As Kant states at the opening of the Groundwork for the Metaphysic of Morals, “Nothing in the world [...] could be called ‘good’ without qualification except a good will.” The ultimate good is a good will, and man achieves goodness through adherence to and carrying out of this will, by cultivation of maxims of action. These maxims, adopted individually, are extrapolated through the categorical imperative by virtue of universal reason to the whole of mankind. This belies a fundamental acknowledgement of the rational faculties of all people, and the collective mandate to carry out and thus define morality.

The above established, it is possible to understand why Kant views evil as radical: because the only unqualified good is the good will, the moment one subordinates the maxim of goodness as their ultimate maxim that defines all others, by, for example, choosing self-interest over morality, it is impossible to claim that good is still one’s ultimate motivation, and thus one is evil. In order to better understand evil, Kant examines in Religion within the Limits of Bare Reason its source, and establishes that evil is the result of man’s “social impulse.” Kant posits that evil is derivative of human existence in confrontation with other humans, that it is naturally born of communal interaction. Importantly, the emphasis on “nature” implies inevitability, but not a dispossession of responsibility for action: a perfectly natural inclination cannot be assigned moral value, and thus evil must be a function of free human choice in the face of a possible alternative.

The alternative to evil, resultant from social inclination, is adherence to moral law. As such, Kant emphasizes that morality must in turn be fostered by communal life. He introduces the concept of an ethical commonwealth, meaning a community in which all members adopt adherence to duty as their ultimate maxim, regardless of the legal nature of the society. The fundamental question that must be asked here is then: how is the jump made from a radical evil in human nature to the establishment of a kingdom of ends? Kant, characteristically, places the onus on the individual: though the source of evil is social, its overcoming is personal: “it has to happen through a revolution in the man’s attitude.”

This is the crux of humanity’s ability to surmount our radical evil – the personal revolution, acting under overarching divine outlines. Kant defines this revolution as “a single unchangeable decision [that] reverses the ultimate basis of his maxims whereby he was a bad man,” which can be understood in the context of Kant’s greater philosophy of enlightenment. In What is Enlightenment? Kant strikingly defines the term as “man’s emergence from his self-imposed immaturity.” Enlightenment, or the revolution for good, is envisioned by Kant as not only a personal and individual process, but importantly, an autonomous one. There is no external incentive for enlightenment; Kant stresses again and again that only man’s free choice is the determinate in his actions, as choice not made freely cannot be assigned moral value. In fact, society, as established, is a hurdle to the achievement of goodness. Rather, the revolution in one’s frame of mind, in which the individual grasps the courage to throw off the shackles of said immaturity and adopt reason, and inherently and consequently morality, is an entirely sovereign one.

Kant’s overcoming of evil is an act of personal revolution. Though man possesses a propensity to evil, one fanned by our fundamentally communal nature, it is possible to subdue this evil through the fateful, radical, moral choice – that of enlightened personal revolution, that of the exercising of freedom and rationality to consciously examine the good, and seek it out, placing it as one’s ultimate objective.

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i am the girl who feeds the neighborhood cats. i started feeding them when i stopped feeding myself. i try to tie every selfish act to a selfless one, in order to maintain karmic balance. i do not commit selfless acts on their own. probably that is what my mother would like. probably that is why i do not do it.

it has been 36 days since i have consumed anything but green tea mints and vitamin B12 capsules. i steal the mints routinely from the grocery store down the street. the trick is to take only from the small shops, the ones without the budget for a full security system. once a week i work an evening shift at the local food kitchen, as recompense for my theft. i cook simple meals, soups and pastas, and avoid eye contact with the people who come in to eat. i feel great pity for them, these poster children of a broken system, along with a sick sort of envy: their mothers probably do not know their addresses. mine, alas, does, and once a month i receive a large delivery box of B12 vitamins. i eat a mint every morning. the green tea reminds me of youthful summers and family fights at restaurants. the mint washes down the taste of bile in my throat. i eat the B12 vitamins whenever i am hungry, which is to say, all the time. i am the least B12 deficient young woman in the world. my B12 surplus would make even the gods jealous.

i ceased eating as an experiment, to see how long it would take for my body to wither away like dust in the wind until there was nothing left , or whatever else i imagined would happen. i find a sick nobility in my asceticism, but then again i tend to find tortured greatness in most of the things i do. clearly, i have not yet drifted away into nothingness, much to my chagrin. it may be time to take matters into my own hands soon.

today my romantic entanglement knocks on my front door. my apartment is on the ground floor, cramped and nondescript, the door is brown with a broken peep hole. i do not have many possessions. my landlord is an old woman. every first of the month i imagine myself a younger, more beautiful raskolnikov, that is how much i cannot stand her crooning and cookie boxes. i am sure i could never go through with it, though. just think how many volunteer hours i would have to put in to make up for that!

my romantic entanglement knocks again, pulling my out of my reverie. i call him such because i do not really care for him. every ex-boyfriend i’ve ever had was right: i do really only love myself. i open the door for him, letting K into my apartment. he loves my hipbones, my wry comments, my sociology degree. he loves my embarrassed giggle and the fact that i own only one pair of shoes. i love the way he slaps me when i’m on my knees and i love listening to radiohead and imagining him imagining me.

K kisses me without saying hello and then deposits a bag of groceries in the small kitchen. what should i cook, he asks. oh, whatever you want, i’m not hungry. suit yourself, is the reply. i sneak a B12 tablet when he is not looking. some things are not meant for his eyes. i watch him eat. he is messy. this is a reason i could not love him. if there was methodology to his gluttony i might respect him more. while he washes the dishes i take food out to the cats. they swarm before me when they smell the food, parting like the red sea for moses only when i make hissing sounds at them. i do not care much for these creatures, but such is my lot in this world. we all have our duties.

later, after K has finished and i have not, we lie in bed, shoulder to shoulder. i trace his collarbones with an idle hand. he grips my thigh. come out with us tonight, he implores. he has been trying to introduce me to his friends. i do not know whose approval he seeks more: theirs of me or mine of them. i’m sorry baby, i’m just too tired. i choke out the baby for his sake, i know he likes it. see? i can do nice things. besides, tonight i am busy. my experiment it coming to a close.

after kissing K goodbye i debate my attire. a pile of discarded clothes forms beneath the mirror until i am finally satisfied. i swallow a mint, though it is night and i hate to break routine. the rope is coarser than i had imagined, but no matter. after much debate, i had decided the rope was the best balance of subtlety and drama, not as plebeian as the knife and almost as dramatic as the gun. i decide to open my ground floor door to the cats. such a big gesture calls for a great balancing, karmically speaking. i decide that providing for these cats one last time would be right.

the sound of a crash brings us streaming through the open door. we sniff the girl who feeds us. she is lying on the ground and smalls of death. we are street cats. we do not know how to hunt, we know to take what we can get. we tear in, dozens of tiny teeth at once. this is much better than pellets.

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Reflexivity is a tool employed in the critical analysis of various fields, including literature, sociology, phenomenology, and others. In sociology, for example, it refers to the conscious self-epistemology of one’s place within the social order (e.g., Pierre Bourdieu, Anthony Giddens, etc.). Reflexivity, when applied to literature, is an aesthetic tool utilized to reveal the manner by which information is transmitted in a piece of writing, a film, or any other unit of storytelling. The reflexive act in literature is thus the conscious unveiling of the tools, structures, and methods employed in story transmission, in order to better and more critically investigate what is being transmitted.

“The Student” commences with a description of the weather, seemingly from the perspective of Ivan. He finds his surroundings “still,” and the forest to be “cheerless, remote, and lonely.” His observations are listless, as the winter wind penetrates his bones and leaves him “shrinking from the cold.” Ivan reflects on this cold, thinking it to be the very same one braved by “Rurik [...] Ivan the Terrible and Peter,” and is led to the conclusion that “the same desperate poverty and hunger” must also be just as enduring as the winter wind. This is the frame of mind with which Ivan begins the story: his considerations of phenomena that transcend the bounds of time are but those of the baser aspects of the human condition – “[a]nd he did not want to go home.” The cold brings him to think of the ever-enduring suffering in human life, and his conclusion is a desperate one: he wants to get away.

Things change when Ivan reaches the widows and the fire, and begins to recount the tale of Peter. By permitting a character to tell a story himself, Chekhov creates two distinct narrative levels, in the fashion of a mise en abyme. First, there is the outer one, that of Ivan, the widows, the cold, and the fire. Nestled within this tale is the story of Peter, told not by Chekhov or the narrator, but by Ivan. Within this narrative level, new characters are introduced. The irony here is that Ivan does not know that he himself is but another level in the narrative, a character inside a story being read by us and penned by Chekhov. Through this irony, the resemblance between Ivan’s experience with Peter’s story and the reader’s experience with Ivan’s is revealed.

At the conclusion of both narrative levels, i.e., the end of both Peter’s tale and nearing the end of “The Student” itself, the widows and Ivan are moved by the story told. Of one of them, Chekhov writes: “big tears flowed freely down her cheeks.” The fact that they are moved by the story leads Ivan to realize that there is a connection and universality to human experience that crosses the bounds of time, as the story he presented touches all, and is relevant “to both women, to the desolate village, to himself, to all people.” When Ivan tells the story of Peter, he self-referentially reflects on his action, that of telling a story, and comes to see the function that stories play as a convention in human life. His epiphany is the direct result of the perspective his storytelling gives him, and this epiphany radically changes his perspective. The resemblance borne between the levels is not missed by him: “Peter, too, stood with them near the fire and warmed himself as I am doing.” This understanding is instrumental to Ivan’s change in perspective, as his kinship with Peter opens the door to temporally transcendent connections.

It must be asked, then, what the character of Ivan’s epiphany is. Chekhov simply and stunningly puts it:

“And joy suddenly stirred in his soul, and he even stopped for a minute to take breath. ‘The past,’ he thought, ‘is linked with the present by an unbroken chain of events flowing one out of another.’ And it seemed to him that he had just seen both ends of that chain; that when he touched one end the other quivered.”

In the final passage of “The Student,” though Ivan’s environment does not change, his interpretation of it is entirely different. He ends the story possessed by “unknown mysterious happiness,” and most importantly, “life seemed to him enchanting, marvellous, and full of lofty meaning.” This is the change wrought by the reflexive exercise Ivan undertakes: telling a story provides him with the tools necessary to imbue his life with meaning, to construct novel understandings, and assign import to his experiences. Thus, Chekhov, through Ivan’s engagement with an internal story, illustrates the function of narratives as meaning-forming in human understanding of the world.

Here we return to the aforementioned irony of Ivan, too, as a character. Ivan’s realization of the interconnectedness of human experience is borne out of engagement with a story, yet he himself is but a character in one, in “The Student.” Thus, the actual mechanism of self-referentiality employed by Chekhov here is twofold: just as Ivan engages critically with storytelling as an act of creating meaning, the reader, too, grapples with the same process. The effect of Ivan’s epiphany is doubled in the mind of the reader, as not only do we encounter his realizations regarding the story he tells, but we come up with the very same ones regarding Ivan himself. Thus, the internal and external narrative levels come together to illustrate Chekhov’s central message to the reader.

In reading a story about the telling of stories, we come face to face with an inherent self-referentiality, our own actions reflected back on us within the narrative. Through this reflexive exercise, Chekhov transmits to us an essential epiphany by way of Ivan’s words. Although his environment does not change throughout the brief narrative, Ivan’s perspective on his life is radically different. This is because he realizes the transformative power of stories, and their ability to imbue previously meaningless experiences with newfound import. Stories, then, in “The Student,” are tools by which we construct meaning in our lives, and this conclusion is derived by reflecting back on the reader their own actions from within both narrative levels.

