinfo.org>.

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Azzoni, Tales and Sao Paulo. “Amazon to shrink about 20pc.” The Advertiser 5 Feb. 2008: Foreign; 26. 4 Feb. 2008. Lexis Nexis. Gleeson Lib., U of San Francisco. 11. Nov. 2008. <http://www.lexisnexis.com>.

Barreto, Paulo, Carlos Souza Jr., Ruth Nogueron, Anthony Anderson, Rodney Salomao, and Janice Wiles. Human Pressure on the Brazilian Amazon Forests. Chicago: World Resources Institute, 2006.

“Beef, Soy and Greed for Profi t Eating Up Brazil’s Rainforest.” Chinadaily.com.cn 30 Jan. 2008. 30 Jan 2008. LexisNexis. Gleeson Lib., U of San Francisco. 11 Nov. 2008 <http://www.lexisnexis.com>.

“Brazil Amazon Deforestation Soars.” BBC News. 24 Jan. 2008.9 Dec. 2008 <http://news.bbc.co.uk>.

Brazil Deforestation and Logging. 11 Nov. 2008 <http://www.american.edu>.

“Brazil to triple amount of protected Amazon rainforest over 10 years.” World Wildlife Foundation. 3 Sept. 2002. 9 Dec. 2008 <http://www.panda.org>.

Butler, Rhett A. “Amazon rainforest locks up 11 years of CO2 emissions.” Mongabay. 8 May 2007. 10 Dec. 2008 <http://news.mongabay.com>.

_____. “Deforestation in the Amazon.” Mongabay. 2008. 10 Dec. 2008 <http://www.mongabay.com>.

Celentano, D., and Andrew Verissimo. “The Brazilian Amazon and the Millenium Development Goals.” IMAZON Amazon Institute of People and the Environment. 2007. 11 Dec. 2008 <http://www.imazon.org.br>.

Gaard, Greta, and Lori Gruen. “Ecofeminism: Toward Global Justice and Planetary Health.” Environmental Ethics : An Anthology. Ed. Andrew Light and Holmes Rolston. New York: John Wiley & Sons, Incorporated, 2002.


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Hall, Anthony. “Paying For Environmental Services: The Case of the Brazilian Amazonia.” Journal of International Development Oct. 2008: 20.7 (2008): 965. 11 Nov. 2008. ProQuest. Gleeson Lib., U of San Francisco. 11 Nov. 2008 <http://www.proquest.com>.

“IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.” IUCN 2008 Red List. 2008. 11 Nov. 2008 <http://www.iucnredlist.org>.

Osava, Mario. “Brazil: Agrarian Reform for Informal Lands.” Land Research Action Network. 3 June 2004. 10 Dec. 2008 <http://www.landaction.org>.

Pease, Andrew. “Deforestation: Brazil.” Colby College. 10 Dec. 2008 <http://www.colby.edu>.

“People of the Amazon.” Greenpeace International. 10 Dec. 2008 <http://www.greenpeace.org>.

“Population Growth.” Population Reference Bureau. 2008. 10 Dec. 2008 <http://www.prb.org>.

“Rank Order - GDP.” Central Intelligence Agency. 4 Dec. 2008. 11 Dec. 2008 <http://www.cia.gov>.

Spray, Sharon L., and Matthew D. Moran, eds. Tropical Deforestation. New York: Rowman & Littlefi eld, Incorporated, 2006.

Stedile, Joao. “The World Bank Undermines Agrarian Reform in Brazil.” Information Services Latin America. 1999. 9 Dec. 2008 <http://isla.igc.org>.

“Tropical and Subtropical Moist Broadleaf Forest Ecoregions.” World Wildlife Foundation. 11 July 2006. 8 Dec. 2008 <http://www.panda.org>.

“World’s largest tropical rainforest and river basin.” World Wildlife Foundation. 2008. 20 Nov. 2008 <http://www.worldwildlife.org>.

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WRITER’S COMMENTS

In Professor Mark Meritt’s Rhetoric 140 class, we read a variety of intriguing essays which served to illustrate different points of view on everything from politics to gender equality to education. In addition to communicating these perspectives, these essays also provided great examples of how to craft credible arguments. Specifi cally, I was interested in the essays by Arundhati Roy and Jean B. Elshtain, which addressed the controversial topic of the U.S. Government’s “War on Terror” following the September 11th attacks on the World Trade Center. Therefore, for our fi nal research paper, I chose to examine American military confl icts which employed the same Just War Theory discussed and cited by Elshtain in order to justify pre-emptive or interventionist wars. Working with Professor Meritt during the draft process helped me realize that a post-modern examination of the rhetoric used by Just War theorists and U.S. Presidents alike, in addition to historical and theoretical analysis, would help to construct a convincing argument against the deceptive use of Just War Theory by the U.S. Government. —Myles Murphy


Myles’s fi nal paper for my Fall 2008 Seminar in Rhetoric and Composition exemplifi es what I look for in college writing: rigorous inquiry and argument regarding crucial questions at issue rooted in analytical reading of important texts. In his assessment of the United States government’s invocation of traditional Just War Theory to validate late twentieth-century military intervention, Myles moves beyond simple condemnation of policy (however warranted) and even beyond the application of theory to case or practice (however thoughtful). Rather, he rhetorically criticizes the manipulative application of seemingly straightforward theory to complex material realities, reminding his readers to resist easy defi nitions of ostensibly transparent terminology and to read public discourse with a critical eye. —Mark Meritt, Rhetoric and Composition

AN ANALYSIS OF JUST WAR THEORY AS APPLIED TO MODERN AMERICAN MILITARY CONFLICTS

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MYLES MURPHY

An Analysis of Just War Theory as Applied to Modern American Military Confl icts

THE MORAL DEBATE surrounding the application of “Just War Theory” in modern warfare has grown increasingly complex and convoluted

during the major confl icts of the past several decades. Specifi cally, American military interventions in Vietnam beginning in the late 1950’s and the American-led interventions in the Middle East culminating in the 2003 invasion and occupation of Iraq are two such confl icts that have been justifi ed by the U.S. government by conjuring up the lofty morals and principles of Just War Theory. Although there are clearly fundamental diff erences between the confl icts, both wars contain elements of the historical Just War tradition as viewed through the eyes of religious and secular thinkers in the United States as well as in the international community. An extensive exploration of the elements of Just War tradition reveals these confl icts to be anything but “just” and in fact serves to shed light on the dangerous capability of Just War Theory to conceal illegitimate and unjust confl icts.

Roots of Just War Theory:From Cicero to 9/11

Just War Theory can be traced back to early philosophical and theological roots in the Greco-Roman tradition. Scholars and thinkers such as Cicero debated the issue of “right and wrong” in warfare, and sought to fi nd a balance between just and unjust wars. “The only excuse, therefore, for going to war is that we may live in peace unharmed,” Cicero writes in De Offi ciis.1 (1) Therefore, much of early Just War Theory revolved around the idea that war was an unfortunate business which was nonetheless necessary in order to keep the peace. Cicero states that “there are two ways of settling a dispute: fi rst, by discussion; second; by physical force,” (1) indicating that war is to be an option of last resort. Furthermore, in

1. De Offi ciis, Book XI.

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a precursor to the modern humanitarian conventions of warfare, Cicero contends that “when the victory is won, we should spare those who have not been blood-thirsty and barbarous in their warfare.” (1) The great Roman orator perhaps makes his strongest point when he declares that discussion is the “characteristic of man” and “the former [physical force] is of the brute.” (1)

St. Thomas Aquinas, in his Summa Theologica, expands upon the arguments of Cicero by asserting that three main criteria must be met in order for a war to be just. First, Aquinas explains that “the authority of the sovereign by whose command the war is to be waged” is needed because the “[private individual] can seek for redress of his rights from the tribunal of his superior.”2 (2) Second, a “just cause” is required; specifi cally, the war must be fought to address some wrong that has been committed. And fi nally, “the belligerents should have a rightful intention… with the object of securing peace.” (2) As Aquinas points out, “it may happen that the war is declared by the legitimate authority, and for a just cause, and yet be rendered unlawful through a wicked intention.” (2)

All of these early thinkers helped to establish what has come to be a part of Just War doctrine. However, although Just War Theory is typically associated with Christianity, many prominent American intellectuals have embraced Just War Theory in order to provide justifi cation for or to point out the fl aws in many of the modern confl icts that have involved the United States. In order to discuss Just War Theory within the frame of modern confl icts then, it is important to defi ne it according to its modern adaptation. Jean B. Elshtain was one of sixty intellectuals and scholars who signed “What We’re Fighting For: A Letter from America,” which sought to provide justifi cation for the actions of the U.S. military and government after the terrorist attacks of September 11th, 2001.3 (3) Additionally, in her essay “What Is A Just War?” Elshtain explains that Just War Theory holds an important place in between absolute pacifi sm and political realism. She goes on further to argue that the role of the U.S. government in protecting “ordinary civic peace”4 (3) allows it to legally act aggressively towards other nations in order to protect that peace. For example, Elshtain explains that the global War on Terror and the use of U.S. forces internationally were an appropriate response to the terrorist attacks of September 11th, because the U.S. government engaged in these activities in order to secure peace for its constituents. However, as an examination of several other American-led military actions will show, the

2. Summa Theologica, Question #40.3. Editor’s Forward, pg. 268.4. “What is a Just War?,” Reading the World: Ideas that Matter, pg. 269.


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U.S. government has often stepped beyond its protection of “ordinary civic peace” and launched itself into international confl icts in order to combat ideological and political rivals.

“Charlie Don’t Surf ”:The Road to Vietnam in 1965

Of the many American-led confl icts and military interventions in the 1900s, the Vietnam War was one of the most controversial. The justifi cation for the Vietnam War came almost exclusively from elements within the U.S. government and military who rhetorically invoked Just War Theory in a process that stretched over several decades. These individuals argued that the Vietnam War was a necessary element of the eff ective U.S. policy of containment, or halting the spread of communism around the world through military and political interventions. The U.S. government believed that it was preemptively attacking a force that would eventually seek to do it harm, using such logic to legalize and justify any actions that it took to stop its enemies. The argument for the Vietnam War as a just war, as one of the principal architects of the war Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara explains in his book, In Retrospect, was made “according to what we [U.S. Government] thought were the principles and traditions of this nation.” (4) However, as contemporary analysis of the Vietnam War has shown, this “police action” was possibly was one the most illegal, illegitimate, and dysfunctional actions ever taken by a “legitimate authority.”

In 1965 then-President Lyndon B. Johnson delivered a speech at Johns Hopkins University in order to “review once again with my own people the views of the American Government.” (5) Johnson spoke intending to provide the American people with the basis for understanding the ideological reasons for and military necessity of the deployment of combat brigades into Vietnam. The president quickly fi rst explained that “we have no territory there, nor do we seek any” (5) and compared the “principle” of the Vietnam confl ict to the “principles” that were fought for during the American Revolutionary War. Embellished with the former President’s famous eloquent use of language, this speech not only outlined the immediate justifi cation for the use of American military force in Vietnam, but indeed also managed to eff ectively sum up several decades of U.S. foreign policy.

“Why must this nation hazard its ease, its interest, and its power for the sake of a people so far away?” (5) President Johnson asked. With his

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response, Johnson provided not only the answer of his administration, but also the answer that several decades of U.S. administrations had developed in response to the perceived threat from the communist nations of the east, namely China and the U.S.S.R. He responsibly pointed out that “since 1954 every American president has off ered support to the people of South Viet-Nam.” (5) Johnson went on to accurately describe South Vietnam as a country that was unable to defend itself from its enemies. In order to again portray the confl ict as an unending struggle against evil, the president referred to the “enemy” in Vietnam as “the new face of an old enemy,” (5) alluding of course to Soviet Russia. However, he failed to elaborate on the reason that American presidents had been so forthcoming with their military aid to one small Asian country among many; in particular, why Vietnam of all places? It seems entirely possible that Vietnam was chosen because of the ongoing battle between distinctly identifi able communist and democratic forces and because of the ease of picking a side. In accordance with the Truman Doctrine established in 1947, the United States government supported the government of South Vietnam with the sole intention of preventing the spread of anti-democratic ideologies in the so-called Third War.

Although the political rhetoric suits the lofty ideals by which just wars are measured, the question remains: Can the Vietnam War be justifi ed according to the specifi c protocol laid out by Just War Theory? Certainly the U.S. government was and continues to be a legitimate authority, and the stated values and principles by which and for which the Vietnam War was fought — freedom, democracy, and self-defense — cause no confl ict with Just War Theory. However, the fact remains that American military forces were deployed in a foreign country without the presence of an attack from that country upon the United States. What wrong to the U.S., therefore, was being redressed in the protection of the South Vietnamese government by American troops? The widely held belief by many in the Western world was that the spread of communism would lead to the collapse of the democratic, capitalist system. If fear, therefore, was one of the primary motivating factors for the decision to engage military forces in Vietnam, then how can such a confl ict be labeled “just?” From this perspective, one can see that the placement of American military advisors and other personnel in Vietnam as early as 1950 was indeed evidence of pre-emptive action on the part of the U.S. government. The portrayal of communists as the hated enemy and of Vietnam as the chosen battlefi eld, its people torn between good and evil, is a highly simplifi ed representation of the political situation within


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Vietnam at the time, but it was nevertheless the scenario painted for the American public. In conclusion then, it is clear that the Vietnam War does not adhere to the standards demanded by Just War Theory, as it was a fear-driven, aggressive war which pit political ideologies against each other and which was operated contrary to the will of the American and Vietnamese peoples. As President Johnson ironically noted, “The central lesson of our time is that the appetite of aggression is never satisfi ed.” (5)

There and Back Again:Iraq in 1991 and 2003

However unjust the Vietnam War was, it was but one confl ict among many during the 20th and early 21st centuries, and, therefore, a comparison with other confl icts is needed in order to fully identify the trend of misuse which has characterized the relationship between elements of Just War Theory and modern American military actions. In the same manner that the justifi cation for the Vietnam War was manufactured and propagated by elements within the U.S. government and military, the justifi cation for the 2003 invasion of Iraq was methodically constructed by various state actors. Startling similarities exist between the two confl icts, and it is clear through an analysis specifi cally of the preparation for and buildup to the invasion that Just War Theory has no place in the discussion of the occupation of Iraq. Nevertheless, it is disheartening to note that Just War Theory was both directly and indirectly used in the justifi cation process, and the current Iraq War serves as a frightening reminder of the potential for abuse and misunderstanding of Just War Theory.

