Metacognition: Jane Eyre

While reading Jane Eyre, my thinking has not really stood out as different from other books that I've read. I thought it was a good book, and therefore read it in much the same way as the books I read for fun (though with a little more attention to detail, due to reading quizzes). Because of that, it's kind of hard to analyze my approach to reading the book--I don't really have anything to compare it to.
On the other hand, I do think my reactions to the story were different than a lot of the class. I remember that after Rochester was introduced, many people immediately disliked him, thinking him rude, arrogant and obnoxious. Though I agreed with them to some extent, I did not really dislike Rochester--though he didn't try to be polite, he was also not intentionally rude or arrogant. He just bluntly spoke his mind, without worrying about what others would think of him--much like Jane, as seen when she bluntly tells him he is not handsome.
I think I saw Jane somewhat differently as well. I think a lot of people were frustrated by Jane's desire to submit to other characters. I think a lot of people felt like it was based on an old-fashioned view of women as the weaker sex--people who could only be happy when a strong, dominating man was in control. Again, there was some truth to that, but Jane often showed some strength as well, defying strong characters like Rochester and St. John when they tried to control her.
For situations like these, I think I did think about the book differently from those I had read in the past. The characters and events in the book didn't really fit into typical patterns of fiction--they couldn't be easily forced into the archetypes we learned last year. In that way, it made me think more by challenging me to figure out what each element of the story meant myself.

Best of the Week: Cathedral

I missed a lot of our discussion of the short story Cathedral this week, but I was here when we talked about what I thought was the most interesting part of the story: the last line, where the narrative ends abruptly at the climax with a rather bland line of dialogue: "It's really something." We decided in class that the purpose of this was to maintain a consistent voice: throughout the story, the narrator had been fairly inarticulate; for him to eloquently and succinctly sum up what he had experienced would be jarring. This is representative of the aspect of this story I liked the most: the narrator's convincing voice made him seem like a real person and not just the author's invention. Like the characters in Kite Runner, King Lear and Heart of Darkness, he was more convincing because of his imperfections. In fact, the character was probably more impressive than Amir: many authors give their characters moral imperfections, but rarely do we find characters with difficulty expressing themselves. In first person stories, the narrator often seems to be a writer himself. In Kite Runner this makes sense--Amir really is a writer--but even when the narrator is uneducated, they seem to have a sense of how to tell a good story. To break away from this as the author does in Cathedral seems like an odd choice--why would you actively make your writing less coherent and engaging?--but, for this short story at least, it works. For a few pages, we see a writer using the voice of someone who is not a writer, and it's an interesting change of pace.

Dialectics: Business and Government

In our discussion of Heart of Darkness, we had a brief but heated discussion about how government and business should interact with each other. Mr. Williams suggested what seemed to be the accepted view: the government should act as a "referee," enforcing rules to ensure fair competition among businesses but not becoming a player itself. However, everyone seemed to understand the role of the "referee" differently: Merrick's ideal government would try to compensate for differences in ability to ensure absolute equality; Taylor's would only intervene if things got too rough or major problems arose. My view may be the most extreme: the government should have clearly defined and sharply limited powers with regard to the economy, none of which would let it take the role of a business.

Business and government (particularly democratic government) have very different goals. In business, the goal is the maximization of profit. Those in charge of the business strive to minimize costs and maximize productivity to provide something that people need or want. Success is defined as consistently making a profit. In government, the goal is (ideally) to serve the people of the country, protecting their rights and advancing their interests. People inevitably disagree in defining success for a government, but few people would claim its purpose is to make a profit.

Because their goals are so different, any mixture of business and government is problematic. The economy works best when businesses compete to provide the best goods and services at the lowest prices. When the government intervenes in the economy in the pursuit of some other goal, this competition is distorted--for example, companies may pursue unprofitable paths because they are subsidized by the government. Some would argue that there are instances where such intervention is necessary or desirable in order to achieve more important goal. However, intervention in the economy often has unintended consequences--requiring companies to provide health insurance, for example, helps big businesses at the expense of small ones that cannot afford to do so. Such distortions are inevitable when government tries to intervene in the economy to achieve unrelated goals.

The reverse is also true. History shows that businesses do not by any means make good governments. A key example is the East India Company, which controlled its own private army and conquered territory for itself, independently of the British government. The companies in Heart of Darkness provide another example, with essentially free reign from the Belgian government to control and exploit the Congo. With profit as their only goal, these companies abuse and exploit the native Africans in pursuit of ivory.

This suggests that, in a perfect world, government and business would be entirely separate. Certain specific and limited responsibilities would belong to the government alone; individuals and business would be responsible everything else. In this case, a "synthesis" would lead to something with the worst parts of both.

