Vol. 3 / Fall 2012

The “Sleeping Beauty Problem” yields two competing solutions to a seemingly elementary question: What is the probability of a coin toss landing heads? Most people, including Patrick Hawley, would say, “1/2!” but Adam Elgar replies differently; in the case of the “Sleeping Beauty Problem”: “1/3.” In this scenario, the subject, Beauty, is put to sleep on Sunday, and then a fair coin is tossed. If the coin toss yields heads, then Beauty is awakened on Monday and Wednesday. If the toss yields tails, Beauty will instead be awakened on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. Throughout the duration of the experiment, Beauty is injected with a drug that removes memories of being awakened; thus, if she is awakened on Tuesday, she will not remember Monday’s disturbance. Thus, Elga’s answer of 1/3 heads is his response to a more complex version of the elementary question: “When the subject is awakened on Monday, to what degree will she believe that the outcome of the coin toss is heads?” Elga, a “thirder,” interestingly—but incorrectly—believes that the probabilities of being awakened on Monday with heads, Monday with tails, and Tuesday with tails are equal. Patrick Hawley, a “halfer,” refutes Elga’s argument, instead correctly stating that the answer to the problem is 1/2, since the probability of Beauty waking up on Monday is “1,” rather than less than “1” as Elga states. Although Elga and Hawley create similar analyses at points, Hawley is ultimately correct in saying that the halfer’s conclusion possesses more merit than the thirder’s.

Elga incorrectly believes that the answer to the Sleeping Beauty problem is 1/3 heads and 2/3 tails, rather than 1/2 heads and 1/2 tails. To explain his reasoning, he first presents three “waking” possibilities: “H1: Heads on Monday,” “T1: Tails on Monday,” and “T2: Tails on Tuesday.” ((Adam Elga, “Self-locating Belief and the Sleeping Beauty Problem,” Analysis 60 (2000): 144.)) He states that if the researchers wake up Beauty and tell her it is Monday, she is living either the H1 or T1 circumstance; thus, H1 and T1 both have a probability of 1/2. If Beauty wakes up on either Monday or Tuesday and learns that the coin landed on tails, she is in either T1 or T2; therefore, T1 and T2 both have a probability of 1/2. ((Elga, “Self-locating Belief,” 145.)) Essentially, if H1 = T1 and T1 = T2, then, according to Elga’s “highly restrictive indifference principle,” H1 must equal T2. ((Elga, “Self-locating Belief,” 145.)) Therefore, H1 = T1 = T2. The likelihood of each waking must be 1/3, since they must yield a sum of 1. He also illustrates that Beauty’s thoughts should change from Sunday to Monday. ((Elga, “Self-locating Belief,” 145.)) On Sunday, she should believe indisputably that there is a 50% chance of heads and a 50% chance of tails, considering the coin is fair. Yet, when she is awakened on Monday, she should have confidence that there is a 1/3 chance each of H1, T1, and T2. ((Elga, “Self-locating Belief,” 145.)) Elga attributes the change in credence to the fact that when she wakes up on Monday, she considers her “temporal location as relevant to H,” in contrast to Sunday, when her temporal location was not relevant. If she is not told explicitly that it is Monday, she is aware that her place in time is somewhere in the midst of the experiment. According to Elga, this is relevant information that should cause her belief to change from a 1/2 chance of heads or tails on Sunday to a 1/3 chance of heads, and a 2/3 chance of tails on Monday.

Although he acknowledges that Elga’s argument has its strengths, Patrick Hawley rightfully unveils the clear flaws in the thirder’s beliefs, and reasons that 1/2 is indeed the correct solution. Hawley and other halfers, including David Lewis, agree with Elga on the Principal Principle, which states that Beauty should accept the answer of 1/2 on Sunday because the coin was fair, meaning that there is an equal chance of heads or tails. ((Patrick Hawley, “Inertia, Optimism, and Beauty,” Phil-Sci Archive 10 March 2010, 8.)) Hawley also agrees with Elga that the probability of H1 is equal to T1. ((Hawley, “Inertia,” 8.)) Agreement ends, however, with Elga’s conclusion that H1 = T2 and Beauty’s change of credence from 1/2 to 1/3. This is first because Elga’s conclusions are incompatible with the property of inertia: “If you should have a degree of belief d that p at time t1, and between t1 and a later time t2, your cognitive facilities remain in order, and you neither gain nor lose relevant evidence, then you should also have degree of belief d that p at time t2.” ((Hawley, “Inertia,” 2.)) In other words, if one believes something and does not gain or lose evidence regarding that belief, then they should continue their belief to the same degree. Since Beauty is asleep between Sunday and Monday, she does not have the capability to learn anything. She only knows that regardless of the outcome of the coin toss, she will wake up on Monday. Thus, Beauty’s certainty of 1/2 should not change. According to the property of inertia, if Elga argues that her credence is 1/2 on Sunday, it should remain 1/2 on Monday.

According to Elga, Beauty’s temporal location changes from irrelevant to relevant during the period from Sunday to Monday because her awareness of this change is new evidence. Therefore, the property of inertia would not be application because something has changed between Sunday and Monday. Hawley, however, believes he and other thirders do not provide enough explanation to support such a claim of “new evidence.” Elga states that Beauty’s awareness of a change of temporal location is relevant because it causes her to modify her credence from Sunday to Monday, but he does not say why this is the case. Hawley points out that on Sunday, Beauty was aware that her temporal location would change in the future. So, why would Beauty not take that into consideration on Sunday before she feel asleep? Elga and other thirders do not acknowledge this question. Since this is a significant flaw that goes unaddressed, the merit of the thirders’ argument diminishes. Hawley believes that their lack of explanation is the reason that arguments regarding the Sleeping Beauty Problem persist. ((Hawley, “Inertia,” 3.)) Thirders like Elga are still trying to invent reasons that the change of temporal location is relevant evidence. Yet, no one has truly succeeded in proving that the change in temporal location matters. Instead, the correct answer is that the change of temporal location simply isn’t relevant. Beauty knew on Sunday that she would wake up at another time; she knew ahead of time that her temporal location would change. The only  real evidence Beauty has upon waking up is her memory of Sunday. Since nothing changes between Sunday and Monday, her credence should not change either.

Hawley also provides a convincing rebuttal to Elga’s paper by posing a question: “When Beauty wakes up on Monday, what should her degree of belief be that it is Monday?” ((Hawley, “Inertia,” 5.)) The thirders assume that Beauty must be uncertain of whether it is Monday or Tuesday. Their argument relies on this “unquestioned assumption” because they assume Beauty cannot know for sure if she is in H1, T1 or T2. ((Hawley, “Inertia,” 5.)) Hawley, however, rejects the assumption that Beauty is always unsure of whether it is Monday or Tuesday because the assumption is formulated merely due to intuition rather than reasoning. ((Hawley, “Inertia,” 5.)) Strong reasoning should prevail over intuition since our intuition is not always reliable in situations as complex as the Sleeping Beauty scenario. In other words, our intuitive thinking is likely to be refuted by critical reason. Thus, the unquestioned assumption should be questioned. To answer his own question, Hawley states that Beauty should have credence of 1 in terms of the probability that it is Monday because the probability of heads on Monday is 1/2, and the probability of heads overall is 1/2. ((Hawley, “Inertia,” 15.)) If the coin lands on heads, she will never be wrong about what day it is. ((Hawley, “Inertia,” 6.)) Hawley terms her faith on Monday the “optimistic policy,” which is counter-intuitive because most would immediately reply that there is actually a chance that it is Tuesday. ((Hawley, “Inertia, ” 5.)) Inertia must be recalled in order to provide careful reasoning to replace impulsive beliefs. Upon waking, Beauty understands that she has not gained or lost any new information. Again, she cannot rationally accept, under the property of inertia, that it is Tuesday because there is no evidence suggesting that Monday has already passed. Elga is incorrect in claiming that there is an equal chance of H1, T1, and T2 occurring because the property of inertia states that she has no reason to believe in T2.

By countering the thirders’ arguments, Hawley has paved the way for the correct conclusion: the answer to the Sleeping Beauty Problem is, in fact, the same as the age-old answer to the probability of each outcome of a fair coin toss: 1/2. There are only heads and tails.

It is quite true that if Beauty upholds the optimistic policy she will be wrong when she awakens on Tuesday. For this reason, thirders are attracted to the thought of uncertainty of the day. Since she does not know whether it is Monday or Tuesday, she should give at least some probability to T2, or Tuesday. ((Hawley, “Inertia,” 25.)) Yet, the optimistic policy rejects this claim, finding instead that because Beauty is completely positive that she is awake, and has no evidence other than Sunday, she should be certain that it is Monday. ((Hawley, “Inertia,” 25.)) She has no reason to believe that it is Tuesday because she has learned nothing new; her past memories are from Sunday, and she does not remember being awakened on Monday. ((Hawley, “Inertia,” 26.)) Although this is a difficult principle to uphold and is certainly counter-intuitive, it is correct because it is compatible with the property of inertia. Since nothing was gained or lost, her credence should not change. Therefore, the rational choice would be to believe that it is Monday. If it is Monday, then there are two choices: Beauty is living either in H1 or T1. To clarify, the coin has landed on heads or tails; in both cases, the day is Monday. There is a 50/50 chance of each situation occurring. Therefore, the answer to the Sleeping Beauty Problem is 1/2 and not 1/3.

In response to Hawley, Elga would undoubtedly encounter problems. First, he would acknowledge the truth behind the property of inertia, but claim that it is not applicable to the situation, since Beauty realizes hat she is in a new point in time, which is relevant to her changing her credence from 1/2 to 1/3 on Monday. To this, Hawley would again pose the question: “Why would Beauty not take this into consideration on Sunday, since she knows she will wake up on Monday?” Since Beauty is aware that she will wake up on Monday and does not jettison that awareness at any point during the experiment, her thoughts have no reason to change. Elga fails to respond to this critical question with a worthy explanation, which gives Hawley the upper hand for this part of the argument. Elga would also reject Hawley’s ultimate conclusion that Beauty should have full belief that it is Monday. Instead, he would take a skeptical view, saying that Beauty cannot be completely sure that it is Monday versus Tuesday, since the injected drug erases all memories of previous awakenings; she would know that she had awakened on Monday if she wakes up on Tuesday. He would insist that the probability of Monday should be less than 1 because she needs to take T2 into account. Hawley acknowledges this. Yet, since Beauty has no evidence to believe that she has awakened after Sunday, she should believe that it is Monday. Due to the property of inertia, the lack of new (or lost) evidence means that she should stand by the belief that she will be awakened next on Monday, and that the probability is 1/2 heads and 1/2 tails. She has no evidence to support a prior awakening on Monday; therefore, she has no concrete or rational reason to say that it is Tuesday unless someone tells her it is.