In a 1990 address before a joint committee of Congress, President George H.W. Bush explained to lawmakers and the American public that Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait would be repulsed by U.N. coalition forces, which would include American troops. The President outlined several clear reasons for the necessity of American military actions and noted that “Vital issues of principle” were at stake as well as “Vital economic issues.” (6) These principles, Bush explained, were at risk because “Saddam Hussein is literally trying to wipe a country off the face of the Earth.” (6) The fact that Saddam Hussein launched an aggressive war makes it clear that Gulf War may, at least partially, be considered a just war, as it was fought by the international community in order to redress a wrong done

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to defenseless Kuwait. However, President Bush also referenced the fact that that U.S. government, much like in Vietnam, had more than Kuwaiti sovereignty in mind when it made the decision to go to war. “An Iraq permitted to swallow Kuwait would have the economic and military power, as well as the arrogance, to intimidate and coerce its neighbors — neighbors who control the lion’s share of the world’s remaining oil reserves” (6), President Bush fi rmly stated, making clear that the U.S. government was also highly concerned about the possibility of a Middle East less receptive to American infl uence.

The strong American interests in the Middle East would eventually prod it into another military intervention, again into Iraq, in 2003. After the terrorist attacks on September 11th, 2001, the second Bush administration sought to discover a connection between Hussein and Osama bin Laden’s Al Qaeda terrorist organization. About fi ve hours after the attack on the Pentagon, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was quoted by an aide as saying that he wanted the “best info fast. Judge whether good enough hit S.H. [Saddam Hussein] at same time. Not only OBL [Osama bin Laden].” (7) In 2002 Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz created the Offi ce of Special Plans within the Pentagon in order deliver intelligence about Iraq directly to senior Bush administration offi cials.5 (8) This eff ectively circumvented intelligence agencies such as the C.I.A., whose job it is to weed out faulty and/or misrepresented intelligence. To this eff ect, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Colin Powell set about constructing a series of allegations against Hussein and the Iraqi government.

In his presentation to the U.N. Security Council in September of 2003, Colin Powell charged Saddam Hussein and the Iraqi government with two main allegations. First, Powell declared that Iraq “[possesses] weapons of mass destruction and provides haven and active support for terrorists.” (9) As evidence Powell presented much of the unfi ltered visual and audio intelligence which had been deemed important by senior White House offi cials but still had not been vetted by trained intelligence agents. Second, he asserted that there were several direct links between the terrorist organization Al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein. (9) Powell made mention of Saddam’s relationship with the infamous terrorist Al-Zarqawi and alleged that terrorist training camps existed inside of Iraq’s borders, and also seemed to imply a connection between Iraq and the terrorist attacks

5. The OSA also processed British intelligence. See (8).


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of September 11th. (9)In addition to the empirical evidence provided by Powell, President

Bush declared Iraq a “threat to democracy in the Middle East” (10) and, by extension, the world. “The United States did nothing to deserve or invite this threat,” (10) Bush explained in a March 2003 Address to the Nation. He noted that the U.S. Congress “voted overwhelmingly last year to support the use of force against Iraq,” (10) but that on the U.N. Security Council some governments “share our assessment of the danger, but not our resolve to meet it.” (10) Bush reasoned that “The terrorist threat to America and the world will be diminished the moment that Saddam Hussein is disarmed.” (10) Incredibly, Bush furthermore asserted that the U.S. government was “acting because the risks of inaction would be far greater,” (10) thereby attempting to justify the use of preemptive force. And fi nally, the president presented the American public with the fi nal goal of what was to be the impending invasion of Iraq: the “cause of peace.” Bush did not extrapolate on the details of this cause, but merely put forth that “The United States, with other countries, will work to advance liberty and peace in that region.” (10)

Furthermore, despite the apparently strong evidence against Iraq, for the same reason one might have asked, “Why Vietnam?”, one must ask “Why Iraq?”. If the U.S. government was seeking to overthrow a regime which supported and funded terrorist activity, why were the other two members of George Bush’s “Axis of Evil,” North Korea and Iran, not selected for invasion and reform? Major weapons of mass destruction were simply not present in Iraq, and the most recent biological weapons program had been shut down for a decade. (11) In addition, the 9/11 Commission Report found “no clear evidence of a relationship between Al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein.” (12) It is therefore not diffi cult to compare the fi nal remaining stated goal of the U.S. occupation, the spreading of “democracy” by means of forceful regime change and the necessity of preemptively removing a threat to the American ideological way of life, to the fearful manner in which the Johnson administration exaggerated the threat of communist North Vietnam in order to push the nation into a war of conquest and intimidation.

Conclusion

The very problem with the wars examined in this paper can be best illuminated by returning to one of the basic ideas upon which Just War Theory was founded. Cicero serves to explain how observation of the

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“rights of wars” in confl ict helps to ensure that wars are fought justly and only when necessary. For example, Cicero echoes the general sympathetic views of most human beings when he bemoans the fact that “they [the Roman army] destroyed Corinth; but I believe they had some special reason for what they did — its convenient situation, probably — and feared that its very location might some day furnish a temptation to renew the war.” (1) It is this attitude which we fi nd resurrected in the mentality of the U.S. government. Is it only for the Senate, or the U.S. government, to say whether cities should be razed because they pose a “further risk?” At what point does military or political necessity supersede the “just” principles by which war has been declared and is being fought?

As an examination and broad analysis of both the specifi c elements of Just War Theory and several modern American wars have shown, the illusion of Just War Theory has often been used at least indirectly to justify some incredibly unjust causes. U.S. Presidents such as Lyndon Johnson and George Bush often make heavy use of fl owery rhetoric which conjures up the noble tenets of Just War Theory in order to rationalize a war to the American public. The people are promised that wars will be fought humanely, as well as with compassion, respect and minimal loss of life, but does any of that truly matter if a war should never have been fought in the fi rst place? Wars of ideologies, of “morals” and “principles” fought to preserve “our way of life” must always be questioned, especially when we are asked to suspend our judgment about the credibility of the evidence and justifi cation presented in favor of the swiftness needed for a preemptive strike. Unfortunately, it is readily apparent that many American military confl icts have been waged on these terms and have for the most part been deemed failures in hindsight, even by the individuals who promoted them. In Robert McNamara’s recent book, Argument Without End, he admits that “the achievement of a military victory by U.S. forces in Vietnam was indeed a dangerous illusion.” (13) In light of these harsh realities of gross misconduct by politicians and generals, it is paramount that the faith placed in the U.S. government to conduct “just wars” be constantly examined and questioned by the American people as well as the international community.


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List of Works Cited

1. Cicero, Marcus Tullius. De Offi ciis. Trans. Walter Miller. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1913.

2. Aquinas, Thomas. Summa Theologica. 2nd Revised Edition. Trans. Fathers of the English Dominican Province. 1920.Viewed online at: http://www.newadvent.org/summa/index.html.

3. Elshtain, Jean B. “What is a Just War?” Reading the World: Ideas that Matter. Austin, Michael, ed. New York, NY: W.W. Norton and Company, 2007.

4. McNamara, Robert S. and Brian VanDeMark. In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam. Lincolnshire, IL: Vintage Publishing. 1996.

5. Johnson, Lyndon B. “Peace without Confl ict.” Johns Hopkins University. 7 April 1965.

6. Bush, George H.W. “Address before a Joint Session of the Congress on the Persian Gulf Crisis and the Federal Budget Defi cit.” House Chamber, Washington D.C. 11 Sept. 1990.

7. Martin, David. “Plans for Iraq Attack Began on 9/11.” CBS News. 4 Sept. 2002. 15 December 2008. <http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/09/04/september11/main520830.shtml>.

8. Mackay, Neil. “Revealed: The Secret Cabal Which Spun for Blair.” Sunday Herald. 8 June 2003. 15 December 2008. <http://web.archive.org/web/20030810012529/http://www.sundayherald.com/34491>.

9. Powell, Colin. “Presentation to the U.N. Security Council on the U.S. Case against Iraq.” U.N. Security Council, New York. 6 Feb. 2003.

10. Bush, George W. “Saddam Hussein Must Leave Iraq in 48 hours.” The Cross Hall, White House, Washington D.C. 17 March 2003.

11. The Associated Press. “CIA’s Final Report: No WMD Found in Iraq.” MSNBC News. 25 April 2005. 15 December 2008. <http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7634313/>.

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12. National Commission on Terrorist Attacks. The 9/11 Commission Report: Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States. New York, NY: W. W. Norton & Company, 2004.

13. McNamara, Robert S., et al. Argument Without End: In Search of Answers to the Vietnam Tragedy. New York, NY: PublicAff airs. March 1999.

DEFINING TERRORISM IN ANTI-ABORTION VIOLENCE

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WRITER’S COMMENTS

Throughout the semester in Professor Samantha Smith’s “Violence in Society” course, we explored the way rhetoric shapes our understandings of violence. Language has a powerful effect on the way the U.S. government justifi es its selective allocation of resources for investigating crimes. For our fi nal research paper assignment, I chose to elaborate on this theme by exploring defi nitions of terrorism in relation to the violence committed against abortion-providing clinics and staff. This topic is especially timely considering the renewed discussion on defi nitions of domestic terrorism due to the murder of abortion-providing physician George Tiller in May. While conducting my research, I was struck by the sheer number of violent acts against these clinics and the administrative refusal to label these acts as terrorism. In line with previous assertions that these violent, repeated acts are isolated incidents, the U.S. continues to deny the label of terrorism to the murder of George Tiller.

—Maggie Mullen


Our class explored a number of defi nitions of violence and approaches to the study of violence from a sociological perspective. We also discussed various legal and extra-legal responses to violence and explored a multitude of solutions to and preventative approaches for violent behavior and actions. Students were asked to write a 10-12 page paper, analyzing violence in society, including defi ning violence and explaining relationships of power, law, language and society to specifi c examples of violence. Maggie used the assignment as a way to question why attacks against abortion clinics are not defi ned as terrorism and to articulate why they should be. Her arguments rationalized the ways in which violence against a particular group should be considered terrorism under the existing paradigms and defi nitions of terrorism, and also pondered the ways in which we as a society respond to different kinds of violence. What is impressive about Ms. Mullen’s paper is her way of taking a very controversial and relevant topic and focusing on the historical and factual development of how violence against abortion clinics is treated differently—and why it should not be. Ms. Mullen demonstrates an incredible knowledge of the debate and provides a strong case for rethinking how we should understand violent events in society.

—Samantha Smith, Department of Sociology

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MAGGIE MULLEN

Defi ning Terrorism in Anti-Abortion Violence

IN THE 1973 landmark decision of Roe v. Wade, the U.S. Supreme Court held that a mother may abort her pregnancy for any reason until “the

point at which the fetus becomes ‘viable’.” Viability was defi ned by the court as being the time at which the fetus can “potentially…live outside the mother’s womb, albeit with artifi cial aid,” usually between 24-28 weeks. In addition, after the time of viability a mother may receive an abortion in order to protect her own health (further discussed in the lesser-known Doe v. Bolton decision). The Court held that laws against abortion under these circumstances violate the Constitutional right to privacy protected under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. In declaring this, the court eff ectively overturned all state and federal laws which prohibited abortions consistent with these factors (U.S. Supreme Court). While the court ruled in support of women’s reproductive rights, this decision has not gone without controversy.

Since the court’s decision in 1973, violent acts against abortion-providing clinics and staff have been committed by organizations and individuals. Between 1977 and the end of September 1993, there were 1417 acts of violence, 6079 clinic disruptions, and 589 blockades against abortion-providing clinics across the U.S. In addition, other types of violence have occurred including 36 bombings, 289 bomb threats, 498 acts of vandalism, 149 death threats, 335 invasions, and 2 kidnappings (Anonymous 939). In this paper, I will explore the violence committed against abortion-providing clinics and staff and argue that these attacks constitute a form of terrorism.

History:In September 1993, abortion-providing clinics were vandalized, attacked, burned, and bombed in the U.S. The news media coverage of these incidents was uncomfortably familiar to the similar conditions of the war-torn former Yugoslavia. In the last ten days of September 1993, clinics in Illinois, California, and Pennsylvania were destroyed by fi re attacks.


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Earlier in this month, a Wisconsin health center was attacked with butyric acid, while a man carrying a gun and ammunition defaced an Ohio clinic. During this time, picketing, stalking, and arson were, and still are, normal conditions faced by clinics that provided comprehensive family planning services, specifi cally abortion (Anonymous 939).

