To use an economic analogy, war is the most competitive and ruthless of all markets: all edges are used and the most aggressive risks are taken, because war is the ultimate competitive ground. Self-preservation is our most overpowering primal instinct. War is the last resort when other options are exhausted or untenable (or sometimes, not preferable). From this, we find that war gives us the conditions to discover in ourselves capabilities we would never have found otherwise. By creating new necessities, it pushes us to our limits. Activities which require militaristic skills are pervasive throughout society as forms of entertainment, often because they are both physically and mentally challenging. While the recreational equivalents of war may not in fact be truly as challenging as the “real thing,” they reflect those elements of it which we desire.

What we gain from playing video games is not necessarily “real-world” knowledge, but situational understanding. Games are our window to the knowledge that would previously only have been attained in war, because they can lawfully model real-world dynamics (and as they improve technologically, even randomize impressively). Through them, we can encounter hypothetical situations and not only learn about the dynamics of that particular instance, but experiment with solutions to it and even learn entirely new, generally applicable inferential structures in the process. In Rome: Total War (a complex, turn-based campaign strategy game with real-time combat), players can be faced with a broad variety of world states in the historical campaign after a few turns, depending on their actions and the actions of AI-controlled computer factions responding to each other and environmental dynamics (such as natural disasters or plagues). If Rome declares war on Egypt in 250 B.C., the player finds that many of his profitable trade routes have been lost, and that his resources are spread too thin in fighting Gaul and Germania at the same time. This is one of many different strategic decisions and outcomes a player of this game will encounter while playing.

With the growth of the internet in the mid-90s came the more frequent implementation of “multiplayer” features in computer games. Over the following decade, multiplayer games reached a new height of competition. One of the first games that utilized a fully 3D graphics engine (which included Z-axis rendering and movement, unlike Doom or Wolfenstein 3D) along with a flexible, player-modifiable mapping system, was a futuristic first-person shooter called Starsiege: Tribes, released in 1997. The game was specifically catered to team-based internet games (it lacked a single-player mode) with quantities of players never seen before: most popular maps were so large that games with less than 16 players were impractical, and servers could host up to 32 players in a single game (and up to 64 after later improvements). In the game, players select their own equipment loadouts, and thus define their own roles, such as a fast and mobile skirmisher, or a slow and heavily-armed bombardier. Orders can be issued via first-person targeting or a command map, which integrates all current sensor data from all team members and emplacements to create an image of the battlefield. Very uniquely to Tribes, all players are also equipped with jetpacks which are needed to fly across the planet surface to attack the enemy base or capture the flag, and which inevitably play a major role in player-on-player combat.. Compare this to horizontal-axis-only, 4-player maximum multiplayer games of Doom, and the result is an intense, constant, and large battle whose outcome is highly dependent on skill and teamwork- all in all, a revolutionary war gaming experience.

Tribes alone encompasses several beneficial aspects of warfare. For one, an adept player likely has excellent reflexes combined with strong hand-eye coordination and ambidexterity, which allows him to control his horizontal movement on the keyboard and his vertical jetpack movement with the mouse, while simultaneously firing his weapons accurately at his (moving and fighting) opponent. Meanwhile, he must also pay attention to his ammunition, his amount of jetpack energy, his relative position to the ground and other objects and players nearby, etc., resulting in a fairly demanding dogfight. His individual battle plays into a larger one, in which team leaders issue orders to destroy or construct defensive emplacements, attack certain enemies, or defend a map area. Because of the potential for advanced strategy embedded in the game, Tribes was initially aimed at being played in a competitive ladder system between registered teams. By these teams (“clans”) always practicing and competing together, their command structures and strategies solidified, enabling them to execute complex battle plans, adapt to unexpected situations faster, and become more efficient and more competitive overall. At higher levels of competition, this also resulted in comradery and friendship among members, especially when the stakes were prestige or money. While it may not compare to that experienced in actual war, “clan” comradery can be so strong that significant real-life favors are traded. Many more computer games played on the internet possess similar characteristics to Tribes, except with even much more dramatic technological improvements in a broad variety of genres.

Despite all these benefits, some object to the violent nature of the vast majority of video games. A common grievance against violence in media, particularly video games, is that it “desensitizes” children- and even adults- to the horrors of violence. This is tantamount to blaming oxygen for fire. It implies that our emotional sensitivity to violence determines our attitudes toward it. This may be the case for many people, but then does the problem lie in what they are exposed to, or in what they use to form their attitudes? Granted, our natural aversion to violence is perhaps a built-in moral safeguard against wrongdoing, but what would make us different from animals if we relied only on innate predispositions? Simply put, an experience does not have to be emotionally traumatizing for it to bear moral significance. In the absence of moral values, fear, ignorance, and indifference are the only real deterrents against wrongdoing; when something disrupts this contingent balance, it is disingenuous to blame the disruptor and not the conditions that preceded it.

Likewise, there are concerns that our military is utilizing technologies which make soldiers more and more detached from the foes they vanquish. The same argument stated above applies: equip them with the tools to consciously, not innately, understand the moral weight of their actions. Thucydides said, “Any nation that draws too great a distinction between its scholars and its warriors will have its thinking done by cowards, and its fighting done by fools.” The “Land Warrior” referred to by Perlmutter would not need to stumble into a shell-hole and encounter an enemy soldier to realize that he is killing another human being like himself, unless he is a fool.[ii]

Advanced, “arm-chair” military technology in many respects is subject to the same class of opposition against the modern video game (and modern media). The rhetoric is “too much distance, too much efficiency, not enough feeling” and “too much realism, too much fun.” Opponents of both believe that we would be better off without them, but the oxygen and fire analogy holds. Advanced military technology has the potential to save thousands of lives (on both sides of a conflict) and lower the costs of war; video games can teach us faster reflexes and better hand-eye coordination, improve our critical thinking, allow us to explore a broader variety of situations, increase our understanding of those situations, and entertain us. Should we reject these great innovations, which would improve greatly the quality of our lives, on the grounds that humanity is too stupid to handle them? Instead of abolishing oxygen, we need to stop leaving flammable materials lying around unattended.

[i] Chris Hedges, War is a force that gives us meaning (New York, NY: First Anchor Books, 2002)

[ii] David D. Perlmutter, Visions of War: Picturing Warfare from the Stone Age to the Cyber Age (New York, NY: St. Martin’s Press, 1999), 228

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Shakeouts in the Music Industry

The history of music industry concentration and the chronology of events provide general evidence against technology always being the direct cause of shakeouts. At the beginning of the industry’s life (1890-1900), there were three major firms producing the vast majority of audio products: Victor, Columbia, and Edison. This included both the machines- cylinder and record players- and the actual cylinders and records. Patents on these machines were a major barrier to entry, but major innovations from 1900-1910 and the expiration of important patents in 1914 resulted in industry deconcentration. Early record production required live-action recording to produce each record, requiring either multiple record writers present during a performance or multiple performances. From 1914 to 1919, the number of firms manufacturing records and record players grew on average by 44 percent annually. Demand was stimulated as a result of a new variety and quantity of available products on the market, and the period was characterized by heavy innovation in the music, particularly by small producers. However, from 1919 to 1925, the number of producers declined at an average annual rate of 14.4 percent. Larger firms were able to capitalize on the small producers’ innovations, resulting in imitation as well as several horizontal mergers. The onset of the Great Depression and World War II finalized the reconcentration of the music industry. Prior to 1948, Columbia, Decca, RCA Victor, and Capitol were responsible for three-fourths of record sales in America.

Following the war, a new innovation reshaped the industry: magnetic tape recordings. Previously, records were produced in a very tedious and unforgiving fashion. Errors in the performance for a recording would require the artists to execute the piece perfectly – start to finish – in order for the recording to be successful, but magnetic tape

allowed a particular section with an error to be spliced out and replaced by a re-recorded part. Magnetic tape machines were also much cheaper. By reducing the amount of studio time required and also lowering the costs of starting up a recording business, magnetic tape technology was followed by an increase in the number of companies producing LP (long-play) records from eleven to two thousand between 1949 and 1954 (Gelatt 1954).

By 1956 independent firms held around 52 percent of the music recording industry’s total market share, increasing to the industry’s peak in 1962, at which time independent firms accounted for 75 percent. Afterward, major firms began to reacquire market share, primarily through horizontal mergers, and the number of firms in the industry began to shrink.

Why did music industry shakeouts happen?

This prompts us to seek an alternative explanation to technological changes for the causes of the most recent extended music industry shakeout (1962-). Several technological improvements turned out to be exogenous (allowing universal adaptation) rather than endogenous (proprietary and thus concentration-inducing). The nature of the technologies Alexander cites tended to be scale-reducing, thus reducing barriers to entry. Developments in musical technology over the past 50 years have been consistently scale-reducing, though the trend for a large portion of that period has been toward consolidation. Magnetic tape and compact disc players became commercial and low-cost home appliances, and their respective means of creation grew as common (tape recorders, CD-burners, etc.). Computer-based music recording and playback has become more widespread. Still, the number of firms has been decreasing. Currently, the music market is dominated by six major firms: Time/Warner, Sony/CBS, Thorn/EMI, Philips-Polygram/PMG, Bertelsmann Music Group/BMG, and Matsushita/MCA.

One important factor stands above all other explanations for this consolidation: distribution. While prior to 1962 there were several strong and independent music distributors who provided an alternative to the major firms’ distribution networks, major firms began making significant buyouts in the 60s onward, creating a dominant market tendency toward the horizontal integration of distribution. Many independent distributors went bankrupt, and this tendency grew even more exaggerated in the 1980s. The six major firms mentioned above presently constitute almost the entirety of the industry’s market share at the distributor level.

In light of this evidence, one revised hypothesis is that technology can play a role in market concentration in as much as it augments scale economies. Technological innovations such as widespread personal computers with sound processing and recording capabilities, as well as advanced software for manipulating recordings, have reduced the necessary scale to begin producing consumable music recordings to anyone with or without talent, with just a $300 personal computer, a $30 microphone, and some small degree of sound engineering skills. The internet has also drastically reduced the scale required for significant levels of distribution, with peer-to-peer sharing networks, internet-based record stores, and social networking pages like MySpace.com.

On the other side of the story, some non-technological things may account for firm “lock-in” or other phenomena that lead to high industry concentration. Distribution strategy is one possible example of this, but it is likely that the dominance of particular firms that allowed them to construct their distribution networks shares a cause with their distribution strategies. Music is a very unique kind of product. Each new “product” (a song or album) also happens to be distinctly associated with a set of individuals. The quality of the music itself is controlled from a non-technological (in the physical sense) set of innovations relating to meter, pitch, tone, content, or overall theme. Some major firms may have the musical brainpower to “get it”- a group of experts, who manage bands and affect the musical product, that ultimately represents a stock of knowledge the firm has about stimulating and satisfying demand for music. Furthermore, labels fortunate enough to enlist legendary bands, perhaps by only good fortune, gain a long-lasting advantage, both from their experiences with a popular band (more concerts, albums, events, merchandising, etc.) as well as from the profits, which attract more expertise, which attracts and creates better bands, etc. There appear to be many opportunities for self-reinforcement in the industry. Overall, the technology-based shakeout story lacks explanatory power in music.

Source:

Alexander, Peter. New Technology and Market Structure:

Evidence from the Music Recording Industry. Journal of Cultural Economics, Volume 18, 113-123, 1994.

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For any member of Congress seeking re-election, negotiating deals with other Congressmen and lobbyists on Capitol Hill (the “hill style”) is just as important as courting the constituency (the “home style”) is in getting votes. A candidate’s value to his constituency lies within his ability to “bring home the bacon”- pass beneficial federal legislation for his supporters or future supporters- while serving as an effective legislator on the hill to formulate national policy. These are often in conflict, and a savvy Congressman will know how to balance the two in order to insure his re-election through his words, his votes, and his bills. (Fenno, Mayhew)

Money, “the mother’s milk of politics,” is necessary for critical campaign functions (paying for travel, releasing literature, buying expensive media air-time, etc.) This is not without statistical and logical proof: candidates who spent the most money on their campaigns won 95% of House and 94% of Senate contests (Opensecrets.org). Though candidates may fund themselves with their own personal property or individual contributions, campaign money is frequently “earned” on Capitol Hill. A Congressman’s promises, votes, committee appointments, and actions on the Hill all play a role in the attention (money) he receives from PACs (Political Action Committees). Generally, a Congressman sitting in the House Committee on Agriculture would likely receive a campaign contribution from an Agricultural PAC, such as the Texas Farm Bureau, with the implicit understanding that he will favorably review the contributor PAC’s desired legislation. How money enters a candidate’s coffers, then, is a very potent way of discerning what and to whom a politician’s real promises are. The existence of committees follows a “distributional theory” of their purpose: they are created, beside their technical informational function, to give lawmakers policy influence that assists in their re-election, whether it is in attaining these campaign contributions, or passing bills for constituencies back at home (Herrera Lecture Notes).