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On a freezing and rainy day last week, I found myself pruning grapevines with some of the men of Halhul, young and old alike. I am sure I was much of an anomaly to them: I could hear them chiding each other to work harder than me, as not only was I a stranger, “بنت كمن [bnt kaman]” – “she’s a girl, too!” My second time in Halhul was on a much warmer day. In a prolonged standoff with IDF soldiers who refused to allow us to pass, I sat down with some friends to roll a cigarette. When they asked about my tobacco, I showed it to them, explaining I had bought it in Germany. My companions replied that they would probably never see Germany, with their best bet at leaving the country being clandestine and illegal excursions to Jordan.

In contrast, a reminder: In 1948, the same year the state of Israel was established, the United Nations proclaimed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, a milestone document in the modern era. The word “freedom” appears in it 21 times. Article 13 reads:

“Everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each state.

Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country.”

In conjunction with all that is happening in Israel/Palestine this month, the Jewish holiday of Pesach, or Passover, arrives. In the Haggadah, the traditional text read each year, the following verses are invoked, around which the entire story of the holiday is constructed.

וַיּוֹצִאֵנוּ יְהֹוָה מִמִּצְרַיִם בְּיָד חֲזָקָה וּבִזְרֹעַ נְטוּיָה וּבְמֹרָא גָּדֹל וּבְאֹתוֹת וּבְמֹפְתִים׃

GOD freed us from Egypt by a mighty hand, by an outstretched arm and awesome power, and by signs and portents,

וַיְבִאֵנוּ אֶל־הַמָּקוֹם הַזֶּה וַיִּתֶּן־לָנוּ אֶת־הָאָרֶץ הַזֹּאת אֶרֶץ זָבַת חָלָב וּדְבָשׁ׃

bringing us to this place and giving us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey.

This is the essential Jewish tale: God took us out of Egypt and brought us to the land he promised us. Passover, also known as Chag HaCherut, the holiday of freedom, is a celebration of liberty, sovereignty, and self-determination. How do we grapple with this celebration, in the face of the unequivocal lack of freedom our Palestinian neighbors are subject to at our very own hands? How do we live in a land we claim fore-promised, at the expense of those who have resided here for generations?

In Kantian philosophy, morality and freedom are essentially intertwined: for something to be condemnable as wrong, it must be possible for us to choose an alternative to it. If we have no selective power between good and evil, then good and evil mean nothing. Morality is thus consequent to free choice. And Kant’s morality is such: “Act only on that maxim through which you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law.” This is the categorical imperative, Kant’s central theorem, predicated on simple assumptions: that man is free, and that the acknowledgment of our own freedom necessitates the acknowledgment of others’ capacity to freedom. Any maxim we adopt, any action we take, must be universally applicable.

Especially in this time of year, I find we take great pains to erase this universality. We emphasize our own Exodus from Egypt, get caught up in the mighty hand that freed us, in the land we were promised. We do this to forget the people who were here when we returned to the land seventy years ago, to expunge the systematic dispossession we subject them to.

This Pesach, I urge us to remember that freedom must be universal for it to be complete. My own liberty, violently taken at the price of another’s, is not only predicated on wrongdoing, but an unfinished freedom. “None of us are free until all of us are free,” (oft attributed to Maya Angelou, though traceable to Jewish-American writer Emma Lazarus) is not just a mantra, but a reminder that ontologically, freedom is a function of mutuality — when viewing our own capacity for freedom, we cannot ignore that same capacity in others. We cannot sit at our Passover tables, celebrating our liberty, while condoning it being stripped away from Palestinians.

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“personal problems are political problems”

“The Personal is Political,” Carol Hanisch

In high school, I was too morally superior to have an eating disorder. By this I mean: to be insecure, to appeal to the patriarchy in such a way, to give your sense of self over to the talons of a capitalist, racist, and most importantly, misogynistic standard of beauty was a defeat. I point-blank refused to be defined by a system whose sole purpose is the subjugation of women. This, to my mind, was not a personal preference, but a political stance, a moral one. If, as Sartre put it, existence precedes essence, then my actions are the determinant, not my convictions. How can a feminist justify adherence to the ubiquitous beauty standard? The only ethical stance that can be taken as a feminist is total rejection of the conventions of beauty in our society, and especially of thinness.

If we’re being honest, this stance was likely easier for me to take as I was already overweight. A priori, I was not considered in the same way as my peers, and my reaction was thus a total rejection of the whole endeavor. Still, a permeating feeling of unlovability can break down even the most woke of walls. A switch flipped somewhere, around the time I turned 19, and I gave in to the rat race I thought I was above.

“‘I know. It’s classic me, I came to college and got pretty.’”

Normal People, Sally Rooney

It is January 2025. This month I kiss a boy for the first time. I am also deeply disordered. I eat around 1,200 calories a day. Every gram of food is obsessively tracked. My brain is much too addled to think properly.

It is April 2025. I live on redbulls, cigarettes, and a single meal a day.

May 2025. I get my first boyfriend. I confess to him, deeply ashamed, that I have an eating disorder. He is not as shaken by this news as I want him to be. I eat much more in my time with him than I have in a while. This fact is extremely stressful to me. I break down in tears when he puts oil in our salads, or when he buys me a sandwich.

June. I visit home and see my parents for the first time in a year. Everyone I meet claims I am unrecognizable and that I look great. I am often asked if I eat enough.

November. I have done irreparable damage to my ability to eat. I restrict heavily and ricochet with intense and painful binges. I am very embarrassed by myself. I no longer have the sexy kind of eating disorder.

It is a month along the way. I am walking in the street. A woman passes me, and my mind immediately jumps to judgment of her eating habits. The damage I have wrought is much more than individual, and it is impossible for me to contain the poisonous rhetoric I direct toward my person, my looks, my food, to only myself. I have reached the point of judgment of others, and this I cannot stand.

More than anything, the experiences surrounding my issues with food and size have been defined by shame — the shame of having failed some sort of test, of being a “bad” feminist. I have felt I cannot truly call myself a feminist if I do not live by the principles of radical equality for women in every aspect of my personal life, and that my defeat constitutes a disqualification from being able to call myself a feminist, and thus a moral person.

“Does it follow that he is at once good and bad? No! That (...) is a contradiction.”

Religion Within the Limits of Bare Reason, Immanuel Kant

I am interested in outlining three main currents that guide my moral reasoning, each of which I ascribe to a particular philosophical framework.

Kant, both in his moral and religious philosophy, provides an understanding of human nature that is total: man is either good or bad. Though we possess inherent propensities to either, an individual’s nature is ultimately determined by one thing only, and that is whether or not she adopts the ultimate good as the qualification for all of her actions. Kant discusses an evil in human nature that is “radical,” by which he means not that it is all-encompassing or inescapable, but rather that it is definitive, capable of overwhelming all other facets of human nature.

Kant’s moral theory allows no room for straying from the path. Any and all subordination of the ultimate good in our priorities constitutes, in his eyes, a fundamental betrayal of morality as a whole and a corruption of the individual. This kind of rigorism is a very comfortable theory for an individual with tendencies to self-loathing to adopt, such as I. Any one of us familiar with constant guilt and shame permeating our being can relate to the feeling of fundamental brokenness that Kant’s morality belies: I am evil, inherently. Any minor imperfection is a spreading blemish that corrupts any hope I could have had of being good.

“man is condemned to be free.”

“Existentialism is a Humanism,” Jean-Paul Sartre

In Jean-Paul Sartre’s version of existentialist philosophy, the essential mantra is “existence precedes essence.” Sartre presents the analogy of a paper knife. The paper knife is modeled before it is formed by a creator, for a certain purpose. Such is not man, for whom there is no creator, and therefore there exists no model, plan, or purpose for. Sartre posits that the only rational conclusion to be derived from real atheism is radical freedom.

Not to be entirely original, it is clear that Kantian ethics played a major role in the development of Sartre’s philosophy. Sartre borrows from Kant what I deem a part of the humanist aspect of his philosophy, namely the fundamental acknowledgment of the other. In Kant’s work, this acknowledgement is a function of our reason, while Sartre emphasizes how our total freedom necessarily demonstrates to us that of the other. These two central ideas in Sartre’s philosophy come together to create an ethic of universally individual action. By this I mean: as there is no determined purpose for our existence, the onus of defining who we are lies upon us as free individuals. This endeavor can be undertaken by action alone, as existence precedes essence, meaning our phenomenal ontology reflects back definitively on our personhood and not the other way around.

Additionally, not only are we responsible for our own self-definition and creation, Sartre continues and explains that by acting in certain ways, we express values that apply to all, and thus define not only ourselves, but the whole of humanity. This framework, too, is adopted from Kant, as evident in its structural similarity to the categorical imperative. Thus, though often conventionally taken as a strictly contemplative philosophy, Sartre is demonstrably action oriented, placing ultimate value and deciding ability not on our wills, desires, character, or nature, but on our extantness and action in the world.

“it is not in order to acquire knowledge that we are considering what virtue is, but to become good people.”

The Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle

Lastly, I would like to examine a viewpoint beholden to a different point of genesis and set of starting assumptions, yet bearing certain similarities to those presented above: virtue ethics. In Socrates’s thought, as presented by Plato, the incentive to moral action, not the how, but the why, is the preservation of one’s soul. According to Socrates, there is an inherent value in doing good, and that value is the wholeness and health of the soul. As such, not only do we stand to benefit from being good, but this benefit far outweighs any harm we could come to bear as a result of our actions. He states in the Apologia: “I do not think it is permitted that a better man to be harmed by a worse […] I think he is doing himself much greater harm doing what he is doing now, attempting to have a man executed unjustly.”

Building on Socrates’s fundamental assumption that the ultimate goal of human existence is the improvement of one’s character, as I will call it, Aristotle presents a modified theory, which he bases on Platonic teleology. According to Aristotle (and an idea echoed by philosophers for generations to come, including by Kant), the faculty that differentiates man from our animal counterparts is our ability to reason. Aristotle then examines what is meant by “good.” According to him, we consider someone to be good if they fulfill their purpose or potential. Seeing as what makes man man is reason, it follows that ‘fulfilling’ our rationality constitutes the ultimate good. Thus, morality can be found through rational exercise.

This too is an ethics of virtue, emphasizing self-fulfillment, yet Aristotle diverges from strict Socratic epistemology by adding that knowledge of the good, of what is right, is an insufficient incentive to carry it out. Rather, education, that is, repeated practice, is necessary to instill in us good habits. Here, Aristotle distinguishes between theory (aiming to understand) and practice (aiming to do): in his Greek, theoria and praxis.

I trace these lines of thought, as, though they differ in major and important ways, they come together to form a general ethos that has defined my moral considerations for a while. This is an ethos of rigidity and Kantian inflexibility, with an emphasis on action as the only important part of a person, the only determinant worthy of consideration. Still, it is important to maintain moral purity and virtuosity, but this again is achieved strictly through correct and unflinching actions.

“How can you stand the sight of what you’ve done? How is it you aren’t horrified? Have you no eyes to see? If you had eyes, you would have to put them out and wander away from Thebes!”

The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Milan Kundera

In The Unbearable Lightness of Being, an essay written by the main character, Tomas, is discussed. The publication of the essay brought about his removal from his post as a surgeon and the loss of all social capital under the communist occupation of his home in Prague. In the essay, Tomas rejects the ubiquitous question in Czech circles: did the Czech communists who opened the door to the soviets know that their actions would raze the nation as they knew it, ushering in an era of political oppression and censorship? In the novel, it is explained that Tomas finds this question pointless. Whether or not they knew matters little when the fact of the matter is that they did it. Tomas likens this condition to that of Oedipus, who unknowingly kills his father and marries his mother, fulfilling a prophecy given before his birth. When this fact comes to light, and the horror of Oedipus’s actions is finally revealed to him, he gouges his eyes out in grief. Tomas calls upon those communists who aided the Soviet takeover to pay and grieve. The status of Oedipus’s knowledge of his actions is of no consequence: what was done was done, and all that is left is to gouge our eyes out in penance.