The events of 1993 were not isolated incidents, however. A 1985 survey found that nearly half of all U.S. clinics that provided abortion services experienced some form of harassment (Forrest & Henshaw 9). Hundreds of anti-abortion groups exist in the United States, many of them church- or community-based, all of which want to reverse the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision and recriminalize abortion. While most engage in legal forms of protest, such as lobbying legislators and feminist organizations, some of their members have participated in illegal activities ranging from harassing patients and clinic workers as they enter and exit reproductive health centers and tampering with or destroying medical equipment, to brutal violence against clinic property or personnel (Baird-Windle & Bader 4-5).

Despite 136 arrests of anti-abortion extremists, stalking of patients and doctors continues to threaten their lives. These anti-abortion extremist tactics have made the process of harassing and committing violent acts against abortion-providing clinics and staff easy. “No Place to Hide” campaigns encourage such behaviors as well as “Wanted” posters which provide patients and staff ’s home addresses and telephone numbers. Even the spouses and children of abortion-providing doctors are harassed (United States. Cong. Senate 104). Due to the prospect of violence and harassment, some young doctors and nurses are discouraged from performing abortions altogether, making recruiting for these clinics nearly impossible (Boodman).

A handful of abortion-providing physicians have been targeted and murdered by anti-abortion extremists as well. David Gunn was killed on March 10, 1993 by anti-abortion extremist Michael F. Griffi n in Pensacola, Florida. This killing is the fi rst known of a U.S. physician targeted for performing abortions. Other known physicians who have been murdered by these extremists include Barnett Slepian (killed by James Charles Kopp) and John Britton (Baird-Windle & Bader 253). These murders contributed to the passage of the “Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act,” passed in 1994, which imposes penalties on “whoever by force, threat of force, or physical obstruction, intentionally injures, intimidates, or interferes with any person…obtaining or providing reproductive health services…or (who) intentionally damages or destroys the property of a facility” that

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provides abortion services (Baird-Windle & Bader 254). Despite the passage of this act, anti-abortion extremists continue

to commit violence against clinics that provide abortions as well as their staff . In the face of overwhelming information to support the idea, the federal government does not consider violence against these clinics and staff to be acts of terrorism.

Anti-Abortion Extremism as Terrorism:Finding a defi nition of terrorism that is accepted by all groups is a diffi cult, if not impossible, task. Illustrating the fl aws of usage is far easier than coming up with a comprehensive defi nition that is acceptable by the majority of both academic researchers and non-academics. Current defi nitions of terrorism are either too specifi c or vague, concentrate on specifi c aspects of the phenomenon and ignore others, or mix up descriptive and prescriptive terminology (Lizardo 91). Despite these problems in characterizing terrorism, violence against abortion-providing clinics and staff since 1973 falls under almost every defi nition of terrorism, yet it is not characterized as such by presidential administrations.

Despite many attempts by scholars and politicians to defi ne terrorism, no clear-cut defi nition has yet to be created. However, most defi nitions include three key parts: the threat or use of violence; the furtherance of broader political objectives; and the psychological eff ects on innocent victims (Butko 145). In order to understand whether anti-abortion extremism should be considered terrorism, I will use these three main components.

All three common characteristics of defi nitions of terrorism are shared by anti-abortion violence. First, the thousands of documented acts of anti-abortion violence since the legalization of abortion services in 1973 clearly show use of violence against these clinics. Abortion-providing clinic staff members around the country rightly fear the threat of force and are trained to be constantly vigilant of their surroundings and patients.

Second, broader political or social motives are at play in these acts of violence. Individuals and/or groups who attack abortion-providing clinics have the clear motive of harming those who perform abortions. They almost exclusively believe that abortion is murder because, in contrast to the law, they consider the fetus to be a person from the moment of conception. This sense of moral imperative to stop what they consider the murder of innocents drives anti-abortionists who


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commit acts of violence against those who provide abortion services (Blanchard & Prewitt 55).

Finally, perhaps the most convincing evidence that these acts are terrorism is the third main point of Butko’s common defi nition, the psychological eff ects on innocent victims. Victims, as well as staff and patients who have not been directly aff ected, perceive these violent acts to be forms of terror and perpetrators see their actions as terrorizing (Blanchard & Prewitt 214). Additionally, unlike other individuals who commit violent acts for personal gain or pleasure, anti-abortion extremists are motivated by a specifi c political or social cause, an essential characteristic of terrorism, according to Enders and Sandler (3).

Motivations for Violence as Terrorism: Pointing out the distinction between anti-abortion activists and violent anti-abortion extremists is also important in understanding anti-abortion violence as terrorism. As Fathali Moghaddam explains in his “staircase to terrorism” theory, as individuals climb the staircase, they see fewer and fewer choices for action until the only possible outcome is the destruction of others, or oneself, or both (161). In line with this theory, kidnappings, shootings, chemical attacks, fi rebombings, stabbings, vandalism, and murder have all occurred because some extreme anti-abortion activists are frustrated that legal eff orts to criminalize abortion have failed (Baird-Windle & Bader 5). Feeling that no progress has been made to prohibit abortions, anti-abortionists can become radicalized and move further up the staircase to terrorism. As one ascends further up the staircase, the fewer options one sees. For the anti-abortionist, one can escalate into a violent anti-abortion extremist.

Anti-abortion extremists often take power from their relationship to a god they believe speaks directly to them. In concert with churches and political groups, they believe they and their colleagues are conveying a god’s immutable law to Western women. For these anti-abortion extremists, the world is categorized into dual sides of us-versus-them and good-versus-evil. This categorical thinking is characteristic of fundamentalists who often commit terrorist acts (Moghaddam 167; Baird-Windle & Bader 11). Submission to a judgmental and punishing god is essential in these movements which promote conformity to a worldview in which self-sacrifi ce, obedience, and self-denial are the highest values (Baird-Windle & Bader 12).

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Psychologist Dr. Phyllis Chesler explains this mentality by saying that those who fi nd comfort in fundamentalism often attempt to prove their worth to a god by engaging in acts of extremism. Indeed, fundamentalist convicted clinic bombers Kaye Wiggins, Matthew Goldsby, and James and Kathren Simmons told police that they torched a clinic in Pensacola, Florida on Christmas Day as a birthday present to Jesus (qtd. in 13).

Extreme fundamentalism is a common characteristic of a variety of terrorists and sets them apart from other types of activists. This focus on motivations and individuals refl ects another defi nition of terrorism provided by Omar Lizardo which centers on terrorist actors rather than terrorist behavior (91). This defi nition of terrorism is yet another which illustrates anti-abortion violence since 1973.

Refusal to Label Terrorism:Throughout its two terms in offi ce, Ronald Reagan’s administration denied that the repeated acts of violence against abortion-providing clinics were acts of terrorism. In 1984 alone, 25 clinic bombings and arsons were documented (Blanchard & Prewitt 212). In denying this terrorist label, the administration refused to assign such violence to the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) for further investigation. This administration claimed that “there must be a central coordinating group behind such acts for them to be ‘terrorism’” (Blanchard & Prewitt 211). Despite continued attacks against abortion-providing clinics and staff , no presidential administration has labeled these acts as terrorism. In failing to do so, they have eff ectively avoided the allocation of resources for further investigation into these frequently-occurring crimes.

According to the FBI’s defi nition of terrorism, terrorism is “the unlawful use of force or violence against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian population, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives” (Blanchard & Prewitt 212). However, Blanchard and Prewitt point out that for an incident to be labeled terrorist by the FBI, one of two things must have happened: fi rst, the incident must fi t its defi nition of terrorism; second, a terrorist group or individual must be linked to the incident. This application of the defi nition gives the government room to maneuver for political reasons, such as the fact that if the 25 clinic bombings and arsons in 1984 alone had been included in statistics, the total would have increased by 200 percent (212).

The link between these acts of violence against abortion-providing clinics and terrorist individuals and/or groups has been clearly made despite


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past administrations’ refusal to acknowledge this fact. For example, an anti-abortion activist manual created by “The Army of God” describing diff erent illegal methods of terrorizing abortion-providing clinics and staff was found in Shelley Shannon’s backyard. Shannon recently served a ten-year prison sentence for the attempted murder of Dr. George Tiller, a doctor at an abortion-providing clinic in Kansas (“Pro-Life Terrorism” 19).

These three common components to defi nitions of terrorism are missing one key element, however, which Butko follows up to explain. This important factor is the “hegemonic basis of [the term terrorism’s] conceptualization” (Butko 145). Butko argues that the label terrorism has been almost exclusively applied to those states, movements, and/or individuals that have threatened the status quo of the U.S. (145). Therefore, anti-abortion extremist acts have not been labeled terrorism in the past because they serve to reinforce, rather than challenge, the interests of those in power.

In contrast to U.S. offi cials’ refusal to label anti-abortion violence as terrorism, experts on international terrorism do identify this violence as such. For instance, Terrorism, the international scholarly journal, and International Association of Chiefs of Police publications include statistics regularly on U.S. abortion-related violence. The scholarly community recognizes these acts as terrorism. Despite overwhelming evidence and support for these acts to be labeled terrorist, the U.S. government does not do so. The reason for this refusal, as in many other cases, is political, for this denial reinforces hegemonic notions regarding women’s reproductive rights, as Butko argues.

Conclusion:A variety of defi nitions and motivational analyses of terrorism support the fact that anti-abortion violence against abortion-providing clinics and their staff should be labeled terrorism. Despite this overwhelming evidence, no U.S. administration has taken the stance to label these incidents as terrorism. This denial is refl ected in the FBI’s shaky defi nition of terrorism, which leaves ample room for political maneuvering. Ultimately, anti-abortion extremist acts have not been labeled terrorism by U.S. government offi cials because they reinforce, rather than challenge, the interests of those in power.

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Works Cited

Anonymous. “This is a deadly game.” The Lancet 342 (1993): 939-40.

Baird-Windle, P., and EJ Bader. Targets of Hatred: Anti-Abortion Terrorism. New York: Palgrave, 2001.

Moghaddam, FM. “The Staircase to Terrorism: A Psychological Exploration.” American Psychologist 60 (2005): 161-69.

Boodman, SG. “The dearth of abortion doctors; Stigma, Low Pay and Lack of Personal Commitment Erode Ranks.” Washington Post [Washington, DC] 20 Apr. 1993.

Butko, Thomas. “Terrorism Redefi ned.” Peace Review 18 (2006): 145-51.

Enders, W., and T. Sandler. The Political Economy of Terrorism. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006.

Forrest, JD, and SK Henshaw. “The harassment of US abortion providers.” Family Planning Perspectives 19 (1987): 9-13.

Lizardo, Omar. “Defi ning and Theorizing Terrorism: A Global Actor-Centered Approach.” Journal of World-Systems Research XIV (2008): 91-118.

Moghaddam, FM. “The Staircase to Terrorism: A Psychological Exploration.” American Psychologist 60 (2005): 161-69.

“Pro-Life Terrorism: A How-To.” Harper’s Magazine Jan. 1995: 19-22.

Roe v. Wade. No. 70-18. U.S. Supreme Court. 22 Jan. 1973.

United States. Cong. Senate. United States Senate Committee on Labor and Human Relations. Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act of 1993. S. Rept. 103-117. Washington, DC: US Government Printing Offi ce, 1993.

A COMMITMENT TOWARD PEACE

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WRITER’S COMMENTS

In Professor Uldis Kruze’s Modern Japan Since 1868 class, we were instructed to research any topic pertaining to Japanese history for our term paper. I chose to research the development of a signifi cant pacifi st movement in Japan immediately following World War II. Most Americans are taught in school that Japanese soldiers fought tooth and nail in World War II, even resorting to suicidal “kamikaze” attacks due to the nation’s total commitment to honor and war. Now, Japan is the only major power in the world to constitutionally disallow the use of armed forces. How did a nation obsessed with war so quickly transform to one committed towards peace? In researching this topic, I found that Americans signifi cantly misunderstood the psychology of Japanese people. Japan’s unique culture combined with the shock of a costly war to allow the growth of a strong, genuine pacifi st movement.

—Bryce Sawin


Each student in my course Modern Japanese History Since 1868 was asked to write a 15-page research paper (using both primary and secondary sources) that explored any aspect of Japan’s modern history. Bryce chose an important topic related to World War II and its aftermath: the dramatic shift from militarism to pacifi sm, both at the elite level and also at the level of the average Japanese citizen. In his essay, Bryce was able to recapture what it meant—on a psychological level—for the Japanese people to confront the massive death and destruction of the end of the war and the American occupation thereafter. The psychological exhaustion and despair, coupled with direct experience of being victims of the American air war, led to a pacifi st stance. In a beautifully written narrative that makes excellent use of personal diaries and public opinion surveys, Bryce spotlights an aspect of Japanese history and society that is often overlooked: the strong commitment to peace of the Japanese people as they emerged from the devastating aftermath of World War II.

—Uldis Kruze, Department of History

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BRYCE SAWIN

A Commitment Toward Peace

WORLD WAR II was undoubtedly the greatest confl ict in human history. It encompassed a majority of nations around the world,

including all of the great powers of the era. Estimates put the number of casualties between 50 million and 80 million dead, varying mainly because of how civilian deaths are counted by various researchers (White). Military deaths alone accounted for roughly 20 million, and between combat-related civilian deaths, diseases, famine and wartime atrocities, the cost of World War II was clearly extremely high. This was accompanied by widespread destruction of infrastructure, particularly in the Axis nations. Following this devastating confl ict, it was obvious the world would require major rebuilding in order to strengthen the global economy and allow people to return to a peaceful way of life.

