Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Candide and Leibniz
The philosophes of the Englightenment, such as Descartes and Voltaire, were concerned with discovering a foundation for Truth that relied not on superstition and the opinions of others, but on matter and the mind. Consider this statue of Voltaire in reference to the "Archaic Torso Of Apollo" of Rilke's poem. Voltaire's statue is starkly realistic and yet profoundly human and dynamic at the same time. In Candide, Voltaire was responding in part to Leibniz' argument that, roughly speaking, as God is "good" and as he has created this world, then there could be no better world than the one we currently have. Candide, on the other hand, raises the question of how to live in a world dominated by tragedy - both natural and man-made. It's the same question that I think we all still deal with one way or another today: how do we deal with pain, with death, and with faith and science. Voltaire and Leibniz represent, for our purposes, the opposite sides of the Englightenment argument: Is rationality a useful response to the world if it makes us feel less secure; to what degree is "reason" our particular faculty to exercise and perfect; can "reason" actually make us less fulfilled and even more prone to tragedy?
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8 comments:
Poor Candide, even those in cloaks who preach charity deny him food...
I think its great that a passerby helps Candide, not those who preach help/care for others.
I couldn't help but find humour in how EVERY POSSIBLE THING goes wrong for these characters. And how come everyone who supposedly gets killed off survives?
I have been staring at that last sentence for a while and mulling it over in my head...
"Reason" is hard to rationalize with. I can talk until i'm blue in the face about how everything happens for a reason (one door close another one opens bla bla bla) but as soon as heartache hits me close to home, I suddenly can't find reason in whatever the painful situation is, no matter how hard I look.
I think what i'm trying to say, is reason makes us unfulfilled and more prone to tradgedy because we set our expectations too high ("oh this great thing is happening to me/this great person came into my life for a reason"), and then when we are let down by that very same situation, we suddenly have to REVERSE our belief ("that didn't work out for a reason"). It gets very confusing. In fact, I think i'm confusing myself right now. Does this make any sense? haha.
Jacques - you'll find that Moliere in particular, like Voltaire, has a very poor opinion of the Catholic church and its officials and representatives, which they viewed as corrupt.
Jesse - by reason, I'm talking about the faculty of understanding phenomena based on empirical evidence arranged in a logical way so that the conclusions reached are verifiable and repeatable. If I say, "Well, there must be a reason that driver hit my car," then I'm assuming there is a CAUSE that I can't fathom. My assumption of a cause is something like a belief in destiny, like faith that the world is controlled by forces that "have their reasons." For Voltaire and other Enlightenment Rationalists like Descartes, "Reason" is just a tool that you use to figure things out. It is the OPPOSITE of taking things on "faith," of assuming things happen because they are supposed to. It leads some people to despair because "Reason" tends to not find any particular purpose or "point" to anything, at least not outside of what we ourselves argue is important. This is the heart of existentialism, which Camus (in our packet) found liberating. It's also why the current Pope and the one before him, John Paul II, have argued that the Englightenment made the world more miserable, since it estranged people from God.
i have 20 more pages to go and i really enjoy this book... the tragedies in this story are enormous! everyone has had like 100 ridiculously horrible things happen to them and they all just start telling their sob story to whoever, or more importantly candide.
and yes what is with everyone not really dying? thats so soap opera.
i do like though how Voltaire is not sugar coating the world... yes bad things happen and do happen to everyone, but wow after half way through it really makes you think how tragedy touches everyone (even though its a story)
Reason i think is a natural human response within ourselves, but its also completely enviromental... your surroundings effect your life in so many conscious and unconscious ways... when tragedy hits "close to home" thats when you see how people deal with what they've been given in life.
death, break ups, fights... anything can bring personal tragedy to someone... but threw reason, i think it's almost like a path or road to take, its a choice... what road do i take at this moment in my life? coping, moving on.. you dont know how you would until you are on that point on that road... and sometimes everything changes.
Reason can bring on more unhappy, less fulfilling times, but i do feel that with reason comes good things.. make a good choice in your life and you will see the benefits later on down the road... like candide thinks will happen... and i keep thinking the word "karma" as i read this book.... 20 more pages, here i go...
Reading Candide is very...argravating with a mix of depressing. When the Imam pursuades everyone to "cut off one buttock" from each lady instead of just full blown eating them, just fill me up with mucho aggro. Then to think "if you have to come back for more in a few days time, you can take as much agian; heaven will smile on so charitable an action, and you will be rescued" WHAT?!! How can you think like that, you are eating a womens buttock, total disregard for people, women, children. Plus all the rape goings on, everyone is so horrible, how day anyone rape.
Jacques gets punched by sailor.
Sailor almost falls to certain doom.
Jacques then saves sailor whom punched him.
In doing so sailor is saved Jacques is now in water, and sailor "leaves him to drown without even a backward glance"
Dog eat dog world...why do we exist if we act like this? How horrible, sad, disgracful!
I think it is sad and revolting, but then so is much of human history. So how does Voltaire address the problem? Is there any God or supernatural power available to Candide in the end? What is the resolution?
I’ve always believed that everything happens for a reason. My best friend in high school always used to refer to things with the “meant-to-be ness factor.” If it’s meant to be,it will. However, it is hard to rationalize that things are meant to be when we are faced with tragedy. Candide experiences several terrible situations but still keeps the faith in God and that there is always a cause and effect for everything. To try to “reason” out every situation we are faced with in life is hard. Especially when faced with tragedy, sometimes there is no reason or explanation.
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