The fundamental mistake Tomas makes here is the imposition of Oedipal fate onto real life. Oedipus was guided to his sins by none other than destiny, with him but an unwilling actor in the play of his life. But this is not the case of real people, not of the Czech communists, and not of us. We, luckily or unluckily, do not operate according to the dictates of fate. There is no determination of our actions perforce, and thus, we are solely responsible for them.

There is no use in gouging out our eyes, no virtue in self-inflicted suffering. Blinding ourselves will not erase our sins; we’ll just be unable to see them any longer. We, I, must abandon this retrospective morality, let go of our preoccupation with self-punishment. Our eyes must remain open, both because there is no repentance in gouging them out and because we must use them to see. To look back, not blinded to what we’ve done, and looking ahead, to what we may yet change, maybe this time for the better.

“Philosophers have hitherto only interpreted the world in various ways; the point is to change it.”

Theses on Feuerbach, Karl Marx

Sociologists examine the interplay in socialization that occurs between structures, i.e., the existing patterned frameworks that dictate human behavior, and agency, meaning the individual’s ability to act independent of outside influence. Anthony Giddens explores the idea of reflexivity, a practice of self-epistemology and reflection upon one’s place and role in the social hierarchy, as the genesis for social change. I want to employ the reflexive scheme in moral considerations too, as what it emphasizes is the acknowledgement that, though we are responsible for our actions and can choose them freely, there are constraints beyond our control, such as the modes of thought we are socialized into as children. Thus, though we bear responsibility, we are not culpable for everything: we can be forgiven.

“But I, of all people, recognize that the answer to bullying and abuse is not to alter the victims but instead to address the culprits and, ultimately, change the system.”

Unshrinking, Kate Manne

I am on the market for a new moral theory. I am looking for a new way to balance theoria and praxis, a different way to conceive of our duty to both act and be right. One that allows for mistakes and for looking forward. I think this theory is to be found in reflexivity. I think it is probably born in liminality, between good will and good action. Between my personal virtue and my implications upon humanity at large. I think this theory probably lies in forgiveness. Forgiveness of myself, for I cannot bear the sins of structures beyond my control, and I am tired of berating myself for not being perfect.

My pursuit of thinness drives me to view myself as morally bankrupt, having given in to what I know is wrong. But this understanding misconstrues the order of things: the personal is political, not in the sense that personal action is the end-all to solve larger issues, but in the sense that our personal struggles often derive from the political structures at play. Carol Hanisch wasn’t trying to tell us that personal policing will solve societal ills, but the opposite: that communal endeavoring for better will heal our personal wounds, if gradually.

I am trying to be more compassionate to myself in the struggle for morality, to allow for mistakes, and even conscious lapses. I am trying not to gouge my eyes out after every transgression. I am trying to understand that being influenced by my environment, by the broken system that has taught us that as women we must shrink ourselves forever and never take up too much space, does not make me a bad feminist. It makes me a person, an agent, who cares about praxis, yet is given to the structures that she lives in. I am trying to build a balance between an orientation toward action and an improvement of my virtues, while understanding that perfection is unrealistic. I am trying to unlearn the internalized fatphobia I thought I had managed to avoid, and to do so with self-forgiveness as my guide.

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According to David Hume, the ability to perceive humanity and subjectivity in others is a fundamental part of human nature, and an inalienable inclination of our mind and spirit: to him, we all “must unavoidably feel some propensity to the good of mankind.” Though Immanuel Kant approaches morality entirely differently, viewing it not as a natural inclination, but as a rational choice, he still predicates his ethics on the belief that all humans can reason, demonstrating the determining factor of who counts in Kant’s moral considerations and who does not. To Kant, what differentiates man from animal is human rationality, and he establishes a theory of morality derived from this principle. The central tenet of Kant’s moral theory is the categorical imperative, i.e., the single imperative that is an end unto itself, unconditioned by interest or motivation: “Act in accordance with a maxim that can at the same time make itself a universal law.” Within Kantian morality, the individual is the ultimate end, and thus it is possible to extrapolate from one’s own subjectivity the subjectivity of others.

This manner of thought, that of a philosophy deducing morality from a natural instinct to acknowledge the other, established a liberal zeitgeist that ensuing philosophers continued to critique. Simone Weil, as demonstrated above, added a caveat – the dynamics of force. According to Weil, the powerful, by the very virtue of their power, are blinded not only to the plight of the weak, but to their very humanity. To my mind, the question of imagination is central to this debate. This aspect is introduced to the discussion in the writings of J.M. Coetzee, who, in Elizabeth Costello, writes about the failures of imagination which produce moral imperviousness. According to Costello, as she discusses the Holocaust, the issue at the core of ignorance of the other is the failure to ask ourselves the question: what if that were me?

This concept can be further developed by employing Jonathan Lear’s discussion of imagination, regarding the role of exemplars in determining moral action and its import. According to Lear, as he establishes in Imagining the end, model figures in our imagination do not only act as guidelines for action, but as templars of the good. He stresses that we are “challenged to take seriously the healthy use of our imaginations,” emphasizing the role of imagining as a tool of understanding the world and people around us. To Lear and Coetzee, imagination is not fiction, but rather a tool we employ in order to enliven to ourselves the existence of others within our own minds and lives.

Synthesizing the import of imagination with a Kantian understanding that links self epistemology with epistemology of the other creates for us an understanding of acknowledgement of others that arises from the reflexive ability to see them in our mind, in our imagination. This very ability is an inherent adoption of the other into our own self, thus creating an acknowledgment of the other, which is really derived from our acknowledgment of ourselves; our subjectivity, purpose, and nature as ends.

Now that acknowledgment of the other is established, it is possible to investigate what could pose an obstacle to our ability to carry it out, i.e., what could limit our imagination of the other, therefore limiting our ability to acknowledge their subjectivity and humanity. I would like to pose two possibilities which may hinder our imaginative faculties and cause us not to see the other as a subject akin to us: an external one and an internal one. Firstly, the issue may be one of education: maybe we have not been shown the subjectivity of the alienated other, and may not be able to even conceive of it in our imagination, because this understanding was never presented as an option. Such an answer could be favored by a Socratic thinker. Socrates saw goodness as a function of knowledge and believed that the only precondition for moral behavior was knowledge of what is right; therefore, in order to make people better, all one has to do is educate them. I find this argument unconvincing, and already in the generations soon after Socrates, disagreement with his approach arose. Aristotle, his pupil’s pupil, contributed that knowledge of good was simply insufficient for action, and alternatively, practice, the trial and error of morality, is necessary to discover what is right.

I propose an alternate limit to our imagination, arising from within. This limit is our tendency to shame. As established above, acknowledgement of the other is the natural mirror to acknowledgement of the self. It is then possible to see how the avowal of the subjectivity of the other, of their nobility or animality, their miserable misfortune or glorious victory, their very nature as a Kantian end, necessarily brings us face to face with our own subjectivity, our own nobility, animality, miseries, and victories; and possibly our own failures to rise to our nature as ends. To look at the world as it is, and be able to ask what if that were me? about every pathetic being out there is an act of radical imagination and empathy that few are capable of.

I argue that often, our refusal to see others as human is born from a feeling of comparative shame: it is much easier to dismiss a person wholesale than to stand face to face with their subjectivity, which reflects my own. It is much easier to ignore the plight of others, if only, again, to ignore my own. If I subscribe to the categorical imperative as my principle action determinant, I accept both the power of the other’s actions upon moral justification in the world, and more importantly, the power of my own actions. My ensuing failure to use this power, to fulfill my potential as an end unto myself and an inherent bearer of responsibility toward other ends, is often too heavy a weight to bear. The shame in the face of our failure to do good creates moral impermeability, wherein we simply refuse to see others, as a method of escape from ourselves.

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The motif of love as Antigone’s motivation to rebellion is clear in her dialogue: “My nature calls for sharing love,” and especially regarding her murdered brother, she states: “Beloved and loving, I’ll lie down with him [...] We have to please the dead much longer than our rulers here.” (Sophocles 523, 73-75). This proclamation reveals the crux of Antigone’s moral compass, which is the connection she makes between love and duty. To Antigone, love is a system of preference in kin that one is beholden to, which she demonstrates in the following explanation: “Now what’s the logic governing my words? When husbands die, you find another one. [...] But [...] I’ll never see another brother bloom.” (Sophocles 909-910). This understanding of love aligns with Antigone’s emphasis on duty and divine compliance. In her speeches, she repeatedly invokes the gods as her justification, linking dutiful adherence to love. To Creon she says, “I didn’t think a mortal man’s decrees possessed sufficient strength to nullify the deities’ secure, unwritten laws,” demonstrating her operation under an external and transcendent moral order, which is what pushes her to mutiny (Sophocles 453-455).

Medea on the other hand barely discusses morality, focusing in her speech more on her own experiences as her motivation, and though she calls on the gods to stand by her, her justification is personal and unrelated to affronts to divinity. When speaking to Jason, Medea repeatedly emphasizes herself and her experience: “I saved your skin [...] As for me, after betraying my father and my home I came to Iolcus [...] Then I killed Pelias [...] And you, after receiving this from me, you, the vilest man alive, you have betrayed me, and you have made a new marriage, though you already have children.” (Euripides 475-489). Even when deriding Jason’s actions as wrong through the lens of love, as when she tells him he “abuse[d] your loved ones,” Medea’s focus is internal. This is the contrast between the love Antigone understands and the love Medea subscribes to, and the difference in their motivations. Medea’s love is personal, an obligation between oneself and another, while Antigone’s is transcendent and systematized.

This difference can also be seen in their relationship to their surroundings, and in their respective positions in the face of the oppressive systems they act against. Antigone is entrenched – she is a member of the ruling family. It is impossible to disentangle her from the state itself, though she stands against it; with the chorus lamenting that “Their ruin strips whole family trees” (Sophocles 584). Antigone is present in her rightful context, and therefore is comfortable enough to draw on the gods and morality to justify herself. Her rebellion, notwithstanding its radicality, is born within the system it abhors.

Conversely, Medea is decontextualized. Without support or backing to draw on, in a foreign land, beholden to a king not her own, her only justification is herself. She says: “Now where will I turn? To my father’s house which I betrayed for you along with my native land, when I came here?” (Euripides 501-502). This line not only demonstrates Medea’s alienation, it also provides further characterization of her as a woman who does not value homeland as her utmost commitment. Through her betrayal and abandonment, she is established as placing her own feelings and drives, in this case love, over obligations to family, which is why her condemnation of Jason cannot base itself on an external morality, and only on her own inclinations of right and wrong.

These subtle differences between the two women paint two contending views of love, as their motivations, though claimed to be the same, in reality stem from divergent senses of duty and personal vengeance. Additionally, their understandings of love illuminate the position both occupy in relation to the systems they reside in, and demonstrate the differing natures of their respective rebellions.

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Works Cited

Euripides, and C. A. E. Luschnig. Medea. Diotima Anthologies. 2006.

Sophocles, and David D. Mulroy. Antigone. The University of Wisconsin Press, 2013.

Food/Family

In his seminal work, The Constitution of Society, sociologist Anthony Giddens outlines his theory of structuration: an understanding of society and socialization within it which places equal importance on existing social structures and the agents operating within them. Within this system of give and take, push and pull of nature and nurture, the individual’s inclination is dictated by her societal conventions to the measure by which she has the ability to change them. From this dialectic arises social reflexivity: through self-epistemology, the agent recognizes her position within the structure, and can thus alter it; it is “the monitored character of ongoing flow of social life.”3 The very act of recognizing the socialization one undergoes is the genesis of autonomous shaping of the social order.