Both Elga and Hawley present convincing arguments; however, it is Hawley who persists here because he points out the flaws in the thirders’ argument and provides his own reasoning for the 1/2 solution. The thirder argument fails to provide evidence for the change in temporal location as relevant evidence, whereas the halfer effectively refutes this by pointing out the applicability of the property of inertia. The thirder argument relies on skepticism of Monday versus Tuesday, yet halfers convincingly introduce the lack of evidence to prove that Monday has passed. Therefore, Beauty must have full credence on Monday and believe that she is in either H1 or T1; there is a 1/2 chance of both outcomes. By countering the thirders’ arguments, Hawley has paved the way for the correct conclusion: the answer to the Sleeping Beauty Problem is, in fact, the same as the age-old answer to the probability of each outcome of a fair coin toss: 1/2. There are only heads and tails.

 Bibliography

Elga, Adam. “Self-locating Belief and the Sleeping Beauty Problem.” Analysis 60 (2000): 143-147.

Hawley, Patrick. “Inertia, Optimism, and Beauty.” PhilSci Archive 10 March 2010. http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/5319/1/iob.pdf (Accessed October 26 2011).

According to William Stull, Raymond Carver’s 1983 short story, “The Bath,” takes place in “Hopelessville,” a thematic world where “speech and feeling, talk and love, run at odds.” ((William L. Stull, “Beyond Hopelessville: Another Side to Raymond Carver,” Philological Quarterly 64 (1985), 4.)) A later version of the story,”A Small, Good Thing” (1986) moves to a more optimistic place which, according to Stull, focuses on the “subtle but pervasive pattern of religious symbols,” which he believes introduces “Christian love” into Carver’s previously bleak world. ((Stull, “Beyond Hopelessville,” 11.)) The pattern Stull perceives is valid, but evidence in the story, particularly motifs of miscommunication and randomness, indicates a purpose for the symbolism different from the affirmation of Christianity posited by Stull. “A Small, Good Thing” uses religious symbolism for secular, humanistic ends, ends not as far “beyond Hopelessville” as Stull believes.

“A Small, Good Thing” opens with a trip to a bakery, where Ann Weiss orders a cake for her son Scotty’s eighth birthday party. The day of the party, though, a car hits Scotty, who is taken to the hospital, where his parents watch over him as he slips into a coma. Scotty’s accident begins his development into what Stull calls “a Christlike figure, to be sure.” ((Stull, “Beyond Hopelessville,” 12.)) His parents each go home from the hospital to bathe, which Stull reads as symbolic of baptism, and on each trip a strange man calls. Readers know the man to be the baker, wanting someone to pay for the cake, but neither parent realizes the caller’s identity. After receiving her call, Ann rushes back to the hospital, where her husband Howard explains that the doctors plan to operate on Scotty. Before they can, though, Scotty sits up, screams, and dies, in what Stull calls “a sacrifice that recalls…the crucifixion.” ((Stull, “Beyond Hopelessville,” 12.))

The Weisses return home to mourn and tell their loves ones. The baker calls again. This time, though, Ann realizes who the caller is; and she and Howard drive to the bakery for a confrontation. The baker recognizes that he has, according to Stull, “violated the most basic Judeo-Christian ethics” and aplogizes. ((Stull, “Beyond Hopelessville,” 12.)) The Weisses, exhausted from their ordeal, forgive him and they, in Stul’s words, “reenact the central rite of Christianity, the Lord’s supper,” by sharing his bread. ((Stull, “Beyond Hopelessville,” 13.)) The sun, rises, “a classic symbol of the Resurrection,” and the characters, in Stull’s reading, “rise from spiritual death.” ((Stull, “Beyond Hopelessville,” 12-13.))

Stull’s recognition of religious symbolism is astute, but his overarching thematic calculation is not. He ignores the context in which the symbolism occurs, one largely defined by chaos. A random driver hits Scotty, allowing, in Kirk Nesset’s reading of the story, “forces to insinuate themselves into the placid interior of [the family’s] life. ((Kirk Nesset, The Stories of Raymond Carver: A Critical Study (Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 1995), 62.)) Howard is well aware of his position at the mercy of these forces; driving home for his bath he realizes that

he had been, so far lucky—he knew that. His parents were still living, his brothers and sister were established, his friends from college had gone out to take their places in the world. So far, he had kept away from any real harm, from those forces he knew existed and that could cripple or bring down a man if the luck went bad. He pulled into the driveway and parked. His left leg began to tremble. ((Raymond Carver, “A Small, Good Thing,” Cathedral (New York: Vintage, 1989), 62.))

Howard’s appreciation for the forces of randomness comes right before the bath Stull interprets as baptism. Ann, too, sees chaos at work directly before her bath when she asks a family in the hospital for directions to the elevator. The family’s father gives her direction, but also tells Ann about the son, Franklin, they are waiting on, saying: “Somebody cut him. Tried to kill him. There was a fight where he was at. At this party. They say he was just standing and watching. Not bothering anybody. But that doesn’t mean anything these days.” ((Carver, A Small, Good Thing,” 74.)) Like Scotty, Franklin is a victim of a world governed only by random occurrence. These forces of randomness Howard and Ann see at work, then, “manifest themselves in the ominous calls of the baker.” ((Nesset, The Stories of Raymond Carver, 62.))

If Scotty’s death is random, it doesn’t carry the sacrificial meaning Stull attributes to it. His death might acquire meaning through Ann’s and Howard’s later connection with the baker, but the death itself has no salvific value because Scotty’s isn’t sacrificed; the chaos surrounding him kills him the same way it kills Franklin, in a “one-in-a-million” occurrence in a world governed by “forces…that [can] cripple a man.” Placed in the context of randomness the story creates, Scotty cannot function as the Christ-like figure Stull suggests.

The element of chaos undermines the story’s other potentially religious symbolism. Stull sees the bath each parent takes as symbolic baptism and points to the way “this seemingly incidental action…[is made] the title of the original story.” (Stull, “Beyond Hopelessville,” 12.)) Randolph Paul Runyon points out, though, that Stull seems to forget “his argument that [the short story] is the Christianized version of the hopeless, secular [“The Bath”].” ((Randolph Runyon. Reading Raymond Carver (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1992), 149.)) If the baths signify anything, it is a connection to the ominous first story that ironically undercuts the baptism image supposedly inherent in a bath. They become less a positive image of Christianity and more representative of an initiation into the chaotic world that killed Scotty.

The ironic use of religious symbolism, though, ultimately makes the “second sacramental symbol,” communion with the baker, more meaningful. ((Stull, “Beyond Hopelessville,” 12.)) Alongside the pattern of religious symbols, the story develops a motif of miscommunication corrected in the final scene between the Weisses and the baker. The story opens with Ann in an “uncomfortable” exchange with the baker, feeling that there must be some connection “between them,” but left with only “the minimum exchange of words.” ((Carver, “A Small, Good Thing,” 60.)) The calls between the unrecognized baker and the Weisses are even less productive; Howard’s conversation ends in confusion and hanging up, ((Carver, “A Small, Good Thing,” 62.)) and Ann’s ends with her mistaking the baker for someone from the hospital and frantically calling Howard. ((Carver, “A Small, Good Thing,” 75.))

The story represents a shift in Carver, not a move to something Christian, but to the possibility of “a small, good thing,” of communication and connection, even within the city limits of Hopelessville.

Miscommunication also defines the Weiss’s time at the hospital. The doctor there “doesn’t want” to call Scotty’s condition a coma, but cannot explain what it actually is. Charles E. May notes that more information is offered in “A Small, Good Thing” than is provided in “The Bath,” with “a verbatim definition of a coma from Webster’s English Dictionary,” but the definition “does nothing to clarify the essential mystery of the boy’s inaccessibility.” ((Charles May, “Do You See What I’m Saying?: The Inadequacy of Explanation and the Uses of Story in the Short Fiction of Raymond Carver,” The Yearbook of English Studies 31 (2001), 48.)) Even with additional information, it remains difficult for characters to articulate anything meaningful in the story.

Ann, though, still wants to understand the doctor’s explanation of Scotty’s condition. She stands over her son’s bed “trying to recall the doctor’s exact words, looking for any nuances, any hint of something behind his words other than what he had said. She tried to remember if his expression had changed any when he bent over to examine the child. She remembered the way his features had composed themselves as he rolled back the child’s eyelids and listened to his breathing.” ((Carver, “A Small, Good Thing,” 72-73.)) On her way out of the hospital, Ann has another brief miscommunication with Franklin’s family. Franklin’s mother mistakes Ann for a hospital employee, telling Ann to “tell [her] now.” ((Carver, “A Small, Good Thing, 73.))

This motif of miscommunication and disconnect peaks with Scotty’s death. Ann returns to the hospital after her bath and another disturbing call, and Howard tells her that the doctors “think they’re going to operate.” ((Carver, “A Small, Good Thing,” 79.)) Immediately, Howard revises his remark, telling her that “they are going to operate,” making his brief dip into euphemism another of the story’s miscommunications. ((Carver, “A Small, Good Thing,” 79.)) Then, Scotty wakes up, and Ann and Howard no longer have to comfort themselves with the doctor’s vagaries or worry about inscrutable phone calls. They lean over their son and “pat and squeeze his hand…and kiss his forehead again and again,” but then Scotty “look[s] at them…without any sign of recognition,” screams, and dies. ((Carver, “A Small, Good Thing,” 80.)) Their brief moment to connect with their son ends with a lack of recognition.

Scotty’s death leaves the Weisses unmoored, left “to get used to…being alone.” ((Carver, “A Small, Good Thing,” 82.)) Their doctor wants to offer condolences but “can’t even tell” them how sorry he is. ((Carver, “A Small, Good Thing,” 80.)) He can tell them, though, that the hospital needs an autopsy, something that Howard “[can’t] understand.” ((Carver, A Small, Good Thing, 81.)) The doctor hugs Ann, “seem[ing] full of some goodness she didn’t understand,” but she cannot connect with him; instead, she “[keeps] looking at the hospital.” ((Carver, “A Small, Good Thing,” 82.)) Christina Bieber Lake observes that the story’s communication takes place in language “banal, functional, or merely imitative.” ((Christina Bieber Lake, “Technology, Contingency, and Grace: Raymond Carver’s ‘A Small, Good Thing'” Christianity and Literature 60 (2011), 291.)) Indeed, Ann worries that she cannot speak in words “used on TV shows where people were stunned by violent or sudden deaths.” ((Carver, “A Small, Good Thing,” 81.)) Just before the baker calls for the final time, communication and connection have broken down to the level of the “Hopelessville” Stull believes that story represents a departure from.

