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gildaurelReading the Scarlet Letter with my thirteen-year-old students is always interesting, if only for the creative ways some classes try to rewrite SparkNotes. This class, however, is particularly insightful and, through their comments, caused me to look much more closely at a passage.
Hawthorne was such a misanthrope that the fact that he would even write this is beyond bizarre, but he says, "It is to the credit of human nature, that, except where its selfishness is brought into play, it loves more readily than it hates. Hatred, by a gradual and quiet process, will even be transformed to love, unless the change be impeded by a continually new irritation of the original feeling of hostility." Well, needless to say, I did manage to get all my relatively well-off private school students to agree with Hawthorne and to confess that they don't truly hate ANYBODY. What inevitably followed was them asking me whether I actually hate anybody.
Interesting question. I don't think I do, even when I ply my mind for all the insensitive comments exes might have made, or the rudeness of my first employers. Then they asked me if I hate Osama Bin Laden. Why? Why is he the fallback man to hate? I mean, seriously, what about Hitler? Not to sound insensitive, but I'm pretty sure the Holocaust affected a hell of a lot more people than 9/11. Now they're just spouting back what their typically Republican parents indoctrinate them with, but I just don't understand how so many people can blindly accept to despise someone. I know I'm treading in brackish water here, and I do feel for anyone who was personally (or selfishly, as Hawthorne would say) affected by the tragedy, but as a total outsider, can I really feel worse for the people who died in the twin towers than the thousands and thousands of civilians who have died in Afghanistan and Iraq?
Of course I didn't respond with that whole monologue, which could have potentially thrown me into the Head of School's office. But I can't help but feel that his crimes, though heinous, have been so inordinately exaggerated, and that people do throw around the word hatred with a strange degree of casualty. I was in DC (where I'm from) when he died, and seeing people celebrate a death made me a little sick inside.
I guess my answer to Hawthorne is that humans SHOULD tend to love, but with the advent of TV indoctrination, do they? Were the Puritans he writes about really fuzzier teddy bears inside than the Bush government? Apparently so.
At any rate, the kids really are great. It's like having Book Club, only I'm paid for it, and my opinion trumps all others. HA!
Hawthorne was such a misanthrope that the fact that he would even write this is beyond bizarre, but he says, "It is to the credit of human nature, that, except where its selfishness is brought into play, it loves more readily than it hates. Hatred, by a gradual and quiet process, will even be transformed to love, unless the change be impeded by a continually new irritation of the original feeling of hostility." Well, needless to say, I did manage to get all my relatively well-off private school students to agree with Hawthorne and to confess that they don't truly hate ANYBODY. What inevitably followed was them asking me whether I actually hate anybody.
Interesting question. I don't think I do, even when I ply my mind for all the insensitive comments exes might have made, or the rudeness of my first employers. Then they asked me if I hate Osama Bin Laden. Why? Why is he the fallback man to hate? I mean, seriously, what about Hitler? Not to sound insensitive, but I'm pretty sure the Holocaust affected a hell of a lot more people than 9/11. Now they're just spouting back what their typically Republican parents indoctrinate them with, but I just don't understand how so many people can blindly accept to despise someone. I know I'm treading in brackish water here, and I do feel for anyone who was personally (or selfishly, as Hawthorne would say) affected by the tragedy, but as a total outsider, can I really feel worse for the people who died in the twin towers than the thousands and thousands of civilians who have died in Afghanistan and Iraq?
Of course I didn't respond with that whole monologue, which could have potentially thrown me into the Head of School's office. But I can't help but feel that his crimes, though heinous, have been so inordinately exaggerated, and that people do throw around the word hatred with a strange degree of casualty. I was in DC (where I'm from) when he died, and seeing people celebrate a death made me a little sick inside.
I guess my answer to Hawthorne is that humans SHOULD tend to love, but with the advent of TV indoctrination, do they? Were the Puritans he writes about really fuzzier teddy bears inside than the Bush government? Apparently so.
At any rate, the kids really are great. It's like having Book Club, only I'm paid for it, and my opinion trumps all others. HA!
no subject
Date: 2012-12-06 05:53 pm (UTC)I don't think the GOP are totally to blame for the boogeyman-ising of OBL...it seems like it's been a fairly equal opportunity media sport, on both sides of the Atlantic. I was in Atlanta when he died and was working an early-morning shift, and I felt sick when someone told me, because I knew I was surrounded by white Republicans who were going to be celebrating it, and by then I had this general dread of the culture around me (hence why we moved up to Boston earlier this year). tl;dr america on a revenge bender is awesome. :/
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Date: 2012-12-07 12:16 am (UTC)I know; we actually used to live in Paris, because my husband is French and I grew up going to this bizarrely amazing public French school. It was really hard to leave, and there are ways of thinking I really miss (although ignorance is everywhere and we certainly are not TOTAL Francophiles). Leaving DC would be hard and living, for example, where I work would put me in that dread-of-surroundings position.
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Date: 2012-12-07 12:17 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-12-07 06:08 am (UTC)