Watch

My blog this week may be slightly swayed by the fact that I watched “The Debt” this weekend. (Quick Synopsis: Three Jewish secret agents after World War II are assigned to capture and bring to trial the Surgeon of Birkenau who murdered and mutilated many Jews with his experimentation. The plot centers around challenges of honesty, retribution, justice, etc.) Anyway, at one point in the movie, the three agents have captured him and are awaiting a plan for how to get him to Israel for a trial. One of the male agents constantly admonishes the others not to listen to this manipulating evil man, and this is reinforced by the way they keep his mouth sealed with tape. The only time his mouth is uncovered is when one of the agents feeds him. He is speaking to the younger male agent and he says something along the lines of, ‘The reason it was so easy to eliminate your people is because you were all so selfish. Think about it, 4 agents lead a group of 1,000 into a gas chamber, and all the while all of those people were only thinking of themselves, even when we took their children away’. Let me just finish this thought by explaining a couple of things, I DO NOT agree with this statement, in fact the reason the Surgeon says it is because he is manipulating this Jewish man. Secondly, if you research the Surgeon of Birkenau and watch this movie you will find that although there was such a man, Joseph Mengele, but in fact the events of the movie are fictitious.

Now as I read Gulliver’s Travels Part IV, As Gulliver steps into this country and begins to observe and describe the humans he does not realize that those whom he sees are like himself. He writes, “On the whole I never beheld in all my travels so disagreeable an animal, or one against which I naturally conceived so strong an antipathy. So tat thinking I had seen enough, full of contempt and aversion, I got up and pursued the beaten road”. The truth is that when we begin to see our fellow man in such a dark and detached light it allows for injustice and mistreatment to occur. Throughout history we find dehumanization sometimes following with annihilation built on foundational misconceptions. (which is why we discussed in class digging back down to the foundation and examining even simple believes)

This is why texts like Descartes and others within the enlightenment are so important! They challenge the reader to question, even those things which have been practices or truths since before their time. For example, as the tensions between the North and the South rise regarding politics and the sticky issue of slavery, authors like Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote Uncle Tom’s Cabin. This anti-slavery novel sparked a lot of discussion surrounding question of slavery, and forced some much needed dialogue between politicians. Slavery was an issue that stretched across generations of people, and as people began to reexamine the practice the need for action became unavoidable.

The enlightenment philosophy and literature arranged for us to read so aptly by our teachers begins to awaken deeper questions unrelating to specific historical or current events. In this age of politically-correct tolerance jargon what presuppositional lies and even truths have we allowed to be ingrained into our thoughts? As Swift writes this slightly comical portrayal of humans acting much more beastly in their nakedness, interactions, and work, I do believe this points to a deeper meaning. A call to reexamine ourselves just like Descartes and Pope (I mention these so often because these are what we have read so far). This may seem repetitive, but only because the message is so crucial! If I cannot accept that I could be wrong, and therefore do not undergo this process of self and world examination; then I will watch as people groups are destroyed, and as injustice is heaped upon someone else. Swift in his writings gives a gruesome picture, absurd as it may seem, of what can happen if one is apathetic to others.