Alongside the miscommunication and isolation, though, a pattern of connection develops. For Stull’s purposes, the most significant connection before the final communion occurs when prayer “restores and reunites” Ann and Howard. ((Stull, “Beyond Hopelessville,” 9.)) He compares their prayers to the “acts of private desperation” he sees in “The Bath,” and treats them as examples of “communal faith.” ((Stull, “Beyond Hopelessville,” 9.)) The story, though, makes it clear that the connection Ann and Howard feel through praying is one between them: she “realize[s] with a start that…she hadn’t let Howard into” their crisis before they discuss prayer, and begins to feel “glad to be his wife.” ((Carver, “A Small, Good Thing,” 68.))

Stull appropriates for his interpretation the other major connection prior to the purported final communion, finding Ann’s meeting with Franklin’s family to be “a minor epiphany” when compared to their “isolation” in “The Bath.” ((Stull, “Beyond Hopelessville,” 9.)) He claims that Ann “feels drawn to these characters whose plights mirror her own,” an accurate assessment, given that they have common fears. ((Stull, “Beyond Hopelessville,” 9.)) However, Stull ignores and important textual detail: Ann “would have like to have said something else about the accident, told them more about Scotty…[but] she didn’t know how to begin…and stood looking at them without saying anything more.” ((Carver, “A Small, Good Thing,” 74.)) Stull’s “minor epiphany” actually represents persons connected only by their mutual fear, unable to describe those fears.

Still, the presence of any connection at all indicates something new in Hopelessville. Stull sees the final scene, where the Weisses first confront, then forgive the baker, and eat his bread, as a representation of the Last Supper. Like the interpretation of Scotty as a Christ figure, or the baths as baptismal, the religious symbol at first seems apt. Importantly, though, the Weisses eat the baker’s bread, not Scotty’s cake. This may seem incidental, but when he calls, the baker explicitly refers to the cake as “Scotty.” ((Carver, “A Small, Good Thing,” 83.)) The story, then, sets up a symbolic relationship in which the cake is identified with Scotty in the flesh, the exact correspondence between communal break and Christ, but doesn’t follow to the natural end, with the Weisses and the baker sharing the cake. Instead, the baker offers them “some of [his] hot rolls,” “a small, good thing in a time like this,” before “breaking open a large, dark loaf.” ((Carver, “A Small, Good Thing,” 88-89.)) Ann and Howard forgive him and “listen carefully” as he “speak[s] of loneliness…of doubt and limitation.” ((Carver, “A Small, Good Thing,” 88.)) The Weisses and the baker, in the midst of chaos and disconnection, “talk on into early morning.”  ((Carver, “A Small, Good Thing,” 89.)) The story represents a shift in Carver, not a move to something Christian, but to the possibility of “a small, good thing,” of communication and connection, even within the city limits of Hopelessville.

Bibliography 

Carver, Raymond. “A Small Good Thing.” Cathedral.  New York: Vintage, 1989: 59-89.

Lake, Christina Bieber. “Technology, Contingency, and Grace: Raymond Carver’s ‘A Small, Good Thing’.” Christianity and Literature 60 (2011): 289-305.

May, Charles. “‘Do You See What I’m Saying?’: The Inadequacy of Explanation and the Uses of Story in the Short Fiction of Raymond Carver.” Yearbook of English Studies 31 (2001): 39-49.

Nesset, Kirk. The Stories of Raymond Carver: A Critical Study. Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 1995.

Runyon, Randoph Paul. Reading Raymond Carver. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1995.

Stull, William L. “Beyond Hopelessville: Another Side of Raymond Carver.” Philological Quarterly 64 (1985): 1-15.

Throughout Song of Solomon, Toni Morrison creates depths of meaning for her readers to plumb and ponder. In particular, Morrison obfuscates the novel’s conclusion, leaving it open to interpretation. Does Guitar show Milkman mercy, or does he pick up his rifle and shoot Milkman in a twisted act of “love?” ((Morrison, Toni. Song of Solomon (New York: Vintage, 1997).)) Or, does Milkman save himself by wrestling the rifle from Guitar’s grip? How could Milkman even leap from one ledge to the other? Propelled by the supernatural, does Milkman take flight? Does his flight precipitate Milkman’s death? And does, or would, death compromise the success of Milkman’s quest? These and many other questions arise during the novel’s intentionally ambiguous conclusion, exemplifying the provocative power of Morrison’s language. By raising complex questions rather than providing straightforward answers, Morrison allows her readers to discover her message for themselves: having uncovered his African roots (and having discovered his own worth in the process) Milkman takes flight, both literally and metaphorically. ((Morrison, Song of Solomon 337).)) Whether or not Milkman dies at the novel’s end is unclear—and unimportant—for Milkman, by then a hero, has already fulfilled his quest.

Before Milkman embarks on his quest, his journey southward, “homeward,” he is hardly the traditional portrait of a hero. “Sad, pitiful, stupid, selfish, hateful”—these are the verbal barbs Lena hurls at her own younger brother after Milkman breaks up Corinthian’s relationship with Porter. ((Morrison, Song of Solomon 216.)) “All [his] life,” Lena insists, Milkman has been “pee[ing] on people,” “distort[ing] life, bend[ing] it, for the sake of gain,” just as his own father has. ((Morrison, Song of Solomon 214, 300.)) Milkman hates his parents and sisters for not treating him as well as he “deserves.” ((Morrison, Song of Solomon 300.)) He manipulates his lover, Hagar, using her love to make himself “a star, a celebrity.” ((Morrison, Song of Solomon 301.)) He even steals from Pilate, abusing the kindness she has always shown him. ((Morrison, Song of Solomon 186.)) So selfish is Milkman that his own best friend, Guitar, is later prepared to kill Milkman because Guitar does not—cannot—believe Milkman capable of a simple, spontaneous act of kindness, of helping another man lift a crate onto a weighing platform. ((Morrison, Song of Solomon 296.)) Although Milkman remains unaware of the shortcomings of his character for much of the novel, he does perceive from the outset that his left leg is shorter than his right, a deformity that readers may recognize as an outward manifestation of Milkman’s internal flaws.

Deeply flawed, Milkman leaves home in search of gold and the financial freedom it would guarantee him; however, as Milkman’s journey progresses, his motivations change. While listening to Reverend Cooper recount stories about Milkman’s father, aunt, and grandfather, he feels a “glow” of interest, a glow that soon blazes into a genuine desire to understand his family’s past. ((Morrison, Song of Solomon 231.)) Not until his near-death encounter with Guitar in the woods outside Shalimar, however, does Milkman take his first “living breath.” ((Morrison, Song of Solomon 279.)) And unlike the “death” that Milkman once lived, his new life includes meaningful interaction with others, interactions that involve both taking and giving, as the tender bathing scene featuring Milkman and the prostitute, Sweet, illustrates. ((Morrison, Song of Solomon 285.)) Thus, during the course of the narrative, Milkman undergoes a dramatic character transformation—a metaphorical flight from the depths of his former torpor to the soaring heights of the greatest happiness he has ever known. Rich with literary possibilities, the leap Milkman takes at the end of the novel symbolizes his resurrection after his lifelong death and his freedom from self-imposed slavery. Having released himself from the chains of his peacock-like vanity and “all the shit that weighs [him] down,” Milkman learns firsthand “what Shalimar knew: If you surrendered to the air, you could ride it.” ((Morrison, Song of Solomon 179, 337.))

Now a hero, Milkman cannot fail, for death cannot strip him of his wings, nor can it erase from readers’ minds the memory of Milkman’s soaring transformation and resurrection.

But does Milkman literally ride the air? Does he fly? Again, Morrison offers no forthright answers. Some might argue that, without a bird’s wings or a plane’s aerodynamics, riding the air is impossible, and indeed, any realistically-attuned reader would have to agree. However, Morrison is no realist. She writes in the genre of magical realism, where the real and the magical blend seamlessly. On the wings of Morrison’s language, anything is possible. Indeed, in Milkman’s world, magic pervades the mundane. His own left leg, once shorter than his right, gradually grows to equal its partner. Milkman observes Pilate undergoing a similar transformation: conveniently shrinking into a shriveled “Jemima” before entering the police station to bail out Milkman and Guitar, she mysteriously resumes her full height during the car ride home. Later, when Milkman opens the door to the Butler’s crumbling mansion, “[a] hairy animal smell, ripe, rife, suffocating” greets him. ((Morrison, Song of Solomon 239.)) But in the few seconds it takes Milkman to back out of the door and vomit, the smell becomes “a sweet spicy perfume. Like ginger root—pleasant, clean, seductive.” ((Morrison, Song of Solomon 239.)) Inside the house, Milkman meets the living dead: Circe, a woman whose very name bespeaks magic. By Reverend Cooper’s reckoning, Circe “[w]as a hundred when [he] was a boy.” ((Morrison, Song of Solomon 233.)) By Milkman’s reasoning, “[Circe] had to be dead. Not because of the wrinkles, and the face so old it could not be alive, but because out of the toothless mouth came the strong, mellifluent voice of a twenty-year-old girl.” ((Morrison, Song of Solomon 240.)) And yet, despite her enchanting voice and colorless skin, Circe is no specter, for she does not merely haunt Milkman, she hugs him with hands “like steel springs rubbing his back,” rubbing in the incredible reality of her existence. ((Morrison, Song of Solomon 239.)) Is it impossible for a woman to be well on her way to her bicentennial? Not in the world Morrison has fashioned. Indeed, Milkman himself ultimately reaches the conclusion that, since “Pilate did not have a navel. . .anything could be true”—even the astonishing story of his own ancestor, Shalimar’s, flight out of slavery through the skies far above the Underground Railroad. ((Morrison, Song of Solomon 294.)) And so, if the “dead” live and living morph, physical flight no longer seems so impossible. In fact, given the history of “flying African[s]” in Milkman’s family, physical flight actually seems probable. ((Morrison, Song of Solomon 322-24.))

But more important than the type of flight Milkman makes is the act of flight itself and what flight represents: an affirmation of his transfiguration. Long before Milkman embarked on his quest, before his mother even gave birth to him, Mr. Smith, an insurance agent, leaps from the rooftop of Mercy Hospital in his own vain attempt at flight. ((Morrison, Song of Solomon 9.)) Some readers may argue that Mr. Smith’s flight and Milkman’s eventual soaring are equally unsuccessful; however, in making that argument, they overlook the underlying differences in the two characters’ situations. In the “Forward” to Song of Solomon, Morrison says that Mr. Smith, “the insurance man[,] leaves a message saying his suicide is a gesture of love, but guilt and despair also inform his decision.” ((Morrison, Song of Solomon xiv.)) One might argue that Mr. Smith’s decision to end his own life was, as an assertion of control, a victory rather than a defeat. But how can a victory be informed by guilt and despair be anything but a defeat? In contrast, neither guilt nor despair inform Milkman’s decision to end his own life by leaping toward Guitar into the void. In fact, far from ashamed or despondent, having embraced both risks and his roots, “[Milkman] was as eager and happy as he had ever been in his entire life.” ((Morrison, Song of Solomon 304.))

