Taught Vs. Predestined

As I began reading Richard Dawkins’, The Selfish Gene, I found it interesting how he is gradually able to state his conclusions with scientific support in a formal-informal register that lets the readers open to his ideas. In the first chapter he invites us to “try to teach generosity because we are born selfish” (3). Even though the reader may believe that human nature is sacred and perfect, even altruistic, it is hard to not notice the authority in his writing. I was immediately transformed into an open-minded reader, trying not to judge his ideas, it is an interesting strategy for the purpose of persuading his readers. This predetermined selfish beings, as we are classified, should become aware, as Dawkins states, that teaching is needed in order to try to become generous. It is an interesting approach to our human deficiencies, our needy self-centered egos that can only be shut down through teachings of generosity.

Due to the higher survival rate of a selfish individual or gene compared to an altruistic one there is a higher chance that through mutations the selfish one will survive we are left to confront the idea that we are natural selfish genes. Even though what Dawkins is concluding might sound a little extremist he immediately limits his thoughts to the concept that it might “just be more difficult to learn altruism than it would be if we were genetically programmed to be altruistic” (3). This kind of writing is absolutely appropriate to the final goal his writing is trying to achieve by limiting his thoughts in order for the reader to not be carried away into extracting the wrong conclusions. As a reader, I’m still waiting for Dawkins to uncover his main plot but from the first two chapters I was able to observe a different kind of writing which is gradually making the reader more engaged with it’s teachings.

Even though it is a different approach to what we have witnessed in other pieces such as Candide, Epictetus’ Handbook, and Slaughterhouse-Five there is some overlapping, as the difference between the idealistic and the confronting human being. Dawkins states that “we may frequently behave selfishly as individuals, but in our more idealistic moments we honor and admire those who put the welfare of others first” (9). This reminds me of Candide who lived supporting Pangloss’ thinking that “all is for the better”. The disappointment he confronts as he realizes how unfair our world is, is completely against what he believes in when not having to suffer life’s complex situations. The mediocre idealist in my opinion should no be heard, only the one that can stand up and act accordingly to what he believes in should be looked up to. It is then the obligation of the idealist to accept certain crude realities of our nature, as Dawkins is doing a the beginning of his book, to create a theory that can be supported and lived up to.

The Final Solution

As I read the final section of Candide I was glad to find a message, a life statement contrary to what Voltaire had made fun of through the novel. Even though teaching is not the main objective in Voltaire’s piece, he is able to leave the idea that working things out is the true objective in life. As the Turk farmer said, “we find that the work banishes those three great evils, boredom, vice and poverty” (143). As I wrote in my previous post, Changing For The Best, what we make of life’s blessings and unfortunate events is what differentiates a Gandhi or Dalai Lama from a regular person who is overwhelmed by life’s rapid shifts. This different approach to life, a look at the bigger picture, society and one’s possible role in aiding its evolution through productive work is what is necessary to overcome boredom, vice and poverty. One must find deep meaning for the journey. Voltaire shows this change in the mentality of his characters as a community change. The final message that we are not alone in the quest to overcome our inability to accept is necessary to include a fitting ending to his novel, which captured the mentality of many types of human beings: from the completely disappointed and depressed Martin to the extremely positive and light Pangloss.

Something that caught my attention as I read the last chapter of the book was the drastic change between the predetermined Pangloss (“all is for the better”) to the one that accepts the challenge to work in order to overcome life’s difficulties. As he discussed with Candide about why man was put in the garden of Eden he concludes that the final purpose was for him “to work, in fact; which proves that man was not born to an easy life” (143). Pangloss gives a new understanding to his life statement, he now accepts that man was indeed supposed to accept the unfortunate events of life but that it was up to the individual to make the best he could out of it.

Martin also undergoes a drastic transformation at the end of the book. As he discussed with Candide their adventures with Count Pococurante, I noticed a change in his negative, disappointed attitude that characterized him throughout the novel. Martin informs us that Plato once stated “that the best stomachs are not those that reject all food” (124). Martin is now an individual who believes that not liking anything in life is disastrous, he has realized how disappointing it is to be disappointed about everything in life and shows how nature embraces all. Are we supposed to live without any appreciation for what life has brought us? Voltaire is finally showing a way out of the limits of dry, bitter, cynical criticism and granting everyone a path towards a more fertile, warmer look at human life and society.