Food socialization operates in this way, too. The imprint of social norms onto children occurs around the dinner table just as much as in direct instruction or in implied social dynamics. The paper “Food and Eating as Social Practice” examines the practice of eating through a social lens, rather than a strictly nutritional or behavioral one. It explains how “sociological approaches study group eating patterns and aim to explain patterns in relation to their sociocultural contexts.”4 The study demonstrates how the choices made in family feeding are influenced by social stratification, as they symbolize and affirm existing social structures and relations. Here, the role of the individual in her food choices is refuted, or at least suppressed, with emphasis placed on society’s dictation of what is permitted for consumption and how it is to be consumed.

Additionally, in the study “The Cultural Structuring of Mealtime Socialization,” researchers examined the institution of ‘mealtime’ in its capacity as a “cultural site,” i.e., a socially organizing structure.5 They establish meals not only as a replenishment of bodily fuel stores, but also as moments of gathering wherein members interact socially, upholding and modifying the existing social order. For example, the study demonstrates how mealtimes socialize children into commensality, meaning the sharing of food, differently among cultures. They demonstrate the various emphases placed by differing societies on disparate values.6 For some, the ideal of a shared and egalitarian mealtime reigns supreme. Conversely, for other cultures, meals may be a stage upon which expectations of who is deserving of more or of less are played out; as by the reservation of food for different parties, such as the children, the men of the family, or elders. Thus, “socialization into commensality is also socialization into sociocultural embodiments of generation, gender, and other social positionings.”7 Employing this understanding, it is possible to see how meals play a role in the structuration of society, as a gathering space allowing for the direct imbuement of agents with the values and structures upheld in their social sphere.

As demonstrated above, norms regarding society are impressed upon children within mealtime, in addition to norms and conventions regarding the very act of eating itself. More often than not, these conventions are more binding than we realize, with deviation from them carrying radically negative social consequences. Take, for example, what is possibly the most controversial eating practice that exists on a large scale today: veganism. Vitriol toward the vegan diet, lifestyle, and individual is common and accepted enough that a counter-movement has arisen, birthing the self-defined ‘anti-vegan.’ In a study examining said omnivorous opponents and their objection to veganism, researchers found that “attitudes toward vegetarians and vegans were equivalent to, or more negative than, evaluations of common prejudice target groups,” illustrating the gravity of dietary deviance and the negative role it tends to occupy.8

Abstinence/Conformity

Han Kang’s The Vegetarian follows Yeong-Hye, an average and contemporary Seoulite, as seen through the eyes of her family. The strict third person narration of the novel foremostly illustrates to the reader Yeong-Hye’s lack of agency and subjectivity. At the outset of the book, to the surprise of her kin, she elects to cease eating meat entirely, following bouts of graphic nightmares in which she hunts and eats animals. Her husband, uncoincidentally the first narrator we encounter describing her, as a precursor to his position as both her keeper and judge, explains that before this choice, the only slight deviance from convention Yeong-Hye partook in was a dislike of bras. Already, a parallel is formed between her inclination against meat and that against traditional femininity.

One of the most striking scenes in the book is itself a family meal, in which Yeong-Hye’s father’s rage at her refusal to partake in meat consumption is so great that he resorts to violence and attempts to force-feed her.9 Her rejection of convention and the policing she experiences from within her family unit demonstrate how deviance, especially in the realm of food and family, is unimaginable to most and heavily consequential. Yeong-Hye’s exercise of agency stems from her conscious refusal to partake in what to others is a given: her demonstration of reflexivity through a seemingly simple dietary choice is a direct challenge to the social order.

As the novel progresses, so do the outrage at Yeong-Hye’s choices (again, I reiterate that as readers we never meet those choices or their reasoning directly, only through the eyes of other narrators) and the regulation of her behavior, especially from her husband.

“So yes, one night when I returned home late and somewhat inebriated after a meal with colleagues, I grabbed hold of my wife and pushed her to the floor. Pinning down her struggling arms and tugging off her trousers, I became unexpectedly aroused. She put up a surprisingly strong resistance and, spitting out vulgar curses all the while, it took me three attempts before I managed to insert myself successfully. Once that had happened, she lay there in the dark staring up at the ceiling, her face blank, as though she were a ‘comfort woman’ dragged in against her will, and I was the Japanese soldier demanding her services.”10

This discipline, though seemingly stemming from her divergent food practice, translates into explicit sexual violence, as is the eventuation of most discipline of women under patriarchal society. Globally, one in three women will experience sexual violence, according to UN Women.11 This statistic is undivorceable from the structures which encourage and reinforce the subjugation of women at any cost: sexuality and its violent expressions are defined, as all structures are, by the agents and groups in power, and thus, sex has been historically weaponized as yet another tool for the policing and discipline of women.12

This implied connection between meat, sex, deviance, and disciplinary violence is not coincidental, nor confined to fiction. In a study following the public outcry against ‘vegansexuality,’ a concept which began as an individuated inclination by vegans to engage in intimacy only with other vegans and was transformed into a widespread movement by the media, researchers lay out the responses of the by and large heterosexual omnivorous men to this phenomenon.13 To follow are some of the (online) replies:

“Vegans are like Catholic priests. Everyone KNOWS priests get horny … it is biology. Everyone KNOWS vegans find themselves salivating despite themselves at the distant smell of hamburgers on the grill … it is once again … BIOLOGY.”14

“Is it okay for a vegan to have sex with a human at all? After all, humans are animals and sex involves the consumption of bodily fluids.”15

“I can’t date a girl who won’t put sausage in her mouth.”16

The narrative here is clear: abstinence from conventional meat eating is associated with abstinence from conventional sexual practice. There is a perceived equivalence of carnality between these two rituals, and what follows is a disgust (to my mind not entirely divorced from a feeling of comparative shame) with those who do not partake in them; these ‘base’ and ‘real’ practices.

Sexual discipline in response to deviance is demonstrated too, specifically employing recurrent imagery of cannibalization and including overt sexual tones, again linking food and sex, meat and the female sexual practice. The following eerie post is brought forth in said study:

“All this talk of veganism, meat eating and sex is making my mouth water. Like those corn-fed pigs that you can order at some fancy restaurants, vegans are sort of primed with the luscious fruits and vegetables on which they’ve stuffed themselves. Picking up a vegan, then, is the perfect recipe for a hot and tasty evening for two, and a delicious memory for one . . . a table set only for one; a ‘bed’ of roast vegetables in which a space has been cleared just for my ‘guest’; a reach around to gently plant an apple in the mouth.”17

Even worse:

“That just gives me more of a reason to donkey punch them once I’ve got them in the doghouse. This includes every young, nubile PETA skank who decides that getting naked is an effective means of protesting anything.”18

These violent depictions can evoke in us nothing but the image of the slaughterhouse, wherein the donkey and woman are both beaten into submission, both intended for final consumption by man. Bret Easton Ellis’s American Psycho discloses to the reader chilling images of gendered violence, with repeated invocations of meat and the abattoir recurring in the brutal sprees: “Most of her chest is indistinguishable from her neck, which looks like ground-up meat…”19 It is almost laughable to find the novel’s titular psycho venturing to the meat packing district to search for his victims, or the fact that equal sensual detail is provided in the description of murder and dismemberment of women and in that of the elaborately expensive meat-centered meals eaten throughout the book. The relationship here is unavoidable: we cannot disassociate meat from sex. But why?

Meat/Sex

In Pierre Bourdieu’s Distinction, he establishes an economics of taste modeled on that of monetary capital. Within a society motivated by “social capital,” symbols play a powerful role, acting as goalposts for aspiration, indicators of achievement, and most importantly, affirmations of power.20 Bourdieu then discusses symbolic violence, which is the tool by which class-based taste conventions are reified. Hard power is insufficient for maintaining a hierarchical class structure, or in this case a hierarchical structure of genders, and symbols are necessary to uphold said structure. Thus, social power does not emerge as an expression of physical force, but rather the ability to dictate social norms, and subsequently transforms into physical discipline, as exemplified in The Vegetarian.

What, then, is the semiotic meaning and the power of meat, and from whence does the connection between it and sex arise? In The Sexual Politics of Meat, Carol Adams connects meat with masculinity in the historical, economic, and lexical senses, among others. In tracing human development, it is possible to see how meat, the most valuable commodity, came to both directly imbue and semiotically represent power: he who possesses the meat commands the most authoritative economic and social position.21 Adams presents thorough evidence of the inclination of folkloric and popular culture throughout history to associate meat with men; in fairy tales, cookbooks, taboos, and more. These include warnings to pregnant women not to eat meat if they want to give birth to girls, the common practice of reserving meat for the men of the family, and even minutiae like the addressees of barbecue cookbooks being overwhelmingly male.22 By way of example, Adams traces the ubiquitous eating practices of nineteenth century British families, for whom the granted practice was the provision of meat to the man of the house, often at the cost of the women and children’s sustenance.23

The image of meat is inextricably linked with machismo; intended for the father, the soldier, the man. What is betrayed here is a zeitgeist that aligns meat with masculinity, emphasizing images of virility and strength as synonymous with meat consumption, strengthening the classic archetype of the male hunter, of man as ruler of the animal kingdom. This rulership obviates itself in man’s tyranny over beast, and extends as such into the private kingdom of the individual man: the home. God directly instructed man in Genesis: “Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.”24 This insidious tie is present here too. Divine instruction itself synthesizes sexual reproduction, in its most hetero-oppresive form, with man’s rulership over nature. It is this image of man as hunter that forms a solidarity between the two conquered populaces: woman and animal.

Meat consumption, in its association with manhood, is one of the symbols employed in our patriarchally structured society to maintain power over women through the enactment of norms and behaviors that exclude or objectify them. In a society structured around symbolic capital, the powerful are provided with justification for the maintenance of the present hierarchy through the use of symbols like meat. In this case, the unification of meat consumption with sexuality through symbolic means strengthens man’s claim of dominion over woman and animal.

The Woman Animal

Here we return to Giddens’s structuration and reflexivity. As I have attempted to substantiate in the previous sections, our edible-cultural sensibilities are defined by traditions that a priori assume man’s rulership over woman and animal. In addition, in order to bring about a change in the social order, it is necessary to consciously examine the objectification of women and animals through symbolic violence and force, as it is upon this objectification, in its othering reduction to consumability, that patriarchal society maintains its power over both groups. Still, reflexivity, above defined as the autonomous shaping of the social order, is possible, through the conscious inspection of one’s social positioning, in relation to the structures one was raised in and to the other agents acting in the social sphere.

The active choice to abstain from unthinking participation in societal givens such as meat consumption is deduced from this very examination. This is the issue at the crux of the vitriolic response to veganism: the challenge it poses to the social order is much farther flung than disrupting dinner with a tofu centerpiece. The cognizant rejection of a social order that positions animals as othered and alienated, physically and metaphorically-lexically, is the first step toward recognition of the othering and dehumanization of other groups, especially women.

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ואת תספרי לי איך שמרת עלי ואני אאמין לך, הרי איך עוד יש בית קפה ופארק מים ועיר משגשגת?

והשמש תנצוץ בגלי התיכון הכחולים ובעינייך החומות, ותסנוור את יושבי בית הקפה, ואורחי פארק המים ימרחו קרם הגנה.

ואת תצביעי על ארצך היפה, על הנגב מדרומנו שיישבת, ומצפוננו גולן ירוק. בשומרון יהיה שקט, בהרי יהודה החיים שלווים.

ואני אוהב אותך, ואביט בגלים, ואכניס את ידי בחול החם ואמצא באצבעותיי עצם גולגולת ואשלוף אותה. את תנשקי לי ותכניסי את מציאתי בחזרה, תברישי את החול ותחליקי אותו כיאה.

ואנחנו יושבות מול הים, דרומה נגבך, צפונה גולן, ומאחורינו הנהר הסוחף שבך.

ובכי מעונייך אינו נשמע עוד, ואסירייך ברחו כבר מזמן.

ועצמות הרוגייך טמונות מתחתינו, ועל גביהם בנית בית קפה ופארק מים.

“Kairos, the god of fortunate moments, is supposed to have a lock of hair on his forehead, which is the only way of grasping hold of him. Because once the god has slipped past on his winged feet, the back of his head is sleek and hairless, nowhere to grab hold of.”