In this rebuilding process which followed World War II, Japan underwent one of the most unique transformations. As the only Asian great power, Japanese culture and society starkly contrasted with those of the West. Their process for militarization varied tremendously from European ones, and so it was reasonable for allied powers to expect their process for demilitarization would be similarly unique. In the United States, many top leaders assumed that Japan would not surrender easily, based on their tenacity in battles near the end of the war at Iwo Jima and Okinawa. This would partially motivate both the use of the atomic bomb on Japan, and the insistence on unconditional surrender. Though scholars diverge on whether or not this fear was justifi ed, it was undoubtedly felt by American leaders. Americans saw Japanese soldiers go on suicide missions for their country, made famous by the “kamikaze” pilots. The kamikaze showed a level of unquestioned devotion to their country’s victory which the United States had never seen before. With so many Japanese apparently willing to give their lives just for the chance of taking the enemy down with them, the United States had strong reason to believe Japan might be bitter about defeat and resent American occupiers. They expected demilitarizing Japan to be a long and diffi cult uphill battle.


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While demilitarization was indeed a long and arduous process, the diffi culties which Americans ran into were not the ones they anticipated. Japanese were not as ideologically committed to war as Americans perceived, and this meant that they were willing to seek alternatives. Furthermore, the cost of the war was catastrophic, further adding to sentiments that war was no longer a viable method for the nation to seek. The immediate reaction was full of suff ering and despair. Japan could see the damage they had experienced more easily than that which they had dealt to others, and this created a strong victimization mentality among the people. Through this and a growing intellectual movement in support of democratization, Japan became committed to peace as a whole. This is best observed by their overwhelming support of Article 9, which many Japanese view as a commitment to avoid war and a military.

The War MentalityIt was clear as World War II was winding down that the United States had defeated the Japanese. Since the battle of Midway, American forces won a series of decisive victories leading towards Japan’s main islands. Furthermore, Japan had nearly completely lost its ability to sustain war, as its resources were strained and its infrastructure was in shambles. Yet despite this, the United States seemed to believe that the Japanese were still willing to fi ght, and that some citizens might even resist after the war ended. Even after the peace treaty was signed, this initial fear was present. The fear of American occupiers stemmed directly from their observations in World War II. While they show an extremely poor understanding of Japan’s mentality in war, these observations satisfactorily explain why the United States anticipated the Japanese to be uncooperative. Americans saw Japanese soldiers as extremely tenacious, bordering the point of fanaticism. As soldiers moved closer to the Japanese homeland, Japan’s army seemed more fi erce and bloodthirsty. Each successive battle showed the Americans greater levels of diffi culty. The battle of Iwo Jima alone accounted for a third of the deaths of marines in the war and over 20,000 Japanese casualties for a relatively small island (“Cost of War”, 1). Thus it was expected that the Japanese mainland, should the United States invade, would be that much more perilous. Americans also saw this mentality from the kamikaze, a Japanese phrase commonly translated wrongly to suicide bombers. John Dower provides several diaries of American soldiers which demonstrate America’s perception of the kamikaze during the war. One diary states “Fighting the Japs is like fi ghting a wild animal. . . . The Japs take all kinds of chances, they love to die” (War Without Mercy 89). Another

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diary Dower provides states that “A profi le of the Japanese fi ghting man in a serviceman’s magazine also argued that ‘he isn’t afraid to die. In fact, he seems to like to die ’”(89). These diaries refl ect some key assumptions that Americans made about Japanese people. Japanese are fi erce, brave, fanatical, and do not place much value on their lives. But perhaps most importantly, they assumed that this high devotion refl ected a universal commitment to Japan and to its war. This misconception was quickly brought into question by the actions of other Japanese.

The fi erce, fi ght to the death mentality of the Japanese military that Americans frequently observed was sharply contrasted by their behavior as prisoners of war. Japan has a longstanding tradition that death is more honorable than capture. Samurai had been expected to commit suicide rather than face the disgrace which capture would bring, and this continued as practice for soldiers in World War II. Therefore, when Japanese prisoners were denied the chance to end their own lives, they devoted themselves toward helping their captors with an unprecedented amount of voluntary cooperation (Benedict, 42). Japanese POW’s gave Americans information on munitions deposits, disposition of Japanese soldiers, help with American propaganda, and in rare cases even accompanied American bombers on missions to help them fi nd their targets (42). This total cooperation directly contradicted American expectations of prisoners of war, who expected their soldiers to remain loyal regardless of their situation. It indicated that methodology was far more signifi cant to Japanese soldiers than ideology; what side a soldier fought on mattered far less than how well that soldier could uphold his honor. As Ruth Benedict points out, “they were dishonored and their life as Japanese was ended” (42). They had no motivation to remain loyal to Japan. This allowed them to wholeheartedly support their new captors, for they believed that cooperation was the best way to optimize their honor. The implications of this behavior, while largely unnoticed by Americans at the time, indicated how Japanese people might act in the postwar period. Japan had no particular antipathy toward the United States or the other Allies. It is true that they valued loyalty, but it was loyalty to the side they served rather than loyalty to specifi c ideals. If their allegiance changed, these examples of prisoners of war clearly show that many Japanese would follow their new leaders earnestly. The Americans had grossly misunderstood Japanese ethics, which diff ered considerably from Western perspectives. Loyalty during the war was largely due to perceived obligation to one’s superiors (emperor) and family, not ideological desire for war. Thus it was not important for individuals at the lower levels of the


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infrastructure to desire peace to end the war. If the leaders at the highest levels of Japanese society surrendered, the rest of the people would follow, at least in the short term.

In Japan, the cooperation of its leaders was necessary to fi nally bring an end to the war. The emperor, as the symbolic pinnacle of Japanese society, was the key fi gure in this surrender. While many Americans typically believed the atomic bomb ended World War II, historians have since stressed the importance of the retention of the emperor (Hunsberger and Finn, 22). Japan’s insistence that they keep their leader clearly illustrates their devotion to him, and indicated that if he wished for the war to end, the people would obey. Thus his speech to the people regarding the surrender, the 玉音放送 (Imperial Rescript on Surrender), ended the war. Even though in technical terms, the war was ended through treaties between American and Japanese diplomats, this speech was a necessary component in ensuring Japanese would comply with this agreement and truly bring an end to the war. Their actions in war had indicated their belief that ethics were choices in methodology, and the emperor’s speech rejected that war methodology: “the war situation has developed not necessarily to Japan’s advantage, while the general trends of the world have all turned against her interest” (Gyokuon-hoso). Though using a formal form of Japanese which the common citizens typically didn’t understand very well, the Emperor’s message was still clear: Japan had gone to war and it had lost. Therefore, it was necessary to reject war as a valid course of action and seek other ways to drive the nation to success and prosperity. Ruth Benedict describes what this meant for the Japanese: “Their ultimate defeat brought about, as is usual in Japanese life, the abandonment of the course they had been pursuing. The peculiar ethic of the Japanese allowed them to wipe the slate clean” (Benedict, 309). Japan’s total defeat ended war as a method. With that course of action lost to them, this left Japan open to the development of pacifi sm and peace. However, this transition would not be one without hardship, for Japan fi rst had to deal with the daunting rebuilding process, and the creation of a new identity and purpose free from war.

The Costs of WarFollowing the war, nearly every involved country was devastated and needed to go through some sort of rebuilding process. For example, in the west the United States implemented its famous Marshall Plan to invest in Western Europe and help it rebuild its infrastructure. Japan was no diff erent. However, to understand how Japanese people reacted to the

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end of the war, it is necessary to gain a basic understanding of what they lost in the war. This tremendous physical cost directly led to the psychological cost shown indirectly by the kyodatsu condition and kasutori culture immediately following the surrender.

Based on the generally accepted estimates for the damage in Japan during the war, the cost was astronomical. Undoubtedly, attempting to put cost of war in terms of numbers will cause one to gloss over the cost in terms of feelings, trauma and pain, but these statistics give concrete examples of the devastation caused by the war that are easily measured and observed. Estimates of Japanese military casualties are generally around 1.5 million to 2 million (White), and civilian deaths range from 250,000 to 1 million, for a total possibly as high as 3 million lives. Comparing this amount to the total population of 73 million in 1940 according to the Japanese census (“Population of Japan”), this means about 3 to 4 percent of the entire country’s population died as a result of the war. On top of this, millions more were wounded in some way, either in battle, through sickness or malnourishment. About 4.5 million soldiers were either counted as wounded or ill, and the exact count of wounded civilians was not accurately recorded (Embracing Defeat, 45). Based on these fi gures, a very large percentage of the Japanese population was physically and directly wounded or killed as a result of the war.

On top of the casualties of war, there were also tremendous amounts of damage to physical property and infrastructure. One estimate states that “the Allied assault on shipping and the bombing campaign against the home islands destroyed one-quarter of the country’s wealth. This include four-fi fths of all ships, one-third of all industrial machine tools, and almost a quarter of all rolling stock and motor vehicles” (45). These estimates only measured Japan’s territory following the war, meaning that the investments made in territory Japan had conquered before surrender were lost as well. In addition to this, living standards in urban areas fell about 35 percent, and living standards for rural areas fell about 65 percent (Nakamura, 15). Urban areas were devastated as about 40 percent of these areas were completely destroyed and made about 30 percent of the population homeless, roughly 9 million people (Embracing Defeat, 45-6). One American described the abysmal conditions: “In every major city, families were crowded into dugouts and fl imsy shacks or, in some cases, were trying to sleep in hallways, on subway platforms, or on sidewalks. Employees slept in their offi ces; teachers, in their


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schoolrooms” (Wildes 2). The cost in physical damage was great, and uprooted a large portion of Japanese society. The pain and poverty directly shown by these numbers was also indirectly refl ected in the cultural movements accompanying the period.

While immeasurable, the psychological damage appeared to signifi cantly outweigh the physical loss of the war. Initially Japan experienced a brief feeling of relief, despite the fact that they had lost. Most people were glad to see an end to war, since it meant that they could return to their lives. However, this was quickly replaced by the kyodatsu condition. This term was previously used clinically to describe “physical or emotional prostration in individual patients” (Embracing Defeat, 89), but became so deep and widespread that it became a national phenomenon. It was an overwhelming combination of exhaustion and despair brought about by the taxing war eff ort. Starvation, disease and poverty ran rampant in the years following the war, directly causing and amplifying the kyodatsu condition. Malnutrition was a direct eff ect of the Allied blockade of Japan, which had immediately aff ected food supplies. This malnutrition was directly observed in Japanese children who experienced stunted growth during the war period (92). On top of this, there was a strong perception that Japan had been “shamed and dishonored” (104) as a result of the surrender. Between starvation and the thorough destruction of pride, it is easy to understand how the people began to despair. Kyodatsu then infl uenced the growth of three major subcultures as people attempted to overcome their condition.

The three overlapping subcultures of the panpan prostitute, the black market, and kasutori culture all grew in Japan as a response to the kyodatsu condition, allowing Japanese to cope with their despair and ultimately help them in overcoming it. The panpan prostitute was a government program which was designed to quite literally service the occupying army. The idea was that Japan would “enlist a small number of women to serve as a buff er protecting the chastity of the ‘good’ women of Japan” (126). This refl ected an attitude of subservience to the Americans, yet the women were not necessarily inferior. Prostitutes received a very high salary compared to other occupations. Plus these women were patriots who were serving their country honorably, refl ecting a wholly diff erent attitude towards sex and prostitution. This was magnifi ed by the kasutori culture, which originally took its name from kasutori shochu (a type of alcohol). It naturally refl ected a culture of drinking and escapism as a method

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of coping with the kyodatsu condition. This culture was best epitomized by the kasutori zasshi (magazines), which were essentially pulp magazines celebrating “a fugitive world of hedonistic and grotesque indulgence” (149) and wild sexual fantasies. Finally, as women were increasingly engaged in prostitution, men entered the black market. This world, unlike that of the panpan, was strictly Japanese and dominated by a carnal and unsympathetic form of order. The black market nearly completely replaced the economy following surrender, and gangs were able to extend their infl uence into major industries (a trend which continues today). Drinking and violence were relatively commonplace in this market. Between these three growing subcultures, Japanese people dealt with their despair by turning towards a decadent and self-indulgent culture. It was a dramatic diff erence from previous culture, and opened the path towards a commitment towards pacifi sm.

The Victims as Pacifi stsThe damage done to Japan by the war was tremendous, and the physical cost of war was only exceeded by its psychological cost. However, the psychological impact of World War II led to a crucial development in how Japanese people viewed the war which was fundamentally diff erent than the Western approach. Japanese viewed themselves as the victims of the war, rather than the aggressors. It was obvious to them that they had suff ered greatly, and there were many signs of their pain and suff ering. They saw immediate signs of what they had endured, while the harm which the imperial army had wreaked on foreign lands was far less obvious.