Thus, Milkman bases his decision instead on his new-found sense of self, which he demonstrates first when he sets out alone for Danville, and again when he unexpectedly encounters the irate Guitar on the road to Shalimar. ((Morrison, Song of Solomon 219, 297.)) In the gathering gloom outside Shalimar, Guitar matter-of-factly informs Milkman, “Your day has come, but on my schedule.” ((Morrison, Song of Solomon 297.)) Guitar, however, underestimates the profundity of Milkman’s nascent independence. Only moments before, as Milkman was considering whether to return to Susan Byrd’s house to retrieve his watch, and, in doing so, risk being caught “defenseless” in the dark by Guitar, Milkman concludes: ” ‘I can’t let him direct and determine what I do, where I go or when. If I do that now I’ll do it all my life and he’ll run my off the earth’.” ((Morrison, Song of Solomon 294.)) Thus, rather than allow Guitar to become the puppet master who controls—and ultimately cuts—the strings of his life, Milkman freely gives his life to Guitar. By ending his own life on his own terms, Milkman asserts his will to take responsibility for his life, to abandon the mental liability of “I deserve,” and to serve as “his own director.” ((Morrison, Song of Solomon 260, 281.)) At last, realizing his childhood dream, Milkman flies—and he flies “alone.” ((Morrison, Song of Solomon 298.))

Because Milkman achieves flight, his ultimate fate—whether he lives or dies, kills his “brother,” or is embraced in his brother’s killing arms—is irrelevant; just as Milkman “could not fall” from the sky in his dream, he cannot fall from glory in death. Now a hero, Milkman cannot fail, for death cannot strip him of his wings, not can it erase from readers’ minds the memory of Milkman’s soaring transformation and resurrection. Once, while contemplating the importance of names and their meanings, Milkman remarks, “When you know your name, you should hang onto it, for unless it is noted down and remembered, it will die when you do.” ((Morrison, Song of Solomon 329.)) In the final scene, Morrison confirms the significance of names: a bird snatches Pilate’s earring from her grave and takes flight, ensuring that Pilate’s name, scrawled on a scrap of paper within that earring, will not be buried with her. ((Morrison, Song of Solomon 336.)) Similarly, Milkman makes an heroic flight that simultaneously defies his slave name, “Dead,” and ensures his name will outlive him. While crafting Milkman’s flight with words, Morrison emblazons Milkman’s name in the readers’ minds. We, the unseen “somebody” in Milkman’s dream, applaud his flight. ((Morrison, Song of Solomon 298.)) We recognize the possibilities it represents. We remember it. Thus, whether alive or dead, Milkman lives on in our minds, “as fleet and bright as a lodestar,” guiding us, inspiring us to take to our own skies.

Bibliography

Morrison, Toni. Song of Solomon. New York: Vintage, 1997.

The ethical dilemma concerning same-sex marriage is especially difficult for Christians. A basic Christian duty is to follow the will of God despite the views of others. However, this task is not always straightforward because there are many scriptural injunctions, especially in the Old Testament, that Christians consider unnecessary in today’s world. ((In Leviticus 5:1-10, for example, the author declares that it is a sin to touch the carcass of an unclean animal, and that if a person does this, he should make a special sacrifice to the Lord. (New Revised Standard Version).)) Yet, other directors (such as the Ten Commandments) are believed to transcend time. Much of the debate about homosexuality in the church has centered on which category of rules same-sex relations fall into. No clear biblical distinction exists to differentiate the scriptural laws contemporary Christians follow and those they no longer consider appropriate; instead, the relevance of these directives has been determined over time by church leaders in prayerful consideration of God’s intentions. However, religious leaders differ dramatically in their opinions about same-sex marriage, leaving many Christians confused. Some believers assert that the biblical rules about homosexuality are ancient culture-specific, and therefore inapplicable to today’s world, while others contend that these instructions were divinely-inspired and cannot be amended. Several different Christian news sources have published articles containing varying ethical arguments to support their own conclusions on this issue. This essay will assess the strengths and limits of the arguments for or against same-sex marriage.

In Christianity Today, Edith Humphrey makes the normative claim that the law should not permit same-sex marriage because God commanded that his followers not engage in any sort of homosexual relationship. She cites Leviticus 18:22, which claims that these relations are “an abomination.” To her credit, Humphrey addresses the counterargument that rules regarding sexual relations might belong to the long list of Old Testament laws that Christians believe are no longer necessary. However, she asserts that the commands regarding homosexuality belong to a different category than many of the laws about kosher food or sacrifices because they were still important to the new Christian church. As the church evolved, many of the old Jewish rules were deemed unnecessary. Yet, Humphrey reminds us that Paul wrote in his Epistle to the Corinthians about specific sins they should avoid such as drunkenness, “scorning what is holy,” adultery, and homosexual behavior. ((Edith Humphrey, “What God Hath Not Joined,” Christianity Today, September 1, 2004. http://global.christianpost.com/news/theologian-what-the-true-church-must-do-amid-normalization-of-homosexuality-72808 (Accessed 13 April 2012).)) The new Christian church included many people who were not previously Jews, and did not follow the rules of the Old Testament. Thus the leaders of the church were forced to discern which of the Hebrew laws were necessary and which distracted believers from God. Humphrey asserts that because Paul placed such high value on the sinful nature of homosexuality, it must be contrary to God’s will. ((Humphrey, “What God Hath Not Joined”.)) Clearly, Humphrey believes that same-sex relations should be prohibited simply because they are against God’s will, and no other explanation is required.

Humphrey makes the following deductive argument: If God says something is wrong, then it is wrong. God says homosexual relationships are wrong, therefore they are wrong. However, the premise that “God says homosexual relationships are wrong” is debatable. Humphrey believes this premise to be true because Paul affirmed the rules against homosexuality in the Old Testament during the creation of the Christian church. Yet, if she believes that these directives are the literal will of God simply because they are consistently expressed throughout the Bible, then she must explain why Christians do not follow many of the other rules that the Bible stipulates. In fact, it was common practice in biblical times for women to cover their heads, and the unveiling of a females’ hair was shameful. ((Judith Baskin, “Covering of the Head,” Jewish Virtual Library http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/judaica/ejud_002_0008_0_08618.html (Accessed 27 April, 2012).)) Paul affirmed the need for women to be modest and wear head coverings while praying, just as he affirmed the rules against homosexuality.  ((1 Corinthians 11:1-16, New Revised Standard Version.)) Nevertheless, the majority of Christians now consider head coverings unnecessary. If no factors other than biblical consistency are considered, it is arbitrary that homosexuality should be condemned and exposed heads in church deemed permissible. A deductive argument is valid if its conclusion follows logically from its premises. However, it is only sound if the premises are true. ((Theodore Schick, Jr. and Lewis Vaughn, How to Think about Weird Things: Critical Thinking for a New Age (New York: McGraw-Hill, 2001): 34-42.)) This argument could only be sound if Humphrey also accepted every other rule that is consistently laid out in the Bible.

Humphrey employs the ethical argument of Divine Command Theory, which posits an action is morally correct if God commanded it, and morally wrong if God did not. However, even if she was able to present a sound argument using Divine Command Theory, it is questionable whether the theory itself is logical in light of other Christian beliefs. In The Elements of Moral Philosophy, James Rachels asserts that Divine Command Theory is flawed in that it assumes God’s directives to be arbitrary. Therefore, one cannot claim God commands a certain action because it “is good,” but rather actions must be god because God commanded them. Thus God himself cannot be good. ((James Rachels, The Elements of Moral Philosophy. 4th Ed. (Boston: McGraw-Hill, 2003): 50-53.)) It is possible that a person could accept that God acts arbitrarily. Yet, many Christians believe that God commands his followers to act in certain ways because these behaviors are morally correct. Consequently, even if Humphrey’s argument were sound, in order to use Divine Command Theory, she would have to reject that basic Christian belief in the goodness of God.

A different normative argument against same-sex marriage assesses overall utility. Robert Sokolowski, of the National Catholic Weekly, claims that allowing same-sex marriage is unnatural and would have detrimental impacts on society. He argues that if marriage is separated from the goal of reproduction, then there is no reason why citizens should not marry their relatives, friends, or anyone else just for legal and financial benefits. He asserts, “Why not permit polygamy and polyandry?” Sokolowski believes that allowing same-sex marriage would contribute to economic problems, as unmarried friends would marry simply for benefits. However, more importantly, he believes that it would lead to mass confusion about the human purpose. He asserts, “Once we live in delusion about such an important issue, we will inevitably be misguided in regard to many other human things: religion, human relations, law, governmental policies, moral judgments, and even our cultural inheritance.” ((Robert Sokolowski, “The Threat of Same-Sex Marriage,” America: The National Catholic Weekly June 7 2004.)) Sokolowski feels that procreation resulting from a traditional marriage is the basic purpose for humans. He reasons that if society allows unnatural homosexual relationships, there could be detrimental consequences for the next generation because the focus of society would be on personal pleasure instead of long-term benefit.

Yet, Sokolowski’s argument commits a slippery slope fallacy. In How to Think about Weird Things, the authors remind us that this type of argument asserts that one action will lead to an unfavorable chain of events that could have been prevented had that action not been taken. A slippery slope argument is a logical fallacy if there is not a strong reason to believe that the supposed effects will follow from the initial action. ((Schick and Vaughn, How to Think about Weird Things, 54.)) It is doubtful that the rest of society would change its opinion about marriage (or foresake same-sex relationships) as a result of homosexual marriage becoming legal. Sokolowski asserts that the fight for same-sex marriage reveals a change in values associated with the conception of the traditional family. Yet, he fails to consider that perhaps a law about same-sex marriage would not initiate a cultural change, but instead reflect one that has already occurred and that would not be made worse by  a same-sex marriage law. Also, even if a cultural change occurs, it is unlikely that it would be as detrimental as Sokolowski predicts. Both the Civil Rights movement and the feminist movement also had opponents who believed equality would be detrimental for society. Yet, time has shown that many of these projects were ill-founded. Similarly, there are many other countries where same-sex marriage is legal, and it has not seemed to affect family structure and human purpose. Sokolowski would need stronger evidence in order to prove that same-sex marriage is harmful to society. ((The Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, Canada, South Africa, Norway, Sweden, and Portugal have all legalized gay marriage.))

Christians have appealed to different ethical argments to try to find a moral truth about homosexuality.

Interestingly enough, Sokolowski does not use God’s will as justification for his position on homosexuality. Instead his argument resembles a Utilitarian conception of ethics. Utilitarians contend that a particular action is morally right if it generates more overall happiness in society than any other option. Even if a particular action may seem unfair to a certain group of people, a Utilitarian would defend it if its ratio of benefit to harm were better than that of any other option. ((Rachels, The Elements of Moral Philosophy, 102-109.)) Sokolowski feels that allowing same-sex marriage would have many negative impacts on the future of society. In fact, he believes that the ratio of negative to positive consequences of homosexual marriage would be much higher than that of current marriage laws. Therefore, he feels morally justified in opposing same-sex marriage.