Jenny Erpenbeck’s 2021 German novel Kairos outlines the relationship between 19-year-old Katharina and 53-year-old Hans, starting with them first meeting in East Berlin of 1986, and ending with their eventual separation shortly after the fall of the Berlin Wall and reunification of Germany. Erpenbeck masterfully weaves together a personal story of two lovers and the national tale of Germany in the eve of the 20th century, using the stories both to highlight one another, yet also to blur the boundaries between them. As the novel explores it’s focal relationship, so too does it explore the relationship of the individual and the state, with Katharina and Hans coming to metaphorize this age-old conflict.

Throughout the first part of the book, Hans and Katharina begin their romance, which from the outset has an uncomfortable quality to it. Katharina is young and looking to impress, and Hans, a husband and father, finds that what he most appreciates about her is her naïveté and innocence: “How young she is, he thinks, and how unspoiled, the child’s look hasn’t quite gone from her eyes.” Katharina finds in Hans a safe haven, a place to grow up and into the world, as he introduces her to culture, music, cafes, theory, history. Her first true venture out of this bubble he builds for her occurs when Katharina leaves East Berlin to visit her family in the West. Hans, averse to releasing his hold on her, turns to disparaging the west, souring her experience: “Awful place, Katharina hears Hans in her mind’s ear as the soaring spectacle of the Cologne Cathedral right beside the station captures her attention.” In Cologne, Katharina goes shopping, marveling at “Everything she’s ever wanted.” This is her first betrayal of Hans — falling prey to that capitalist temptation to purchase and purchase. Her second betrayal much parallels this one. It, too, occurs when she leaves the warm embrace of East Berlin: Hans and Katharina’s cocooned relationship is tested when it meets the outside world. This time, Katharina moves to Frankfurt for work, and although she visits Berlin and Hans often, she spends a single night with a young man from work.

In the second part of the novel Hans is unleashed: it opens with a later oft-repeated interrogation scene, reminiscent of Mr. O’Brien-esque questioning in Orwell’s 1984, where Hans berates Katharina for her betrayal, and continues to do so for the rest of the book: “Think about it: Anything you don’t tell me now, anything that remains in the dark, that you don’t reveal. anything like that remains undissolved and will work against us. Against us, against me, but most of all against you.” Until the very end of the novel and their relationship, Hans continues to manipulate Katharina, lording over her her past actions, convincing her of her sin. His control intensifies in the second half of the book: Hans reads Katharina’s diary, beats her in bed, and constantly shuns her, while not allowing her much contact with others.

“Hans laughed at her name for herself, no, she wasn’t a monster, just someone who takes what she can get. Lowest, meanest, bourgeois hypocrisy is what he called her transgression.”

This throwaway line, appearing more than mid-way through the novel, reveals the crux of Hans’s abuse: weaponization of language of state and greater morality to convince Katharina that her betrayal is not just against him, but against a national moral standard. This tactic works well on young, impressionable, idealistic, Katharina, eager to take in the world, to support the East German economy, eager to read Lenin and listen to Mozart with Hans. While this comment leaves Katharina spiraling (“She is disgusted by the person she sees in the mirror, she wishes she could pull off its skin”), it is a window for the reader to understand what Hans and Katharina are supposed to represent.

Hans is the Deutsche Demokratische Republik, the German Democratic Republic, East Germany. Really, he is any capital-S-state. Katharina is then the individual, both enamored by and worried for her state. The equivalency between Hans and the State seems to present a disparaging view of the latter, as the reader comes to view Hans as manipulative and pathetic. The novel left me with a few major points of questioning regarding the DDR, especially regarding the confusing existence of a communist state, which seems oxymoronic.

More than anything though, Kairos brought me back to a question I have been grappling with recently: what do we owe our state? In Plato’s Crito, which depicts dialogues between Socrates and Crito following the former’s imprisonment, Socrates posits the following point:

“‘Tell us what complaint you have to make against us which justifies you in attempting to destroy us and the State? In the first place did we not bring you into existence? Your father married your mother by our aid and begat you… Were not the laws … right in commanding your father to train you in music and gymnastic? … Well, then, since you were brought into the world and nurtured and educated by us, can you deny in the first place that you are our child and slave, as your fathers were before you? And if this is true you are not on equal terms with us; nor can you think that you have a right to do to us what we are doing to you… And because we think right to destroy you, do you think that you have any right to destroy us in return, and your country as far as in you lies? … Has a philosopher like you failed to discover that our country is more to be valued and higher and holier far than mother or father or any ancestor, and more to be regarded in the eyes of the gods and of men of understanding?’”

The central thesis here is as such: the individual would not exist without the state, and therefore owes to it the greatest deference and respect one can offer. When I first read this, aged 16, I found Socrates’s claim foolish and establishmentarian. But I have come to feel a certain affinity with his point. I am unable, as it seems Katharina is too, to tear myself away from my state, even when we both know it’s flaws intimately. Where do we draw the line? Where, if ever, do our obligations to the state begin, and to what lengths must we go to fulfill them? Just as metaphorized by an abusive relationship in this story, the question could be asked: why not leave?

And, importantly, what happens when this façade comes crumbling down? When Katharina’s eyes are opened to Hans’s abuse of her, and many years later to his and the state’s abuse of many more? In the epilogue, Katharina discovers that Hans was a Stasi (East German Secret Police) informant: “When he separates the man who has friends from the man who writes their names down in a list, which he gives to someone else who also goes by a pseudonym… The new country grows in a mutually shared secret.” This discovery holds much portent, both for Katharina and the reader. As readers, our suspicions are confirmed, and we are left to debate our role in our own states. For Katharina, things are more complex, as from the genesis of the novel her personal and political affiliations have been intertwined. Katharina must grapple with East Germany and with Hans; the two specters that have hung over her life.

After her discovery, Katharina is not embittered, surprised, or betrayed. Her prevailing feeling is that of camaraderie with Hans. Nearly the final line of the novel is: “If only I’d known then that I was your mirror image.” This realization is the true twist in the story, because it reveals that in fact, just as Katharina was grappling with authority, obligation, love and abuse all intertwined with one another in her romance with Hans, so too was Hans grappling with all these in his romance with the state. Katharina comes to see Hans as a sympathetic character, akin to her, both individuals attempting to find their place in the state and in life. This moment, to me, humanizes even the worst of men, in the realization that we are all small in the face of our state’s machinations, and yet still must carve out our own role within them - or without.

he was tall and tasted like beer, and i had to crane my neck to kiss him. we stumbled into the bathroom together, but he wouldn’t look me in the eyes afterwards.

her i will see again, though in much too long, and until then i will glance at the bracelets she made me and hope it doesn’t all get away from us too soon.

you watched me have a cigarette, though you don’t smoke, and you were striking and cocky and made fun of me incessantly. you called me pretty but you wouldn’t kiss me and i couldn’t understand why. i spoke to you and you cradled my words gently, like a bird limping, before letting them take flight above us.

i imagine an empty city, empty rooms, bistros deserted, bartenders waiting for us in vain. and i know i am wrong, and others sleep in those beds and walk those streets, but i cannot help but think that entire city was made for us, so we could meet and you could watch me have a smoke on that rooftop and not kiss me.

we’re all gone by now, planes and trains and buses dragging us away, and different waters lap our shores,

but i will blow some smoke in your direction, and hope you smell me on the breeze.

summer is too much for me.
she is intense and loud.
she will not let you forget she is there,
her presence glaring and abrasive.

i think she reminds me too much of myself.

this summer i am distracted.
these hazy and monotonous days blending together,
my mind elsewhere.

the chlorine pinches my skin, urging me to feel what is around me.
the sun stings my eyes, begging me to look up.

but i am stuck on your shoulders.

i remember seeing them only once, as you lay down in front of me, our faces close enough to touch if we really wanted them to. to me, the air in that tiny room crackled with possibility. could you smell it too?

i remember being unable to tear my eyes away from the place where your arm met your chest. i wanted to reach out and stroke your skin right there. i wanted to take a bite out of the flesh of your bicep.

i remember thinking i would let you do anything to me, as long as it was with those arms.

i still would.

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“Marianne had the sense that her real life was happening somewhere very far away, happening without her, and she didn't know if she would ever find out where it was or become part of it.”

(Normal People, Sally Rooney)

is change possible?

“I suppose it is out of laziness that the world is the same day after day. Today it seemed to want to change. And then anything, anything could happen.”

(Nausea, Jean Paul Sartre)

how does change impact the human soul? how great or little is our influence upon changes that occur?

The Flood

The flood it is gathering
Soon it will move
Across every shoreline
Against every roof
The body will drown
And the soul will shake loose
I write all this down
But I don’t have the proof
Sinai, 1973

(The Book of Longing, Leonard Cohen)

how do our intentions and actions influence each other?

“Even though I had a deep conviction that I was good at writing, and that in some way I already was a writer, this conviction was completely independent of my having ever written anything, or being able to imagine ever writing anything, that I thought anyone would like to read.”

(The Idiot, Elif Batuman)

how do our intentions and actions influence each other but in existentialist thought?

“In life man commits himself and draws his own portrait, outside of which there is nothing.”

(Existentialism is a Humanism, Jean Paul Sartre)

how does art seep into our being? what does it look like when we take something that has impacted us and do something with it?

His Master’s Voice

After listening to Mozart
(which I often did)
I would always
Carry a piano
Up and down
Mt. Baldy
And I don’t mean
A keyboard
I mean a full-sized
Grand piano
Made of cement
Now that I am dying
I don’t regret
A single step

(The Book of Longing, Leonard Cohen)

a letter from author kurt vonnegut to high school students who write to him in 2008, shortly before his death. how do we create within our lives? how to we create our lives?

Dear Xavier High School, and Ms. Lockwood, and Messrs Perin, McFeely, Batten, Maurer and Conglusta:

I thank you for your friendly letters. You sure know how to cheer up a really old geezer (84) In his sunset years. I don't make public appearances any more because I now resemble nothing so much as an iguana.

What I had to say to you, moreover, would not take long, to wit: Practice any art, music, singing, dancing, acting, drawing, painting, sculpting, poetry, fiction, essays, reportage, no matter how well or badly, not to get money and fame, but to experience becoming, to find out what's Inside you, to make your soul grow.

Seriously! I mean starting right now, do art and do it for the rest of your lives. Draw a funny or nice picture of Ms. Lockwood, and give it to her. Dance home after school, and sing in the shower and on and on. Make a face in your mashed potatoes. Pretend you're Count Dracula.

Here's an assignment for tonight, and I hope Ms. Lockwood will flunk you if you don't do It: Write a six line poem, about anything, but rhymed. No fair tennis without a net. Make it as good as you possibly can. But don't tell anybody what you're doing. Don't show it or recite it to anybody, not even your girlfriend or parents or whatever, or Ms. Lockwood. OK?

Tear it up into teeny-weeny pieces, and discard them into widely separated trash receptacles. You will find that you have already been gloriously rewarded for your poem. You have experienced becoming, learned a lot more about what's inside you, and you have made your soul grow.

God bless you all!

Kurt Vonnegut

create. become.