Changing For The Best

An interesting gradual change we see in Candide is how his perception about the idea that “all is for the better” is completely transformed. As I have talked about in previous posts, Candide had been supportive and obstinate about Pangloss’ teachings even when living hard moments. In Chapters 18 and 19, we see clear examples of Candide’s disappointments about these teachings. As Candide encounters the slave who is missing a hand and a leg in Surinam, he says as if speaking to Pangloss: “A scandal like this never occurred to you! But it’s the truth, and I shall have to renounce that optimism of yours in the end” (86). This answers one of the big questions I have had in my mind. Voltaire is definitely showing a big change in Candide’s belief system, due to all the suffering he has lived and witnessed, in order to convince the reader how illogical it is to live thinking that “all is for the better”. Voltaire is belittling the idea of not having free will, he is trying to show that due to the atrocities we see it is impossible that they are happening in a predetermined fashion. His descriptions describe the idea of fate as gruesome and cruel.

Candide is also able to reach new conclusions about his daily adventures, as how he reacts to the loss of the majority of sheep that were carrying his new treasures back to Europe. He reflects on “how perishable are the riches of this world. There is nothing solid but virtue” (85). This is an interesting reaction to the great loss he has just experienced. This is a technique used by Voltaire in order to make the reader confident that Candide’s process of transformation is beginning. We now see Candide as an individual who is gradually realizing that maybe it isn’t true that “all is for the better”, but that our actions, which are chosen by us produce the ability to open new paths and options for us. Our actions determine our lives and not fate.

In the New York Times article Best of All Possible Worlds, Updated for the Paris Stage, I read some of the history Candide has as a world musical, and the way directors work out Voltaire’s satire. I find it interesting how the modern musical takes place in 1950’s America, and how it makes fun of the modern ideas and situations instead of recurring to the specific story Voltaire once wrote. Changing the Auto-da-fé in Portugal into an appearance with the Ku Klux Klan torch carriers and sailing from France to New York instead than from Spain to Argentina there are differences that change the setting but don’t alter the general objective of comparing fate to free will. One could argue, for the sake of being provocative that the fated part of life is the array of choices offered to an individual via genetics, family, historical moment, race, sex, social standing, physical abilities or ailments, etc. and that free will would be what you do with the specific set of limitations or favorable circumstances that each one of us is born into. Our real power would be in exercising our free will to transform that which was unfavorable into amazing, such as Helen Keller, Nelson Mandela, the Dalai Lama, Gandhi or Abraham Lincoln did with their fated circumstances.

For The Best…

The determination of Candide to continue devoting his life to the idea that all is for the best is amazing. In previous posts I have talked about Cunégonde’s disappointment towards the teachings Pangloss had once so devoutly expressed and the beginnings of Candide’s realization that those teachings could not be true due to the great suffering he had lived. In Chapters 16-17 we see the obstinate Candide, Voltaire is now prepared to show his great disappointment and rejection of people that agree that all is for the best. Being kidnapped by the Oreillons, Candide states that no “doubt all is for the best, but I must say it is very cruel to have lost Lady Cunégonde and to be skewered by the Oreillons” (71). Voltaire is making fun of Candide, showing how even Candide thinks that this is not the best that could be happening. It is interesting how the author is able to make fun of him in his speech, the essence of Candide is shown to be simplistic and illogical in his words. How can all be for the best if you just lost the love of your life, your true single purpose and you are just to be eaten by a crazy group of people?

Candide also shows an appreciation for nature when problems are finally resolved. He says that when “all is said and done, there is a sterling goodness in unsophisticated Nature” (72). According to Candide, things may not work out exactly as you expect them to come out but they will be eventually be resolved and all will be good. In the link below you can find a short clip of the musical production of Candide. Between 0:29 and 0:54 there is a representation of the teachings of Pangloss and his brainwashed students which I found very comical. You can see how this part of the musical shows the four students to be absolutely absorbed in the words they are saying, it seems that what they’re telling is the most obvious truth they have ever had the opportunity to say. The representation is very credible since it shows the general image seen in Candide’s words about Pangloss’ teachings.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zPClzIsYxvA

Voltaire has great timing, he tells us only what we need to know in order to understand that he will continue his master joke. As Candide expresses his feelings towards Eldorado he states that it is “probably the country where all goes well [. . .] I often noticed that all went badly in Westphalia” (77). The comparison Candide makes between his old and new settings, is important for the reader to understand that the main character is still living based on the same old framework, even though he still criticizes what he lived in the past. We can observe a double-sided perception Candide has about this idea that all is for the better: he accepts it, and lives with it in his mind but his heart forces him to reject the horrible moment he has been through. It is as if you try to believe something that deep down you know not to be true, when in fact you have suffered immensely and it has become impossible to wrap this horrendous, stark reality into that light context.