Yet, one of the weaknesses of a Utilitarian argument such as this one is that it does not take into account other ethical values such as justice and equality. A strictly Utilitarian conception of morality would possibly allow discrimination, slavery, and other unjust institutions if they were proven to produce more social good than any other option. Therefore, a moral argument cannot be strictly based on consequences. Sokolowski does not consider that denying gay couples the right to marry is unjust and perhaps a form of discrimination similar to racism or sexism. Therefore, even if Sokolowski had managed to present a strong Utilitarian argument against same-sex marriage, it still may not constitute the correct moral action.

In fact, a non-consequentialist moral argument, which values justice and equality, is often employed in support of same-sex marriage. Mary Frances Schjonberg, of the Episcopal News Service, reports such an argument as Bishop Waggoner presents it. Waggoner argues that God’s desire for fidelity and Jesus’s teachings about inclusivity are more important than rules prohibiting same-sex marriage. He asserts that marriage is a “lasting and biding commitment [that] is neither temporary nor causal. It is, rather, the means through which divine love is shared and experienced in the greatest depth and fullness.” Furthermore, he asserts that privilege should not be denied to anyone on the basis of gender. ((Mary Frances Schjonberg, “Washington State’s Two Bishops Support Same-Gender Marriage Law,” Episcopal News Service, February 16, 2012 http://episcopaldigitalnetwork.com/ens/2012/16/washington-states-two-bishops-support-same-gender-marriage-law/html. (Accessed April 13, 2012).)) Waggoner feels that a church that claims to be loving and open to anyone, should allow homosexuals the spiritual journey of the sacrament of marriage.

Waggoner takes a non-consequential view of morality and values equality of all people. He feels that a homosexual’s desire to be married reflects a desire to make a  holy covenant with God and a partner and to be a faithful loving spouse. Although he asserts that equal rights should be given to homosexuals simply because it would be unjust not to do so, he attempts to refute his opponents with an inductive argument demonstrating same-sex marriage would not have a negative effect on society. He reasons that many same-sex couples are already involved in loving, committed relationships outside of marriage, and that these relationships have not caused any significant ill to society. Therefore, legalizing these relationships will not hurt society because they exist anyway. According to Waggoner, allowing same-sex marriage is not only fair, it is logical because such relationships exist anyway.

Most Christians believe morally correct actions are equivalent to acting in a manner worthy of God’s approval. However, a problem arises when in a situation such as same-sex marriage, it is difficult to determine exactly how God would want humans to behave. Some people reconcile this dispute, as Humphrey did, by invoking Divine Command Theory. Yet, all Christians are not in agreement about God’s opinion on homosexuality. Even if they were, employing Divine Command Theory would mean that Christians could not also uphold the goodness of God. Because most Christians believe that God commands actions because they are good, it is reasonable to conclude that if a particular action is morally correct, then God would condone it. Christians have appealed to different ethical arguments to try to find a moral truth about homosexuality. Sokolowski feels that same-sex marriage is morally wrong because it would be harmful to society. However, he does not provide strong supporting evidence, and his article contains the slippery slope fallacy. Even if same-sex marriage was somehow proven to be harmful to society, he does not consider the importance of other ethical values such as justice or equality. Waggoner, on the other hand, does consider these values, and he comes to the conclusion that in keeping with Jesus’s message of love and inclusivity, the correct moral action is to provide equal rights to homosexual couples. He even concedes that same-sex marriage would not cause a significant social harm. Waggoner’s argument is the strongest because it contains no false premises or fallacies, and does not make sweeping assumptions as the other arguments do.

Bibliography

Baskin, Judith. “Covering of the Head.” Jewish Virtual Library.  http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/judaica/ejud_0002_0008_0_08618.html. (Accessed April 27, 2012).

Humphrey, Edith. “What God Hath Not Joined.” Christianity Today. September 1, 2004. http://global.christianpost/com/news/theologian-what-the-true-church-must-do-amid-normalization-of-homosexuality-72808.html. (Accessed April 13, 2012).

Rachels, James. The Elements of Moral Philosophy. 4th Ed. Boston: McGraw-Hill, 2003.

Schick, Theodore, Jr., and Lewis Vaughn. How to Think about Weird Things: Critical Thinking for a New Age. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2001.

Schjonberg, Mary Frances. “Washington State’s Two Bishops Support Same-Gender Marriage Law.” Episcopal News Service. February 16, 2012. http://episcopaldigitalnetwork.com/ens/2012/02/16.washington-states-two-bishops-support-same-gender-marriage-law (Accessed April 13, 2012).

Sokolowski, Roberet. “The Threat of Same-Sex Marriage.” America: The National Catholic Weekly. June 7, 2004. http://americanmagazine.org/content/article.cfm?article_id=3627 (Accessed April 13, 2012).

I Am Charlotte Simmons is both the title of Tom Wolfe’s novel and the mantra of its protagonist, Charlotte. An odd declaration of her troubled identity,  “I am Charlotte Simmons” punctuates the text, alternately serving as a declaration of personal triumph, a reminder of individuality, and—perhaps most problematically—a mantra of selfhood desperately intoned when Charlotte feels herself drifting away. But who is Charlotte Simmons? Or, perhaps more importantly, who does she become as the novel progresses? The reader of Wolfe’s portrayal of college life at his fictitious Dupont University is exposed to a satiric perspective on college culture, and within that satire, a pointed representation of how gender roles constrain and subjugate young women. In many instances, we find sharp depictions of male aggression and misogyny, but even more troubling is the way in which the novel’s women abide by these sexist norms. While I do not refute the presence of male domination on college campuses, I found myself troubled by the manner in which Wolfe’s narrator characterizes young women in the novel. Most of the novel’s women are eager to oblige what many contemporary readers will locate not only as conservative, but also archaic gender roles. Satire cautions us to treat representations carefully. The text’s exaggerated sexual relations may sponsor new awareness or even fear in readers, Wolfe’s strategy for critiquing contemporary college culture. Just so, as a college student, I am concerned that Wolfe’s narrative, designed as fiction but assembled in large part from his own site visits to American colleges and universities, offers a skewed depiction of young women’s sociality, ethicality, and sexual politics. Three women in the novel aptly illustrate this frustrating and worrisome characterization: Beverly, Camille, and Charlotte herself.

In contrast to Charlotte’s initial naivete, her roomate Beverly is comfortably immodest. Wealthy, privileged, a “Groton girl,” Beverly is nonetheless painfully insecure. Her desire to be approved not only by men but also by her female peers is all-consuming, a shortcoming pathologized in her eating disorder. Unfortunately, the manner in which we see her seeking male approval is through degrading herself, happily but desperately. In one instance, a very drunk Beverly begs Charlotte to drive her back to a bar to find a specific lacrosse player. “He says he doesn’t want to get involved,” Beverly laments, “but I don’t care! I have to hook up with him tonight.” ((Tom Wolfe, I Am Charlotte Simmons (New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 2004) 291.)) This image of Beverly, “on the floor, on all fours,” pleading with her roommate to facilitate her one-night stand is somewhat amusing in its absurdity. ((Wolfe, I Am Charlotte Simmons, 297.)) However, looking beyond the comedy of the scene, as a woman reader, I can begin to distinguish the harms catalyzed by such a depiction.

The narrator’s lens offers no mercy to Beverly, nor to her band of friends (her “posse”). While Beverly and her friends are fashioned as unlikeable, the sardonic light Wolfe shines on them communicates a worrisome message to young college women. I base my conclusion on certain feminist principles: namely, the gender equality of women and, within that, their subsequent empowerment and independence. Because I strongly value self-actualization, the fact that Beverly’s gratification hinges on her ability to make herself sexually available to men on campus is especially troublesome. She is vividly depicted as insecure, seeking to fill the void in her own self of self with gratuitous sex, so-called “mercy fucks.” ((Wolfe, I Am Charlotte Simmons, 361.))  We are forced into seeing her not as sexually empowered, seeking sex for her own pleasure, but rather as a sexual object. While this stark caricature is limiting, it is telling counterpoised against the character of Camille. Camille, an unwavering feminist activist, openly critiques students like Beverly who willingly comply with the patriarchal gender norms at Dupont University (known by Camille as “Testosterone Valley.” ((Wolfe, I Am Charlotte Simmons, 312.)) Camille is strong-willed, perhaps excessively so, and doggedly focused on the evils of men. But while she is encouragingly self-assured, she is also drawn somewhat too thinly, a caricature of committed feminism. She becomes, in essence, Beverly’s mere counter, making her politics a performative foil to Beverly’s sexual flaunting. Again, though they are in many ways mere puppets to Wolfe’s satiric designs, they model a limited (and quite impossible) set of choices for contemporary college women.

I am concerned for younger women readers, high school girls in particular who may turn to Wolfe’s journalistically-inflected portrayal as an accurate representation of women’s experiences at an elite university.

Interestingly enough, it is Charlotte who seems (at least in the early portions of the novel) to carry the most promise as a reasonable and appropriately complex representative of young college women. Charlotte is, as are all the students at Dupont, exceptionally intelligent. However, her intellectual promise neither nullifies her self-doubt nor grant her a measure of social power. Charlotte, initially repulsed by excessive drinking, the gyrating dance moves of her classmates, and the display of gratuitous sex nearly everywhere around her, seems to succumb all too quickly to the pressures of Hoyt Thorpe, the token frat boy, further perpetuating  male hegemony of student society. Charlotte’s fall from grace, as well as her self-victimization that follows, offers a frustrating depiction of male supremacy and female dependency, themes inescapable on Dupont’s campus.

The narrator traces Charlottte’s descent into “Testosterone Valley” in excruciating detail. ((Wolfe, I Am Charlotte Simmons, 312.)) At the beginning of the novel, Charlotte seems unyielding in her core beliefs, if only for the fact that she is so utterly unaccustomed to the sexual culture of “hooking up.” The first night she braves a frat party, she is shocked and repulsed by students dancing nearby: “They were pressing their genitals together! ((Wolfe, I Am Charlotte Simmons, 225.)) “Some girls were bending over so that boys could thrust thrust thrust thrust simulate intercourse from behind, like dogs in a barnyard.”  ((Wolfe, I Am Charlotte Simmons, 225.)) Attentive to her instincts, Charlotte frowns at her peers and maintains her sense of self, most notably when Hoyt, the good-looking fraternity boy, tries to get her to dance, and later attempts to lure her into a frat house bedroom. When she recognizes Hoyt’s intentions, angry and embarrassed she screams, “You’re gross!” and scampers off to her residence hall. ((Wolfe, I Am Charlotte Simmons, 238.)) Slowly, however, we begin to witness Charlotte’s formative convictions peel away as she accedes to one after another peer pressure around her.