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kundera’s somewhat strange, existential novel, opens with a proposition of nietzsche’s eternal return:

“The idea of eternal return is a mysterious one, and Nietzsche has often perplexed other philosophers with it: to think that everything recurs as we once experienced it, and that the recurrence itself recurs ad infinitum! What does this mad myth signify?”

he ties this idea to parmenides’s discussion of opposites, specifically lightness/weight. this is the focal theme of the book.

in these mere 300 pages, milan kundera attempts to look into and onto human existence as it plays out in the grand stage of eternity. not as a quantized experience, but rather as a succession of events, as mankind's journey; making history into a collective. a collective that repeats, that is, forever and always, and yet man is doomed never to know this repetition, and never to learn from it. kundera posits: events past gain ultimate lightness, as they are done, over, and never to return, making them into mere ideas, light and floating away as feathers.

the twin signs of lightness and weight are exhibited in the novel by the two main women: tereza, who is married to tomas, and sabina, one of his mistresses and friends.

tereza characterizes lightness going to, becoming, weight. her upbringing is described as torturously light, her mother stripping all things tereza holds sacred (the body, privacy, the soul) of their meaning, of weight. tereza escapes this unbearably light childhood and becomes heavy, entering the intellectual world through books. over and over throughout the novel kundera chooses to emphasize the heaviness she brings with her: “She came with a heavy suitcase. She left with a heavy suitcase.”

sabina on the other hand is heaviness becoming light. her father was a limiting figure to her, and she seeks to betray her upbringing as she enters the adult world. this motif of betrayal accompanies her throughout her life, as do other recurring motifs: such is her nature. sabina is unable to view things in a vacuum, to her everything holds a history, like the bowler hat, like cemeteries. but her story is one of lightness, that is what she is drawn to, although every once in a while weight calls to her again: “Sabina’s path of betrayals would continue elsewhere, and from the depths of her being, a silly, mawkish song about two shining windows and the happy family living behind them would occasionally make its way into the unbearable lightness of being.”

the author explores the main thematic duality through the lens of love and lust, the former being heavy and the latter being light. through tomas’s eyes, he ties tereza to weight and sabina to lightness. this, however, is where a slight issue with the book arises. the two women seem to lose some of their depth, becoming too closely tied to their respective amorous themes. it seems at times that kundera even reduces them to the trite and easy-to-fall-into trap of the madonna/whore complex, which seems to plague male writers… they just can’t seem not to write it into their books!

kundera’s astute, sometimes alarmingly intimate understanding of mankind, of language, of movements, and relationships, makes this book truly special. on every single page, there is a witticism, an observation, a gut-punch sentiment that leaves you reeling. here are some ideas that i have continued coming back to over and over after reading.

language

i’m a nascent linguaphile, and don’t have much to say except that i think the way the author played around with words and their meaning (or lack thereof) was clever and enjoyable. A Short Dictionary of Misunderstood Words comes to mind.

shit

the short few pages describing the death of stalin’s son as a result of shit are without a doubt one of the most successfully concise descriptions of the existential condition. (i understand why tiktok people call this book ‘baby’s first existentialism’.) there really isn’t much for me to add here, it’s all written so beautifully by kundera already.

“If rejection and privilege are one and the same, if there is no difference between the sublime and the paltry, if the Son of God can undergo judgment for shit, then human existence loses its dimensions and becomes unbearably light.”

the post-WWII despair, the destruction of all ideals, the unmasking of the cruelty of the universe… love it!

the grand march, kitsch, and leftists

kundera introduces kitsch through sabina as a condition of man where we must unify all human experience under thematic banners — we must narrative-ize. he says: “Since opinions vary, there are various kitsches: Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Communist, Fascist, democratic, feminist, European, American, national, international.”

(am i crazy or does kitsch = core… like hopecore, blueberry milk nails core, clean girl core, the ever elusive corecore. we just gotta make everything an aesthetic. it’s comforting to think that this condition, which i assumed rose to prominence along with social media/the internet/the digital panopticon, has actually been around forever.)

he characterizes leftist kitsch as a Grand March, which franz is fascinated by, a sort of heroic journey that mankind is making towards “brotherhood, equality, justice, happiness.” it matters not what the way is: “The dictatorship of the proletariat or democracy? Rejection of the consumer society or demands for increased productivity? The guillotine or an end to the death penalty?” leftism is just the adherence to the grand march kitsch, methods notwithstanding.

more than any other existentialist work or analysis of leftism, this idea (one based on historical narrative rather than momentary observation) has destabilized my faith in the grand march. as a leftist myself i found this a scathing yet forgiving take, which shook my unerring hard-line morals more than other existential pieces.

sooo many things i didn’t touch on, so many ideas i could go on and on about…

at this point, i can’t even remember what i wanted to end with so i will leave you with the closing words of the book:

all quotes are from the book.

Hmm That's Interesting

we're getting influencers all wrong

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2 years ago · 148 likes · 17 comments · Clara

i read this great piece on that got me thinking. i found the essay itself to be very true and topical, and agreed with ‘s analysis of the way we treat influencers as little more than bimbos. i have little more to add to her point, and i recommend giving her piece a read! on the other hand, i think the flip side of this coin is also true.

in online culture, we have a tendency to expect the people whom we like for their content to be people whose values and beliefs align with ours. i don’t think this is necessarily a bad thing, and i too fall prey to this sometimes fallacious belief.

when global events or news or crises or Important Things happen we see people increasingly turning to their favorite content creators to hear the latest official scoop on what is going on. we have this expectation that every outfit tiktoker with 500k will speak up about this geopolitical issue or that upcoming election and if this person (who is a person who deserves the right to privacy just like someone with 13 followers) doesn’t, then clearly they either hold the wrong opinion and we shouldn’t listen to anything they have to say ever again, or they are dumb and refuse to learn.

i think it’s weird that we expect our influencers to become experts rather than amplifying the voices of people who actually know what they’re talking about. and this isn’t to say that influencers are always fools, it’s just that we don't need to expect charli damelio or whatever to come out and take a stance on Everything Ever; she doesn't need to publish a list of her opinions on every subject so we can deem if she is worthy of our follow.

in my belief, this desire stems from our widespread conflation of online and real-life identities and personas. our online selves have become our primary selves, while our face-to-face real actions and beliefs and thoughts are secondary. what we project outwards is our truth, and when you don’t see someone post the right infographic on their story, you assume that they don’t consider or discuss the topic at hand in their private life.

don’t get me wrong - i was a 2020 infographic girly, and i still believe in the merit of infographics and social media outreach as valid forms of projecting and spreading ideas to wider audiences, i just think it’s a little strange that when something terrible happens our first thoughts are to attack the people who we admire for their fashion, their jokes, or their recipes for not speaking out sooner. implicit in this demand is the belief that because someone hasn’t posted about something they obviously don’t care about it.

i think it’s important for us to disentangle our online personas from our real selves, and to acknowledge that our posting is not who we are, and people that we don’t know are capable of doing and thinking things outside of what is on their instagram story.

thanks for the read :) let me know what you think!

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“asteroid city does not exist. it is an imaginary drama created expressly for this broadcast. the characters are fictional, the text hypothetical, the events an apocryphal fabrication, but together they present an authentic account of the inner workings of a modern theatrical production.”

every pretentious film bro loves wes anderson, and i am no exception; his status as god to the indie sleazes is (in my opinion) merited. when i watched asteroid city for the first time, my belief in his talent and skill was reinforced, and was further strengthened when i headed back to the theater two days later to watch it again.

asteroid city is a fictional play, constructed within a (fictional - because we are watching a movie) television show that seeks to illuminate the process of creation. to reach the heart of the story, we first exit the real world and enter a tv program portraying the fictional creation of a play. then we must enter the fictitious play itself. in effect, actors like jason schwartzman, scarlett johanson, and anyone else appearing in the play asteroid city are playing actors, who are playing actors, who are playing characters. how very mindfuck-ey.

at its core, the movie is an exploration of the process of creation, and what it means to tell a story. it’s a retrospective on wes anderson’s experience directing and on the act of constructing and conveying a story. it’s also all about acting, exploring what it is to embody another person - the movie discusses how jones hall became auggie steenbeck, and in a way, auggie steenbeck became jones hall. the film also clearly touches on themes of quarantine following the covid-19 pandemic, and feelings of isolation. finally, one of the major themes present is grief, and how it plays into people’s lives and relationships. as there are some great essays out there on these topics, here i’m going to focus on something a little more niche.

the absurd

according to albert camus, the phenomenon of the absurd is the essential contradiction between the universe being devoid of meaning and man’s inherent desire to find a meaning:

“a world that can be explained even with bad reasons is a familiar world. but, on the other hand, in a universe suddenly divested of illusions and lights, man feels an alien, a stranger. his exile is without remedy since he is deprived of the memory of a lost home or the hope of a promised land. this divorce between man and his life, the actor and his setting, is properly the feeling of absurdity.”

- albert camus, the myth of sisyphus

camus’s version of the absurd is one of conflict and distress because it is the product of an inherently unfulfillable desire of man clashing with a truth of the universe. he also writes: “the feeling of absurdity does not spring from the mere scrutiny of a fact … but that it bursts from … between an action and the world that transcends it. the absurd is essentially a divorce. it lies in neither of the elements compared; it is born of their confrontation.” this definition of the absurd is what i will employ in attempting to understand how the concept plays into asteroid city.

camus: absurd art

in the myth of sisyphus, camus explores the existence of absurd art and the role of the actor as an “absurd man” as he calls it. according to camus, the absurd man: “knows simply that in that alert awareness there is no further place for hope.” for him, the actor is absurd because she understands the importance of just living one’s life, without attempting to transcend it. this is a result of the short-lived fame of actors, as, of all artists, the stage actor (unlike the writer) is never immortalized; her greatness is ephemeral and fleeting, and will not remain once the applause ends. once the great actor dies, she is forgotten. absurd art possesses the same quality of refusal to acknowledge the existence of a greater meaning to life and the world.

absurd art is a mimetic act, a simple explanation of the world rather than an attempt to impart onto it a significance: “[art] has no more significance than the continual and imperceptible creation in which the actor, the conqueror, and all absurd men indulge in every day of their lives. all try their hands at miming, at repeating, and at recreating the reality of our truths. all existence for a man turned away from the eternal is but a vast mime under the mask of the absurd. creation is the great mime.”

“tonight’s program takes us backstage to witness firsthand the creation, start to finish, of a new play mounted on the american stage … it is an imaginary drama created expressly for this broadcast. the characters are fictional, the text hypothetical, the events an apocryphal fabrication, but together they present an authentic account of the inner workings of a modern theatrical production.”

- host, asteroid city

the fictional play’s purpose is not to provide the viewers of the tv show with any insight into a greater meaning or purpose in life, it only serves to illuminate what a production would look like. even earp acknowledges that he just writes ‘what happens’ without regard for motivations - when hall asks him why auggie burns his hand, the latter replies: “well, i don’t even know myself, to tell you the truth. i hadn’t planned it that way. he just sort of did it while i was typing.” asteroid city (the movie) is absurd in its contemplation of the art of telling a story - the question is: does anything we’re watching tell us anything valuable? does the work present more than an explanation and mime of real life?

additionally, over and over throughout the film, the viewer is reminded of the fact that the asteroid city play is a fictional one, and especially that the people in it are not real. there is a meta quality to the movie, as we are lulled into the belief that we know what is fiction: the play. however, we forget that the entire film, even the framing story of the creation and production of the play and the tv show presenting it, are also fictional. everything that happens on that screen is not real, and anderson drives this point home repeatedly through narrative breaks - breaking the fourth walls separating his nesting doll stories from one another. these moments break down the convention of movie storytelling and constantly jerk us back to reality. the most obvious of these moments is when the TV show host appears suddenly in the play, much to the confusion of the characters. he states, “am i not in this? excuse me. i’m not in this.” this interruption jerks us viewers back to reality. another moment where the narrative breaks down is the quickie-griddle scene. when auggie burns his hand, we see a reaction from midge campbell that seems much more shocked than it should be. it is almost as if, at that moment, mercedes ford (the actress playing campbell, played by scarlett johanson), breaks character, and is actually genuinely shocked by the fact that jones hall, not auggie steenbeck, burnt his hand in real life, not in the play; saying, “you really did it. that actually happened.” and yet, we must remember that that does not happen either - because this is all fictional.

the absurd in the film

in addition, the absurd characterizes the lives of the characters in asteroid city. each searches for meaning in some way or another. clifford does so through his dares: “maybe it’s because i’m afraid, otherwise, nobody’ll notice my existence in the universe.” woodrow and dr. hickenlooper both care about discovery and trying to understand the universe: “the world will never be the same. what happens next? nobody knows. will he visit us again? will he speak to us? what will he say? why did he steal our asteroid? was it ours in the first place? does he like us? … what’s out there? something. the meaning of life. maybe there is one.”

the other characters try to make meaning out of journalism, photography, or acting, and they all fall short. as camus puts it, suddenly they are faced with the “why” of everything and they struggle to find purpose and to understand why they do what they do. jones hall comes to both earp and green on separate occasions to ask why his character acts the way he does, and to ask about what the meaning of the play is. “why does auggie burn his hand on the quicky-griddle? i still don’t understand the play.” later he asks: “am i doing him right?” this is the human component of the absurd: man’s endless desire to find a purpose. the other half of camus’s absurd is the mystery of the universe:

“the, uh, alien stole the asteroid.”

