I intend for my project to be a hybrid Essay/Short Story. My hopes was in the body of the essay to explore the works of various Enlightenment Philosopher's, namely Hobbes and Locke, but also others such as Rousseau and Descartes. I will be using Hobbes and Locke's somewhat differing viewpoints about the fundamentals of human nature to ultimately conclude how humanity will eventually end up (i.e. by way of a short story). My plan, at least right now, is to have a short story set, much like Butler's creation of Earth, in a dystopian world void of control and where humans are forced to live on their own.
Hobbes and Locke both agree that there needs to be some sort of control for humans to be succeed as a species, but humans what Hobbes fails to realize is that humans are naturally social creatures, and will seek each other, inevitably leading to a hierarchical structure. Humans know right from wrong innately, and even though they may not always choose to follow it, the majority will, and as a result humanity will always find a way to succeed despite how dire their situation.
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3 comments:
Sounds like an interesting start.
To me, it seems like one thing that will determine the overall direction of the story is whether you actually *agree* with one of the philosophers about human nature - in a sense, choosing a philosopher whose ideas you want to explore will be your real starting point.
It seems like the ending of your short story means that you agree with Locke in that humanity is inherently good and will do the right thing in the end. I'm not sure if you plan to argue for one philosopher's views in your essay or just show your views through your story, but I think either could work. You could use the other philosopher as a counter-argument. A possible counter-argument is Butler's views: with or without a strong, central authority, humanity seems to destroy itself. In Butler's creation of Earth, she shows examples of this by the raids that occur that include rape, murder, and chaos when the humans have no authorities and when they did, they blew up the world anyway. How will the humans in your story get past this?
I think you should keep the essay with 2 philosophers with opposing views. Having more than that will get to be too complicated. Now for your short story, it sounds like a good idea, just dont make it too similar to Lilith's Brood. And if you short story is in depth enough, you can toss out the essay, because your short story can get your point across. Plus youll know the story is a success if you dont need an essay to show what it is all about. Also a good book for your subject is Lord of the Flies.
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