In many instances, we watch Charlotte forego her principles in the pursuit of social glory, but perhaps the most blatant and painful instances of values abdication come in response to Hoyt’s continued pressures. Struggling desperately for his affection, Charlotte becomes less like Camille, and more like Beverly, her contemptuous roommate. Charlotte’s life at Dupont comes to be punctuated by conformity and acceding to Hoyt’s affection.  In many instances of hooking up with Hoyt, Charlotte becomes distressed and ashamed. Frustratingly, she is under Hoyt’s enchantment, unable to acknowledge her loss of self. She continues to declare “I am Charlotte Simmons,” but the declaration seems empty, a mantra without its transformative power. She even frets about the the best way to refuse Hoyt’s advances: “Was this the point she should say, ‘Stop!’? No, she shouldn’t put it that way. It would be much cooler to say, ‘No, Hoyt”. ((Wolfe, I Am Charlotte Simmons, 399.)) Such worries betray an impossible tension between self-assertion and her keen interest in others’ acceptance. If Charlotte’s originative values exist, they are eclipsed by her dependence on Hoyt’s potential admiration.

During her transition from independence to dependency, Charlotte becomes more and more like the Dupont women she once despised. She accepts her role as a subservient woman  easily, as illustrated by her thoughts about Camille as she watches Camille degrade a men’s lacrosse player. Camille, who the narrator portrays as a “monster feminist,” berates the boy to the point of telling him to “take [his] lacrosse stick…and stick it up [his] ass net first.” ((Wolfe, I Am Charlotte Simmons, 319.)) Charlotte is repelled by Camille’s language, but “it was more than that”; Camille’s performance “had shocked her in some fundamental way” since Camille had “abandoned all pretense of being feminine.” ((Wolfe, I Am Charlotte Simmons, 321.)) Such “pretenses of being feminine” are what Charlotte comes to value most—her Diesel-brand jeans, and her ability to flash her “rueful little smile” in response to Hoyt’s advances. ((Wolfe, I Am Charlotte Simmons, 226.)) So toxic is Dupont’s social environment that it extinguishes in Charlotte any sense of purposeful self.

Eventually, Charlotte becomes so enwrapped in her subservient role that she loses her virginity to Hoyt at the Saint Ray formal. Afterwards, Hoyt is callous and uncaring toward Charlotte, catalyzing her tailspin into social isolation and a dark depression. Charlotte fills her days with self-loathing until she bumps into Adam and confides in him the events at the formal. In some ways, I can appreciate the narrator’s nearly-sympathetic depiction of Charlotte as she sorts through the wreckage of a traumatic date rape. However, such a response has its limits. At a certain point, I would argue that the narrator goes too far in depicting Charlotte as helpless and dependent, an emotional wreck at the very thought of being left alone. Charlotte begs Adam not to abandon her, and he remains constant. But Charlotte’s new dependency on Adam plays into masculinist desires. Charlotte’s need to be reinforced by a male—her intense and utter reliance on him—only further supports the narrator’s perspective of women as fragile and unstable. It seems that Charlotte becomes emptied of all selfhood. Charlotte, who once glanced at her peers and said, “she was better than the whole bunch of them,” falls violently into an ego-destroying self-punishing state. ((Wolfe, I Am Charlotte Simmons, 226.)) The long, gloomy account of Charlotte’s collapse only further troubles problematic depictions of collegiate women: either soft, sexually available, and pliant or (like Camille) unpleasant, brutish, and obscene.

As a first-year student, while I am troubled—even aggravated—by the narrator’s limited perspective on young women, I am also careful to differentiate this narrator from Wolfe himself. But though Wolfe may see his role as commentator through satire, there is more at stake than he may realize. If I Am Charlotte Simmons is to be a snapshot of contemporary college life, then his dualistic depiction of women is both misrepresentative and unfair. I am concerned for younger women readers, high school girls in particular who may turn to Wolfe’s journalistically-inflected portrayal as an accurate representation of women’s experiences at an elite university. A fierce college mythology composed of frivolity, hedonism, and male privilege is quite readily available in popular culture.  Unfortunately, I Am Charlotte Simmons does little to call these into question, leaving public representations of women in college stereotypically inflected and politically inert.

Bibliography

Wolfe, Tom. I Am Charlotte Simmons. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2004.

At first glance, the women portrayed in Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest appear to be vain, myopic, and hedonistic characters as their desires do not extend beyond the superficial. The three women live in an era of great advances in advertising, particularly advertisements promoting the glamor and envy of commodities. Advertisements of the times showed the masses what was to be desired, what they should strive for, what their lives should be like, and the women of the play follow such guidelines reverently. Cecily, Gwendolen, and Lady Bracknell view themselves through the lens of the mass media of the day, becoming so consumed with consumerism that they begin to live life as if it were publicity, as if it were “art.” Their insistence on following the fluctuating tastes dictated by advertising’s ideals leads them to live commodified and artificial lives of spectacle. However, though they may seem willingly to create the artifice of their lives, they are in reality victims of the overwhelming and prevailing expectations imposed on them by the advertising industry of the day.

The social attitude that would have dominated the lives of the women in The Importance of Being Earnest can be seen through Thorstein Veblen’s Theory of the Leisure Class.  According to Veblen, consumerism in Victorian society developed from our primitive ancestors and the primacy of property ownership. ((Thorstein Veblen, The Theory of the Leisure Class (New York: Viking, 1931), 22.)) As our ancestors fought for subsistence, property and ownership became clear signs of their strength, and goods soon became associated with honor and power, as only the most adept in society could amass great property. ((Veblen, The Theory of the Leisure Class, 24.)) Property’s association with power and status has been ingrained in the human consciousness in Veblen’s view, and has led to a shift in he basis of ownership: “The motive that lies at the root of ownership is emulation.” ((Veblen, The Theory of the Leisure Class, 26.)) The idea that those in power and with strength possess more than the weak has followed the evolution of humans, and possession has now become a point of envy among people: those will less envy those with more.

Cecily, Gwendolen, and Lady Bracknell view themselves through the lens of the mass media of the day, becoming so consumed with consumerism that they begin to live life as if it were publicity, as if it were “art.”

Emulation plays out in modern consumer culture, as Veblen later argues: “With the growth of settled industry. . .the possession of wealth gains in relative importance and effectiveness as a customary basis of repute and esteem.” ((Veblen, The Theory of the Leisure Class, 28.)) Veblen believes that although we no longer fight each other for survival in the wilderness, an instinct of envy and a desire for possession drives humans to want to acquire yet greater wealth. We hope that by attaining more goods, we will rise up above others in status and, in turn, become the envied. This is the idea of conspicuous consumption, or the drive to acquire property to elevate social standing, a system very much in place in Victorian England.

As conspicuous consumerism took hold, manufacturers in nineteenth-century England began to notice the trend: consumers wanted goods no longer for survival but rather to raise their social status, often approaching the level of Victorian aristocracy. Advertisers recognized this desire and began to churn out publicity to tap the insecurity plaguing consumers. Victorian aristocrats idealized leisure, a concept abstract to the general working masses. As Lori Anne Loeb points out in Consuming Angels, “the reduction of toil was the implicit and explicit promise of many commercial products.” ((Lori Anne Loeb. Consuming Angels: Advertising and Victorian Women (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994), 170.)) She continues, “In the commercial world leisure is. . . the privilege of the very rich.” ((Loeb, Consuming Angels, 171.)) Advertisers were no longer selling products as commodities, but rather the very values of the aristocracy.

With conspicuous consumption, competition, and status-seeking so prevalent, Wilde’s Cecily, Gwendolen, and Lady Bracknell enter the scene. These women are not simply characters in Wilde’s play; they are direct actors in the consumer culture of their moment. They are elites of the aristocracy. Having vaulted to significant social standing, they enjoy an expansive country estate, formal education, and vast amounts of ornamental property. Theirs are lives emulated by the masses: leisure and riches being the ultimate goals of Victorian consumerist ideology. Each woman obeys the stereotypes and expectations of aristocratic women portrayed in Victorian advertising.

One such value was that of the vain, narcissistic woman. According to Loeb, “these advertisements suggest that the ideal woman was self-absorbed and pleasure-oriented enough to delight in her own reflection.” (Loeb, Consuming Angels, 42.)) and her “assumptions [of an individual’s character] were inevitably based on appearances.” ((Loeb, Consuming Angels, 120.))  Women were thought to hold looks and superficial in such high esteem that achievement in both became a chief mechanism for judging oneself and others. Both vanity and shallow judgment mark the lives of the women in The Importance of Being Earnest.  In Act Three, Lady Bracknell must decide whether or not she will allow Algernon to marry Cecily. While one might expect Lady Bracknell to question their love, she instead proclaims: “We live, I regret to say, in an age of surfaces.” ((Oscar Wilde, The Imporance of Being Earnest (New York: W.W. Norton, 2006), 51.)) and proceeds to scrutinize Cecily’s physical features. She explains, “Pretty child! your dress is sadly simple, and your hair seems almost as Nature might have left it [but] there are distinct social possibilities in your profile.” ((Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest 51.))  Lady Bracknell elevates her judgment of Cecily’s looks as key to the potentiality of her marriage to Algernon, instantiating the troubling ideal of judging others based solely on appearance.

Cecily and Gwendolen also activate this ideal at their initial meeting. Within seconds of being introduced to one another, Gwendolen asks her new friend, “do you mind my looking at you through my glasses?” to which Cecily readily responds: “Oh! not at all, Gwendolen. I am very fond of being looked at” ((Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest, 39.)) As Gwendolen proceeds to examine Cecily through her lorgnette, it is clear that both women value surface: Gwendolen’s first response at meeting Cecily is to explore her outer appearance and render judgment, while Cecily displays her narcissism and shameless vanity by enjoining Gwendolen to proceed with her investigation. After her scrupulous inquiry, Gwendolen concludes that, indeed, Cecily might be too  pretty: “Well, to speak with perfect candour, Cecily, I wish that you were a full forty-two, and more than usually plain for your age.” ((Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest, 39.)) Gwendolen realizes that in an era of ostentation, Cecily’s youthfulness and beauty threaten her courtship with Ernest.  Though Gwendolen herself may be pretty, she compares her beauty to that of Cecily and finds flaws that sponsor insecurity and envy. In this way, the two women highlight exteriority and its impact on Victorian women’s self-worth.