The best evidence of this emphasis of victimization lies in the publication of Kike Wadatsumi no Koe (Listen to the Voices from the Sea: Writings of the Fallen Japanese Students). This work presents a collection of letters, diaries and poems of university students who were initially exempted from military service but eventually drafted as the war situation grew desperate. John Dower explains how these young men were perceived by the Japanese following the book’s publication:

These were pure young men. Their deaths were noble. They could not be faulted, certainly not criticized, for having off ered no resistance to militarism. It was their deaths, rather than the deaths of those they might have killed, that commanded attention and were truly tragic. Indeed, there were no non-Japanese victims in this hermetic vision of the war. (Embracing Defeat, 199)


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It was easy for Japanese to be incredibly sympathetic to these men because they were bright, hard working, and dedicated to their country. The deaths of these students poignantly symbolized the tragedy of the war and all that Japan had lost as a result of it. In addition to their situation, their beautiful writing skills added to their emotional appeal, evidenced by poems such as this one:

There is one person who will cry at my words. There is one person who will resent me. And so, there is one person who will not forget me. Surely, after I die there is one person who will decorate my grave with gardenias. The sum of all of us is one. (Yamanouchi 33)

The poem eloquently combines the stubbornness of the student to serve his country and the pain felt by those he left behind. It also illustrates the kind of emotional reactions that Japanese readers would likely feel when reading them. Magnifi ed through publications such as Kike Wadatsumi no Koe, Japan felt more and more that they had suff ered greatly as a nation in war, and this caused them to begin to renounce war and seek peace.

This shift was also led by many prominent intellectual thinkers such as Maruyama Masao, who reacted to the war with an increased zeal for democracy and liberation. These men assumed the mantle of shinpoteki bunkajin (progressive men of letters), which represented a major turnaround from the war period that most of them had supported (Dower, 233). The intellectuals had largely been swept by the current of ultranationalism, and had to redeem themselves in the wake of the war. They turned to Marxism during this period, because it adequately explained Japan’s actions during the war, its failings during the war, and then proposed a viable solution (democracy and eventually socialism). These Marxist intellectuals gained increasing infl uence over the rest of society, aff ecting labor and industrial relations, economic policy, literary circles, and, most importantly, pacifi st movements. These movements were largely motivated by a “community of remorse” (238) where they clearly saw the errors of the war and felt an obligation to overcome them. This intellectual movement refl ects a complete transformation from the previous war mentality towards a genuine comment to peace and pacifi sm.

The most obvious sign of Japan’s newfound commitment toward peace lies in Article 9 of the Japanese constitution. It states:

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Aspiring sincerely to an international peace based on justice and order, the Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as means of settling international disputes. In order to accomplish the aim of the preceding paragraph, land, sea, and air forces as well as other war potential will never be maintained. The right of belligerency of the state will not be recognized (The Constitution of Japan. Article 9.)

The signifi cance of Article 9 is very straightforward: it creates a constitutional commitment towards avoiding war as a method of resolving disputes. This is enforced by eliminating “war potential” which essentially includes any and all forms of weaponry. As a result, Japan is constitutionally forced to seek peaceful resolutions to any problems it encounters. However, this article earned widespread controversy for several reasons. When the constitution was being proposed to the postwar Diet, many were concerned about the lack of an army because it would put Japan in danger of attack and might prevent them from joining the United Nations since they’d be unable to fulfi ll the UN requirement to contribute to collective security (Embracing Defeat 394-5). Other leaders worried that the clause didn’t go far enough to promote peace. Prime

Fig. 1. Glenn Hook. Militarization and Demilitarization in Contem-porary Japan. New York: Routledge, 1996

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Minister Yoshida retorted that “It has been suggested that the war may be justifi ed by a nation’s right of legitimate self-defense, but I think that the very recognition of such a thing is harmful” (Embracing Defeat 395). Yoshida made an excellent point since self-defense had already been proclaimed by Japan to justify earlier wars. Despite these arguments however, public opinion surveys (see fi gure 1) collected by Glenn Hook indicate that Japan has consistently supported Article 9 as it is currently written (Hook, 103). According to these surveys, collected in 4 Japanese newspapers since the 1950s, a greater number of people have consistently opposed revising article 9, especially when surveyors specifi cally asked participants if they would support a revision to include the military in the polls labeled 7810A, 7812A, and 8311A. When asked this, three-quarters of poll participants opposed making this revision. A large percentage of Japanese have committed themselves against war, and this number has only grown over time. It is certainly true that despite this support, the Japanese Self Defense Forces still exist and participate in some wars (though in support capacities). However, despite this inconsistency, it still refl ects a genuine desire for peaceful measures which is non-existent in the other powerful nations of the world.

The Framework for PeaceDespite American beliefs to the contrary, it is clear that even during World War II, Japanese people did not particularly have an ideological commitment toward war. Rather, they pursued it both out of a sense of duty toward their superiors and their family obligations. However, when the Emperor freed them of this obligation to war, Japan realized as a nation that they were tired of war. They had suff ered greatly from it and had nothing to show for their eff orts but devastation and despair. They focused on the pain they could see fi rsthand, and this caused them to feel they were victims of the war. This was magnifi ed as they observed writings such as Kike Wadatsumi no Koe, which eff ectively symbolized the worst of the war experience. Intellectuals combined with a mass movement in support of democracy and peace following this suff ering. Since then, Japan’s pacifi st movement continues to grow, a fact perhaps best seen in Japan’s support of Article 9 and a continued commitment to abolishing their military.

Through Japan’s transition from war to peace, one can make a few inferences both about Japan as a society and humanity as a whole. First, no matter how fervent a country in war, a state of war is not sustainable indefi nitely. War is simply too costly for people to support forever, and

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the harsher the war, the stronger the backlash will be. Japan suff ered so greatly during the war that the entire nation was plunged into despair upon losing. This theme later repeated itself in the United States during the Vietnam War. Second, it is far easier to see the pain one has experienced fi rsthand than it is to see the suff ering one has brought to others indirectly. Despite its aggressive campaign throughout the Pacifi c, Japan as a whole viewed themselves as the victims of war. They caused others to suff er, but this was overshadowed by their own agony. However, while many people are quick to criticize Japan’s unwillingness to accept responsibility for their own atrocities, there is another lesson. Peace and pacifi sm become an immediate priority when people are able to see the suff ering of war fi rsthand. Americans conversely never saw the fi ghting reach their shores (save Hawaii), and remained relatively detached. Peace is an ideal that everyone can understand abstractly, but without experiencing the pain directly, reaching the same level of understanding is diffi cult if not impossible. It is necessary, therefore, to make it a priority to emphasize the diffi culties of war in education in order to renounce it altogether. People can clearly see the fl aws of war but need to feel directly threatened or it becomes easy to feel apathetic. When people truly understand the danger war poses, then peace can be accepted as a viable alternative.

Works Cited

Benedict, Ruth. The Chrysanthemum and the Sword. Cambridge, MA: The Riverside Press, 1946.

Dower, John W. Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1999.

_____. War Without Mercy: Race and Power in the Pacifi c War. New York: Pantheon Books, 1986.

Emperor Hirohito. “Gyokuon-hōsō.” 1945, Aug. 15. God Hates Tanks. Reikanido Studio. 9 Mar. 2009 <http://www.reikanido.com/ghj/audio/gyokuon-housou.mp3>.

Hook, Glenn D. Militarization and Demilitarization in Contemporary Japan. New York: Routledge, 1996.


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Nakamura, Takafusa. The Post-war Japanese Economy: Its Development and Structure. Tokyo: University of Tokyo, 1981.

“Population of Japan.” Statistics Bureau. Ministry of Internal Aff airs And Communications. Tokyo, Japan. 9 Mar. 2009 <http://www.stat.go.jp/english/data/kokusei/2000/fi nal/hyodai.htm>.

The Constitution of Japan. Article 9.

“The Costs of World War II.” American History 1 Aug. 2005: 24-25. Research Library. ProQuest. University of San Francisco, San Francisco, CA. 9 Mar. 2009 < http://0-www.proquest.com.ignacio.usfca.edu/>.

White, Matthew. “Twentieth Century Atlas - Death Tolls.” Historical Atlas of the Twentieth Century. 18 Oct. 1998. 18 Feb. 2009 <http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/warstat1.htm#Second>.

Wildes, Harry Emerson. Typhoon in Tokyo: The Occupation and Its Aftermath. New York: Macmillan, 1954.

Yamanouchi, Midori, and Joseph Quinn, trans. Listen to the Voices from the Sea: Writings of the Fallen Japanese Students (Kike Wadatsumi no Koe). Scranton, PA: University of Scranton P, 2000.

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WRITER’S COMMENTS

In my “San Francisco Development Politics” class, my professor required us to spend 50 hours at local community centers, tutoring students living in public housing projects. During my time spent at The African American Arts and Culture Complex, I learned of the disturbing rates of high school truancy that have plagued San Francisco in past years. After questioning tutors and community organizers, I learned that high school truancy is greatly attributable to violence among neighboring housing projects. Downtown San Francisco streets are dangerous, and there is no way for young boys to travel to school safely. To save themselves, these boys drop out. I was horrifi ed by this reality. Coincidentally, I learned shortly thereafter that we would be writing proposal arguments in Devon Holmes’ rhetoric class, and I knew it was necessary that I propose, at the very least, that this truancy problem be considered urgent and that it be responded to with vigor. —Celeste Parisi


In my Rhetoric 140 course, I ask students to write a fi nal paper in which they identify and defi ne an urgent problem, and then propose a solution to that problem. I encourage them to devote a majority of the paper to defi ning the problem as clearly and accurately as possible, since rushing to offer a solution without fi rst engaging this initial step increases the possibility of presenting a solution that will either not improve the problem at all, or worse, will serve merely to exacerbate it. I especially admire the way in which Celeste emphasizes the role that community members must play in formulating the solution to truancy in the Western Addition; equally important is that she highlights how truancy in this particular neighborhood has far-reaching effects that extend beyond the immediate area.

—Devon C. Holmes, Rhetoric and Composition

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CELESTE PARISI

Chronic Truancy in the W.A.

YOU’RE 14 YEARS OLD. You live in a two-bedroom apartment in a San Francisco Public Housing complex with your mother and two

siblings. You’ve moved many times, but since getting off the SF public housing waitlist, your family has stayed in the Western Addition, near your mom’s job as a hotel maid in the downtown area. Your mom can walk your little brother and sister to school on her way to work, and she likes this security. You are applying to public high school for the coming fall, and you’re excited about your placement. Your grades are pretty good, but you’ve been to three diff erent schools in the past three years because of your mom’s job instability.

You’re 15 now, and it’s your fi rst day at your assigned high school, a pretty good school about an hour bus ride away from home. You didn’t get your fi rst choice, a competitive school nearby, and you didn’t get your second choice, a better school a bit farther away. You don’t know much about the area you’re headed to, but you’re anxious to see what high school is like.

You’re 16, and you’ve learned that high school isn’t what you’d expected. Your mom now works the night shift, so you have to make your siblings breakfast and get them ready for school. You have to wake up at 5:30 am to cook breakfast, wake your brother and sister, and get them and yourself ready for school before leaving at 6:00 am in order to arrive for a 7:30 class. You have to walk 14 city blocks to get to a bus stop located one block away from your house, because if you walk directly across the street, the gang waiting at the corner will see where you’re coming from (their rival gang’s housing complex), assume you’re a gang member, and pull a knife on you to protect their turf. You’ve learned the hard way not to cross the street. When you get to the bus stop, you have to sit up front near the bus driver, with your head down and your headphones on, so no one will start a fi ght with you. When you get to school, it’s a relief. When you see the metal detectors at the entrance of the school, you thank God for protecting you that day.

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You’re 17 now. You’ve stopped going to school altogether. You loved your classes, but you also had to work to help your mom make rent. By the time you got home from work, made your siblings dinner, and fi nished your homework, it was 12 am. With only fi ve hours of sleep, you started sleeping through classes, and failing. You walked to the bus stop with a slump, and the boys across the street thought you were giving them attitude. You arrived as school with black eyes and bruises every week, and the principal talked to you about your “gang involvement” regularly, threatening to expel you if you kept fi ghting. You knew he wouldn’t understand that it was unprovoked if you explained it to him. So you stopped going to school. Your teachers thought you were a gang member who partied, fought, and didn’t care about school. Maybe you were. Did it even matter?

You’re 19, and the country’s election of Barack Obama has inspired you to “change.” You look at your options for fi nishing your high school diploma. As a 19 year old, your face has been affi liated with the gang in your housing project for fi ve years, and you are in more danger from gangs than ever before, because your face is recognizable as a resident. Even if accepted to your old high school, you certainly couldn’t survive the commute now. A helpful woman at a nearby community organization tells you that you can enroll at Ida B. Wells, a continuation school a few blocks away. You can walk there somewhat safely, and the school accepts high school dropouts. This is your only safe option. But only 6% of students at this school have scored “at or above profi cient” on the California Standardized tests. . .and you ask yourself again, is such a defi cient school my only option? Is it even worth it?

ABSTRACT

The preceding story is a compilation of anecdotal evidence I’ve acquired through personal interviews conducted with high school students who live in public housing in the Western Addition (henceforth referred to as W.A.). In the following argument, I will demonstrate that indigent students in the W.A. lack access to an equal and suffi cient education. Without a high school in the W.A., the San Francisco Unifi ed School District’s assignment system sends W.A. students to high schools across the city but fails to provide adequate transportation to these distant locations. Unable to avoid rivaling gangs from separate projects, students face great dangers on their way to and from school, and they must deal with the extreme eff ects of violent childhoods. In an attempt to evade


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unwanted solicitations and provocations, students drop out of school entirely and remain within their own neighborhoods. In the W.A., the only high school is Ida B. Wells Continuation School, whose test scores and reputation deem it an exiguous and unacceptable alternative for serious students. I propose that eff ected and involved parties come together to discuss and attempt to solve the truancy of W.A. high school students.