The incumbency in any Congressional race is a formidable foe; with actions to back their words along with committee assignments to draw PAC money, availability of staff, name recognition and reputation from previous campaigns, and other special privileges, incumbents wield a very large edge over potential challengers. Challengers must be able to stand up monetarily against the incumbent “war chest” (funds gathered over the years of the term), including leaping over financial hurdles such as primary elections. A “quality” challenger will be able to generate enough funds to match the incumbents’ in effectiveness (using his own personal wealth, which is often necessary), while attaining or using previous name recognition and political experience to attract voters. (Lecture Notes)

Because the electorate typically does not have the interest or means to investigate the merits of candidates in Congressional races, the media is usually the only outlet for information to reach the majority of voters. While preference for “biased” networks as a demographic might harm a candidate, typically the media (that is not directly on a candidate’s payroll) only significantly damages a campaign when it widely publicizes scandal. As a conduit for messages from candidates, however, the media is critical. Attack ads vilify opponents while spreading name recognition, and effective ad campaigns, both by “targeting” and skillful design can make or break a victory.

Finally, the demographics of a district (or state, in the case of Senate races) can work in favor of candidates. Descriptive demographics, such as ethnicity and race, allow minority candidates easier identification with voters, or even guaranteed victory in majority-minority districts (Fenno, pg. 11). More frequently, demographical advantages encompass substantive aspects of the population. For example, in a district composed mostly of blue-collar workers, a labor-oriented, pro-union platform will likely win the election.

This paper examines the reelection of three incumbent US Congressmen: House representative Timothy H. Bishop (D-NY), Senator George Voinovich (R-OH), and House representative Mario Diaz-Balart (R-FL, District 25).

Timothy H. Bishop House Races

In the 2002 Midterm elections, Timothy H. Bishop, the Provost of Southampton College, captured New York’s US House District 1 seat in a tight race against Republican incumbent Felix J. Grucci. Though out-raised by over $400,000 by his opponent, Bishop managed to attack Grucci’s record, particularly on environmental issues, and win by a 50-49% margin (Opensecrets.org).On a narrow, vulnerable alley of victory, Bishop would have to begin rallying a weak constituency while working on Capitol Hill as a freshman Congressman with no prior political experience.

Ideologically speaking, Bishop generally voted party-line Democrat on “the big issues”; According to the PAC rating system, he was rated 100% by NARAL, indicating a pro-choice voting record; 30% by the US COC, indicating an anti-business voting record; 100% by the LCV, indicating pro-environment votes; 16% by the Christian Coalition: an anti-family voting record; 100% by APHA, indicating a pro-public health record; 100% by SANE, indicating a pro-peace voting record; 0% by FAIR, indicating a voting record loosening immigration; 100% by the AFL-CIO, indicating a pro-labor voting record; 100% by the ARA, indicating a pro-senior voting record; and 19% by NTU, indicating a “Big Spender” on tax votes (Bishop OnTheIssues). Not surprisingly, his PAC contributions for the 2003-2004 election cycle were in line with his actions on Capitol Hill. During his term, he was assigned to the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure and the Committee on Education and the Workforce. The top three contributors to his campaign were transportation unions, retirement interest groups, and public sector unions, respectively. Bishop was also a top House recipient of contributions from architectural services, miscellaneous unions, pro-choice PACs, teachers’ unions, and transport unions (5^th, 4^th, 2^nd, 4^th, and 3^rd) (Opensecrets.org, Bishop: Campaign Finance/Money). In analysis of the contribution data, votes, and committee assignments, it is fair to say that Bishop acted in a politically consistent manner for his first term.

Challenging what appeared to be Bishop’s shaky incumbency, William Manger, a former Southampton Village trustee and senior policy advisor in the U.S. Department of Transportation, attempted to make a stand in the evenly-divided district (NYGOP). In a humorous article published in The North Shore Sun, Gregory Zeller points out a few problems in Manger’s campaign:

Never mind that the person on the street can’t grasp Mr. Manger’s political positions, or even pick him out of a lineup. Besides the little snippet at the end of his TV commercials (“I’m Bill Manger and I approved this message”), we can barely recognize his voice — and we’re the media! In an election season! And he’s running for the U.S. Congress in our district! Shouldn’t he be kissing our butt, or at least taking our calls?

The article, appropriately titled “Who is Bill Manger?,” exposes the fundamental failure to achieve the first and most important factor in any race: name recognition. Certainly, by not reaching out to the grassroots media such as The North Shore Sun, he was not pushing any harder toward that goal. Where Manger managed to stand tallest was in fundraising, but he could not stand tall enough; while Congressman Bishop managed to raise and spend over $1.9 million, Manger’s campaign could only generate $1.4 million (with a generous 17% of that contributed by the candidate himself). Even Bishop, with an “anti-business” PAC rating, outstripped the pro-business Republican ticket in business PAC contributions by over 100%, while almost absolutely dominating labor (a whopping $378,206 to $5,575!) (Opensecrets.org). From examining the 2002 Bishop-Grucci race, any quality challenger might have been able to defeat the very vulnerable and inexperienced freshman, or perhaps narrowed the margin of loss. Manger simply ran an ineffective, impotent campaign, and it is not unlikely that a majority of his votes came more from party loyalty than “swing” voters.

While objective press coverage on the race was fairly limited, a large number of local Long Island newspapers ran editorials, many of them denouncing the Manger campaign for launching fallacious attacks on Bishop’s credibility. As Grucci did in 2002, Manger ran a fierce attack ad campaign that ended in tragic discredit and loss of key votes. Bishop was accused of running Southampton College into a $55 million deficit and bankruptcy (which never happened), and furthermore baselessly charged with failing “to support the troops” in Iraq and Afghanistan (Kelly, “Bishop & Manger…”). The Suffolk Times passed an editorial endorsement of Bishop 4 days before the election:

When a candidate has no record to run on and little more than platitudes to reflect what he or she stands for, voters can expect a negative campaign. And that’s exactly what they’ve gotten from Bill Manger, whose nasty attack ads have sunk almost to the level of Felix Grucci’s 2002 campaign. Voters in the 1st C.D. rightfully rejected it then, and they should again.

Indeed, Manger was making the same mistake that had been made in 2002. “Mr. Manger’s ads personify everything that is wrong with the electoral process. They are distorted, they are mean-spirited and they are another example of the win-at-any-cost mentality that has come to make the American voter despise politicians,” states an editorial on bishopforcongress.com. What had made Grucci lose by a 1% margin was only deepening the new GOP challenger’s failure to capitalize on a contested seat.

Demographically, District 1 had no important characteristics beside party affiliations, which was an approximate 50/50 split between registered Republicans and Democrats. The race appeared to be entirely determined by candidate strength and appeal to swing voters, and most issues at stake were untouched by the presidential coattails which only served to solidify partisan votes.

Though not nearly as vulnerable as he was after his slim victory in 2002, Bishop will have to continue striving to satisfy his constituency to re-elect him in 2006. It was by luck and the incompetence of his opponents in the two previous elections that he was victorious. Even with two terms of experience, Bishop may still be defeated if a quality challenger with a substantive agenda and the right criticisms capitalizes on the still-small 6% margin. For the time being, however, he appears to be doing a good job creating loyal voters by “bringing home the bacon”: “Over the course of his first two-year term in the House of Representatives, Tim Bishop has established that he’s responsive to the needs of his constituents and knows how to deliver for them.” (Suffolk Times endorsement).

George Voinovich Gubernatorial Races

Senator George Voinovich, an Ohio Republican, has a rich history of political experience, having served a series of local government posts from 1963 until his election to the governorship of Ohio in 1990. After serving two terms as governor, he ran for the state’s vacated Senate seat against Mary O. Boyle, whom he surpassed by over $5 million in fund-raising ($7,780,850 to $2,230,820) and defeated with a 56.5% to 43.5% vote (ProjectVoteSmart). By the 2004 election, Voinovich would be an extremely formidable incumbent holding a seat in a battleground state.

In comparison to his opponent, Eric D. Fingerhut, Voinovich absolutely dominated campaign finance; while the Senator conjured $10,071,214, his Democrat opponent could only come up with a meager $1,171,559. Undoubtedly, Voinovich’s tenure in the Senate (and visibly strong incumbency) gave him a broad coalition of financial allies. Aside from the typical GOP big-business ensemble, such as the manufacturing sectors (over $633,000 combined), health professionals ($354,041), and assorted financial/insurance/real-estate interests ($1,329,135), he gathered money from interest groups that would typically support his opponents. Despite a 0% rating by the ARA (indicating an “anti-senior” voting record), his number one group of contributors was ironically retirees, providing over $500,000 to his campaign, and he gathered almost twice as much as Fingerhut did from Labor PACs. In his Senate term from 1998-2004, Voinovich sat on committees for Environment and Public Works and Small Business, which drew contributions from energy and mining companies ($638,000) and miscellaneous businesses (over $1m) (Opensecrets.org).

Fingerhut, the Democratic nominee, had previous political experience as a State Senator in Ohio from 1991-1992, from which he resigned to serve a term in the US House (1993-1994), and then served another State Senate term from 1998-2004. Though not an unseasoned legislator, Fingerhut’s repertoire would not stand well against the political behemoth in Voinovich. By mid-2003, Fingerhut’s statewide name recognition was a paltry 45%, standing against Voinovich’s 99% and potential celebrity contender Jerry Springer’s 98% (OCC Government Affairs). Whether or not Fingerhut was simply a quality challenger pitted against an even higher-quality opponent, he did not clock a quality challenger’s performance. In the presidential battleground of Ohio, in which George Bush defeated Democrat John Kerry in a narrow 51-49% victory, George Voinovich defeated Democrat Eric Fingerhut in a 64-36% landslide. Not even the presidential coattails could save Fingerhut’s doomed campaign.

For future elections, it appears that Voinovich will plainly be invincible, barring full-blown scandal or outright treason. He has experience on the Hill, has raised millions of dollars before, and is reputable as a policymaker, while his constituents know him and idolize him as the man who saved Cleveland from bankruptcy in 1979. As one organization puts it: “Everything Senator Voinovich does have as its goal improving the lives of the people of Ohio. The simple question, “How does it help Ohio?” has always been central to his work.” (JAG)

Mario Diaz-Balart House Races

After serving in the Florida House of Representatives, Mario Diaz-Balart ran for Florida’s District 25 US House seat in 2002 as a Republican candidate, defeating Annie Betancourt 65%-35%. Largely backed by the standard Republican arsenal- business, finance, health- Diaz-Balart collected over $1m in campaign funds against Betancourt’s $170,000. These contributions would set the tone for Diaz-Balart’s 2002-2004 term, and subsequent uncontested victory in the 2004 election cycle.

Despite having no challenger, Diaz raised funds to campaign in the interest of his own career, and made a respectable showing of $544,127, more than some candidates raise in actual races. During his 2002-2004 term, he served on the Budget, Transportation and Infrastructure committees, securing some contributions from the antsy financial sector (about $25,000) and assorted transportation and construction interests ($84,000). The remainder consisted of the standard Republican guns (no pun intended). (Opensecrets.org)

It is easy to speculate why nobody rose to challenge Diaz-Balart in 2004. An incumbents’ strength for his next election is usually identifiable primarily from his margin of victory in the previous, both by count of vote and monetary support. In this case, the race ended with a huge margin of victory on both accounts (30% margin of victory and $1 million raised for a beginner’s US House race). Diaz represents a large portion of District 25, the Republican Cuban-American community, both substantively and descriptively. Especially after his “free ride” in 2004, 2006 will prove to be difficult to lose for this up-and-coming politician.

The post Three Case Studies in Congressional and Gubernatorial Elections appeared first on Rare Essays.