Wealth: The Difference Shifter

Sometimes, when we stop getting so obsessed and intense about reaching our goals, the energy starts to naturally flow and we receive more than what we ever expected. There are other situations that we have to be flexible, we have to learn how to use different strategies to reach our goals. In Candide, Voltaire is able to use Cacambo, Candide’s slave, in order to make fun of voltiarepas, people who use both opposite views to be rewarded to the maximum level from all sides have no morality. Cacambo states that when “you don’t get what you expect on one side, you find it on the other. Fresh sights and fresh adventures are always welcome” (62). This describes an individual who doesn’t stand up for what he is and believes in but uses everyone and everything for his benefit. Someone who does stand for what he thinks will be living a life full of meaning and character. It is interesting how this character brings a new workspace for Voltaire in the book. The character is passionate and tries to advise the easiest way to get out of situations. Will he remain loyal to Candide, or is he going to follow his advice and use the circumstances?

One of the satire targets in Chapters 14-15 is the military behavior. Our society sometimes forgets the human side of each soldier that fights for a country, the limitations and terror of war life as well as the distancing from their loved ones. As Candide and the Baron, brother of Cunégonde, meet we are shown the human side of this priest-soldier life. The natural side to family encounters as they “fell back in amazement, and then embraced each other and burst into tears” (64). Voltaire is both showing a reality of everyday life (the necessity of family even when at war) and making fun of how serious a military institution becomes, protecting a country’s ability to express its power through enlisted people who are forced to follow very difficult orders. This is only one of the examples of satire targeting in these chapters. We can also see how Voltaire continues making fun of people who live thinking that all is for the best and the idea that the power is carried by family.

Through the example of Candide killing the brother of Cunégonde the reader is assured that Voltaire is making fun of family disunity when power comes available. As the Baron makes fun of Candide thinking that he could marry the Baron’s sister we are shown how family unity is in danger when an integrant wants to marry a person from a different social class. We also see how Candide is still compromised with Pangloss’ teachings even after the suffering he has gone through. As Candide responds to the Barons insults he mentions that his “master Pangloss used to tell me that men are equal; and I shall marry her without hesitation” (67). We are confronted by a situation where differences in wealth change the perception that all men are created equal. This is something that we could also see in Slaughterhouse-Five, where Vonnegut’s equality among men is shared in the idea that life is destined to happen a certain way for specific events to happen, but there is a determining difference between the role each person is assigned to take. The relationship between Billy and Valencia shows this through the win-win situation that is shown. Valencia gains a relationship with a man who accepts her physical problems due to the substantial change in social class he will have if he marries her. In a way, Voltaire is showing how ridiculous life becomes if we believe that suffering is inevitable and meant to happen. There is an obligation to analyze as a reader how this equality is seen through Voltaire’s eye, a topic to be watched carefully in the following chapters.

Conclusion Of The Thousand Miseries

In the character of the old woman in Candide, we find an individual who has developed an understanding of life, and gained a certain moral authority on other people’s lives, through her misery. The hardships the old woman lived became the reason for Candide and Cunégonde to trust and follow her advice. The old woman is also an interesting character for the way she feels about life. Even though she vividly describes the horrible tortures and events that have happened in her life, she is still fond of life. She states that she has wanted “to kill myself a hundred times, but somehow I am still in love with life” (57). The strong pull life has on our souls, our desire to live makes it easier for one to continue fighting, to not surrender under the burden of misery. Can we truly give up the only thing we were all generously gifted and that we will all have to eventually surrender any moment, like it or not? There is still this necessity to grip life harder and strive for our goals, for a better present that is yet to come.