Loeb indicates that roman love was a common theme in many advertistements of the day. The personal satisfaction gained through such love was a draw, guaranteeing that commodities could facilitate gratification. ((Loeb, Consuming Angels, 132.)) “Saccharine images of courtship celebrate the self-indulgent satisfactions of romantic love and the thrilling prospects of elopement, even though they do ultimately respect community boundaries.” ((Loeb, Consuming Angels, 157.)) Advertisers preyed on the idealism of romantic love, and propagated images of women pining for their lovers, longing for the contact and emotional thrill of passion. Such a lovesick woman is exemplified by an advertisement for Brandauer pens, found in the Illustrated London News in 1886.  In this image, “A woman sits at her writing desk, staring dreamily into space. One hand is raised to her face to indicate langorous, slight embarrassment, even sensual touch….She writes a love letter, inspired by winged cupids….In the absence of physical contact, passion is communicated through the discrete literary symbol of cupid. Her love letter is engaging, but essentially conventional.” ((Loeb, Consuming Angels, 133.)) The image of the lovesick writer is almost eerily brought to life through the character of Cecily. With her fictional romance with Ernest, Cecily comes to exemplify the infatuated woman of Victorian advertisements depicted by Loeb. She longs for a romance full of passion and love, but also one that remains within the boundaries of propriety and convention, much like the woman in the Brandauer advertisement. When she learns of her Uncle Jack’s wild brother Ernest, Cecily concocts an imaginary romance through love letters full of her musings, and pines away for Ernest’s love. Upon meeting “Ernest,” Cecily explains that she had fallen in love with him through Uncle Jack’s stories, and had agreed to marry him three months prior to any real encounter. She then reminisces, “I remember only too well that I was forced to write your letters for you. I wrote always three times a week, and sometimes oftener.” ((Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest, 36.))

Cecily, Gwendolen, and Lady Bracknell appear to be the success stories of which marketers dream: they serve as prime examples of the images and ideals sold through the publicity of commodities in England. As Veblen points out, “In any community where goods are held in severalty, it is necessary, in order for his own peace of mind, that an individual should possess as large a portion of goods as other with whom he is accustomed to class himself; and it is extremely gratifying to possess something more than others.” ((Veblen, The Theory of the Working Class, 31.)) The class distinctions that arose with certain amounts of wealth forced men and women in society to reevaluate their own worth against those who had similar wealth. By measuring social worth based on wealth, the women of the play have created a constant need to compete with one another for increased commodities, additional luxuries, and more property—advertising has led them to believe they were worth nothing without more.

As a consequence of their avaricious nature, the women are only able to examine themselves through the lens of marketing at the time; they abandon their own values and substitute them with the prevailing consumerist ideology. Their lives have become commodified. They have become objects that bend to the whims of fashion, and can be manipulated to purchase whatever fashion requires. As John Berger argues, “[Publicity] proposes to each of us that we transform ourselves, or our lives, by buying something more.” ((John Berger, Ways of Seeing (London: Penguin, 1972) 131.)) He further explains, “Publicity persuades us of such a transformation by showing us people who have apparently been transformed and are, as a result, enviable. The state of being envied is what constitutes glamour.” ((Berger, Ways of Seeing, 131.)) Gwendolen, Cecily, and Lady Bracknell’s need continuously to maintain their enviable status stems from this same principle: they must continue to be envied in order to maintain a fashionable lifestyle.

Yet the value these women latch onto most fervently is Berger’s notion regarding the use of high art in publicity images.  As he reminds us, “a work of art also suggests a cultural authority, a form of dignity, even of wisdom, which is superior to any vulgar material interest.” ((Berger, Ways of Seeing, 135.)) Ironically, the women in Wilde’s play maintain cultural authority and dignity by becoming “works of art” themselves. The women transform their lives into commodities of art and spectacle. They have not simply adhered to what manufacturers advertise; they have become walking advertistements themselves.  Their overwhelming desire to amass consumer goods, to climb the social ladder, and remain envied drives them to slavishly adhere to the trends of the moment, and in doing so, forsake their own personal goals for the expectations of captialism. Lady Bracknell’s insistence on style, etiquette, and superficiality stems from her desire to remain envied and elevate herself above the masses. As she warns Algernon, “Never speak ill of Society, Algernon. Only people who can’t get into it do that.” ((Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest, 51.))  Cecily goes so far as to offer her writing (and, by extension, herself) as a textual commodity when she remarks about her diary: “You see, it is simply a very young girl’s record of her own thought and impressions, and consequently meant for publication.” ((Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest, 35.))

The women are mere actors in the broad spectacle of Victorian consumption. The prevailing social attitudes stemming from our primal need to acquire propel them to submit their lives to the fancies of advertising, becoming pawns for marketers to prey upon. While the characters of The Importance of Being Earnest are extreme examples of commodification, they serve as a warning to contemporary readers. As advertisers bombard us with images in print and digital midea, we  continue to consume according to their dictates. As Berger succinctly puts this, “Everything publicity shows is there awaiting acquisition.” ((Ways of Seeing, 153.)) In order to maintain our more substantive identities, we must separate our abiding values from those maintained in publicity lest we transform, along with Cecily, Gwendolen, and Lady Bracknell, into players in the spectacle of excess.

Bibliography

Berger, John. Ways of Seeing. London: Penguin, 1972.

Loeb, Lori Anne. Consuming Angels: Advertising and Victorian Women. New York: Oxford University Press, 1994.

Veblen, Thorstein. The Theory of the Leisure Class. New York: Viking, 1931.

Wilde, Oscar. The Importance of Being Earnest. New York: W.W. Norton, 2006.

Banana Yoshimoto’s Kitchen epitomizes the political avant-garde. Set in Japan, a country that prides itself for being on the cultural cutting-edge, Kitchen incorporates forward-thinking conceptions of family, food, death, and society that place it in a culturally progressive stance. Perhaps one of the most contemporary cultural elements that the work incorporates is transgendered identity. Eriko is a transgendered character in Kitchen who, along with her family, provides an outlet for readers to identify with someone who is neither fully man nor fully woman. Kitchen articulates the social evolution in gender that has only just begun both in Japan and the rest of the world, suggesting that unconventional genders and gender identities are entirely acceptable and even beneficial to individual and to society.

Lori Girshick, a sociologist and leading voice in the growing movement favoring transgender recognition. In Transgener Voices: Beyond Women and Men, she “takes on the difficult task of describing and explaining the complexity beyond the common labels that transpeople have been struggling with for the past century or more.” (( Lori B. Girshick, Transgender Voices: Beyond Women and Men. (Hanover, NH: University of New England, 2008),111.)) Girshick thoroughly educates her reader on transgenderedness by first addressing the concept of gender itself, noting that gender is “a conceptual category that a culture assigns to a wide range of phenomena.” ((Transgender Voices, 2.)) and that “virtually anything can be gendered.” This analysis is important because it establishes the fact that gender “does not necessarily have anything to do with sex,” but that it is a discrete cultural phenomenon. ((Transgender Voices, 2.))

Girshick’s explanation of gender identity is equally critical in understanding transgenderedness; whereas gender is a culturally-ascribed label, gender identity is the extent to which “a person feels masculine or feminine, a bit of both or neither.” ((Transgender Voices, 2.)) Girshick politicizes these concepts with her analysis of the plights that transgendered people must endure in today’s society. She states that “given what we know about the remarkable diversity of human beings, it is astounding that this gender binary continues to prevail, and to impair (if not devastate) the lives of millions of people…[who] cannot relate to the binary’s polar opposites [of] male/female.” ((Transgender Voices, 3.)) In condensed form, Girshick’s analysis of gender and gender identity illuminate substantial flaws in society’s conceptions thereof, and make a case for a reconsideration in how we deal with people, whether they be man, woman, both, or neither.

Bibliography

Girshick, Lori. Transgender Voices: Beyond Women and Men. Hanover, NH: University of New England, 2008.

Laurent, Erick. “Sexuality and Human Rights.” Journal of Homosexuality 48 (2005): 163-225.

Yoshimoto, Banana. Kitchen. New York: Grove, 1993. 

Neo-Darwinian evolution is one of the most contested theories in biology, but the bulk of this debate takes place not in academia but in schools and legislatures. Here, the issues concern how evolution should be taught (if at all) and whether “competing theories of existence” should also appear in curricula. Rather than supporting theistic creation, many opponents of evolution now turn to the concept of an “Intelligent Designer” who created life and works through natural processes. ((Francisco J. Ayala, “Science, Evolution and Creationism,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 105 (2008): 3.)) Supporters present Intelligent Design as a scientific theory and assert it should be taught alongside classical evolution. The movement has strong grassroots support and considerable influence, but has been met with skepticism by the courts and by the scholarly community. Many conclude that Intelligent Design (ID) lacks scientific basis, and is close enough to its roots in creationist science to violate the Establishment Clause if taught on part with evolution. (( The Establishment Clause is the first of several First Amendment provisions stating that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.”)) Still, teachers should not ignore the movement or its appeal. Instead, biology classes might include a unit on contemporary issues to explain the movement, identify its origins, and discern its effects on the scientific community and the culture at large.

The roots of the conflict over teaching evolutionary theory reach back to the “anti-evolution” regulations of the 1920s. These laws (such as Ark. Stat. Ann. §80-12627 and §80-1628) and Tennessee’s notorious “Monkey Law,” forbade teachers to imply that humankind might have evolved from another species. ((Epperson v. Arkansas, 393 US 97, 89. Supreme Court of the US. 1968. Supreme Court Cases. Westlaw Campus Research.)) The ruling in Epperson v. Arkansas ensured that evolutionary theory could not be excluded from biology curricula because it conflicted with scriptural accounts of creation, but did not end attempts to weaken evolutionary theory’s presence. After Epperson v. Arkansas, creationists reformed their ideas to become “creation science,” which presented biblical creation “scientifically.” ((Robert Charles Williams, “Scientific Creationism: An Exegesis for a Religious Doctrine,” American Anthropologist 85(1983): 96.)) Creation science assumed a young earth and explained mass extinctions in terms of a “global hydraulic cataclysm.” ((Williams, “Scientific Creationism,” 97.)) Furthermore, creation scientists rejected evolution. Instead, they claimed God fashioned each animal according to fixed, immutable kinds. (Eugenie C. Scott and Nicholas J. Matzke,” Biological Design in Science Classrooms” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 104(2007): 8672.)) Supporters of creation science advanced “equal time laws,” which stated that to be fair, biology teachers must teach creation sciences as robustly as they teach evolutionary theory. ((Edwards v. Aguillard. 482 US 578, 107. Supreme Court of the US. 1987. Supreme Court Cases. Westlaw Campus Research.))  The courts did not agree: in Edwards v. Aguillard, the Supreme Court held that “equal-time laws” clearly violated the Establishment Clause.

Despite its obvious basis in theism, as a scientific initiative, Intelligent Design cannot easily be ignored. The movement has significant grassroots support among Americans, while evolutionary theory does not.