Students, families of students, teachers, members of the police department, and representatives from the school district must come together to discuss this problem and possible solutions, including the following: a school-provided bussing system, a redeveloped and rehabilitated Ida B. Wells, or vouchers to attend nearby Wallenberg High School or other nearby private schools.

THE PROBLEM

The Western Addition—A History:The W.A. is a central San Francisco neighborhood, loosely defi ned by Van Ness Avenue on the East, Masonic Avenue on the West, California Street on the North, and Fell Street on the South. The neighborhood was fi rst developed at the turn of the 20th century, as a middle-class residential area serviced by cable cars. The 1904 earthquake devastated downtown San Francisco and Civic Center, forcing city offi cials and businesses to move to the untouched W.A. The new residents took over the old Victorians, turning them into boarding houses in order to sustain the higher population. Several years later, after signifi cant restoration eff orts, the upper class, business owners, and politicians moved back into the rehabilitated downtown, leaving the W.A. with the high-density standard of living, but with considerable vacancies. Such high-density living was an economic opportunity for incoming immigrants, particularly Japanese, who moved in and established a community.

After the bombing of Pearl Harbor in World War II, President Roosevelt mandated the removal of Japanese citizens, sending them to internment camps for the remainder of the war. The now vacated W.A. provided aff ordable housing for an incoming African American community, who found acceptance and a welcoming refuge of employment and economic opportunities. The W.A. has since been one of the most racially diverse communities in San Francisco.

Before the Civil Rights Movement, San Francisco’s receptivity towards African Americans and non-white minorities was defi cient, and the job market was a diffi cult one to conquer. Home to so many economically

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disadvantaged and unrepresented, the W.A. was soon enveloped in a fog of discrimination, unemployment, and economic despair. In accordance with Federal housing policy, the city of San Francisco designated signifi cant portions of the W.A. to be redeveloped, labeling them as blighted. Considered to be living in a slum, landlords found it more economically advantageous to neglect their properties and allow them to fall into disrepair, further perpetuating the neighborhood’s “blighted” reputation. The San Francisco Redevelopment agency began enacting plans to redevelop the neighborhood in 1958 (Fullbright), and will be fi nishing the fi nal installments this year. The process of redevelopment was a form of gentrifi cation that raised property values so appreciably that it resulted in the closure of 883 businesses, and the displacement of 4,729 households (Fullbright). Reverend Arnold Townsend, and activist against the gentrifi cation, has said, “There is still frustration, hopelessness and a negative mindset on the part of the African American community because of what redevelopment did. . .They wiped out our community, weakened our institutional base and never carried out their promise to bring people back” (Fullbright).

Today, the W.A. is home to several of the city’s public housing developments, and remains “economically blighted.” Children who grow up within these housing projects are exposed to crime, economic distress, and gang violence. However, students are not required to remain within the W.A. for elementary, middle and high school. The city’s educational policies provide W.A. students with the opportunity to escape negative atmospheres at home.

The Student Assignment System:The San Francisco Unifi ed School District “Assignment System” is a system by which the district determines which students will attend which schools. The system is designed to allow any San Francisco student to attend any school of his or her choice. The designation process takes into account fi ve factors:

1. Extreme poverty: does the student live in public housing? Is the student a foster youth? Does the family participate in a homeless program?

2. Socioeconomic status: Does the student participate in any of the following programs: free/reduced lunch, Cal WORKS, and/or public housing?

3. Home Language: Is English the student’s home language?


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4. Academic Performance Rank of Sending School.5. Academic Achievement Status (“Student”).

The ultimate assignments depend on several factors, “including the number of seats available at the schools chosen, the number of students requesting those seats, the number of siblings who get pre-assigned, the ranking of the choice, [the student’s address], the diversity of the applicant pools for schools listed and, in some instances, the application of the Student Assignment System” (“Student”). Students are encouraged to list their top seven choices, and priority is given to those with siblings at the school of their choice, those with special needs, and those who live in the attendance area of one of their choices. According to the District’s Webpage, 82% of students are assigned to one of their seven choices (“Student”). There are no high schools with attendance areas that encompass or include the W.A., and therefore, students in that area do not receive location-based priority to any high school. W.A. students are located fairly closely to Wallenberg, Galileo, and Mission, and so might conceivably request these schools, but W.A. students are not given priority over anyone else. Because Wallenberg and Galileo are among the top fi ve most requested schools in the district, W.A. students have extremely low chances of gaining admission to these nearby schools. After taking into consideration all the aforementioned factors and qualifi cations, the district assigns students to schools, and then the students must fi nd transportation to and from school.

Dangerous Transportation—Crossing Turf Lines:The map exhibits the proximity of several main gang territories, located in separate public housing projects. If a student were to walk near or around a territory other than his own, he would face serious dangers. The reality of gang violence in the W.A. is evident. According to the San Francisco Examiner, one fourth of all killings have occurred in the W.A., replacing Bayview as the bloodiest neighborhood in San Francisco (Sabatini). In June 2008, seven people were shot in the span of twelve hours at the Friendship Village and Yerba Buena Plaza East housing complexes in the W.A. As a result, supervisor Ross Mirkarimi requested 24-hour police surveillance in the area (Verel), City Attorney Dennis Herrera announced in July his intent to pursue civil gang injunctions against three W.A. Gangs, all located on Eddy Street, from Gough to Divisidero, including

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the gangs Chopper City, Eddy Rock, and Knock Out Posse (Verel). The injunction would make it illegal for certain gang members to “associate with one another within a prescribed area” and prevent them from sporting gang symbols, signs, or colors (Verel).

In July 2007, the City Attorney’s offi ce reported on the proceedings of the concurrent Gang Injunction Hearing, claiming that “Dennis Herrera’s offi ce presented. . .thousands of pages of evidence [against] 44 members of the W.A.-based Eddy Rock, Chopper City, and Knock Out Posse. . .detail[ing] a brutal reign of violence, drug pushing, intimidation and murder that disproportionately victimizes at-risk populations” (Gang OSC). Herrera gave evidence to the fact that youth and children were among the most vulnerable San Franciscans “caught in the crossfi re” (Gang OSC). The offi ce report goes on to explain that children and youth “are commonly endangered by the illicit conduct of adult gang members” (Gang OSC). Several children have been shot in recent months and years, including a 13-year-old girl in February 2007. The City attorney claims, “In 1998, an adult member of the Knock Out Posse gang. . .was arrested next to a children’s playground for possession with intent to sell crack cocaine” (Gang OSC). Quite clearly, there is a serious gang problem in the W.A., particularly surrounding the San Francisco Housing Authority developments. DeAnn Robinson, a woman who lives in the Yerba Buena Plaza East, where seven people were shot in twelve hours, said to the San Francisco Chronicle, “It’s an absolute shame that mothers and fathers are burying their children.” Robinson claims to ask young men, on a regular basis, not to sit outside of her house, “fearing that bullets intended for them would hit her or her teenage children” (Bulwa and Lagos). I interviewed Chantal Reynolds, Youth Program Coordinator for the African American Arts and Culture Complex (an arts-themed after-school and summer program for students in the W.A.), about the threat of gang violence in the neighborhood. Reynolds claimed that students, ranging from age 8-18, are unable to walk even two block distances without being accosted, provoked, or propositioned by a neighborhood gang. She spoke with fear and gravitas of the dire situation students are forced to enter when traveling in their own neighborhood (Reynolds).

Truancy in San Francisco:In addition of the violence problems, and most likely as an eff ect of such, San Francisco and the W.A. in particular have experienced


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severe truancy problems. Truancy can be defi ned as the “unexcused or unverifi ed absence from school, or class, without proper consent from the school principal or personnel” (Neighborhood). According to California law, children between the ages of 6 and 18 can only legally miss a certain amount of school. A child is considered truant if he or she misses more than three full days of school, without a valid excuse, during one school year. A “habitual truant” is one with 10 or more unexcused absences. A student with more than 20 unexcused absences is considered a “chronic truant” (Neighborhood). According to information provided by the District Attorney’s offi ce, San Francisco’s truancy is greater than the statewide average, and “worse than Alameda, Contra Costa, Los Angeles, and San Diego counties” (Neighborhood). In 2006, there were 5,500 habitual or chronic truants in the city of San Francisco (Neighborhood).

The San Francisco District Attorney’s offi ce is currently in the midst of launching the “Stay In School” campaign to end chronic school absenteeism. District Attorney Kamela Harris has represented this campaign in the past year, threatening San Franciscans of her intent to prosecute parents of chronically truant students. According to publications on her website, “two-thirds of habitually and chronically truant students in San Francisco schools are African American or Latino.” As seen on the map in Appendix D (San Francisco Demographic), African Americans are located in specifi c clusters in the city. One of these clusters is the W.A. neighborhood. While no specifi c data exists regarding truancy specifi c to the W.A., it stands to reason that if two-thirds of San Francisco’s habitual truants are African American, and a large portion of African Americans live in the W.A.., then there would be a signifi cant degree of truancy within that neighborhood. In my interview with Reynolds I corroborated such reasoning through her candid second-hand description of a W.A. student’s high school experience. According to Reynolds, W.A. high school students from public housing (particularly male students), are electing to skip school due to the fact that it is so dangerous to travel to and from campus. Encountering gang members at every street corner and bus stop, students would rather stay at their housing project, and skip school, than face the dangers that await them in the city streets. Beyond the obvious absence of academic knowledge, a lack of education due to truancy is known to signifi cantly increase a person’s possibility of both victimization and participation in criminal activity. According to the San Francisco District Attorney’s offi ce, “children who do not graduate from high school are far more likely to be arrested for crime and also to become victims of violence” (Neighborhood). During the last four years, 94% of San Francisco’s homicide victims under the age of 25

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were high school dropouts. Additionally, 75% of America’s incarcerated criminals were habitual truants (Neighborhood). Such a signifi cant parallel is no coincidence. Truancy is a defi ning characteristic in criminals, and therefore, it must be something we address at this manageable stage.

Similarly, exposure to violence during youth is also known to have adverse eff ects on a witness’ persona. According to a North Carolina University study, students for whom academics are important are less likely to engage in delinquency (Felton et. al.). Of course, we cannot force a student to care about academics, but we can force them to recognize that apathy towards education is both unacceptable and unlawful in San Francisco. In a separate study, sociologists John Hagan and Holly Foster discovered interesting fi ndings regarding the sociological eff ects of violence on a teenager’s persona. The authors hypothesize that:

The life-course consequences of experiences with violence ... include more than contemporaneous health risks, leading also to subsequent depression and pre-mature exits from adolescence to adulthood. An analysis of panel data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health indicates that violence in intimate adolescent relationships results in depressed feelings, running away from home, serious thoughts about suicide, dropping out of school, and teenage pregnancy. (Hagan and Foster)

Both studies suggest the cyclical nature of violence and truancy. Exposure to violence leads to truancy, and truancy and indiff erence towards education lead to future violence and delinquency.

The Neighborhood Option—Ida B. Wells:Some opponents might suggest that W.A. students take the initiative to avoid gang violence and attend a neighborhood high school within walking distance. Their only choice, however, would be Ida B. Wells Continuation School. A continuation school is an alternative to regular high school for students who are considered to be at risk for not graduating on time. These students may be behind their peers due to drug abuse, disciplinary issues, or teen pregnancy. Chantal Reynolds spoke very negatively of Wells School, calling it a “last resort” for students (Reynolds). The San Francisco Unifi ed School District does not provide daily attendance or drop out information for the school, but according to Chantal, there is hardly any attendance enforcement at the school. In 2007, only 6.9% of 10th graders scored at or above profi cient on the English Language Arts


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California Standards Test, and none of 9th and 11th graders scored at or above profi cient on the Math CST. These abysmal scores hardly need an explanation. Such low standards at a high school would hardly encourage serious academic improvement, achievement, or even attendance. The W.A. students need both a fostering and motivating school, and a safe form of transportation to and from that school, to eliminate any excuse for truancy. Currently, the students have neither an adequate school within safe-traveling distance, nor transportation to adequate yet distant schools.

THE PROPOSAL

While the city is attempting to address both gang violence (with the recent gang injunction) and truancy (Stay In School campaign), the city has yet to address truancy caused by gang violence — specifi cally in the W.A. Evidenced by the lack of specifi c information regarding W.A. truancy, coupled with the vehemence with which Reynolds expressed the urgency of gang-violence induced truancy, it is clear that this problem has not received suffi cient attention from San Franciscans. First, we must make those outside of the W.A. aware of the problems within the neighborhood — the gang violence, the truancy, the dangers that corruptible youth face. As with any cause, awareness inevitably brings about action. The San Francisco Unifi ed School District, the City Attorney, the students of the W.A., and the city police must come together, in a town-meeting format, to discuss the threats of gang violence to the safety and education of students. Possible solutions include a chartered bus route from the door of each housing project to the students’ respective schools. This solution would certainly be a signifi cant expenditure for the School District, but it could be funded through an additional cigarette tax, or something similar. Another possible solution would be the redevelopment of Ida B. Wells as an academically rigorous institution that students could safely walk to and be motivated to attend each day. Alternatively, the school district could potentially provide students with vouchers to attend private school in the W.A.; these vouchers would allow them to economically compete for a place in schools that had previously been out of reach. In any event, the most crucial issue to address is students’ exposure to violence. Whatever changes are made, or not made, students who grow up in gang territories must be provided with adequate grief and violence counseling, either from within their housing projects, or at school. Gang violence counseling and

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rehabilitation is an expenditure that the city cannot aff ord not to invest in. This discussion of possible solutions is one that must be held by members of the community directly involved in the problem — people who fully understand both the cause of the problem, and the consequences of possible solutions.