- auggie steenbeck, asteroid city

the alien represents the unknowability of life. it comes with little warning, commits an act that we do not know the reason for and leaves without explanation.

“another atom bomb test.”

- cashier, asteroid city

both the bomb and the car chase bookend the movie and represent the cosmic part of the absurd. both demonstrate that no matter what goes on in one person’s life, or one community - in this case, the attendees of the junior stargazer/space cadet camp - it will never rock the entire world. a truly paradigm-shifting event occurs, and the world never stops turning.

the alien, bomb, and car chase are the cold indifference of the universe. these, together with our characters’ unending desire for a reason to live create the paradox that is the absurd.

“at this point of his effort the man stands face to face with the irrational. he feels within him his longing for happiness and for reason. the absurd is born of this confrontation between the human need and the unreasonable silence of the world.”

- albert camus, the myth of sisyphus

acceptance of the absurd

now we face a seemingly bleak conclusion. life is absurd, and one will never break free and transcend it. though he could, camus does not take the nihilist approach. in the final and titular essay of the myth sisyphus, camus outlines how sisyphus, doomed to roll a rock up a hill for eternity, only to see it roll back down every time, is the archetypal absurd man™. according to camus: “happiness and the absurd are two sons of the same earth. they are inseparable… it makes of fate a human matter.” this is his essential philosophy - because everything is meaningless, mankind is free to choose. no longer is our fate in the hands of a god, or a higher power, greater being, or a supernatural meaning; rather it is in the hands of each and every person unto themself. camus tells us to embrace the absurd, and the gift that it gives us: the ability to choose. he writes of sisyphus:

“his rock is his thing … he knows himself to be the master of his days … he too concludes that all is well … the struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man’s heart. one must imagine sisyphus happy.”

- albert camus, the myth of sisyphus

this is the crux of his philosophy: acceptance of the absurd (which in turns leads to rebellion against it, a major part of camus’s philosophy which we won’t get into here), which is demonstrated a number of times in the film. in a striking and compassionate moment, the farmhand montana explains to june and the children what should be done about the alien:

“i figure this here alien come from a tribe we don’t know nothing ’bout, do we? anything we say’d just be pure speculation. but i tell you what i reckon. i reckon that alien don’t mean no harm at all. i reckon he just took hisself down here to have a looksee at the land and the peoples on it. in the spirit of exploration. see, i don’t look on a feller alien all suspicious-like. no, he ain’t american. no, he ain’t a creature of god’s green earth. but he’s a creature of somewheres, and so are we. now, let’s show the old feller some hospitality, and if he turns out to be a dirty dog, which i reckon he ain’t, well, that’ll be a job for the united states armed forces, and they ain’t never lost a war yet. thanky-do.”

- montana, asteroid city

montana here demonstrates an overarching acceptance of an absurd situation, rather than apprehension. in the same manner that sisyphus is happy with his lot, montana believes that people should choose to receive the alien with open arms, rather than fear, trepidation, or defensiveness.

another notable moment, which i mentioned briefly previously is as follows: 

“‘do i just keep doing it?’

‘yes.’

‘without knowing anything?’

‘yes.’

‘isn’t there supposed to be some kind of an answer out there in the cosmic wilderness? woodrow’s line about the meaning of life. maybe there is one.’

‘right.’

‘well, that’s my question. i still don’t understand the play.’

‘doesn’t matter. just keep telling the story. you’re doing him right.’

- auggie steenbeck & schubert green, asteroid city

even if we do not understand the world or our lives, if we are unsure of what is going on and why we even live, anderson comforts us. just as camus commands us to live our lives even if we do not comprehend them (because that is the essential condition of man) green tells hall to keep going, even in confusion.

the sleeping scene too can represent an acceptance of the absurd, and here is where anderson rephrases camus’s point. after earp proclaims that he would “like to make a scene where all my characters are each gently, privately seduced into the deepest, dreamiest slumber of their lives as a result of their shared experience of a bewildering and bedazzling celestial mystery,” but does not know how to write it, anderson serves us with a chilling and memorable scene. the entire ensemble in the classroom begins to chant the phrase “you can’t wake up if you don’t fall asleep.” anderson shows that the acceptance of the absurd, the act of falling asleep, in turn, leads to an understanding - to waking up. over and over in the myth of sisyphus, camus emphasizes that even once one lives an absurd life, one will still not find meaning in the universe, and anderson seems to believe so too. though there is no divine plan or sublime purpose, people can still be content with their lots in life. waking up in this instance represents a realization: the realization that a transcendent purpose is not a necessary component to a good life.

ascribing meaning: metaphors

in jeff goldblum’s only scene, in which he portrays the actor playing the alien in the production, he says:

“‘i don’t play him as an alien, actually. i play him as a metaphor. that’s my interpretation.’

‘metaphor for what?’

‘i don’t know yet. we don’t pin it down.’”

- reporter and unnamed guy playing the alien, asteroid city

this acknowledgment of the story being a metaphor gives some indication that anderson intends for it to possess more depth than meets the eye. for camus, the entire movie should be taken as a work of description, rather than explanation, and should not attempt to present a transcendent meaning to life or the work. anderson, on the other hand, seems to be saying that there is more to it. “you can’t wake up if you don’t fall asleep:” there will be a moment of waking up once you fall asleep and you will find the something that camus claims does not exist - even if that something could very well be an acknowledgement of absurdity and an acceptance of your choices in life, which is camus’s view.

it must be acknowledged that this essay, in and of itself, contradicts what camus is attempting to convey. in my reading into the movie in order to draw out a meaning (one related to camus’s philosophy), i am belying the very thesis of his writings.  

at the end of the day, there is no knowing who is right: is there really no meaning to the universe, as camus says? or is anderson correct in giving the sense that there is some purpose? or is there an understanding of their works in which they do not disagree? and the most important question of all: when will i stop writing essays and actually go outside? 

even approaching writing this piece was a struggle because the secret history by donna tartt is such a behemoth of a book. it is 600 pages of poetic writing, character work, murder, homosexuality, and an astounding lack of plot points.

the novel depicts the fall from grace of a certain 6 college students studying greek, narrated by the late-comer to the group: richard papen. these students live luscious, rich, lives, coming from upper-class backgrounds furnished with the best goods money could buy - except for richard. richard grew up in a small town in california, heir to the great fortune that is his father’s gas station.

what is it about?

at its heart, i think this book is a satirization of the rich. though henry, francis, the macauley’s, and bunny (kind of) all possess unimaginable wealth, this does not deter their downfall; one may even argue that this is the cause of their undoing. the inherent pretentiousness that comes with their status makes the characters of the secret history disconnected from the real world, in the belief that they are a class unto their own, better than everyone else. henry, even more so than the others, lives in a state of isolation (he didn’t even know the moon landing had occurred?). his life is dictated by a disparate code of ethics, that of his ancient studies. henry’s obsession with the classics is an escapist habit that leaves him vulnerable not only to manipulation by julian, but by the texts themselves. his obsession with the ritual stops for nothing, and when he finally decides he must end his own life, to wash away blood with blood, as he did with the pig sacrifice, he does so with no hesitation.

although it is an overt romanticization, the secret history is still a satire and critique to an extent. it highlights the dangers of pack mentality and conformity, while also obviously making fun of the pretentious academic. and yet, the romanticization is highly successful. every reader of this novel has been swept away by the exclusivity, the darkness, the intellect, and the friendship. the autumn air, the hot drinks and alcohol, and the weekends away at francis’s. we all had at least one moment in which we wished, even knowing the direction in which the story was going, to be part of this group. their allure is unmistakable in the book, as the reader experiences it through richard’s eyes at the start.

this leads me to the next important note about the book: richard’s eyes - his perspective. richard is literally #1 wanted in the nation for unRELIABLE NARRATION. there are two facets to this. one! richard doesn’t have any fuckin idea what is going on ever! everything he discovers, and by virtue of that, the reader discovers, is after-the-fact, secondhand information and much of it is inaccurate and incomplete. richard’s removal from the actual plot of the book leaves the reader with a third-hand understanding of the transpiring events. it’s hard to know what actually happened, as not only was richard not highly involved in the story, but the information that is revealed to him by the other characters could also be faulty. secondly, we know that richard is a big ass liar. one of the first things we learn about him is that he is a great liar. the reader can truly never be sure that the information richard presents is true! super trippy. i sort of don’t understand why this choice was made because it makes it really difficult to connect with the novel. i often found myself wanting to know more and more about what actually happened the night of the farmer’s murder, on the trip to italy, and in the interactions between the twins, and henry, and we just don’t get much of this.

the characters

i just have to devote an entire section to discussing these characters because the way that donna tartt frames and characterizes everyone in the book is so masterful. she managed to pull together a group without any of them being too trope-y and archetypal, and every single character is compelling.

we have to start with henry winter. henry starts as this domineering, intimidatingly tall and smart, standoffish guy who everyone has a crush on (everyone in the friend group, richard of course, and i’m sure many of the readers). throughout the book he is revealed to be a caring friend, showing up for richard and camilla, and supporting everyone else financially. finally, his seemingly true nature is revealed, and henry turns out to be a sociopath, willing to dispose of anything and anyone in the way of his ideals. he is the force that ties the group together, all of them drawn to him, and even when he begins to plot the literal murder of bunny, they defer to him for everything and stand by him to the bitter end. henry has a quality to him that draws people in, that entices people, and causes them to abandon their better sensibilities. henry winter is a sort of siren.

next up is francis abernathy. now i knowwww that many people who read the book fell absolutely in love with francis, but let’s all acknowledge that he doesn’t really do much. except for the paradigm-shifting hookup with richard (which is soon to be discussed, don’t you worry), francis plays a moderate role in the story. to some extent, he is the most reasonable member of the group, and the kindest to richard, but he still plays along with the murders.

there isn’t much to be said about richard, because we actually know sparingly little about him. he grew up poor, has a sour relationship with his parents, and has led a mostly directionless life. one thing we can glean about him is that richard is apparently smoking hot because so many people try to sleep with him. so that’s that. probably the most important thing we know about him, and one of my favorite lines from the book, is that he has “a morbid longing for the picturesque at all costs,” which is like, so real.

then there are the twins. clad in white, and projecting austere vibes, the macauleys are two of the most intriguing characters in the story. charles goes from a nice, fun, and good friend, to incestuous?? alcoholic?? abusive?? charles outwardly displays the inward deterioration that all five of the characters undergo. he is also just super scary. what he does to camilla, and the way he acts toward henry… just leaves you with a bitter taste in your mouth and an uncomfortable feeling in your stomach as you read.

the most elusive character in the novel is camilla, and we know even less about her than we do about richard. she is the only girl in the boys club, and is the object of affection of not one but three of them (charles included…), and the object of torment for two (again, charles included…). it is revealed at the end that camilla and henry were lovers, though richard pined after her. the name camilla means “helper to the priest”, which makes sense given camilla’s right-hand position to henry in his sacrifices, as she was the one who went down to check on bunny’s body with him.

