Sunday, September 7, 2008
What About the Rest of Us
In the early parts of Ch. 3, Taylor convincingly lays out the definition of covetousness and why it is, in the extreme, intrinsically harmful to its possessor. Taylor’s explanation of radical yet familiar cases such as Silas Marner and Ebeneezer Scrooge shows how their avarice only breeds more greed and more disappointment. But while focusing on these extreme cases, Taylor neglects to make any convincing points about more common scenarios. That is, no one would really argue with her conclusions about people like Silas Marner and Scrooge. Of course they only make themselves unhappy; that is the point of their existence, to demonstrate that fact as fictitious characters. What Taylor needs to do is address avarice in its most basic forms: the way it would manifest itself in everyday people, people like you and me. If the definition of avarice is “loving excessively any kind of material possession” (pg 39), it should be easy to find more common, relatable examples. A reader doesn’t benefit from being told why people like Silas Marner are vicious—we already know. The connotation that the reader may get is, “Unless you’re like this guy, you’re not guilty of avarice.” Personally, I don’t know anyone whom I think resembles Silas Marner. I don’t know anyone as bad as Scrooge. But I’m sure that doesn’t mean there aren’t people around (perhaps even myself) who are guilty of avarice. But Taylor does nothing to help us recognize such people or cure our own more mild forms of avarice. Taylor should not need a famous archetype, especially one whom society has already tried and found guilty, to demonstrate the harmfulness of a vice.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
I would have to agree that Taylor mostly focuses on extreme cases especially when discussing avarice. Here is a casesin which the vicious isn't as extreme and can hopefully be seen to relate to "the rest of us". Since Taylor defines avarice as loving excessively any kind of material possesion, some one could be avarice with respect to any object, take for example a laptop. If I am constantly loving and thinking about my laptop, its whereabouts, if it's currently still sitting on my desk (or did someone come steal it from my room?); it seems i would hardly have time to think about anything else. With my thoughts tied to this object or any one for that matter, I would not be able to function with respect to anything else. In class i would drift off wondering whether or not my laptop is safe, or i might constantly think about how wonderful it is or what new accessories or programs i wish to buy for it. I suppose being avarice is similar to falling head over heals for someone; in either case it is hard to think of much else. This midler form of avarice could easily manifest itself in anyone, making the avarice less functional in everyday situations because their mind and heart are elsewhere.
I also agree Taylor loves using extreme cases to show the reader what she is talking about. But these examples of vicious fictional characters aren't merely points she is using to prove her argument. While reading the sections on Silas Marner and Ebenezer Scrooge I couldn’t help, but think of my high school health class (bear with me). In the class my teacher would tell us the ways boys and girls would react to stress. Girls would often act inward and withdraw from people while boys would act out in a violent and/or disrespectful manner towards others. The ways boys and girls acted seemed like Taylor’s descriptions of how sin affects Marner and Scrooge respectively. I know stress isn’t really a sin, but maybe stress isn’t the sole cause of boys’ and girls’ juvenile behavior. Sin could be a part of it. In which case, Taylor’s examples of Marner and Scrooge are extreme cases in which we can see small connections and relate the characters in a minor way to people in everyday life. Basically, I think that while the extreme cases Taylor has laid out for us (and I feel will continue to for the remainder of the book) might not be practical in describing our use of sin in everyday life, it still serves a purpose. The examples could be used to see minor sin everyday life because it sometimes takes extreme cases to open one’s eyes to the smaller things around us.
Post a Comment