Metacognition: First Semester

The first semester of English has been an interesting experience, and while I don't believe that I think in a radically different way than at the start of the year, a number of aspects of the class have certainly influenced me. In particular, I have tried to be more open to new and unusual ideas, asking myself the question Mr. Allen raised at the very start of the year--Do I fully understand that which I am about to reject?

I have found myself thinking more deeply as a reader, partly because the books we have read have been surprising and though-provoking. The Blue Sweater offered an interesting take on philanthropy and poverty. The Kite Runner brought us a glimpse of a different culture and complex, conflicted characters. I particularly enjoyed Sophie's World, which gave me some basic understanding of philosophy for the first time.

I think about writing in new ways as well. When we discussed the rhythm of writing in class, I became newly aware of how the sounds of my words and sentences fit together into a whole, in the same way as their meaning. This opened up a new aspect of writing that I had been only vaguely aware of. The essays we have written have made me think as well, with their open-ended prompts forcing me to come up with my own ideas and build original arguments.

Of course, there are still ways I could improve. Throughout the first semester, I rarely raised my hand in class, mostly choosing to sit back and observe the discussion. In the next semester, I intend to participate more in these discussions, actively forming my own ideas about the subjects we cover and expressing them more often.

Blogging Around #2

Jacob's post discussed the dialectic between capitalism and socialism in the U.S.
I said:

I would agree with you that the U.S. (and most of the world) rests somewhere between capitalism and socialism. However, I think the "capitalism" you describe is closer to anarchy. In my understanding, capitalism recognizes a place for government--it enforces contracts between people and businesses, upholds rights, etc. What isn't capitalist is when governments start doing the job of businesses--providing goods and services such as health care. You could argue that pure capitalism is not realistic or desirable, but it is a little less extreme and more viable than the anarchy you described.

Merrick's post talked about the relationship between religion and hatred. I said:

I agree that hatred and religion are often connected to each other, but I don't think it's fair to say that religion itself causes hatred. I would argue that hatred comes from people manipulating and exploiting religion for their own ends. Many of the examples you give are less an example of people doing bad things because of religion and more of people using religious differences to justify whatever they are doing. Obviously this is a real problem, but it's not one that's unique to religion. From history we can see that any compelling idea--from the promise of life after death, to the belief in the greatness of one's country--can be exploited and used to justify hatred and violence. Obviously, exploiting these powerful ideas can have dire consequences, like the hatred you describe in your post. But this hatred does not have to be a part of religion, and most of the time it is not.

360 Degrees: Health Care

I don't know how closely people are following the health care debate, but it seems that Congress will probably begin voting on bills relatively soon. The most controversial (and in my opinion, most important) part of the debate is about the public option, a government run insurance plan that would compete with the private insurance companies.
Supporters of the public option argue that in America's current system, insurance companies overcharge for coverage and cherry-pick the healthiest customers, making it impossible for the poor or ill to get coverage. We pay the most in the world for health care, yet our life expectancy is lower than many other countries and the World Health Organization ranked our system 37th in the world. The government can insure these people for less, negotiate for lower prices, set standards for high-quality care and force private insurers to measure up.
Opponents have raised a number of objections. They argue that Americans do get the best care--by some measures, such as cancer survival rates, we really do lead the world. Many object that nobody can compete with a company that writes the rules, funds itself with its competitors' taxes and has no obligation to make a profit. Government attempts at cost control, they say, will inevitably lead to reduced quality and rationing of care.
Personally, I am opposed to a public option, a position I like to think I arrived at after weighing all the information carefully. I'm sure some others in Academy have strong opinions about this. I'm interested to know what everyone else thinks.

Blogging Around

In response to Lauren's post, which checked The Kite Runner against the archetype of the Hero's Journey and asked whether Amir was a hero:

I remember learning about this when we read the Epic of Gilgamesh last year, but I had completely forgotten about it since then. This is a way of looking at the book that nobody brought up during class, probably because Amir's actions during his childhood were so clearly un-heroic. But Gilgamesh is not admirable at the start of the Epic either--he must pass through many ordeals and adventures to become a wise and good king. And while Gilgamesh's story included bigger, more dramatic adventures--climbing mountains, fighting monsters, and so on--his most important journey was internal, just like Amir's. Amir is no Gilgamesh, and his journey of redemption has none of the glory of ancient mythology, but there is something heroic about it all the same.

On Sam's post about how, in great literature and great art, not understanding everything can be a good thing:

Sam, I think that I agree with you about this. The meaning of a great book or painting may be difficult to understand, but it can still be valuable if it makes the reader/viewer think. On the other hand, I have read many books that made me think without being difficult or intimidating. And at the same time, simply being difficult doesn't make a book valuable. Everyone has read books that were difficult to get through without giving new insight into anything. In my opinion, it's possible for a book to touch on important, "difficult" ideas but remain approachable and easy to read.