One million women are sent to doctor’s offices and emergency rooms around the country for treatment every year as a result of physical abuse, making battering by spouse or loved the leading cause of injury in American women (Wrightman & Fulero, 2005). To this end, nearly fifty percent of homeless women and children entering homeless shelters are fleeing from male violence, and nearly one thousand, four hundred women (or six percent of all murder victims) who are killed by abusive partners each year (Wrightman & Fulero, 2005). Similar statistics maintain that spousal violence contributes to one forth of all reported suicide attempts by women in any given year, providing a solid evidence that abusive relations create significant psychological harm.

The Definition of Battered Woman Syndrome

Lenore Walk first coined the term “Battered Woman syndrome” in the context of a heated court decision in 1979, and continued to develop the term as classified by situational factors alone, insisting that no particular personality traits or factors predispose these women to engage in and maintain violent relationships by strongly rejecting the notion that battered women have masochistic personalities (McMahon, 1999). Although a precise definition of Battered Woman syndrome remains obscure despite growing acknowledgement by the scientific community and endorsement by the American Psychological Association, methodical studies by trained psychologists, many of which we will investigate in detail, have revealed in situations of domestic violence a typical pattern of behavioral functioning for the male batterer and his female victim in addition to typical responses on the part of this same female victim (McMahon, 1999). By breaking down the two components of this theorized psychological impairment, we first define syndrome as a collection of symptoms that occur together and characterize a particular disease (Hubble, 1999). Of great scrutiny, however, researchers question the usage of the syndrome classification because this term implies that all symptoms and responses are consistent for every woman in the applicable situation. The definition of a battered woman as determined by Hocking (1999) applies to a woman who is eighteen years of age or older, and who has been in an intimate relationship with a man who repeatedly subjects (or in the past subjected) her to forceful physical and/or psychological abuse. Bradfield (2002) suggests that Battered Woman syndrome can be defined as “a distortion of thought and perception, impaired ability to perceive and realistically appraise alternatives and delusions regarding the batterer and relationships,” although considerable debate continues on the breadth and specificity of the psychological impairment. The duality of the term Battered Woman syndrome describes both the pattern of violence within a relationship, “as well as the psychological and behavioral sequelae for the female victim”, in addition to the behavioral and psychological characteristics of the abusive male and his female victim (Hocking, 1999). Further described as a general pattern of reaction to physical and psychological abuse inflicted on a woman by her spouse, Hocking (1999) identifies those diagnosed with Battered Woman syndrome to possess a “collection of specific characteristics and effects of abuse that result in a woman’s decreased ability to respond effectively to the violence against her, and a set of particular symptoms, characteristics, and problems experienced by a woman in an ongoing physically abusive relationship with a man” (Hocking, 1999). These extreme circumstances may produce a continual state of shame, isolation, guilt, depression, passivity, learned helplessness, implications of traditional sex role attitudes, low-self esteem, and dependency, propelling a battered woman to a situation of choosing to kill herself or the batterer or else face being reduced to a psychological state in which sustained physical existence has little or any meaning or value (Ewing, 1990). Overall, the experience of a battered woman may include a history of fatal threats by her husband, prior life-threatening abusive incidents, and a belief that her husband could eventually kill her due increasing severity and frequency of the abuse, all factors which must be taken into consideration when analyzing the mental state of an individual on trial (Follingstand, Ponek, Hause, Deaton, Bulger, & Conway, 1989).

Similarity to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)

As the result of a perpetual state of fear produced by repeated physical abuse by one’s spouse, mental anguish may affect all aspects of human functioning in battered women, thus causing women in these circumstances to display a variety of characteristics similar to those exhibited by sufferers of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Hubble (1999) has concluded that individuals assessed as having Battered Woman syndrome experience fear and terror with elevated levels of anger and rage towards their abuser, in addition to impaired functioning including an inability to engage in planful behavior, which can become particularly inhibitory in determining a safe and effective escape from the abuser when conditions are favorable. This same source also focuses upon a finding that battered women may begin to lose the “assumption of invulnerability and safety that ‘things would turn out’ alright or ‘this won’t happen to me’”, concluding that such beliefs often dissipate in the onslaught of abuse and violence (Hubble, 1999). Based on this determination, it is fairly easily to understand why women who are battered respond with hypervigilance to cues of danger, noticing subtle aspects of their partner’s behavior which others would deem inconsequential and ignore, and as a result may initiate a preemptive strike to what appears to be unrelated behavior. Battered women also most often display a high tolerance for cognitive inconsistency, that is, they may express two logically inconsistent ideas but fail to comprehend the discrepancy (Wrightman & Fulero, 2005). Due to this phenomenon, many often do not assess their habitual situation and alternatives for habitation from a coherent standpoint, instead demonstrating in a diminished-responsiveness reaction focusing all energies upon survival within the relationship rather than seeking out other safe options outside of the marriage. As evidenced when Walker interviewed four hundred battered women in 1993, eighty-five percent felt they could be killed at any point in the future, but failed to dissolve the union for an unspecified reason based on diminished alternatives (Wrightman & Fulero, 2005).

A remarkable and often controversial aspect of Battered Woman syndrome which deserves considerable attention is the notion that many women are plagued by self-defeat in a theory of learned helplessness developed by Martin Seligman (1975). Seligman established in his laboratory experiments with animals that, after being exposed to variable aversive and unavoidable stimuli repeatedly in a randomized fashion, his mammalian subjects subsequently failed to utilize available opportunities to escape from the painful stimuli (McMahon, 1999). In a similar way, female humans learn that, as abuse by their husbands continue, regardless of any of her attempted actions to halt this violence, she cannot control the battering and hence, assume that she has no control over her own environment (Schuller, Wells, Rzepa, & Klippenstine, 2004). Women in these instances of psychological paralysis eventually cease to avoid the painful stimuli, believing that nothing can be done to prevent being subjected to the abuse and fail to recognize available alternative avenues for escape (Ewing, 1990).

Despite a presumption that most battered women do in fact live in this perpetual state of fear as an indication of learned helplessness, research has yielded evidence that some victims of domestic violence report a cyclic nature to the abuse, describing lulls in the destructive and painful behavior by their spouse (Schuller & Hastings, 1996). The three phases of the described cycle begin in an initial tension building stage where the wife will often perceive her husband as becoming exponentially more “edgy and more prone to react negatively to frustrations” (Wrightman & Fulero, 2005). During this phase, as described by Wrightman and Fulero (2005), a woman’s hypervigilant nature may be engaged such that she begins to anticipate her partner’s transitions of moods and his needs in the presence of small episodes of physical and verbal abuse. As a result of these more trivial abusive instances and a persistent fear of more painful episodes which will inevitably occur in the future, it appears that battered women most often kill their partners during this tension building phase. Following this apprehensive stage full of anxiety by the wife, an acute battering incident occurs and can last anywhere from two to twenty-four hours. As Wrightman and Fulero (2005) note, “anticipation of this second stage results in severe psychological stress for the battered woman; she becomes anxious, depressed, and complains of other psycho-physiological symptoms.” The final stage which often mitigates flight impulses in a battered woman occurs when the abusive husband admits that his violent reactions are unacceptable and attempts to make amends through apology and promises that he will never behave that way again. This observation to be more thoroughly addressed is forensically significant in circumstances where a time gap between an abusive threat of death or seriously bodily injury by the husband and the battered woman’s prima facie criminal act (such as killing her abusive partner in his sleep) exists. In the case of these discrepancies, a symptomatic cycle of violence provides a psychological link in the criminal proceedings for the battered woman between the two temporally distinct occurrences (McMahon, 1999).

Public Perception of Battered Women

As a result of the apparent manipulation of battered women in this incessant cycle of abuse and absolution as identified by those of us on the outside of a particular series of circumstances, the American public have adopted views and often times strong stereotypes against battered women which can hinder a fair unbiased jury composition during trial. There is a tendency to characterize the violence of the murdered husband as ensuing from difficulties within the marriage rather than resulting entirely from a flaw in the violent partner himself, thus placing a slight yet significant degree of blame upon the battered woman (Bradfield, 2002). A study conducted by Reddy et al. addresses an underlying belief that the battered woman is somehow responsible for her continued abuse because she places herself repeatedly in a situation where she has prior knowledge that she will continued to be beaten (Bradfield, 2002). Society’s expectations assume that battered women should and will leave violent relationships prior to the actual murder of a spouse, and when this does not occur, individuals question the motives and rationale of the women in these relationships. Therefore, although the accused may inform a jury fully of her reasons for remaining with her husband throughout the battering cycles, a common sense understanding by jury members may lead them to question the severity of her abuse claims. Additionally, according to Bradfield (2002), these perceptions are further “reinforced by the dominant societal and legal conception of domestic violence that focuses on isolated and discrete episodes of violence which facilitates the position that leaving the relationship is the sole appropriate form of self-assertion” (Bradfield, 2002). Several misconceptions continue to circulate throughout American courtrooms particularly that battered women provoke their abuse, remain in these relationship because they enjoy the physical abuse aspect, or that violence fulfills some dark and deep-seated need within each partner (Spring & Winston, 1994), many of which could bear considerable influence on the decision of a jury during trial.

Although the scientific community acknowledges these assumptions of pleasure derived from physical violence and verbal ridicule as completely inaccurate, one must question what distinguishes a battered woman from other wives who are not physically, emotionally, or psychologically abused, and also the factors which differentiate battered women who kill from those who do not. Empirical research conducted by Hocking (1999) has revealed discrepancies between battered wives and those engaged in more healthy forms of marriage, stating that battered women are “over-socialized, submissive, dependent, conforming and self-less, cautious, controlling, superstitious, submissive, anxious,” and possess poor coping skills. Bradfield (2002) further explains that women in violent dyads are more emotionally dependent on their husbands than those in nonviolent dyads, have lower self-image than those in nonviolent unions, and tend to perceive their husbands more positively than women who are in nonviolent marriages (Anson & Sagy, 1995). On measures of marital and gender social organizational attitudes as assessed by Warren and Lanning (1992), it was determined that women in violent relationships responded significantly differently to four out of twelve statements concerning the division of labor and authority within the family than those in non-violent unions. According to this study, more women in the violent condition agreed that their husbands had the right to decide about intercourse, when she is able to leave the home for an outing, and that assertive women harm the dynamics of their families (Anson & Sagy, 1995). In terms of maintaining the relationship, battered women, it seems are more emotionally dependent on their husbands; “when their husbands go out, they feel, as may have been expected, more relieved and relaxed; they also, however, reported more frequent feelings of being angry, sad, and lonely (Anson & Sagy, 1995). Findings from this research study contradict a proposition that battered women have lowered self-esteem in that, it was verified that the self-image of women in violent marriages were quite similar to those in the non-violent condition, although the battered women were more nervous and less happy compared to their peers as reported by Walker (1984). Women in violent relationships, moreover, tend to perceive violence as commonplace, justifying their husbands actions with positive emotions, including love, and in many cases, actually believe that they bring their fate upon themselves. It is still a matter of debate whether these perceptions are a result of early socialization or perhaps are developed as a reaction to the violent martial experience (Anson & Sagy, 1995).

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Lady MacBeth was an allegory to Queen Elizabeth’s reign

The control of Lady Macbeth throughout the play, first possessing a strong grip upon her husband but diminishing as he becomes increasingly independent, reflects the social circumstances and governmental situation of the time of its composition. Lady Macbeth can be viewed as an allegorical Queen Elizabeth I of England, holding vast amounts of power because she does not embody the typical characterization of aristocratic women. The suicide of Lady Macbeth, which renders to the reestablishment of a patriarchal monarchial system, mimics the transition, although bloodless, from Queen Elizabeth I to James VI of Scotland, her chosen successor, reinstalling the line of male sovereignty. Written between the years 1605 and 1606 to be performed before King James VI shortly after the death of Queen Elizabeth in March of 1603, the story of Macbeth along with the characterization of its leading lady offers a celebration to the restoration of male-dominated normalcy in Renaissance England.