Intelligent Design emerged after the decline of creation science and shares—superficially, at least—only one of creation science’s beliefs: that life did not emerge from random processes. Instead, proponents believe that an “Intelligent Designer” fashioned life and guided its development, perhaps for some teleological purpose. ((Michael F. Antolin and Joan M. Herbers. “Perspective: Evolution’s Struggle for Existence in America’s Public Schools,” Evolution 55(2001): 2383.)) Like creation scientists, ID advocates present their ideas in a scientific context, but unlike creation scientists, their explanation are more rationally robust. Whereas creation scientists proposed scriptural explanations for evidence drawn from observation in pseudo-scientific language, ID proponents omit all mention of a deity from their explanations and try to develop rational bases and evidentiary support for their arguments. ((Sid Perkins,” “Evolution in Action” Science News 169 (2006): 120.))

The first of two major arguments advanced by ID advocates is irreducible complexity: the idea that certain biological features are too complex to have evolved and therefore must have been designed. ((Patrick H. Byrne, “Lonergan, Evolutionary Science, and Intelligent Design” Revista Portuguesa de Filosofia 63(2007: 896.)) For Michael Behe, who invented this argument, one of the strongest examples of irreducible complexity is the mechanism for blood-clotting, which requires over twenty sequential chemical interactions. If any of these is interrupted, the entire sequence collapses ((Michael J. Behe. “Self-Organization and Irreducibly Complex Systems: A Reply to Shanks and Joplin” Philosophy of Science 67(2000): 158.)) Such a process could not develop through natural selection, Behe argues, because its parts cannot function alone. ID is the only other option. ((Byrne, “Lonegran,” 896.))

The second line of argument comes from William Dembski. Dembski’s defense of ID rests on statistics and the design inference. He states that if a structure has a level of complexity that makes it extremely unlikely to have developed by chance (1 in 10 to the 150th power, his calculation of the total amount of chance in the universe), and if it conforms to an identifiable pattern, then the structure has “specified complexity” and must be designed. ((Gregory W. Dawes, “What Is Wrong with Intelligent Design?” International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 61(2007): 75.))

Perhaps not surprisingly, ID supporters have the same essential goal as the creation scientists: to establish ID as a mainstream alternative to neo-Darwinian evolution. This goal includes recognition by the scientific community as well as inclusion of ID in biology curricula. ((Sid Perkins, “Evolution in Action” Science News 169(2006): 120.)) Unfortunately for ID advocates, ID does not qualify as scientific. The scientific method is empirical, which means that the hypothesis under consideration must be falsifiable. The existence of a supernatural Designer who created life does not fit this criterion. Furthermore, science operates deductively—scientists derive explanations from a set of evidence—by ID advocates begin with a conclusion and find support. The scientific community recognizes these issues as well as ID’s religious overtones, so ID has encountered hostility in academia. Significant flaws in Behe’s and Dembski’s arguments further weaken ID’s scientific validity. The argument Dembski makes for a design inference collapses under logical scrutiny, his statistical methods are questionable, and Behe’s examples of “irreducible complexity” now, in fact, appear to be reducible. ((Dawes, “What is Wrong,” 74.)) The proteins make up a flagellum, for example, could have served other, unrelated functions before becoming a flagellum. ((Maarten Boudry, Stefaan Blancke, and Johan Braeckman, “Irreducible Incoherence and Intelligent Design: A Look into the Conceptual Toolbox of Pseudoscience” The Quarterly Review of Biology 85(2010): 475.))

The second part of ID advocates’ goal (to have ID presented in biology curricula as an alternative to neo-Darwinian evolution) is as objectionable on constitutional grounds as is the first on scientific grounds. While no complaint involving ID has yet been made to the Supreme Court, lower court rulings, as well as examples from ID literature, show that teaching ID as an alternative to evolution violates the Establishment Clause. Some of the most convincing evidence  indicating a connection between ID and religion comes from Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District. This case arose when the Dover area school district introduced into its curriculum, Of Pandas and People, a biology textbook supporting ID. The plaintiffs argued that use of the textbook in public schools violated the Establishment Clause because ID effectively was no different from creation science. ((Kitzmiller v. Dover. 400 F. Supp. 2d 707. United States District Court, MD. Pennsylvania. 2005. All Federal Cases. Westlaw Campus Research.))During the trial, plaintiffs presented successive drafts of Of Pandas and People in which “intelligent design” and “intelligent agency” replaced “creation” and “intelligent Creator” in otherwise identical paragraphs. This revision occurred in 1987, the same year as Edwards v. Aguillard ((Kitzmiller v. Dover, 15.)) Unsurprisingly, in light of this evidence, the judge agreed with the plaintiffs that ID endorsed religion and could not be taught in public schools. ((Kitzmiller v. Dover, 55.))

Other evidence of the intimate connection between ID and religion can be found in the “Wedge Document,” a fundraising proposal drafted by the Center for Science, an arm of the Discovery Institute, a Christian think-tank devoted to reinstating “traditional Western principles” and “[supporting] the theistic foundations of the West.” (( Discovery Institute, “About Discovery” Discovery Institute. http://www.discovery.org/about.php)) The Wedge Document outlined a strategy for overthrowing materialism and replacing it “with a science consonant with Christian and theistic convictions. ((Discovery Institute. The “Wedge Document”: So What?” Seattle, WA: The Discovery Institute, 14.)) The argument that ID has no ties with religion is unlikely when one considers that both Behe and Dembski hold Discovery Institute senior fellowships. In light of this evidence, one cannot reasonably claim ID theory serves merely a secular purpose.

Despite its obvious basis in theism, as a scientific initiative, ID cannot easily be ignored. The movement has significant grassroots support among Americans, while evolutionary theory does not.((Allan Mazur, “Believers and Disbelievers in Evolution” Politics and  the Life Sciences. 23(2004): 55.)) Academia’s attempts to disregard ID in hopes that it would wither without recognition have failed. This is due in large part to the fact that the majority of Americans believe in some form of special creation, while only about sixteen percent believe evolution is the only reason for life’s existence. ((Mazur, “Believers and Disbelievers,” 55.)) However, science functions as America’s dominant paradigm, and many believe that if an idea is not scientifically proven, it is untrue. This belief leads to the expectation that all ideas, even those resting on faith, can be scientifically verified. Design theory appears to scientifically establish faith, catalyzing its popularity.

ID’s widespread appeal lends it significant influence on public education. Members of state legislatures, school boards, and the public have pushed laws and resolutions that tacitly allow the inclusion of ID in science curricula, and recently some states have revised their definition of science so that it is no longer limited to “natural” explanations. ((Perkins, “Evolution in Action,” 120.)) Furthermore, religious parents and students sometimes complain to school administrators that teaching evolution violates their religious freedom because it contradicts their core beliefs. Teachers unfamiliar with this line of argument, or who simply wish to avoid controversy, may avoid the subject of evolution entirely, thus denying students knowledge of the foundations of modern biology. (( Randy Moore, Murray Jensen, and Jay Hatch. “Twenty Questions: What Have the Courts Said about the Teaching of Evolution and Creationism in Public Schools?” Bioscience 53(2003): 769.))

Another, more insidious, argument for including ID is that educators should, in the spirit of fairness, “teach the controversy,” rather than dogmatically professor Darwinian principles. ((Antolin and Herbes, “Perspective,” 2382.)) Those who make this claim imply that failure to examine the “evidence against evolution” denies students comprehensive knowledge of the issue. ((Edwards v. Aguillard, 29.)) This argument resonates with many members of the public, even though no scientific data that call into question the principles of evolution actually exist.

However, the claims that teaching evolution violates the Free Exercise clause, and that the failure to tech the “weaknesses of evolution” means that students hear only a portion of the scientific debate. Nowhere in legal precedent does no have the right to hear offensive ideas, and (perhaps more importantly) no evidence challenging evolution actually exists. Even if these claims were valid, the close association of ID with religion and its departure from science should disqualify it from being included in public school curricula. Constitutionally, ID cannot be taught as an alternative to evolutionary theory.

Still, ID remains a compelling idea for many Americans, and attempts to ignore it have not diminished its attraction to school boards or legislatures. Because of its appeal, if teachers omitted all reference to ID, they would misrepresent the cultural context of biology. Instead, curricular could well include a “Contemporary Issues in Life Sciences” unit in which students critically examine challenges to mainstream biology. Such a unit would, in fact, “teach the controversy;” it would present ID’s roots, ideas, and effects, comparing these to the principles underlying neo-Darwinian evolution. The unit might explain that while ID is not a scientific theory, its principles are acceptable as a system of belief. To accomplish this, teachers could define science as an empirical form of knowledge, explaining that it is not the only method for generating explanations. While such an approach does not endorse ID, locating it as a competing theory avoids constitutional entanglements and, importantly, allows the public school curriculum more adequately to reflect the public dynamics of belief.

Bibliography

Antolin, Michael F. and Joan M. Herbers. “Perspective: Evolution’s Struggle for Existence in America’s Public Schools.” Evolution 55(2001): 2379-2388.

Ayala, Francisco J. “Science, Evolution, and Creationism.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 105(2008): 3-4.

Behe, Michael J. “Self-Organization and Irreducibly Complex Systems: A Reply to Shanks and Joplin.” Philosophy of Science 67(2000): 155-162.

Boudry, Maarten, Stefaan Blancke, and Johan Braeckman. “Irreducible Incoherence and Intelligent Design: A Look into the Conceptual Toolbox of Pseudoscience.” The Quarterly Review of Biology 85(2010): 473-482.

Byrne, Patrick H. “Lonergan, Evolutionary Science, and Intelligent Design.” Revista Portuguesa de Fiolosofia 63(2007): 893-918.

Dawes, Gregory W. “What Is Wrong with Intelligent Design?” International Journal for Philosophy and Religion 61(2007): 69-81.

Discovery Institute. “About Discovery.” Discovery Institute.  http://www.discovery.org/about.php.

Edwards V. Aguillard. 482 US 578, 107. Supreme Court of the US. 1987. Supreme Court Cases. Westlaw Campus Research.

Epperson v. Arkansas. 393 US 97, 89. Supreme Court of the US. 1968. Supreme Court Cases. Westlaw Campus Research.

Kitzmiller v. Dover. 400 F.Supp.2d 707. United States District Court, MD. Pennsylvania. 2005. All Federal Cases. Westlaw Campus Research.

Mazur, Allan. “Believers and Disbelievers in Evolution.” Politics and the Life Sciences 23(2004): 55-61.

Moore, Randy, Murray Jensen, and Jay Hatch. “Twenty Questions: What Have the Courts Said about the Teaching of Evolution and Creationism in Public Schools?” Bioscience 53(2003): 766-771.

Perkins, Sid. “Evolution in Action.” Science News 169(2006): 120-121.

Scott, Eugenie C. and Nicholas J. Matzke. “Biological Design in Science Classrooms.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 104(2007): 8669-8676.

Williams, Robert Charles. “Scientific Creationism: An Exegesis for a Religious Doctrine.” American Anthropologist 85(1983): 92-102.