Whether or not you believe in the intrinsic value of each W.A. student — and his or her right to an adequate education — is irrelevant. This is a pressing problem to every citizen of San Francisco, whether he or she is directly aff ected or not. As previously discussed, truancy and gang violence have detrimental eff ects on youths; and these aff ected youths in turn aff ect society. 75% of criminals were habitual truants. If we can prevent children from skipping school or dropping out of school, perhaps we will prevent crime and continued negative and dangerous participation in society. In order to keep them in school, we must provide students with safe transportation to the institution of their choice, grief and violence counseling to off set the brutality at home, and welcoming, tolerant, and supportive environments in the classroom. Let us eliminate any excuse for missing school — let us work together to foster positive citizenship for a brighter, safer San Francisco.

Works Cited

Braga, Anthony A., David Onek, and Sarah Lawrence. Homicide and Serious Gun Violence in San Francisco. Rep. No. Berkeley Center for Criminal Justice, Berkeley Law University of California. Berkeley, CA, 2008.

Bulwa, Demian, and Marisa Lagos. “City Attorney Aims to Widen Gang Injunction.” 22 June 2007. San Francisco Chronicle. 24 Nov. 2008 <http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/06/22/bag14qk0mp1.dtl>.

Bulwa, Demian. “S.F. Killings Seen As Centering on Gangs, Turf.” SFGate.com. 101 Nov. 2008. San Francisco Chronicle. 24 Nov. 2008 <http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=c/a/2008/11/09/babr13vjgp.dtl>.

“Enrollment Information for 2008-2009 School Year.” San Francisco Unifi ed School District. 2007. San Francisco Unifi ed School District. 24 Nov. 2008 <http://portal.sfusd.edu/template/default.cfm?page=policy.placement.enrollment0809>.


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Felton, Richard B., Allen E. Liska, Scott J. South, and Thomas L. McNulty. The Subculture of Violence and Delinquency: Individual vs. School Context Eff ects. JStor. Sept. 1994. University of North Carolina Press. 26 Nov. 2008 <http://www.jstor.org/stable/2579921>.

Fullbright, Leslie. “San Chapter in W.A. History Ending.” SFGate.com. 21 July 2008. San Francisco Chronicle. 25 Nov. 2008 <http://sfgate.com/cgi- bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/07/21/ba6511q4go.dtl>.

The Gang Free San Francisco Initiative. UCSF.edu. Nov. 2002. University of California San Francisco Resource Development Associates. 26 Nov. 2008. <https://www.partnerships.ucsf.edu/pdfs/pdf_commdata_14.pdf>.

Gang OSC Hearing: Herrera IDs 76 Gang Members in Case for Injunctions in Mission, W.A. United States of America. City of San Francisco Government. Offi ce of the City Attorney. 12 July 2007. Offi ce of the City Attorney. 24 Nov. 2008 <http://www.sfgov.org/site/cityattorney_page.asp?id=63932>.

Hagan, John, and Holly Foster. “Youth Violence and the End of Adolescence.” American Sociological Review. 66 (2001): 874-99.

Neighborhood Safety: Tackling Chronic School Absenteeism. United States of America. City and County of San Francisco. San Francisco District Attorney’s Offi ce. 2008. San Francisco District Attorney’s Offi ce. 24 Nov. 2008 <http://www.sfdistrictattorney.org/page.asp?id=70>.

Reynolds, Chantal. “Truancy in the W.A.” Personal Interview. 5 Nov. 2008.

Sabatini, J. “W.A. Top S.F. Murder Spot in 2007.” SF Examiner. 13 May 2007. San Francisco Examiner. 24 Nov. 2008 <http://www.examiner.com/a- 615842~western_addition_top_s_f_murder_spot_in_2007.html>.

San Francisco Demographic Profi le. 2005-2010. Consolidated Plan, MOCD. San Francisco, CA, 2005.

“San Francisco Municipal Railway.” 511.org. 2008. Metropolitan Transportation Commission. 1 Dec. 2008 <http://transit.511.org/static/providers/maps/sf_7122007102343.pdf>.

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“Student Assignment System.” San Francisco Unifi ed School District. 2007. San Francisco Unifi ed School District. 24 Nov. 2008. <http://portal.sfusd.edu/template/default.cfm?page=policy.placement.process>.

Verel, Dan. “Injunction Dysfunction.” San Francisco Bay Guardian Online. 3 Oct. 2007. San Francisco Bay Guardian. 24 Nov. 2008 <http://www.sfbg.com/entry.php?entry_id=4649&catid=4>.

DIRECT-TO-CONSUMER PERSONAL GENOMICS: PROMISE OR PRETENSE?

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WRITER’S COMMENTS

What if you could read your own DNA? Personal genomics companies are now dangling that tantalizing possibility before consumers, and it raises a host of fascinating questions. My assignment for Professor Danielle Liubicich’s Biology 310 class, Genetics, was to look at the scientifi c background of personal genomics, as well as ethical, social, legal or other issues involved. This topic is my favorite kind: it spans many disciplines, and not one fi eld can really declare dominance. Geneticists made this personal genomics possible, and the science behind it is fascinating and extremely dynamic. But commerce, ethics, government regulation, and public interest are also vying for leading roles. The challenge in writing the paper was to contain my research, weave together material from scientifi c journals and mainstream media, and organize a discussion that seemed constantly to want to veer off in interesting new directions.

—Katherine Burke


Scientifi c discoveries are constantly changing the way we live our everyday lives. It is crucial that we challenge our science students to think outside the lab and truly appreciate the numerous legal, social, and ethical impacts the latest technological advances have on society. In our Genetics course, students critically analyze the scientifi c background and societal implications of cutting edge research in areas ranging from genetically modifi ed foods to genetic testing. Katherine Burke prepared an impressive piece exploring personal genomics, which is the practice of deciphering the information encoded by an individual’s DNA sequence. Katherine’s essay captures the excitement of this growing fi eld, and she carefully dissects the various ethical issues surrounding the sequencing of individual genomes. Her paper provides wonderful insight into how this fi eld arose, the current state of research, and the many questions and concerns that arise as we learn to live with this plethora of new information. Katherine’s essay is incredibly thought-provoking and inspires readers to discover what their unique DNA sequence holds in store for the future.

—Danielle Liubicich, Department of Biology

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KATHERINE S. BURKE

Direct-to-Consumer Personal Genomics: Promise or Pretense?

ADVANCES in genetics over the last 20 years have led to the sequencing of the human genome, a scientifi c milestone that brings with it

extraordinary potential: As we learn more about our genetic makeup, we are better able to understand what distinguishes us as humans and as individuals. Sequencing the genome allows scientists to unlock the mysteries of gene function and expression and thus creates enormous possibilities for research in human biology. But what does it off er on an individual level? The fi eld of personal genomics—providing genomic data to individuals from analysis of their own DNA—is expanding rapidly, but debate about its utility and the risks involved is heated. This paper explores the scientifi c basis for personal genomics, the content and context of the information off ered to consumers, and some of the ethical and social issues raised by this new fi eld.

Scientifi c Basis: Sequencing Advances and Genome-Wide Association StudiesThe Human Genome Project, conceived in 1984 and launched in 1990, sought to sequence the entire human genome at a cost of $3 billion by 2005 (Church, 2006). Entrepreneur Craig Venter started his own sequencing venture in 1999 at a considerably lower cost. The rival eff orts both announced success in 2001, publishing results together in 2003 and creating a host of useful sequencing methods and technologies (Church, 2006). The cost of sequencing a human genome dropped to $20 million by 2004, and Complete Genomics, a company in Mountain View, California, has promised that by June it will be able to sequence a complete genome for $5,000, with a commercial product available within a year (“Getting Personal”, 2009). A National Institutes of Health initiative challenges scientists to complete a $1,000 sequencing by 2014 (Church, 2006).

Gene sequencing technology got its start with the work of Fred Sanger, who in the 1970s developed a technique to read a DNA molecule by


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taking a single strand and synthesizing its complement. During synthesis, he and his colleagues used dideoxynucleotides (one for each of the four deoxynucleotides) to cause the new strand to terminate at random, specifi c points on the strand. These stops create a set of DNA fragments of varying lengths, which can be separated by gel electrophoresis. Analyzing the length and labeling of each fragment yields the sequence of bases in the DNA (Klug, 2009). Sanger sequenced a 5400-bp genome of a virus in 1977. The usefulness of his technique was immensely enhanced by the advent of PCR (polymerase chain reaction) technology in 1986, which permitted development of automated DNA sequencing over the next two decades.

Sanger’s approach is relatively reliable and accurate but remains expensive and slow. Newer approaches seek to correct these defi ciencies by “cutting out the slow separation steps, miniaturizing components to reduce chemical volumes, and executing reactions in a massively parallel fashion so that millions of sequence fragments are read simultaneously” (Church, 2006). Improvements in sequencing techniques are moving so fast that the rate of improvement exceeds that of microprocessor speed, which, according to Moore’s law, doubles every two years (“Getting Personal,” 2009). Figure 1 shows the reduction in sequencing costs and the increase in base pairs sequenced in the Genbank database over the past four decades.

Fig. 1 (Source: Getting Personal: The promise of cheap genome sequencing. Economist, 2009, 391:8627, 9-11.)

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Four promising new techniques are base extension, ligation, nanoballs, and nanopores. Base extension and ligation are methods that mimic portions of natural DNA replication and use a series of chemical reactions to read the genome (Church, 2006).

• In base extension, a template strand of DNA is anchored by one end and a primer is attached at the start. Fluorescently tagged nucleotides and polymerase are added, and one nucleotide joins the new strand started by the primer. After washing, a laser is used to excite the fl uorescent tag and read the new base. The process is repeated for each base pair in the strand. (Pyrophosphate detection is a similar method that used bioluminescence instead of fl uorescence.) PCR amplifi es the signal.

• The ligation technique uses a template strand attached to a bead, with a starting primer attached. Query primers are made for each of the four bases: These are short, fl uorescently labeled stretches of degenerate DNA with one intact nucleotide at the “query” position. The query primers are added with ligase, and one query primer attaches to the starting primer. This process is repeated with diff erent starting primers to reveal the DNA sequence.

Both ligation and base extension usually require that millions of copies of the template strand be sequenced at once in order to make the signal strong enough to read. Improvements in amplifi cation techniques have helped lower costs and improve speed. “Polonies” are one example: Single template DNA molecules are added to colonies of polymerase on a slide or gel, where they grow millions of copies, almost like a bacterial colony (Church, 2006). A similar process can generate polonies on beads in an emulsion. Multiplexing is another area of enhancement. Using bead polonies and single-molecule arrays, technicians can sequence millions of molecules at once.

• Nanoballs are a new technique in which circular DNA templates of about 80 bp are copied to create a “ball” consisting of more than 200 copies of the template connected head-to-tail. These then self-array on a patterned surface, one to a spot, fi lling 90% of the spots. Ligation, described above, is then used to read the sequences (Complete Genomics, 2009).


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• Nanopore sequencing takes an altogether diff erent approach: Using DNA’s attraction to a positive charge, the template strand is drawn across a membrane through a pore with a diameter of 1.5 nanometers. As the strand proceeds, each base in the chain momentarily blocks the pore, changing the membrane’s electrical charge. Each of the four nucleotides causes a slightly diff erent change, thus allowing the sequence to be read as the template passes through. The method can analyze DNA fragments of 100,000 bps (Petterson, 2009).

Comparing sequencing methods requires detailed analysis of speed (base pairs/second), read length (size of DNA fragments read), raw accuracy, and cost (Petterson, 2009). Nanopore technology—under development by several companies, including Agilent Technologies—is cheap and fast because it does not require ampifi cation or chemical reactions. An entire human genome can be sequenced in 20 hours. However, this method is not yet commercially available nor thoroughly studied. Nanoball technology is so new that no peer-reviewed articles on its use in DNA sequencing are yet available. Comparing peer-reviewed studies of a ligation method by his own lab and a base-extension application by 454 Life Sciences, a competitor, Church notes that both groups sequenced about 30 million base pairs, with ligation reading 400 bp/second and base-extension 1,700 bp/second. However, the base-extension group required 43 runs per base in the target genome to achieve an error rate of 1 per 2,500 base pairs. The ligation group was more accurate, with less than one error per 3 million base pairs after 7 runs per base. Both groups used beads, but because the ligation group used much smaller beads, the amount of chemicals required was lower (Church, 2006). A year later, 454 Life Sciences was reporting that its Genome Sequencer FLX off ers longer reads (up to 250 bps) and can run 400,000 reads a day with 99.75% accuracy (Blow, 2007).

The complexity, novelty and rapidity of change in DNA sequencing technology means that there is no clear industry standard, but improvements are coming fast, and the $1,000 genome may arrive three years ahead of its deadline (Petterson, 2009).

