Going After The Truth

            In honor of the AP Lit and the seminar project, I will be criticizing Going After Cacciato by Tim O’Brien. The protagonist of the novel, Paul Berlin, uses his imagination to deal with the horrors he experiences in the Vietnam War. He imagines that he and his fellow soldiers are chasing a deserter, Cacciato, from Vietnam to Paris, France. Obviously, they didn’t actually do this, so I will criticize Going After Caccito from the perspective of Kierkegaard.

            In Sophie’s World, Gaardner writes that Kierkegaard meant to say, “Only these truths are 'true for me'” (Gaardner 374). One question Kierkegaard might ask is what is Berlin’s truth, and how could his truth be different from the other characters of the novel? It is obvious that Berlin’s truth is different from everyone else’s; On the first page, the narrator says, “Billy Boy had dies of fright, scared to death on the field of battle…” (O’Brien 1). Berlin imagines that Billy Boy Watkins literally dies of fright on the battlefield, but later in the novel we learn the truth; he died after stepping on a land mine. Berlin even imagines a fictional woman, Sarkin Aung Wan!

            However, Kierkegaard might also ask why Berlin’s truth is so different? Berlin imagines an alternate death for Billy, a trip to Paris, and a beautiful woman in order to cope with the terrible events of the war. Berlin’s father offers Berlin this piece of advice before he heads to Vietnam: “You'll see some terrible stuff, I guess.  That's how it goes.  But try to look for the good things, too.  They'll be there if you look.  So watch for them” (O’Brien 63).  Berlin’s father instructs him to see a different truth than the other soldiers, to watch for the “good things.” Indeed, Berlin does not remember the horrible sights he sees during the war. He does not remember the mutiny of his commanding officer Lieutenant Martin or the actual death of Billy Boy Watkins. He leaves his imagination to create his own truth: a trip to Paris and even a beautiful woman. His truth may diverge from reality, but at least he found the truth for him.

Works Cited

Gaarder, Jostein. Sophie's World. New York: Berkely Books, 1994. Print.

O’Brien, Tim. Going after Cacciato. New York: Broadway, 1999. Print.

Was Bush Justified?

      To claim that killing Osama Bin Laden without a trial is unlawful would be like claiming that the United States illegally declared war on Japan after Pearl Harbor. An attack on American soil killing innocent lives is not an ordinary crime that requires the due process of law. It is a declaration of war that requires retaliation. President Bush made such a declaration after the events of 9/11. He declared that “[The Taliban] will hand over the terrorists, or they will share in their fate”, and operation Geronimo finally sealed the fate for the terrorist who planned the 9/11 attacks (Bush). President Bush’s declaration and the operation that followed are not examples of “American exceptionalism”; they are the actions of Americans protecting a country, and a culture that we love (Chomsky). 

            Noam Chomsky argues that Osama Bin Laden’s part in the 9/11 attacks was a horrendous crime, and therefore Bin Laden should have been apprehended, but not killed so he could stand trial. His ‘crimes,’ however, killed about as many people as did the events of Pearl Harbor, which was considered an act of war. His ‘crimes,’ also had a strategic purpose; as Bush declared in his speech, their purpose was “to disrupt and end a way of life” (Bush). As the President of the United States, it was the duty of Bush, and Obama after him, to protect the constitution of the United States, and provide for the common defense. In order to fulfill this duty, the nation had to respond to the violence as a declaration of war to protect the way of life the Taliban declared war on September 11^th.

            Another flaw in Chomsky’s argument is his use of comparison of Bush’s policy to the crimes of the Nazi’s. Interestingly enough, Bush actually compares the terrorists to the Nazis as well. The use of this comparison may be used by both authors because of the negative connotation the word has today, certainly making it easier to appeal to the audience’s emotions. However, Chomsky’s use of the word seems based on the one fact that both the Nazis and Americans used aggression against their enemies, and created a “murderous sectarian conflict” (Chomsky). The difference is the Nazis killed millions of innocent people without being provoked, while the Americans killed the leader of a terrorist organization who wanted to end the United States. The actions of the President were in retaliation to a declaration of war by terrorists and not an example of “American exceptionalism” as claimed by Chomsky.

Works Cited

Bush, George W. "President George W Bush's Address to Congress and the Nation on

Terrorism." 20 Sept. 2001 Speech.

Chomsky, Noam. "Was There an Alternative?" The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 6 Sep. 2011. Web. 10 Sept. 2015.

Why would I listen and read all of that?

       Throughout the course of history, language has steadily devolved from the formal and complex to less formal and far less complex. Take Shakespeare, for instance; the language used in his plays is some of the most complex language in literature with his use of long soliloquies, complex metaphors and syntax. Most people today could not hope to understand his writing without copious amounts of effort. Even a few hundred years later, as Neil Postman points out in Amusing Ourselves to Death, future president Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas participated in elaborate debates containing complex syntax by each orator. Most people today do not care for reading Shakespeare, or listening to a debate lasting several hours, but in the days of the past, Shakespeare’s plays and the Lincoln-Douglas debates were popular and well-received. So what accounts for the change? Why do most people today only care for simple, concise uses of language?

            The answer lies in the transformation of technology from the past few hundred years. As Postman also points out, the use of the telegraph started a new pattern, a new form of media: the news of today. With the telegraph, information could be sent to people nearly instantaneously from any distance, making large amounts of information available to anyone. Eventually, as technology progresses, even more information will become available, but then arises the question: how is someone able to comprehend so much more information? Language, the medium through which thought is exchanged, must become more concise.

            The recent presidential debate for the Republican Party is prime example of language’s devolution. The debate between ten candidates lasted less than two hours, and the candidates certainly did not use complex language. However, even stating the debate lasted less than two hours is generous; I suspect most people (like me) did not watch the entire debate, or they may have even watched a video on the news showing highlights of the debate. With the pace of life in the 21^st century, people do not have time to listen to a lengthy debate like that between Lincoln and Douglas, and they most certainly would not like to listen to language that requires too much analysis. There is too much information available for people to focus on one event for a long amount of time.

            In addition to politics, the language of today has devolved in our writing and social interaction. In history class, it is often necessary to read letters written in the past few hundred years. Those letters contain formal, complex diction and grammatical structures. For instance, letters between John Smith and Alexander Hamilton have deep insights to discuss political ideology. The letters, even though they were only discussions between two people, are complex because the speed at which letters were sent was slow as compared to text messages today. In those days, a discussion between two people at a distance was carefully thought out because there was more time to make a discussion one of quality. However, with text messaging today, it is completely acceptable to write short sentences that are not grammatically correct because of the high-speed life we have in the information age. Why would one laboriously write out the word ‘you’ when one can write ‘u’ if it gives one a few more seconds to address all of the other information available to us today?