The instability of the Tutor monarchy, plagued by events preceding the coronation of Queen Elizabeth, is presumed to be a result of female rule and thus is inherently dangerous for the state. The belief that a woman can not effectively lead a nation into war, exercise power over male subjects, or become wed without transferring her power to her husband and to his family all produce anxiety regarding the ability of women to rule and thus left it a culture yearning for the stability represented by a king, not a queen. To cure this insurgent hesitance and to express confidently the needed attributes to occupy power, Queen Elizabeth, much like her counterpart, Lady Macbeth, could not act in a womanly manner. The “Virgin Queen” as Elizabeth I was dubbed, resulting from her desire to strip herself of feminine sexuality, could nevertheless escape her femininity because of her appearance and the bias that existed against women in power at the time. Through the examination of the political attitudes against the late Queen of England, one can identify the parallels that Shakespeare conveyed through his character, Lady Macbeth.

Lady MacBeth’s desire for power

Lady Macbeth possesses unbridled ambition and an insatiable hunger for power, typical male sentiments which are deemed unladylike when compared to the traditional characterization and role of women. Women during this era are expected to be quiet and opinion-less in speech, gentle individuals who watch over home and servants, functioning to primarily please their husbands. This idea is further concurred by Joan Klein in her essay entitled “Lady Macbeth: ‘Infirm of Purpose,” as a result from Eve’s original seduction of Adam, all “women were bound by nature and law to obey their husbands as well as their God,” distinguishing Lady Macbeth as an oddity (168). Instead of fitting this mold, Lady Macbeth operates as the manipulative character in this play, pushing to obtain great power for personal gain through her husband’s lethal deeds. Following the slaughter of Cawdor in battle, Macbeth becomes alarmed when he learns that King Duncan’s son, Malcolm, not himself for his heroic actions, will be the next heir to the throne. After this meeting, Macbeth composes a letter to his wife, informing her of his resentment, and quickly she learns that King Duncan will be paying a royal visit to their castle, Inverness. To hasten the prophecy outlined in her husband’s letter, one that proclaims Macbeth will first be named Thane of Cawdor and then king, Lady Macbeth devises a plan to murder the King. Through the derision of her husband’s weakness, and the brilliancy of her plan, which seems to be fated by destiny, Lady Macbeth convinces Macbeth to commit regicide against a king he once followed. Such manipulation of events and the greed, which drew her to seek out to kill the king, are ultimately characteristics are typical of a man, rather than a woman. With this ploy, Lady Macbeth assumes the absolute power of the state, behaving as if she is to not be held accountable and deserves no blame. Her disruption of political stability stems from her own ambition, and it is this ambition that makes her standout as unnatural for her gender.

To gain credibility in her abilities and in the confidence that although she is a woman, she is capable of hungering for such power and seizing this power from others, Lady Macbeth must remove all aspects of femininity from herself. If the lady wishes to sway others into believing that she is perfectly competent of exercising leadership, she feels that the spirits must literally deprive her of femininity, thicken her blood, and halt her ability to weep openly. She begs these specters to strip away the attributes that make her a woman in crying out, “Come, you spirits / That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here, / And fill me, from the crown to the toe, top full / Of direct cruelty.” (I, v, 41-44). She desires for her blood congeal so that she can no longer be harmed by her own guilty conscious, “Make thick my blood, / Stop up the access and passage to remorse, / That no compunctious visiting of nature / Shake my fell purpose nor keep peace between / The effects and it!” (I, v, 44-48). If Lady Macbeth can halt any inhibitions of guilt that may result from any of her deeds, she can consider herself more of a man, as men do go out into battle and kill without inflicting their souls with compunction. She then begs that the physical characteristics that make her a woman be removed, “Come to my woman’s breasts, / And take my milk for gall, your murthering ministers wherever in your sightless substances / You wait on nature’s mischief.” (I, v, 48-51). When Lady Macbeth desires to be “unsexed” in both emotional and physical terms, her words reveal the noted discordance between the supposed archetype of feminine nature and political ambition. Despite this, Klein suggests, “[She] is never able to separate herself completely from womankind – unlike her husband, who ultimately becomes less and worse than a man,” (169). Shakespeare must de-feminize Lady Macbeth to some extent to give her ambitions credibility and, therefore, maintain in the minds of the audience that she as a character to be taken seriously.

How Lady Macbeth dominates her husband

Through the bullying and chastising of her husband, Lady Macbeth drives Macbeth to dismiss his own fears, which ultimately leads to his own downfall.  Shakespeare transforms the longing of Lady Macbeth into that of a masculine nature and by doing so, through her actions and words, places Macbeth in a passive role.  The playwright allows Lady Macbeth to dominate her husband to show that such reversal of sexual relations is also a reversal of political order, reflecting the issues of female involvement in the government and the aptitude possessed by women to reign over men as a monarch.  Throughout the first portion of the play, it can be noted that Macbeth is continuously forced to assert his manliness to his wife, first in writing a letter to her from the battlefield hailing his accomplishments and then by murdering King Duncan.  The initial probing exposes a more feminine side of Macbeth, one of doubt and hesitation, when he asks, “If we fail?” (I, vii, 58).  Lady Macbeth replies sharply, “We fail? / But screw your courage to the sticking-place / And we’ll not fail.” (I, vii, 59-61), attempting to assuage his fears.  Lady Macbeth continuously berates her husband for his lack of conviction, deeming him a weak man who can easily be exploited.  She becomes angered when Macbeth determines that he will not claim the crown by treacherous means, “If chance will have me king, why, chance may crown me / Without my stir.” (I, iii, 143-144).  Although a man well versed in the sentiments of the battlefield, having hunted down traitor Macdonwald and “unseamed him from the nave to the chaps and fixed his head upon our battlements,” Macbeth is plagued by the insistence of a guilty conscience.  Lady Macbeth proceeds to mock him because of his apparent remorse following the murder of King Duncan saying, “My hands are of your color [blood], but I shame / To wear a heart so white.” (II, ii, 62-63).  Lady Macbeth finishes the deed of her husband herself, considering him not manly enough to go back and place the bloody daggers in the dead monarch’s bedchamber.  It is through the frequent insults and stabs against his manhood, that Shakespeare brings to light what a strong personality that Lady Macbeth possesses, one strong enough to assume the masculine role of acquisition of power. Upon asking the spirits to unsex her otherwise feminine emotional state and body to gain standing as a power-craving individual, Lady Macbeth acknowledges the single trait that still separates her from masculinity, at least in her mind, the ability to bear children. To remove this capacity would eliminate every aspect which would be considered womanly and, therefore, leave her a neutral ruler, unable to be influenced by the prospect of having children, which was condemned a weakness by the society. The disgust Lady Macbeth holds for any child who originates from her flesh can be noted in, “I have given suck, and know / How tender ‘tis to love the babe that milks me: / I would, while it was smiling in my face, / Heave pluck’d my nipple from his boneless gums, / And dash’d the brains out, had I so sworn as you / Have done to this.” (I, vi, 54-59). This astonishing revelation also reflects the way she treats those she judges more vulnerable than herself, both man and child alike, influencing them to do horrific crimes for her personal gain. To distance herself from every preconceived notion regarding womanhood, Lady Macbeth has chosen to remain a “barren scepter”, (II, i, 62) denying herself the right to give birth in exchange for a masculine mystique, which allows her the power she is searching to gain. Macbeth, on the other hand, insists that she bear an heir to the throne if he is to occupy it, taking a more practical, parental role a compared to his wife. “Bring forth men-children only!” he proclaims, “For thy undaunted mettle should compare / Nothing but males.” (I, vii, 72-74). The allusions made to the childlessness and the demands for a son to ascend the throne in this marriage can be found echoing in the minds of the first audience following the death of Queen Elizabeth, who died without hereditary heir. Devoid of the capacity or desire of neither Queen Elizabeth nor Lady Macbeth to yield children, each female ruler in the position of power maintains her credibility as a leader through a masculine form and nature.

Lady Macbeth’s suicide

Once Lady Macbeth succeeds in convincing Macbeth to undertake the unspeakably horrendous act of murdering King Duncan, her domineering nature can no longer keep him under her spell. Macbeth realizes his strengths stemming from the initial regicide and no longer needs her to fuel his ambition. As in all human nature, a manipulative mind must have a weak soul by which to prey on, but once this soul loses its inhibitions and gains independence, the manipulative mind shall crumble. Admitting to having killed the guards of the king’s chamber, Macbeth breaks free from the original plan devised by his wife and thus emerges out of her scheme a self-sufficient figure, causing Lady Macbeth to faint in disbelief. While Lady Macbeth is seen to be reexamining the events of the previous murder, Macbeth looks ahead, anticipating the next murder, that of Banquo, which he has not informed his wife of yet. Gradually Macbeth distances his mind from the grip of Lady Macbeth, tasting the spoils of victory independently, and then actively seeking them out, ending the lives of Banquo and Macduff’s wife and children, securing that his wife have no place in the masculine acts of treason and revenge. Upon ascending the throne, “he, the man, so fully commands Lady Macbeth that he allows her no share in his new business. No longer his accomplice, she loses her role as housekeeper.” (Klein, 175). Once Macbeth realizes his strength and no longer needs her or is in awe of her, Lady Macbeth, stricken and without an object to carry out her manipulation through, falls into periods of madness and sleepwalking. She becomes obsessed with removing the blood from her hands, as to her they appear stained, signifying a personal trial underway upon her soul. Lacking an individual to bestow upon her evil intentions and to achieve her ambitions, Lady Macbeth is forced to turn the evilness upon herself, eventually culminating into suicide as a result of relentless guilt. After losing the power of manipulation over her husband, Lady Macbeth loses her rank in the political institution of the monarchy and therefore, ultimately ceases to exist, without the control.

The anxieties of gender role manifested in Shakespeare’s Macbeth decisively present that even such a powerful character as Lady Macbeth, or Queen Elizabeth herself, can not overcome the traditions of a patriarchal system through acceptable means. In the conclusion, Malcolm, son of Duncan, is restored to the throne and thus re-establishing normalcy in the line of succession, as deemed appropriate by the British people during Shakespeare’s time. Through the allegorical representation of the political ethos of Renaissance England, Shakespeare examines and resolutely determines that positive involvement of women within the political structure is not feasible, as demonstrated by the evolution of Lady Macbeth.

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To do so, MacIntyre offers an elaborate albeit selective history of what he calls “the Catholic philosophical tradition.” He begins with discussions of its precursors among such late antique and early medieval thinkers as Plotinus, Porphyry, St. Boethius, and St. Augustine, Maimonides, and the Muslim interpreters of Augustine. MacIntyre then discusses in the main corpus of the book the history of Catholic philosophy, including its genesis in the golden age of scholasticism in the High Middle Ages, its challenge by early modern thinkers beginning with the problems of the philosophy of René Descartes, its subsequent “absence” from philosophical dialogue from circa 1700 to 1850, and its reemergence in various branches in the works of contemporary Catholic philosophers such as Newman, Anscombe, Gilson, Maritain, St. Edith Stein, Leo XIII, and John Paul II. MacIntyre and Pope John Paul II in Fides et ratio offer several insights on the vocation of Catholic philosophy as well as an historical account of its substantive unity.

What is the Catholic Philosophical Tradition?