The importance of sequencing to personal genomics rests in part on genome-wide association studies (GWAS). In this approach, researchers scan markers across many human genomes to fi nd common factors that may relate to a disease or phenotype. If an association is found, further research can be targeted to explore the pathway or disease mechanism

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involved. The National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) at NIH is developing databases to support and disseminate such research, and NIH has several GWAS initiatives underway (Hirschhorn, 2005). However, the fi eld is new, and many feel that current studies are too small and will not hold up as research progresses. “Comprehensive data sets to establish informatics links among ten thousand to a million human genome sequences and extensive phenotype analyses are needed to eff ectively generate and test hypotheses” (Lunshof, 2008). Robust studies require complete genome sequencing for many people with and without disease, which is still not technically feasible. However, it is increasingly possible to do partial surveys of the genome by genotyping large number of common single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) (Wang, 2005). The execution and analysis of gene-association studies will require great care as the fi eld unfolds (Hirschhorn, 2005).

Personal Genomics: The Consumer ExperienceSequencing technologies have created many research pathways, of which perhaps the most enticing is the exploration of the human genome. Researchers are enumerating genotypic variations and associating them with phenotypes, and these will enhance understanding of disease, therapeutic targets, and treatment (Michelson, 2008). But there is another consequence of sequencing the human genome: The idea has captured the public imagination and launched the new industry of personal genomics.

Companies like Knome, 23andMe, 454 Life Sciences, Navigenics and deCODE Genetics off er consumers the ability to access their genomic information through genetic scans (Petterson, 2008). Knome charges $99,500 for a complete sequencing and analysis. Most charge $400 to $1,000 to read a sampling of single nucleotide polymorphisms, or SNPS, that encode genes associated with diseases, traits or ancestry. Such companies ask clients to send saliva or blood samples and provide reports through a secure online site. 23andMe, for instance, off ers analysis of 580,000 SNPS, providing information on more than 80 diseases, conditions or traits (Pinker, 2009). The site off ers customers information about diseases, links to research, and community forums. An individual’s “disease propensity” is reported in comparison with the general population. The site identifi es research as “established” or “preliminary,” though the client’s marker results are available for both (23andme.com, 2009). This site is careful to note


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that genotype is only part of the puzzle and thus not diagnostic. How many consumers are embracing this new technology is

unclear. The companies involved are privately held and quiet about how many customers they have. A survey by the San Francisco biotechnology investment bank Burrill & Company reports that only 5% of consumers are “very likely” to opt for a disease-related genetic test in the next few years, and 35% said they wouldn’t consider it (Fox, 2008). The publisher of a medical-market research fi rm comments that the fi eld will be “very profi table,” noting that “the problem won’t be [lack of] customers” (Elton, 2009). The Personal Genome Project, a Harvard-based initiative to sequence individual genomes and make the results publicly available, off ered its fi rst 10 genomes just two years ago. And, despite the fact that one must pass an exam indicating an understanding of the science and risks, 6,000 people have studied up and joined the Personal Genome’s wait list (Pinker, 2009). In addition, frequent articles in the New York Times, the Economist, Boston magazine, and other mainstream media are exploring both the science of genetic testing and the social and individual impact of the opportunity (Pinker, 2009; Elton, 2009; The Economist, 2008, 2009). Nature listed “Personal Genomics Goes Mainstream” as a top news story of 2008 (Yeager, 2008).

It is clear that “the genome is out of the bottle,” as one author put it (Hunter, 2009). A Harvard psychology professor who wrote about having his genome sequenced by the Personal Genome Project argues that the era of personal genomics has arrived:

People who have grown up with the democratization of information will not tolerate paternalistic regulations that keep them from their own genomes, and early adopters will explore how this new information can be used to manage our health. There are risks of misunderstandings, but there are also risks in much of the fl imfl am we tolerate in alternative medicine, and in the hunches and folklore that many doctors prefer to evidence-based medicine. And besides, personal genomics is just too much fun. (Pinker, 2009)

If direct-to-consumer personal genomics is here to stay, what are the consequences for society and for individuals? The list of issues raised in the scientifi c literature and the mainstream media is extensive. A brief analysis of some of the most important follows.

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Individual Choices: The Burden of ‘Knowing’One of the primary areas of concern in personal genomics is at the level of the individual: Should someone be able to learn whether or not she carries a genotype with a potentially life-changing impact? If so, what are the responsibilities of the parties involved: the individual, the service provider, the physician (who may or may not be part of it but is likely to be brought in in the case of bad news)? For the responsible individual, what preparation is required? What is the burden of knowing? Does one tell one’s children and have them tested? At what age might they learn their own results? What about adult relatives? One can have this debate regarding disease-related SNPs (or, eventually, other genetic variants that a whole-genome scan might provide). Further, one might ponder SNPs that may eventually be associated with intelligence or personality traits. Companies such as 23andMe are building websites that off er support and education for the individual, and the staff is careful to underscore the idea that a SNP is rarely determinative. 23andMe has as yet not provided clients with information on the ApoE4 gene, carried by 25% of the population and associated with a tripling of the risk for Alzheimer’s disease. (For those with two copies of the variant, the risk is multiplied 15 times.) With the stakes so high, the company says on its site, they are holding off until research and analysis of results is more defi nitive (23andme.com, 2009).

Accuracy and ValidityGeneticists, with more genomes sequenced and new tools for analysis, are making progress in genome-wide association studies, off ering an increasingly number of links between SNPs, other DNA variants and traits or disease susceptibility. Nonetheless, Muin Khoury, director of the genomics offi ce at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, states that for now, personal genome sequencing or scanning SNPs provides “no useful information” (Lehrman, 2008). His perspective, shared by a number of concerned scientists and policymakers, is that the validity of most associations between a SNP and disease susceptibility is suspect. Conditions such as heart disease and diabetes are the result of complex webs of many genes, as well as behaviorial and environmental factors. Huntington’s disease is cited as a disease caused by a single bp mutation, but such examples are rare.

Sometimes a SNP’s disease association is identifi ed by a small, weak study that may be widely publicized. Such was the case for the SOD2 gene: Companies claimed it was associated with breast cancer, but a large study showed that this claim was inaccurate that there was no association


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(Pharoah, 2008). Another gene, TCF7L2, did prove strongly linked to type 2 diabetes: Homozygosity doubles one’s risk. Yet critics note that if one does not have other risk factors, then even a valid doubled risk is not a signifi cant fi nding. (Economist, 2007) Still, if one is obese and homozygous for this variant, one might fi nd that information motivating.

The jury is still out on the usefulness of genome-wide association studies. Defenders believe it is too soon to judge and that the fi eld should be allowed to develop rapidly (Michelson, 2008). Others would impose regulation on a “fi rst do no harm” basis. (Wasson, 2006). The application of bioinformatics to the fl ood of genomic data now being created may yield more value as research progresses, but what to do in the meantime is open to debate.

The Physician/Patient RelationshipThe internet’s impact on medicine started with WebMD and similar sites that permit patients to research their symptoms and diseases, real or imagined, and evaluate courses of treatment and other medical advice themselves. Personal genomics operates in a similar way: The services off ered by 23andMe and others give users an online database of their own SNPs as well as access to a host of articles and links related to each of the diseases, traits, and other items in their profi le. There is even a Wikipedia-like SNPedia that catalogs information about SNPs (Hayden, 2008). In a sense, a provider like 23andMe or Navigenics is a portal, and the internet off ers countless paths to follow for more information on one’s genomic picture. Whether this fl ood of information is empowering or overwhelming depends on the education and motivation of the consumer, and will surely change as the market and resources develop.

Some worry that this will become a burden for physicians, as some feel WebMD-like sites are. One author envisions, for example, an overweight, inactive man whose children gave him a personal genomics kit as a gift to prod him toward better health. He arrives at the doctor’s offi ce with his SNPs profi le, and the doctor must explain its poor predictive value or, as this article suggests, tell the patient to come back in a few years when the information might be better (Hunter, 2008). Others have suggested that the fact that consumers are seeking health information is a good thing, and that they may be motivated by the genomic results to make behavioral changes. (Conversely, they could be demotivated by results that suggest their risk is less than typical.) At any rate, access to personal genomic information is a reality, and the medical profession will need to accommodate it: “The old ideal of physicians as keepers of confi dential

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information is outstripped by the reality of individuals who decide themselves about the way of using their data,” notes one commentary. (Lunshof, 2008).

How genomic information is interpreted and used is a key area for research and development that will involve industry, policy makers seeking to protect consumers, physicians advising patients, and of course the individuals themselves.

Confi dentialityThere is an inherent push and pull over confi dentiality in genomics: Researchers increasingly use and share comprehensive genotype and phenotype data sets, and these are often publicly accessible. Comprehensive data enhances the validity of genome-wide association studies. Yet accessibility of such data risks compromising anonymity: After all, DNA is in itself an identifi er. Sensitivity to an individual’s privacy and confi dentiality argues toward restricting the use of sequenced genomes, contrary to the interests of research. Over the past 30 years or so, regulatory frameworks have established protocols to protect personal data in research, and codes and keys are designed to off er protection. However, research in medical informatics suggests that such protection is illusory in the fi eld of genomics: One bioinformatics expert has made a speciality of re-identifying individuals whose genomes have supposedly been anonymized (Malin, 2004 and 2006).

A group including George Church, the Harvard professor who heads the Personal Genome Project, warns that “transporting the traditional idea of confi dentiality into the protocols of large-scale genomics research” is an unsustainable endeavor (Lunsdof, 2008). “Whenever genetic samples are involved, re-identifi cation will be possible,” they assert (Lunshof, 2008). Moreover, they argue, “remaining silent on this point may cause irrevocable damage to trust in science and researchers.” Church suggests that individuals may give up confi dentiality based on mutual trust between the patient, physician, and or researcher. However, he cautions, this can backfi re. “Society can try to regulate the use of health-related and genetic data. But informing people of the potential impact of their own decision to go public with their personal data will likely be the fi rst huge challenge beyond the traditional protection of privacy and confi dential.” Church and his colleagues urge a reappraisal of the relationship between scientists and their research subjects. The Personal Genome Project has a novel open-consent model, which essentially promises no confi dentiality to participants and requires them to demonstrate understanding of the risks. They


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conclude that “the most likely pragmatic solution would entail maximizing data protections while informing people about its limits” (Church, 2005).

It is worth noting that the process of developing new frameworks and protocols for genomic research is not a project for scientists alone. Social scientists, consumers, policy makers, and industry leaders should also have a voice. “We urgently need an integrative eff ort to prepare for the shift to a personalized healthcare that will include personal genome services,” comments the director of Europe’s Centre for Public Health Genomics (Brand, 2009).

The Challenge of RegulationThe regulatory picture for direct-to-consumer genomic services is complex and dynamic. Currently, U.S. companies face a panoply of regulations at the state level, with 24 states prohibiting or limiting their activity. New York and California issued cease-and-desist letters to personal genomics companies and California has sought to regulate the businesses as labs, even though the processing of samples is contracted out. Both states eventually dropped objections and issued licenses, but the situation illustrates the uncertain and changing regulatory environment (Fox, 2008).

The federal government entered the picture in 2007 with passage of the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act (GINA), which prohibits discrimination by insurers and employers on the basis of genetic information. Further regulation at the federal level could come from several federal agencies and initiatives, including the Food and Drug Administration and Federal Trade Commission (Fox, 2008). Both the American Society of Human Genetics and the American College of Medical Genetics are proposing nongovernmental regulation for direct-to-consumer companies (Fox, 2008). Some European-led eff orts are urging the industry to form an “Association of Personal Genome Service Providers” to set common guidelines and defi ne best practices (Brand, 2009). The content of regulatory eff orts to date runs the gamut from “buyer beware” to outright prohibition: Scientists tend to favor allowing the technology and research possibilities to develop unimpeded, which physician commentators tend to advise caution.

ConclusionPersonal genomics is in its infancy. The utility of the information off ered consumers so far is marginal. In 2005, Church of the Human Genome Project compared personal genomes to the fi rst fax machine or web page: “Until communities of resources build up, these revolutionary new

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tools serve mainly the ‘early adopters’….heroes and human guinea-pigs paving the way for potentially increasing utility for the general public” (Church, 2005). As the fi eld matures, it will likely acquire both more scientifi c validity and credibility and more agreement on best practices for companies involved. Fears about the risks and value have led to calls to limit and regulate the industry, but there is no going back: Genomic data is available and accessible. A fl ood of genomic information is coming for consumers and researchers to comprehend and interpret. The interplay of commerce, academia, government and consumers in this arena will be fascinating to watch as it unfolds.

The ethical issues raised by genomics are vast, and both societal and highly personal. One writer who interviewed Church for a long article in Boston magazine told him her own story. She had resisted testing as a young woman, despite a family history of cancer. Church allowed that it was diffi cult to make such a decision. She explained that she later had the test and despite bad news did not have surgeries or rush to have children early. Some people take more risks, Church said, noting that that too could be genetically infl uenced. When she disclosed that she had had cancer, he said he was very sorry.

People make decisions, Church said, and live with the consequences. But those consequences become our lives, and we end up becoming the decisions we make. We can never know what we would be like had we chosen diff erently.… My relative is convinced that if she hadn’t had her surgeries, she defi nitely would have gotten cancer. I tell myself that if I had tested earlier in life, I might not have had my oldest daughter…. George Church tells himself his story, in which his technology is used only for good, where there is always something to be gained, and never lost, from more information about our genes, and where if science can do something, it should. We all believe whatever it is that convinces us we’ve done the right thing. It’s simply in our nature. (Elton, 2009).

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