lastly, there is bunny corcoran. the first to befriend richard, the first to dislike him. the character who at first seems so friendly, and turns out to be such a bitter, greedy, bigoted, and asinine man. though we know that killing him is not the answer, donna tartt expertly brings to life the perspectives of his murderers, making us sympathize with henry and co. more than we probably should. and yet, when the letter bunny wrote julian comes to light, we again feel for him in his crazed delusions of persecution: he was right. though he is the ‘worst’ of the group, spewing vitriol and attacking people, he is morally the most upstanding; though he doesn’t turn them in for the murder of the farmer he is clearly more upset by it than any of the others.

i would be remiss not to mention the force behind the story, the presence pushing our characters to do what they did: professor julian morrow. julian was just such a wierd character. he was a well-off professor who donated his salary back to the college, and in exchange was allowed free educational reign. he handpicked a selection of wealthy, attractive students so that he could…? what? teach them? groom them? julian is enigmatic in that we are never really sure why he does what he does. for a while, i believed he was in on henry’s entire plot, until the letter scene where he finds out they killed bunny. his reaction to the discovery (fleeing and never being seen again) was shocking to me, as i always believed julian would be someone who thought like henry, and would excuse the sort of ‘necessary sacrifice’ the group had to make in killing bunny. the most uncomfortable aspect of julian’s character is his close relationship with the students, especially henry. henry says that he loves julian “more than anyone in the world”, and is the only of the six who had ever been to julian’s home. considering the greek view of relationships between older men and younger boys, a romantic involvement would not be shocking.

gay!

i gotta say, the secret history was soo gay. there were many instances of homoeroticism and even overt stuff. most obviously, there is the fact that francis is gay, and hooks up with richard, the latter of which insists that he doesn’t like men. then there is the fact that richard is clearly also in love with henry, which he acknowledges at the end of the book when he says to camilla: “i loved him too”. then there is the matter of bunny’s homophobia, which to me seemed a little sus. i mean he ranted about gay men all the time, and it was starting to sound like he was covering some of his own… inclinations... lastly there is richard’s weird obsession with describing camilla as “boyish” and “masculine”. ok wishful thinking!

the tragedy of it all

on a more serious note, the secret history was a true tragedy. what began as educational pursuit ended in a two murders and a suicide, with the remaining living characters miserable. it is a true greek tragedy in the sense that when the ancient greeks went to watch plays, they already knew the endings, as all plays were retellings of well-known myths. the real question of the story is how the characters arrive at their tragic fate. we start out the book knowing already that bunny will end up dead, killed by his closest friends; from the chilling and iconic lines - “the snow in the mountains was melting and bunny had been dead for several weeks before we came to understand the gravity of our situation.” now the rest of the book is spent discovering just how they arrive at this point, what drove them to do what they did.

i have seen an idea circling that suggests that maybe henry, francis, and the twins did not actually kill the farmer, and it was a wild animal that they encountered. this theory is compelling, as it attempts to make the story seem as though it was all for naught, as though there was no point to the group’s decay. i think the truth is to the contrary. it does not matter whether or not they killed the farmer or found him dead already, because they wanted to have killed him (and anyway they didn’t care that they killed him. except for camilla’s brief grieving episode it didn’t seem to bother anyone much at all). the goal of the bacchanal was to lose control and become wild. if they did not kill this farmer they would have done something else, if it wasn’t that night it would have been some other evening, and some other tragedy; because the entire group suffered from the same ailment that richard did: a horrible yearning for the dramatic. their classical education imbued them with an obsession, with the desire to be embroiled in a conspiracy, in a carnal tale, and they got exactly what they wanted.

many readers find they dislike the epilogue, and i think that that is the point. the epilogue wrenches you out of the story, out of the aesthetic and romance of the tale, and shows you that it is not an episode that ends in drama, but in misery for everyone involved. it is a lesson: do not be fooled by the story told here, as the characters are fooled by it - know better, and don't romanticize and idealize what happened, because at the end of the day both the living and the dead end up unhappy; chased by oresteian furies for the rest of their days.

another common qualm held by readers is that the book drags on for too long. in my opinion, this is one of its strengths. not only does a higher page count means we get to read more of donna tartt’s beautiful writing, but it also serves to further entrench the reader in the story. the grueling winter months, the extensive funeral section, and all the other parts of the book that drag on embroil the reader in the plot leaving us experiencing the same slow despondency richard does.

~~~

what consequences do reprehensible actions have on a person? What happens when you aestheticize the tragedy and romanticize the violence? what does that do to your psyche? and to your conscience? as richard puts it:

I suppose at one time in my life I might have had any number of stories, but now there is no other. This is the only story I will ever be able to tell.

it sticks with you. it clings to your soul forever. A moi. L’histoire d’une de mes folies.

normal people by sally rooney is a book about two young adults, connell waldron and marianne sheridan, weaving in and out of each others’ lives, and the ways in which love for and from another person can change you. this is one of the quintessential sad girl books recommended all over tiktok, and in my opinion, it’s worth the hype. i found rooney’s characters to be complex and compelling, and her prose to be direct, with pointed observations and descriptions. if you are looking for a medium-paced contemporary romance read that is highly reflective, personal, and depressing, this book is for you.

onto the spoiler part :) stop reading if you haven’t read the book!!

to begin…

this book is easy to get annoyed with. the characters often behave in frustrating and uncommunicative ways, leaving the reader pissed off that they won’t just fuckING TALK TO EACH OTHER. still, the characters of normal people are real - at the end of the day, they act in the stupid, idiotic ways that real people do.

the title of the book is a nod to a statement connell makes, describing his relationship with his then girlfriend helen:

“Helen has given Connell a new way to live. It's as if an impossibly heavy lid has been lifted off his emotional life and suddenly he can breathe fresh air. It is physically possible to type and send a message reading: […] Of course if someone saw the messages he would be embarrassed, but he knows now that this is a normal kind of embarrassment, […] When she touches him spontaneously, applying a little pressure to his arm, or even reaching to brush a piece of lint off his collar, he feels a rush of pride, and hopes that people are watching them.”

connell’s relationship with helen was not based on mutual love and care for each other, but rather on the way she made him feel. the passage above repeats “he” and “him” to emphasize how to connell, the relationship was centered around what happened to him, rather than the both of them. helen made connell feel normal, feel like he was like all other normal people, when in fact he was not. his relationship with marianne was not normal, it was patently different:

“Being alone with her is like opening a door away from normal life and closing it behind him. He's not frightened of her, actually she's a pretty relaxed person, but he fears being around her, because of the confusing way he finds himself behaving, the things he says that he would never ordinarily say.”

this candidness of speech that connell and marianne exercise with one another is the core testament of the novel: absolute honesty and openness as a transformative experience. there are no boundaries between them, and therefore they are boundless. the lack of quotation marks throughout the book symbolizes how marianne and connell converse with each other: there is no separation between thought and statement, and the flow of what they say is uninterrupted.

and yet, is it true that there is something so different, so un-normal about these characters and their relationship to each other? i would posit that an aspect of the elegance of normal people is that it does in fact, contrary to the belief of the characters in it, portray normal people. the love, the passion, the rejection, the miscommunication, the yearning, are all real. the beauty of sally rooney’s writing is the way she can so effectively bring characters and emotions to life in a realistic way, and imbue mundane interactions with layers of meaning hidden under the surface. additionally, rooney portrays flawed characters who struggle with things her readers understand - connell, for example, falls into a deep depression for a period of the book, a segment which i found raw and relatable (especially when paul mescal played it so beautifully).

in response to this, one of the major criticisms of the novel is the fact that at a surface level, it is a bare-bones story, lacking much on-page interaction. this is a fundamental misunderstanding of the point of normal people. most of the heavy lifting of the book occurs inside the characters’ heads, and in turn, the 2020 tv adaptation had to adapt in order to accommodate this story-telling style.

so what’s the big idea?

normal people, fundamentally, is a novel about how people can change each other; how love and relationships can alter the very fabric of who you are as a person. marianne and connell both begin the book with glaring ‘problems’: marianne has been abused by her father & brother and neglected by her mother and because of that is a flighty and escapist person. she prefers to run from her problems, and doesn’t feel comfortable in her present state, living in a perpetual state of uneasiness. she believes she is not normal and unlovable, and therefore rejects normality and love. connell, on the other hand, is too comfortable where he is. he is afraid to speak out, afraid to be different, and afraid to be truly seen by others.

throughout the book, the two change each other’s perspective on life and themselves. by the end of the story, connell and marianne are vastly different from who they were in school. the final scene of the book, a devastating ending for anyone who wanted the two to end up together (and if you didn’t want them to, then… wtf), represents the changes they’ve both undergone. connell is ready to open up and to pursue what he is passionate about. moving to new york is a risk, and he is willing to take it. marianne, on the contrary, is finally content. she expresses that she is finally okay with herself and her life - even happy with it. she doesn’t need connell by her side to reassure and protect her anymore, and he doesn’t need her love to make him feel normal. they both give to each other, and the two end up much better off because of their relationship. as marianne puts it in the final scene of the show: “we have done so much good for one another.” many find the end of normal people to be frustrating and unfulfilling, but i think it is quite the opposite. both the characters reach a healthy point in their lives and acknowledge the good they have done for each other and the fact that they love each other and probably always will, but this doesn’t mean they must stay together forever.

class

in addition to being a romance, normal people is also a story about class. marianne comes from a rich family, while connell is the son of the woman who cleans for marianne’s mother. the disparity between their socioeconomic statuses is a twist on the usual ‘popular boy/loser girl’ trope (how very breakfast club-esque), seeing as within the confines of high school, connell is the one who holds the power, in the form of social currency, while in the real world, marianne is the one in the position of privilege. when they go to college, marianne finds her financially well-off peers, while connell struggles to make friends with the people in his lectures. he describes his classes as such:

“It was culture as class performance, literature fetishised for its ability to take educated people on false emotional journeys, so that they might afterwards feel superior to the uneducated people whose emotional journeys they liked to read about. […] all books were ultimately marketed as status symbols […] Literature in the way it appeared at these public readings had no potential as a form of resistance to anything.”

in ‘real life,’ connell’s social power means nothing and his financial status means everything.

how family shapes you

another major theme the book addresses is the role of the family in identity formation. both of the main characters’ families play essential roles in making them who they are. marianne, who was raised in a repressive and abusive household, grows up to doubt herself and to continue to allow others to step all over her. she even expresses how open she would be to doing anything connell wanted from her, even if it hurt her: “she would have lain on the ground and let him walk over her body if he wanted.” conversely, connell was raised by a loving mother, yet her position as a semi-outcast in carricklea as a result of her teen pregnancy and ‘bad’ family leave connell with a special awareness of the power of social admittance and ostracization.

the show

i really loved the show. when i finished reading the book i immediately went and started watching the bbc show, and then finished it and immediately read the book again. i appreciated nearly everything about the execution of normal people on-screen, with a few caveats. the tv show did an almost perfect job of presenting the characters as multifaceted individuals, except for one aspect of marianne. part of her character in the book is her deep care for political and social issues around the world - at one point someone even doubts her sentiments, but connell emphasizes that she does actually care. in the show, her semi-radical political positions are omitted, flattening her character a bit.

in a similar vein, the show generally tended to minimize the grit of the story. small details were changed, leading to a more polished and palatable cast of characters. it felt like the tv show wanted viewers to find the characters likable, while the book did not care.

criticism

the most compelling criticism i have read of normal people deals with a seemingly small aspect of the writing, that being rooney’s emphasis on thinness. this article, by finn mcredmond, details how rooney tends to equate being skinny with being artistic and interesting. does this devalue the story? is it a moral failing on sally rooney’s end?

the end

if you actually read all of this, then wow i’m shocked. what did you think of the book? do you disagree with anything i said? would love to hear thoughts from you - my imaginary audience!

thanks for reading <3

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