For MacIntyre, the Catholic philosophical tradition is a method of philosophical enquiry that is concerned with the interrelation of three core elements: God, philosophy, and universities. MacIntyre comments regarding the central, irreplaceable role of God in Catholic philosophy that: “…Finite beings who possess the power of understanding, if they know that God exists, know that he is the most adequate object of their love, and that the deepest desire of every such being, whether they acknowledge it or not, is to be at one with God.”[1] In a somewhat surprising move, MacIntyre then proceeds to concede three problems intrinsic to theistic philosophy that he claims can never be resolved fully by means of rational enquiry. First, there is the classic problem of evil; that is to say, the apparent contradiction between God’s innate omnipotence and goodness vis-à-vis the abundance of suffering and evil in the world. Second, MacIntyte concedes the problem of free will vs. determinism, which is defined by the apparent contradiction between God’s omniscience and the power of finite beings to act as proximate causes.[2]

Last, MacIntyre notes that theistic philosophers face a fundamental problem insofar as they must concede that if God is indeed omnipotent and eternal, then no earthly language, even philosophical language, could ever adequately describe His nature. Thus, one cannot have quidditative knowledge of God in this world. MacIntyre notes that: “All three problems… are internal to theism, not just problems posed from some external standpoint by some critic dismissive of theism. Those problems would still arise for theists even if no one had ever been an atheist, thereby showing that theism is philosophically problematic.”[3] MacIntyre concedes these points, of course, not to discredit theistic philosophy, for he makes it quite clear that the problems inherent to philosophical systems that deny the existence of God, such as skepticism, are irreconcilable in a much more detrimental way. Rather, he concedes these problems as inherent to the study of philosophy because he argues throughout the book that philosophical enquiry leads to the truths of revealed theology, and that the fact that problems arise when finite beings attempt to understand aspects of the infinite God by rational enquiry is to be expected.[4]

The other constituents of the Catholic philosophical tradition for MacIntyre are a certain set of presuppositions about “philosophy” itself as well as an understanding of the university as a place where all the particular sciences are united and interrelated with respect to theology, the study of God qua the “whole”. MacIntyre notes immediately in his introductory chapter on “philosophy” that at first, philosophy and theology seem to be incompatible, because theology, which begins with divine revelation and proceeds by means of faith, insists that the God of the three great monotheisms, Christianity, Islam, and Judaism, requires our total unquestioning obedience. On the other hand, philosophy begins with the human mind’s desire to know and proceeds by means of rational activity, which demands that all assertion are subject to questioning and philosophical analysis.[5] MacIntyre outlines three possible responses to this apparent incompatibility of Faith and Reason: an absolute rejection of theism as unreasonable, an absolute rejection of philosophy as impious, or a rejection of the claim of incompatibility itself. The Catholic philosophical tradition adopts the third response and argues for not only the compatibility but the codependence of philosophy and theology and of Faith and Reason as correlative means of inquiry. Commenting on Catholic philosophers’ approach to this important debate, MacIntyre writes: “…Is this complex set of attitude possible? It is so only if faith in God, that is, trust in his word, can include faith that, even when one is putting God to the question, one can be praising him by doing so and can expect to be sustained by him in that faith.”[6] Thus, the Catholic philosopher ought not to fear delving into problems that concern both philosophy and theology such as proofs of God’s existence, the nature of angels, or attempts to understand Creation, but he submits God to scrutiny with the ultimate intention of bringing Him praise and glory by doing so.

Pope John Paul II offers profound insight to the question “What is the Catholic philosophical tradition?” in his 1998 encyclical Fides et ratio as well. This encyclical is recommended enthusiastically by MacIntyre as a crucial account of the genesis and unity of Catholic philosophy as well as a “battle plan” for how it should respond to the challenges of secularism in contemporary society.[7] In particular, the pontiff goes into greater detail than MacIntyre in his account of the roots of philosophical inquiry in Christian Scripture, Tradition, and the nature of the human person itself, which eventually led to the formation of a distinctly Catholic philosophical tradition. The pontiff makes it very clear that in his view the unity of Catholic philosophy is utterly dependent on the necessary interrelation of Faith and Reason in his poignant opening line: “Faith and reason are like two wings on which the human spirit rises to the contemplation of truth; and God has placed in the human heart, a desire to know the truth- in a word, to know himself- so that, by knowing and loving God, men and women may also come to the fullness of truth about themselves.”[8] John Paul II makes the crucial point that philosophical inquiry has emerged in some form or another in every culture in every age albeit in many different, often conflicting, systems of inquiry. The pope cites various pre-Christian thinkers in both Western and Eastern antiquity, including Lao-Tzu, Confucius, Aristotle, Homer, Siddhartha Gautama, and Plato, and authors of the Hebrew Scriptures as thinkers who has various insights to offer on what John Paul calls the “fundamental questions which pervade human life”, such as “Who am I? Where have I come from and where am I going? Why is there evil? What is there after this life? Thus, in a somewhat similar manner to MacIntyre, John Paul states, as an introduction to the specific realm of Catholic philosopher, that the great thinkers of all the great religions and civilizations of antiquity were all composed answers to the same set of ultimate questions. Thus, John Paul makes the very important point right from the beginning that he as the leader of one of the world’s great religions thinks recognizes that rational activity is part of, not opposed to, human nature. It is not necessarily antithetical to piety or divine revelation.[9]

John Paul’s account of the nature of Catholic philosophy differs from that of MacIntyre in the sense that Pope John Paul II offers a lengthy analysis of how rational enquiry has always been viewed as an intrinsic part of the Catholic tradition, even in its antecedents in the Wisdom literature of the Hebrew Scriptures. For John Paul, the three constituents of Catholic philosophy are knowledge of self, God, and the world, and he argues that in the Catholic philosophical tradition, “…Reason and faith cannot be separated without diminishing the capacity of men and women themselves, the world and God in an appropriate way. There is thus no reason for competition of any kind between reason and faith: each contains the other, and each has its own scope for action.”[10] John Paul II comments on the Wisdom literature of the Hebrew Scriptures, such as the Books of Sirach, Proverbs, and Tobit, that it is remarkable that they carry not only faith tradition of Israel but also “the treasury of cultures and civilizations which have long since vanished.”[11] John Paul notes that even before the birth of Christ, our Jewish forefathers had an intimate understanding of the relationship between knowledge gained in Faith and knowledge learned through rational enquiry. Scripture lauds the wise man as a seeker of truth, the one truth seen through the two lenses of Faith and Reason; the pontiff quotes from Sirach: “Happy the man who meditates on wisdom and reasons intelligently, who reflects in his heart on her ways and ponders her secrets… He places his children under her protection and lodges under her boughs; by her he is sheltered from the heat and he dwells in the shade of her glory.”[12] The ancient Jews even had some insight into the necessity of Faith and Reason as correlative principles as evidenced in the passage: “The human mind plans the way, but the Lord directs the steps.”[13] Thus, whereas MacIntyre later argues that the Catholic philosophical tradition did not begin until the High Middle Ages, John Paul II sees its roots in Christian antiquity and even in the pre-Christian Wisdom literature of Egypt and Israel.

The Origins of the Catholic Philosophical Tradition

The pontiff sees an continuous recognition of the importance of Reason as a means of better understanding the mysteries of the Faith in the New Testament and early Christian writings as well. The most direct interaction between Greek philosophy and the Christian faith is found in Acts of the Apostles, Chapter 17, in which St. Paul undergoes a missionary journey to Greece in attempt to convert the pagans there to Christianity. St. Paul must have been shocked and somewhat appalled by the plethora of pagan idols in the city, John Paul comments, but his approach to evangelization in the “city of philosophers” was quite clever and an important model for the subsequent Catholic philosophical tradition. He said to the Greeks: “Athenians, I see how extremely religious you are in every way, for as I went through this city and looked carefully at the objects of your worship, I found among them an altar with the inscription, ‘To an unknown god.’ What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you.”[14] Instead of adopting an entirely antithetical stance to the philosophical tradition that the Greeks treasured so much, then, the wise St. Paul rather chose to search for common ground between their philosophy and the Christian Faith he came to preach. He did so by lauding them for being “extremely religious in every way,” and used this as a starting point to preach to them about the One God who is Creator and Sustainer of the whole world. St. Paul was able to find this common ground by recognizing a certain transcendental nature of philosophy, albeit pagan Greek philosophy. John Paul comments on this recognition of its transcendental character: “The Apostle accentuates a truth which the Church has always treasured: in the far reaches of the human heart there is a seed of desire and nostalgia for God.”[15] The pontiff concludes his chapter on Scriptural recognition of the dual role of Faith and Reason by noting that no one, neither philosopher nor ordinary person, can escape asking the ultimate questions with which philosophy is concerned. This universal, innate wonder shared by all mankind is what Aristotle called our “desire to know,” and the Catholic philosophical tradition recognizes that ultimately this desire to know can only be fulfilled by God, the ultimate end of Man.[16]

MacIntyre leaves Scripture out of his account entirely and views all antiquity, even Christian antiquity, as but a precursor to the genesis of the Catholic philosophical tradition. He insists that the Catholic philosophical tradition proper did not begin until the High Middle Ages, in which philosophy was recognized as a legitimate mode of enquiry in its own right for the first time in Christian history. One reason he cites for this somewhat unusual claim is that in the Middle Ages, there was a unique recognition among Catholic philosophers that each of the liberal arts had something distinct to offer to an “integrated body of secular knowledge,” and that theology had a unique role as the “Queen of the sciences” in connecting the various particular sciences to the focal point of all knowledge: God.[17] For MacIntyre, the emergence of great Catholic universities in the High Middle Ages as places where the Church did its thinking is the most important defining feature of a truly Catholic philosophical tradition. He states: “It was because thirteenth-century European universities…became scenes of intellectual conflict, places where the fundamental issues that divided and defined the age were articulated, that their history provides the setting for the emergence of the Catholic philosophical tradition.”[18] Thus, with this university-centered definition of the Catholic philosophical tradition, great thinkers of Christian antiquity and the early medieval period such as St. Augustine, St. Boethius, and St. Anselm are not considered to be genuine partakers in the Catholic philosophical tradition.

MacIntyre admits that the theology of St. Augustine dominated throughout the Middle Ages, as did his provisions for the interpretation of Scripture, but he argues that the philosophy of St. Augustine was distinct from the Catholic philosophical tradition insofar as it viewed philosophical enquiry as a means to the end of understanding tenets of the Christian faith rather than a legitimate means of enquiry in its own right. In other words, philosophy is the “handmaiden” of theology rather than its complement. MacIntyre argues that Augustinian thinkers were at times even opposed to the integration of philosophy and theology that became the crowning achievement of the scholastic project. He states regarding this antipathy: “The question of the relationship of philosophy to theology became the question of the relationship of Aristotle’s philosophy- and science- to theology. Many Augustinian theologians found… reason to reject…the Aristotelian claim that philosophical enquiry has its own standards and methods, independent of those of theology.”[19] On the other extreme, MacIntyre makes the important point that the Averroistic Aristotelians at the Sorbonne proposed a radical theory called the “doctrine of two truths.” This mottled attempt to explain the relationship of philosophical truth to theological truth taught that the truths of Aristotelian philosophy and Catholic Christianity are, as they seem to be due to the aforementioned problems intrinsic to theistic philosophy, contradictory. However, one can still be a devout Catholic and a follower of Aristotelian philosophy without contradiction by conceding to two separate sets of truths- those of philosophy and those of theology. For instance, as an Aristotelian one accepts the eternity of the world as philosophical knowledge, but as a Catholic, one believes in the Creation doctrine as theological truth.[20] This blatant violation of the principle of contradiction did not, of course, solve the problem of the relationship between philosophical and theological truth. It did, however, illustrate the great need for a comprehensive philosophical system compatible with Catholicism that could account of the principles of philosophy as means of inquiry in itself, and this project was undertaken by St. Thomas Aquinas.

The Response of St. Thomas Aquinas

Pope John Paul II does not agree with MacIntyre, of course, that the Catholic philosophical tradition does not emerge until the thirteenth century. He sees it as one continuous development through the centuries of understanding of the relationship between Faith and Reason and sees Catholic philosophy present already even in the times of the apostles. He does, however, agree with MacIntyre regarding the pivotal role that St. Thomas Aquinas played in Catholic philosophical tradition insofar as he proposed a philosophical system that accounted for philosophy as a means of enquiry independent of theology. The pontiff devotes an entire section to the Angelic Doctor in Fides et ratio entitled “The enduring originality of the thought of St. Thomas Aquinas,” and comments: “In an age when Christian thinkers were rediscovering the treasures of ancient philosophy…Thomas had the great merit of giving pride of place to the harmony which exists between faith and reason. Both the light of reason and the light of faith come from God, he argued; hence there can be no contradiction between them.”[21] St. Thomas rejected those who distrusted philosophy as intrinsically opposed to the Christian faith just because it came from primarily pagan sources.

Rather, St. Thomas argued that all truths come from God, and believed that the truths of Aristotelian philosophy, if properly expounded in the light of Christian Revelation, could be of great help in providing rational justification for some of truths of Christianity. Pope John Paul II credits St. Thomas for coming to the recognition that: “Faith therefore has no fear of reason, but seeks it out and has trust in it. Just as grace builds on nature and brings it to fulfillment, so faith builds upon and perfects reason. Illumined by faith, reason…finds the strength required to rise to the knowledge of the Triune God.”[22] Last, John Paul also credits St. Thomas for being an “apostle of truth.” One of St. Thomas’ greatest contributions to Catholic philosophy, John Paul II notes, was his recognition that regardless of its source, every truth is a gift of the wisdom of the Holy Spirit. Thus, St. Thomas, unlike the Averroists, was able to provide a justification for philosophical enquiry that respected the magisterium of the Church and would become a model for a Catholic understanding of philosophy and theology as two paths to the same truth of the One God.

