As I began to read “The Lottery in Babylon” the first thing to cross my mind was , “I wonder if this will be similar to Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery”?” For those who are not familiar with the short story, it chronicles a small town’s ( about 300 residents) tradition of each head of household drawing a slip , and then each member of the chosen family, including the children, drawing a slip. The person with the marked slip is surrounded by the villagers who hold rocks in their hands implying the person is stoned to death, however the story does not explicitly state this but ends there. The town members vaguely remember the specific details from when the tradition began and have abandoned certain aspects over time, however they still practice the tradition in order to ensure a good harvest. This always sparks the the question of, is this right ? To subject everyone to a random selection of sacrifice based off a tradition. The same questions arose as I read Borges’ “Lottery”. By the conclusion of the piece, the question of whether or not The Company still existed or ever did was placed on the mind of the reader. Was this just a tradition or just the way things were? This lead me to wonder, are all of our principles of what justice is and what is moral and unmoral based off a long tradition? Would we still see these things as such if somewhere in the past all of our definitions of right and wrong were inverted?
In “The Lottery in Babylon”, once the myth of sorts is recounted, the narrator states that some believe the “sacred disorder of [their] lives is purely hereditary, traditional” (pg.9 lines 5-6). I interpreted this as the individuals involved aren't too sure whether their lottery is just or unjust because it has been going on for so long in this way. They just know it exists as is and will remain so. It seems that no one questions the institution of the lottery as a result of it being a long standing tradition. This seems similar to our society today. Many of us question our system and the way it operates, but a plenty of us never stop and think that some things are simply de facto . It is noted that a many of our implemented systems are a result of our country’s foundation being deeply religious and traditional. But, what if that were not the case and we were founded on a different set of principles? What would our standards for justice be?
-Voni
Your initial question on good/evil and how it is defined is one brought up by Friedrick Nietzsche in his essay "Jenseits von Gut und Böse" (Beyond Good and Evil). If my understanding is correct, Nietzsche states that there is no intrinsic good or evil, and that merely these values are applied to various things because they were to the advantage of a certain group of people (sounds familiar.) I am not sure if I agree with your assertion that our country was founded upon "deeply religious and traditional" values. The tradition from where our country came from was one that I would call deeply religious, what with a state-sponsored church and what have you. Had we not broken away from that culture, I would say the rules put in place would favor more power to the Anglican Church and a centralized figure, rather than laws that favored a decentralized form of power and a freedom of religious practice.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Cain's critique of Voni's blog. The story you brought up is a great example and juxtaposes well with the story of the “The Lottery in Babylon.” However, I am confused how this can be used to argue that our society is run by the “deeply religious and traditional.” I would be interested in knowing how the story of the villagers who randomly receive punishment at the expense of a tradition relates to this argument of our country’s foundation. It seems to me that a system that picks randomly on a member of society to be sacrificed simply based on a tradition is just that, a tradition. Can you provide an example from the Church that subjects individuals to random sacrifice based on tradition? I may have taken life but I am not very up to date on my religious studies so I apologize if I’ve offended you and am asking for such an obvious example to be provided!
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