The old woman gives the author a voice by which he criticizes people who live thinking that all is for the better in a rather different way as he has done so far in the book. Through the events that happen in Cunégonde’s and Candide’s life we are clearly shown the horrible and unjust events that can happen in any individual’s life, but through the voice of the old woman, we are shown the direct message Voltaire has wanted to carry throughout the whole novel. She says to Cunégonde and Candide as they are in the boat going to Buenos Aires that if you “persuade each passenger to tell you his story, and if you find even one who has not often cursed his life and told himself that he is the most miserable man alive, you can throw me into the sea head first” (57). It isn’t how horrible life has been for us, what unites us is the way we react to all the horrible moments of life. Finally what unites us is the thought that we are the unluckiest, the most miserable. What hope is there then in the boat of humanity, the boat of the “most miserable”? We are shown an ugly truth of our behavior as a community, the thought that we are all obsessed with our own little fate with absolutely no conscious awareness of the need to help our fellow inmates on the planet, instead we constantly compare and measure our drama with theirs. This division, this distance between me and you, and us and them, is the beginning of all our problems, all our wars. It is no longer a question of whether all is for the better, it’s more like if we continue to be so self absorbed and unconscious, it all inevitably will become the worse for all of us.

Another interesting approach the old woman gives us, relates to the way we, as individuals, work out how to keep on living after the complex situations we have had to overcome. She asks us why “be eager to grow on carrying a burden which one would gladly throw away, to loathe one’s very being and yet to hold it fast, to fondle the snake that devours us until it has eaten our hearts away” (57). This gives us the needed insight to conclude that Voltaire uses this character to make us open up to the possibility that what we all truly need as individuals is a way to share ourselves, to let our spirits say whatever they need, to continue living, to unload and share our burdens to start a true healing process. I noticed that in this question, the old woman poses how our hearts are the victims of the repressed sentiments we have always wanted to say, the yelling that has been kept someplace in our hearts ready to be freed. The heart of a suffering individual is waiting for the serpent of secrets to be killed, before it eats the heart, the true life force, completely.

The Even Worse

As I read Chapters 8-11 of Candide, I was interested in how Voltaire is able to re-introduce the character of Cunégonde through Candide’s journey. This portrays the “bobbing up-and-down, up-and-down” we saw in Slaughterhouse Five, the concept of good and bad moments our society is so used to. Voltaire once again shows his disgust for the idea that all is for the best when Cunégonde says, “Pangloss cruelly deceived me when he told me that all is for the best in this world” (43). Voltaire repeatedly shows that the much hated life concept will lose all its followers as they confront the worst events in their lives. We are to weak and our acceptance is partial when affronting a bad moment. We accept ideals when we are enjoying good times and believe we will be able to continue on a soft road, but when our feelings and rational minds are forced to live these horrible moments, we immediately crumble under the burden of these challenges. These are the true test of our souls, our beliefs, our mental truths.

When in trouble, I often dream of another kind of relationship between individuals and their environment. A bit of an utopia fantasy to soften the brutal reality to believe that there are other possibilities and realities where horrible events and complicated situations don’t happen. Voltaire also considers these thoughts unworthy as Candide states that he expects the new world to be “the one where all goes well; for I must admit that regrettable things happen in this world of ours, moral and physical acts that one cannot approve of” (48). This is exactly what I feel when trying to confront a situation with a positive attitude believing that all is for the best. My rational and emotional parts are forced to believe that maybe the higher order/intelligence that decides what is for the best got confused or is creating situations and circumstances we don’t quite understand because we don’t know the whole larger picture, we only have our small, short sized view. Knowing everything may somehow make sense of all the insanity.

We are accustomed to comparing our lives, both the good and bad moments with that of the person beside us, be it friend or foe. It is a natural tendency that makes it harder for us to build a simple relationship between the events of our lives and our reactions towards them. We are forced to see how other people are doing in their dramas, making us be constantly disappointed or impressed by our own lives. Voltaire shows how a person who lives by the idea that all is for the better is motivated to continue living by this ideal, when seeing others that have lived even worse moments, as Cunégonde relates that she has been “so terribly unfortunate in my affairs, that I have lost almost all hope” (48). As Cunégonde states this, Voltaire gives her the opportunity to see how another person, the old woman, has lived more horrid moments, confirming the idea that by seeing another’s misfortune we are fueled to continue living, finally appreciating our own lot in life and accepting, at least partially, that all is for the better. That concept may completely change and become distorted when the tables are turned and one is forced to live the short, horrendous end of the stick. I believe that the only way to really understand the complete mystery of life, its majesty and its horror, we must learn to contemplate life from a non judgmental present, creating thus a constant state of reverence and awe, that is the realm of the enlightened: the Buddhas and Christs among us and forever latent within each one of us.