The Absence of Catholic Philosophy in the Early Modern Era

Both Pope John Paul II and MacIntyre acknowledge the regrettable absence of Catholic philosophy in the early modern era following the golden age of scholasticism in the High Middle Ages. Indeed, MacIntyre notes that many of the problems faced by contemporary Catholic philosophers are the result of one hundred and fifty years of relative silence (c. 1700-1850) from Catholic philosophers; he states: “To have to reckon with all of these [secular challenges] now is part of the price that Catholic thought has had to pay for its absence from the philosophical scene during those periods in which these secularizing modes of thought were first developed.”[23] MacIntyre, then, attributes a significant portion of the “blame” for some of the grievous errors made by early modern philosophers to Catholic philosophers who never entered the realm of the debate in the first place. He states regarding this period of absence: “There was in consequence no dialogue between Catholic philosophers and the seminal thinkers in the development of modern philosophy. Where philosophy flourished, Catholic faith was absent. Where the Catholic faith was sustained, philosophy failed to flourish.”[24] The Catholic philosophical tradition was still passed on in seminaries, Catholic universities, and Dominican and Franciscans houses of study, but it was an “arid restatement” of old ideas bereft of philosophical introspection.[25]

MacIntyre notes the bitter irony that René Descartes, a devout Catholic who believed that his philosophical system could prove the existence of God beyond a shadow of a doubt, played a pivotal role in the divorce of Faith and Reason following the decline of scholasticism in the Late Middle Ages. Descartes’ philosophy based on doubt endured, but his proofs of God were recognized as intrinsically flawed almost immediately after his own lifetime, and thus his successors, such as Malebranche, Leibniz, and Spinoza, were left with the monumental task of solving the mind-body problem perpetuated by Cartesian dualism. It was only a matter of time, MacIntyre notes, before Cartesianism led to skepticism in the philosophy of David Hume, who begins with Cartesian doubt and concludes that there can be neither objective knowledge nor ontological certainty at all.[26] This skepticism, of course, is totally contrary to the harmonious view of Faith and Reason promoted by St. Thomas and the other scholastic thinkers. MacIntyre notes on this growing disconnect between Faith and Reason in the modern era: “As modern philosophy moved beyond its Cartesian beginnings, its conception of the nature and limits of human knowledge and of the universe, insofar as it is knowable, leaves no place for the God of theism.”[27] Thus, MacIntyte argues that the Catholic philosophical tradition, having emerged rather recently in the thirteenth century, had already denigrated into a period of isolation by the eighteenth century.

Pope John Paul II also discusses the absence of Catholic philosophy in the early modern era in Fides et ratio, but his perspective differs from that of MacIntyre insofar as it is based on the denigration of scholastic principles rather than key figures in philosophical history. John Paul II criticizes Cartesian and post-Cartesian contributions to the separation of Faith from Reason without attributing blame to any specific philosopher when he states: “As a result of the exaggerated rationalism of certain thinkers, positions grew more radical and there emerged eventually a philosophy which was separate from and absolutely independent of the contents of faith.”[28] John Paul argues that not only did early modern philosophy develop a mistrust of Faith, but also “an even deeper mistrust” of Reason that led to agnosticism, skepticism, and, ultimately, nihilism. The pontiff makes draws a sharp distinction between scholasticism and early modern philosophy when he states: “In short, what for patristic and medieval thought was in both theory and practice a profound unity, producing knowledge capable of reaching the highest forms of speculation, was destroyed by systems which espoused the cause of rational knowledge sundered from faith and meant to take the place of faith.”[29] John Paul cites the poisonous effects of this skepticism in the particular sciences, such as the atheistic positivism that has come to dominate the physical sciences. John Paul laments in particular the nihilism that came to fruition in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries; he considers nihilism to be even further opposed to the Catholic philosophical tradition than skepticism because it reduces philosophy to an end in itself. The search for truth, then, becomes a hopeless search devoid of any objective meaning or truth.[30] Last, the pontiff laments how the divorce of Reason and Faith has led each to spiral into extremism: “Deprived of what Revelation offers, reason has taken side-tracks which expose it to the danger of losing sight of its final goal. Deprived of reason, faith has stressed feeling and experience, and so run the risk of no longer being a universal proposition.”[31] John Paul goes so far as to blame the excesses of unconstrained philosophy for the great human rights atrocities of the twentieth century, and concludes this section with an appeal for contemporary Catholic philosophers to recover the “profound unity” of Faith and Reason.[32]

Contemporary Catholic Philosophy: Challenges for Today and Tomorrow

The final two chapters of MacIntyre’s God, Philosophy, Universities are devoted to an analysis of the problems facing contemporary Catholic philosophy today as well as some suggestions for how Catholic philosophers ought to respond to them. One major problem is the denigration of the university, even the Catholic university, into a loosely defined collection of particular sciences that no longer have any established unifying principle. MacIntyre laments how the university, once the single defining characteristic of the Catholic philosophical tradition, has “now largely become a prologue to specialization and professionalization.”[33] There is no one whose job it is to account for the unity or even the interaction of the various disciplines, and thus there is always a temptation for particular sciences to view themselves as sufficient sources of knowledge without respect to any other discipline. Another serious problem is the relegation of philosophy to a particular discipline and the eradication of theology altogether from the pedagogies of many contemporary universities.[34] Thus, the contemporary university, much to the detriment of society, is no longer a place where students can ponder what it is to be human. MacIntyre agrees with Pope John Paul II that there is a great need for a response from Catholic philosophy to the challenge of secularism, and recommends Fides et ratio as the defining text of the mission of the Catholic philosopher in contemporary society.[35] He notes that in one sense, contemporary Catholic philosophy still allows for a wide range of philosophical disagreement, insofar as it includes such diverse philosophies as the phenomenology of St. Edith Stein, the analytic philosophy of G. E. M. Anscombe, and the neo-Thomism of Jacque Maritain and Etienne Gilson. However, these Catholic philosophers all agree on basic principles as presuppositions of philosophical enquiry, chief among them being the interdependence of Faith and Reason as correlative principles.[36]

Pope John Paul II sets forth an action plan for contemporary Catholic philosophy to reestablish an understanding of the intrinsic harmony of Faith in Reason in the final chapters of Fides et ratio. He concludes the encyclical by stating: “Philosophical enquiry can help greatly to clarify the relationship between truth and life… and above all between transcendent truth and humanly comprehensible language. This involves reciprocity between the theological disciplines ad…philosophy. Such reciprocity can prove genuinely fruitful for the communication and deeper understanding of the faith.”[37] John Paul argues that Catholic philosophers also must accept the magisterial authority, and let it guide them in their philosophical enquiry without fear that it will “restrict” their search for truth. Such an objection is not reasonable for a Catholic philosopher, the pontiff argues, because the Catholic faith has taught since the time of St. Thomas Aquinas that philosophy and theology are both autonomous disciplines with their own legitimate means of enquiry. The magisterium never proposes answers to philosophical questions of its own, but rather serves as a beacon of light to philosophers to ensure that their search remains one of truth rather than utility.[38] John Paul also recommends that Catholic philosophers recognize the unique significance of the Second Vatican Council’s emphasis on the dignity and freedom of the human person for them. Catholic philosophers have an obligation to remind the world that the desire for truth which every person has is a gift from God, not a tantalizing impetus for a hopeless journey.[39] Last, John Paul asserts: “The Church has no philosophy of her own nor does she canonize any one particular philosophy in preference to others.”[40] Thus, it is perfectly acceptance that there exists a multiplicity of perspectives even within the Catholic philosophical tradition, because they all agree on the fundamental presuppositions of Catholic philosophy. Catholic philosophers ought to proceed in discourse with their secular counterparts, then, so that they may convince skeptics of the fundamental principles of Catholic philosophy espoused by the Catholic philosophical tradition. Indeed, John Paul states, they have an obligation to do so, for it is not the mission of the Church to correct errant philosophy, but that of her own philosophers.[41]

Conclusion: The Unity and Vocation of the Catholic Philosophical Tradition

Alasdair MacIntyre’s monograph God, Philosophy, Universities and Pope John Paul II’s encyclical Fides et ratio offer important contemporary Catholic perspectives on the unity and vocation of the Catholic philosophical tradition. For MacIntyre, the Catholic philosophical experience is defined by the relation of God and philosophy as studied in universities, places not only for secular education but where students learn what it is to be a human person from the perspectives of individual disciplines with respect to theology, the study of the divine. MacIntyre places such emphasis on the distinctive role of the university in Catholic philosophical tradition that he argues that Catholic philosophy did not begin until the Golden Age of scholasticism in the thirteenth century. John Paul II views the Catholic philosophical tradition as one continuous strand of recognition of Faith and Reason as correlative principles that began in Christian antiquity and even has discernible roots in Sacred Scripture. Both MacIntyre and John Paul concur that St. Thomas Aquinas played a pivotal role in the history of Catholic philosophy by developing a holistic account of philosophy and theology as unique albeit interdependent disciplines with their own valid methods of enquiry. For St. Thomas and the scholastics, all truths come from God, and therefore Catholic philosophy recognizes that philosophical truth and theological truth are two paths to the same Truth of Gods’ Revelation. MacIntyre and John Paul join together in lamenting the subsequent divorce of Faith and Reason in modern philosophy; MacIntyre criticizes the skepticism of early modern philosophy as well as the absence of a Catholic response to it whereas John Paul focuses his critique on the nihilistic philosophy of the early nineteenth century. Both men agree that Catholic philosophers have an obligation to formulate a long-overdue response to the challenge of secularism. MacIntyre and Pope John Paul II attest that the defining characteristic of the Catholic philosophical tradition is its insistence on Faith and Reason as correlative principles, and agree that contemporary society must be reminded by Catholic philosophers of this fundamental principle of the search for truth.

Resources

MacIntyre, Alasdair. God, Philosophy, Universities: A Selective History of the Catholic

Philosophical Tradition. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 2009.

Pope John Paul II. Fides et ratio. Encyclical letter on the relationship between Faith and Reason,

Vatican Web site. 9 December 2010. http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/encyclicals/documents/hf_jp-ii_enc_15101998_fides-et-ratio_en.html.

[1] Alsadair MacIntyre, God, Philosophy, Universities: A Selective History of the Catholic

Philosophical Tradition, (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 2009) 6.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Ibid., 7.

[4] Alasdair MacIntyre, God, Philosophy, Universities, 14.

[5] Ibid., 13-14.

[6] Alasdair MacIntyre, God, Philosophy, Universities, 14.

[7] Ibid., 176-8.

[8] Pope John Paul II, Fides et ratio, Encyclical letter on the relationship between Faith and Reason,

Vatican Web site. 9 December 2010, http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/encyclicals/documents/hf_jp-ii_enc_15101998_fides-et-ratio_en.html, Introduction.

[9] Pope John Paul II, Fides et ratio, Sec. 1.

[10] Ibid., Sec. 16-17.

[11] Pope John Paul II, Fides et ratio, Sec. 16.

[12] Sir. 14:20-27.

[13] Proverbs 16:9.

[14] Acts 17:22-23.

[15] Pope John Paul II, Fides et ratio, Sec. 24.

[16] Ibid., Sec. 27.

[17] MacIntyre, God, Philosophy, Universities, 62.

[18] Ibid., 65.

[19] MacIntyre, God, Philosophy, Universities, 66-67.

[20] Ibid., 67-68.

[21] Pope John Paul II, Fides et ratio, Sec. 43.

[22] Ibid.

[23] MacIntyre, God, Philosophy, Universities, 66-67.

[24] Ibid., 133.

[25] Ibid.

[26] MacIntyre, God, Philosophy, Universities, 132-33.

[27] Ibid., 132.

[28] Pope John Paul II, Fides et ratio, Sec. 45. It is also noteworthy that Pope John Paul II, contra MacIntyte, lumps the patristic and medieval traditions together in their recognition of the importance of Faith and Reason, albeit in variant proportions.

[29] Ibid.

[30] Pope John Paul II, Fides et ratio, Sec. 46.

[31] Ibid., Sec. 48.

[32] Ibid.

[33] MacIntyre, God, Philosophy, Universities, 173.

[34] Ibid., 176-77.

[35] Ibid., 165.

[36] MacIntyre, God, Philosophy, Universities, 169.

[37] Pope John Paul II, Fides et ratio, Sec. 99.

[38] Ibid., Sec. 49.

[39] Ibid., Sec. 60.

[40] Pope John Paul II, Fides et ratio, Sec. 49.

[41] Ibid., Sec. 50 & 51.

The post Two Perspectives on Catholic Philosophy: Alasdair MacIntyre and Pope John Paul II appeared first on Rare Essays.

Holden Caulfield is not a particularly accomplished individual; he finds no purpose in anything, not even his love life. He has already failed three prep schools, not including his current school of Pencey. Holden Caulfield thinks everyone, and everything is fake; anyone who does not understand Holden is phony. He contradicts himself in the book, as he does many of the things which he describes as being fake. He is constantly searching for the object that will aid him in finding purpose, but first he must discover his own true self. In J.D. Salinger’s novel The Catcher in the Rye he uses allusion, metaphor, and symbolism to prove that the search for identity is an integral part of one’s livelihood.

Allusion in Catcher in the Rye

Allusion is very prevalent in The Catcher in the Rye and shows that identity is an establishment reached by a select few. “–but Mercutio, he was–it’s hard to explain. He was very smart and entertaining and all.” Holden speaks of Mercutio with the two nuns which he runs into at the train station, while he is living his life outside of Pencey. He seems to have a distinct interest in Romeo and Juliet and speaks of the novel for quite some time with the nuns. This excerpt shows Holden’s appreciation for Mercutio as Holden believes that Mercutio has found his identity; Mercutio’s identity is crucial to the role he plays in Romeo and Juliet. Another example of allusion which Salinger uses is excerpted from later in the book. “I wouldn’t mind calling this Isak Dinesen up.” Holden is in a state of thoughtfulness and describes various literature such as the one by Isak Dinesen, Out of Africa. He wants to call Dinesen to find out more information about him, namely Holden is curious about the type of identity Dinesen has. Holden thinks that, because he is a good author, he would be a good person to try and model his own identity from, though Holden decides not to call him. This may have been because Holden briefly realizes that everyone has their own identity, even if it is not entirely unique. Another example of allusion which Salinger uses correlates with the title, The Catcher in the Rye. Salinger alludes to the poem Comin Thro’ the Rye. “You know that song ‘If a body catch a body comin’ through the rye’? I’d like–’ ‘It’s if a body meet a body comin’ through the rye!’ old Phoebe said. ‘It’s a poem. By Robert Burns.’” Holden is trying to explain a dream he had to his little sister Phoebe and she immediately interrupts when he incorrectly quotes the poem. Holden’s dream is about children, he must save children from falling who are not paying attention to what they are doing. This again shows Holden’s search for identity, as he seems content with just being useful at saving little kids from an untimely [death].

Metaphor

Another strategy which Salinger uses in The Catcher in the Rye is metaphor. “If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you’ll probably want to know is where I was born, what my lousy childhood was like… and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don’t feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth.” This quote shows that life is not realistic. David Copperfield, like Holden, has struggled in his life and in his search for self-identity. Since Holden has not “found” his own identity yet, he assimilates his childhood to David Copperfield’s childhood. Another metaphor which is used in The Catcher in the Rye is “That’s the nice thing about carousels, they always play the same songs.” Holden speaks of this while Phoebe is riding the carousel. Holden always enjoys watching his little sister go around the ride and enjoys the songs it plays due to their inability to change. This is a metaphor to describe the way in which Holden thinks. He hates change; he is a very immature boy, who does not ever want anything to change and is scared to death of it (and fears death itself). Another metaphor is extended as Holden views himself as the “catcher”. The excerpt “What I have to do, I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff–I mean if they’re running and they don’t look where they’re going, I have to come out from somewhere and catch them.” shows Holden’s take on life: he believes that he is himself the Catcher in the Rye. This is a metaphor, as he wants to do something that never changes and is repetitious, something that will prevent death. He has not quite found his identity yet, but he sees himself as a guardian of the children.

Holden’s Identity

Salinger also uses symbolism to reveal the importance of finding one’s identity. “I took my old hunting hat out of my pocket while I walked and put it on. I knew I wouldn’t meet anybody that new me.” Holden reflects upon various aspects of his life while thinking of and putting on the hat. The hat is symbolic of his innate personality and reveals his insecurities. He is ashamed of his “identity”. He does not wear the hat around most people, as he does not want people to make fun of the hat. This shows that Holden is not comfortable with his current identity. Another example of symbolism which Salinger uses is “Certain things should stay the way they are. You ought to be able to stick them in one of those big glass cases and just leave them alone.” The museum is symbolic of Holden’s search for identity. Holden wishes to have an identity where nothing changes, much like a (the) museum. Holden speaks of the fact that the museum will remain virtually unchanged throughout the rest of his life. For this reason, the museum may represent how Holden wants his life to remain pure and unchanging. Salinger also uses the title of the book symbolically. Holden is the Catcher in the Rye, and it is symbolic of Holden’s personality, life, and search for identity. “That’s all I’d do all day. I’d just be the catcher in the rye and all.” This symbolizes Holden’s search for identity because he yearns for the same old thing every day, regardless of what has happened. He can also save the children and realize the importance of life in this way.

Conclusion

In Salinger’s novel The Catcher in the Rye he uses allusion, metaphor, and symbolism to prove that the search for identity is an integral part of one’s livelihood. Death is probably the scariest thing to Holden. This may be one of the main reasons he wants to know where the ducks go when the pond freezes over. He cannot quite grasp the sudden disappearance of them. Holden talks about how Death does not scare him so much as the disappearance of a person does. When something disappears, a major change occurs, such as the one when his brother Allie dies. He seems to be obsessed with the mummies in the museum, for example, because although they are dead, they have remained almost entirely unchanged through the centuries. Despite going through many issues and never being able to quite become the “identity” he wishes to achieve, Holden Caulfield can express how life ought to be. “Holden’s” narrative shows that you can be who you want to be and not be “fake” about it. Through this, you can see that although Holden’s search for identity is integral to his life, and even though he has an identity and does not realize it, you do not have to be socially accepted to make an impact. This is like today, as many people conform to the social “standards” and do not express themselves as they should as they are afraid of the judgment one might face from another peer. Just as Holden would be lost without his “search for identity” many people today are lost in trying to be socially normal and not trying to impact the world.

The post A Rhetorical Analysis of J.D. Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye appeared first on Rare Essays.

Hamlet’s Suspicions

In Shakespeare’s play, Prince Hamlet first appears on the scene with skeptical doubts about his new stepfather and many suspicions. His already doubting mind becomes completely shattered when his dead father’s ghost appears and warps his view of reality. He remains home after the funeral of his father, and begins to suspect his stepfather, King Claudius, thinking that Claudius is treating him far too personally, calling Hamlet his own son. “A little more than kin, and less than kind.” (I, ii, 65.) He also suspects his mother for marrying Claudius so soon after her own husband’s funeral: “That it should come to this! But two months dead: nay, not so much, not two: So excellent a king.” “Why, she would hang on him, As if increase of appetite had grown By what it fed on; and yet, within a month, Let me not think on’t: Frailty, thy name is woman! A little month…married with mine uncle, My father’s brother, but no more like my father Than I to Hercules.” He also notes the incestuous part of the marriage: Claudius married his sister-in-law, and the Queen, in marrying him, married her dead husband’s actual brother. (I, ii, 135-155) So far, we see that Hamlet has somewhat validated reasons for suspicion. Marriage of the dead King’s wife to the dead King’s brother not two months after the King’s death is indeed odd. However, objectively looking on things, this is no actual proof or reason for Hamlet’s final and ultimate belief, that King Claudius murdered Hamlet’s father. So, when Prince Hamlet is finally met by the spirit who puts on the form of his dead father, a mind brooding with suspicion is a perfect fertile setting for the words of the ghost to settle well in.

The Ghost in Hamlet

Hamlet’s mind becomes shaken upon seeing the ghost, so much so that he threatened his friends with death when they tried to stop him, warning him away from the ghost. (I, iv, 85.) He is desperate to hear the words of the ghost, his mind thirsting for what he already has suspicions for in his mind. Upon the word revenge, and murder, he is aroused; when the ghost declares, “Revenge his foul and most unnatural murder;” so much so, that he immediately replies upon the spot, “Haste me to know’t, that I, with wings as swift As meditation or the thoughts of love, May sweep to my revenge.” (I, iv., 30.) He not only listens to the ghost’s lengthy epilogues but also takes them up with fiery emotions. Mr. Eliot, a critic whose main goal was to show that Shakespeare took on a work too much for him, notes how “Hamlet (the man) is dominated by an emotion which is inexpressible, because it is in excess of the facts as they appear.” (Eliot) After he sees the ghost, his emotions rise to overflowing and he acts very oddly with those he knows, making no sense at times. He is bold and brazen, unkind and uncouth; alternating between all at once. Some in King Claudius’ court interpret it as lovesickness for Ophelia, who eventually loses her own sanity and kills herself, and Hamlet is called insane. In his emotional state, Hamlet even doubts himself: “Yet I, a dull and muddy-mettled rascal, peak, Like John-a-dreams, unpregnant of my cause, And can say nothing.” (II, ii, 575.) “In effect Hamlet is creating a paronomasia of performance, moving from politeness to brutality; and it seems to come out almost unbidden.” (Brown) He comes to such a low point that he becomes suicidal, his warped mind eventually turning suicidal to solve his problems. “To die: to sleep; No more; and, by a sleep to say we end The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks That flesh is heir to, ‘tis a consummation Devoutly to be wish’d.” (III, i, 60.) Mrs. de Grazia, PhD in English, observes of Hamlet’s problem: “Hamlet falls short of dialectical self-realization,” and “advances against his own until in the final scenes, he is ‘bandied from pillar to post’ and ends up ‘sandbanked.’” (Grazia) He talks to himself constantly, fails to kill King Claudius at an opportune moment, kills another by mistake, and eventually dies from a poisoned stab wound in a duel fought with Ophelia’s brother, Laertes. In the end, the idea planted by the spirit in his already-suspicious mind influences him enough to cause the deaths of not just one, but several people.

The turning of Hamlet’s mind and heart to the surreal is the very work of an evil spirit, who works in men’s minds to cause evil. In the play, Hamlet ponders this very fact: “The spirit that I have seen May be the devil: and the devil hath power To assume a pleasing shape; yea, and perhaps Out of my weakness and my melancholy As he is very potent with such spirits—Abuses me to damn me.” (II, ii, 605.) But he did not take this thought to heart and try to rid himself of the Satanic overclouding from his soul. It eventually led him to do desperate actions, and his own sad death. “Through Hamlet, this tragedy affirms the world of the mind over against the world of matter, the unresolved and independent conscience over against the answers that can be provided by others or demanded by society in its political, religious or familial manifestations.” (Brown) With truly beautiful language and eloquent poetry, Hamlet is a fascinating read; but once read through in its entirety, it is depressing and dark as well. The reader is taken up in the downward path of Hamlet’s life, and into the very intricacies of his fertile, but infected, mind. Mr. Coleridge said that in the conversations found in this play is “a proof of Shakespeare’s minute knowledge of human nature.” (Coleridge)

References

Brown, John Russell. “Multiplicity of Meaning in the Last Moments of Hamlet.”

Connotations. http://www.uni-tuebingen.de/connotations/BROWN21.HTM

Coleridge, Samuel Taylor. “Lectures and Notes on Shakespeare and Other English

Poets.” Shakespeare and His Critics. 2001. http://shakespearean.org.uk/ham1-col.htm

Eliot, T.S. “Hamlet and His Problems.” Bartleby Great Books Online. 2010.

http://www.bartleby.com/200/sw9.html

Grazia, Margreta de. “Hamlet’s Thoughts and Antics.” Early Modern Culture. 2001.

http://emc.eserver.org/1-2/degrazia.html

“Hamlet.” Wikipedia. May 2010. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamlet

Shakespeare, William (2006). Hamlet. New Jersey: Wiley Publishing

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Using an optimal contracting model, Franco and Mitchell compare their model’s predictions when CNCs are allowed and when they are prohibited. They conclude some important things: the model explains the higher turnover in places where CNCs are prohibited; enforcement of CNCs in a region encourages greater firm numbers in early industry stages, especially where innovation is a key factor, thus explaining the early advantage of Route 128 which was eventually overcome by Silicon Valley; and we should expect to see in the data that concentrated industries seek CNC-enforcing areas, while competitive industries should be less likely to seek out such protection.

Their model, however, makes two key assumptions: first, that wages can’t be “backloaded”- in other words, employees can’t agree to be paid less than they would in their alternative option (to form a spin-out) for one period, and then get paid more to compensate in a later period; and second, that the level of the employee’s knowledge of the production process is known only by the employee. These may be generous assumptions that, when changed, could possibly alter Franco and Mitchell’s results drastically. One way to test their “backloading” assumption is by exploring the ways in which companies (especially in CNC-prohibiting regions) create economic incentives to depress labor mobility, and how often they do so. If wage backloading plays a significant role in those companies’ hiring practices, Franco and Mitchell’s model may be leaving out an essential explanatory variable. Their information asymmetry assumption also requires testing. On one hand, its importance can be explored by relaxing it in their model and testing its implications; on the other, instances in which employers actually have information about what their employees know about the production process should also be helpful.

Substitutes for Non-Compete Contracts

If non-compete contracts are illegal, one alternative means of restricting labor mobility is by “backloading” wages. In order for a firm to keep its employees from moving to a competing firm, the firm may decide to backload the wages, often in the form of pensions, options, health insurance, and other benefits that could only be captured if the employee stays with the firm over a certain time period. Franco and Mitchell (2005) assume backloading as impossible in their model. Rebitzer (2006) overlooks it.

A non-compete contract can initially be helpful in the early stages of an industry. As described by Rebitzer (2006), if employees were to “hop” around to other firms, the likelihood that knowledge acquired in one firm would be employed in another firm increases. These knowledge spillovers can hurt innovation by reducing the rewards to investing in human capital. On the other hand, abolishing non-compete contracts can be more helpful to local firms in the long run. If non-compete contracts are unenforceable, their elimination can lead to more turnover and more competitive entrepreneurs, assisting local firms in competing with out of state industries. Comparing Silicon Valley to Massachusetts’ Route 128, Franco and Mitchell (2005) found that Massachusetts’ Route 128 was more productive initially, but was eventually overtaken by Silicon Valley.

If non-compete contracts were unenforceable in Silicon Valley, it would be interesting to see if firms in Silicon Valley tended to backload wages more than Massachusetts’ Route 128, since the non-compete contracts in Massachusetts’ Route 128 were enforceable. If this is the case, the results by Franco and Mitchell may not have come about because of different non-compete regulations.

Burdett and Coles (2003) model a similar scenario of non-compete contracts, but they instead use wage-tenure contracts that give employees an incentive to remain in the firm and not move to a competing firm. In their story, each firm offers a wage-tenure contract that implies any employee’s wage smoothly increases with tenure. We can also compare the tenure policies of firm in Silicon Valley and Massachusetts’ Route 128, and see if the results of the model by Burdett and Coles (2003) are consistent with the data.

Wage Structuring

Wage-based policies can also serve as an alternative to non-compete contracts for reducing labor mobility-based knowledge spillovers. During a training period, for example, a worker gets paid less than his outside option (moving to other firms). However, depending on the importance of the information and the enforceability of the non-compete contracts, promising satisfactorily high wages to workers after their training period will stop them from changing employers. This kind of policy seems to successfully prevent spillovers across companies in the industry, but it does not affect industry clustering or profitability. It may even be the case that these policies can be more efficient than enforcing a legal framework for non-compete contracts. Fosturi and Ronde (2002), in their study “High-tech clusters, technology spillovers, and trade secret laws” theoretically demonstrate that even though information spillovers caused by labor mobility are prevented, industry clusters and profitability remain undisturbed.

One avenue of investigation to pursue would be to find a data set including wages, labor mobility, and the density of cluster in a region to test the assumptions given above. There is an industry cluster of biotech companies in San Diego, which is also supported by educational system in the region; several education institutions provide education from the undergraduate to doctorate level in biotechnology, providing a local labor pool. There are a large number of high quality workers who are educated and trained by the companies, though labor mobility among firms is high in this industry.

Fringe Benefits

Different legal frameworks for labor mobility-reducing contracts in different states prompts a search for other strategies that might be undertaken by firms to prevent labor-related information leakages to competing firms. Facing a lack of legal framework (like non-compete contracts) that can prevent workers from quitting and working in competitor companies overnight, firms need to utilize economic incentives to reduce information spillovers. Though the spillovers have a second level benefit through clustering, they also may have first level costs manifested by forgone opportunities for new innovations, for example. For the workers, one of the costs of labor mobility is an income loss due to foregone fringe benefits (Mitchell, 1983).

Controlling for other variables like unionization (Freeman, 1981), market concentration, regulations setting minimum prices and restricting entry, and profit regulations (Long and Link, 1983), we find that a substantial amount of variation in individual wage and fringe benefits is accounted for by industry differences. Dickens and Katz (1987) argue that high wage industries have lower quit rates, high labor productivity, more educated workers, longer work weeks, a higher ratio of non-wage (fringe benefits) to wage compensation, high unionization rates, bigger initial sizes and bigger average size of firms, higher concentration ratios, and more profits. However, what the studies above do not address is the effect of specific industry characteristics on the endogenous choice of fringe benefit costs by firms. We would expect the industries with fast innovative processes – without a legal framework that restricts labor mobility -would reflect higher levels of fringe benefit-related costs, and likely have better-defined promotion structures that discourage labor turnover.

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“Variety” in one form or another can be predictive of an individual’s choice to pursue self-employment, whether it is preference for variety, actual experience of variety, or a combination of both. Variety in experiences can manifest itself in different ways. Sources of knowledge about entrepreneurship can appear in family history, among friends, in education, in the media, etc. It can also appear, most significantly, in an individual’s employment history. However, variety of this kind as a predictor for choosing self-employment can lead to very confusing results if not integrated into the context in which it actually plays a causal role. Sometimes, taste for variety causes varied work experiences; other times, varied work experiences can cause taste for variety. In other cases, taste does not even enter the picture except in the obvious case of “taste for subsistence”: some people hold different jobs only by necessity.

In light of this, Van Praag and Van Ophem (1995) wisely draw a distinction between influences on self-employment based on willingness versus opportunity. Their model’s estimation suggests that many young Americans possess the willingness to switch for self-employment, but lack the opportunities (primarily capital) to switch. More generally, they find that entrepreneurial abilities that compensate for lack of capital are rare. While taste for variety can be represented by variety in prior work experience, this potentially confuses issues of willingness with issues of opportunity even before we confront the same problem with regard to entrepreneurial choice.

One way of sidestepping this confusion is by actually modeling individuals’ decision-making processes instead of externally tracking their data over time to discover predictors of their choices. Its parameters can be found by observing directly what an individual values, both by questioning and by measuring business and non-business variables. Opportunity-related variables (e.g., wealth, credit access) can be integrated later in order to answer the actual broader question of who becomes a functioning entrepreneur. First, however, variety in taste or experience among other things must be used to ascertain willingness (or even predict attempts) for self-employment.

Summary of Katz (1992) Psychosocial Cognitive Model

Focusing solely on the choice to become self-employed or not (a simpler explanatory objective), variety of at least some kind certainly makes a difference. Katz (1992) proposes a psychosocial cognitive model (PCM) of employment status choice. It utilizes individuals’ psychology (through values and decision-making processes) as well as personal history and social context as factors having an effect upon decision-making.

The individual’s decision process begins with some kind internal discovery or external change (a changed awareness or dissonance) interacting with that person’s values. “Push” or “pull” effects can effectively describe this process (as explained in Vesper (1990)). The values likely to trigger an employment decision making process include desires for autonomy, creativity, material gain and power, and social integration.

The decision process consists of considering employment alternatives. The main source of these opportunities is one’s memories, and the heuristic of availability is a statistical means of representing the likelihood of retrieving information about opportunities as a function of its presence in the individual’s memory. The information, in turn, is determined by past exposure to such information. Katz (1992) specifically uses family, education, peers, prior work, and cohorts (age, racial, gender, ethnic, and geographic) as sources of experience about employment alternatives.

Once a set of alternatives is developed, it is evaluated against the initial dissonance. If the set is satisfactory, the individual begins the process of selection. If it is unsatisfactory, the individual either searches for more possibilities from memory (repeating the availability cycle), or constructs new possibilities. The most likely form of construction is the generalization of past work experiences to new ones, such as a former computer repairman considering building and selling new computers out of his home. Another, less likely form of construction is the creation of novel alternatives that directly solve the dissonance that caused the initial search. For example, if a strong force that caused someone to be unemployed was inflexible work hours, an alternative containing a satisfactory work schedule will be included in the set of alternatives.

Finally, the development of the set of alternatives completes and the agent must choose a course of action. The representativeness heuristic, from Tversky and Kahneman (1974), underlies this process. It refers to the individual’s assessment of the likelihood that an alternative will lead to a preferred outcome (like financial success). While maximization of likelihood is generally preferred, qualitatively rational processes play a large role. Alternatives are chosen on the basis of factors such as how well they fit the agent’s values or how familiar they are. Following that initial decision, the implementation of the alternative is constrained by environmental factors which can affect whether action will be taken or not. This can be compensated for by a second round of PCM; while the first round explores what the individual wants to do, the second round explores how he wants to do it.

Katz (1981)

In order to attempt the model, Katz (1981) drew 17 variables from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, some of which he utilized as proxies for general breadth of work experience- exposure to variety- and some which were proxies for more direct exposures to work experiences through the individual’s own work, through family, or through membership in groups with above-average tendencies toward self-employment. Incorporating variables such as these should lead to much more reliable results than using the traditional handful of experience surrogates.

The 17 variables are as follows:

1. Father’s Self-Employment

2. Father’s Education

3. Employment Status of Respondent’s First Job

4. Number of Different Jobs Held

5. Age is Young (16-30) or Old (55-98)

6. Gender is Male

7. Ethnicity in High Self-employment Incidence Group

8. Own Education Less Than High School

9. Exposure to Variety: Reads newspaper

10. Exposure to Variety: Watches Television

11. Exposure to Variety: Goes to Religious Services

12. Exposure to Variety: Goes to Social Clubs or Organizations

13. Exposure to Variety: Goes to Bars or Taverns

14. Exposure to Variety: Belongs to Labor Union

15. Exposure to Variety: Known by Name to Neighbors

16. Exposure to Variety: Relatives Within Walking Distance

17. Exposure to Variety: Farm/Small Town Childhood

Outcomes were categorized in 5 possibilities: changes from wage-or-salaried work to self-employment, from one wage-or-salaried job to another, from self-employment to wage-or-salaried work, and no-change in status for the wage-or-salaried or the self-employed. This variable set mostly focuses on a “first-round” mode of thinking about self-employment (“what would he do if he could?”). Nonetheless, broadly speaking, a PCM approach fundamentally copes better with the problems that arise from one’s willingness to become self-employed in conflict with his opportunity to do so. Instead of considering variables of willingness and opportunity separately and then combining them to form a model, the PCM could potentially assess the actual point at which these variables interact: within the cognitive processes of the individual.

This is reflected by the advantages to the model cited by Katz. A PCM approach strongly favors the incorporation of a vaster scope of qualitative data to accommodate consistent qualitative findings, such as the self-employment choices of children of self-employed parents. The model, by virtue of the fact that it avoids pure econometric analysis, also demonstrates robustness when provided with non-ideal data sets. Katz claims that after operationalizing about one-half of the Katz (1981) model, almost 42% of cases’ placements were predicted correctly (out of 5 choices, with which a random selection would yield 20% correct prediction). Ultimately, constructing a cognitive model that models decision-making can yield different and new insights compared to traditional, occupational tracking models.

Citations:

Jerome A. Katz. A psychosocial cognitive model of employment status choice. Entrepreneurship: Theory and Practice 17.n1 (Fall 1992): pp29(8).

C. Mirjam Van Praag, Hans Van Ophem (1995)
Determinants of Willingness and Opportunity to Start as an Entrepreneur
Kyklos 48 (4), 513–540.

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