This Son of York

Let's talk literature. When I was younger, my father got me interested in reading classic Western authors. (By "got me interested," I mean "forced me to read them until I developed a genuine interest myself"). Though his method was rather blunt, I'm grateful. One of the works that I ended up exploring on my own was The Winter of Our Discontent by John Steinbeck.

Our main character, Ethan Allen Hawley, is the descendant of a long line of aristocrats. He is also a grocery clerk. Plagued by the social inadequacies of low income, his wife and kids lament their socioeconomic status as Ethan maintains his integrity - at the cost of prosperity. As the book progresses, Ethan's morals begin to crumble as he makes dishonest but materially rewarding choices, eventually leading to his entry into the corrupt politics of his town.

For our purposes, the most relevant ideas in this novel deal with the basic challenges to integrity presented by competition. Ethan is driven to succeed by his family and his desire to preserve his lineage's honor, but his moral values become an obstacle. This issue is highly relevant to many fields of competition today, be it sports, finance, politics, or any other playing field involving dishonesty and unfair advantages. One can say that Ethan has lost a different type of competition in succumbing to immorality - that of ethical standing. The unfortunate factor which nullifies this in the novel is that no one cares about that contest; Ethan's own son plagiarizes speeches written by American historical figures to win a national writing competition and then rationalizes his decisions by stating "Everybody does it... - just read the papers."

Ethan's struggle with himself leads to him attempting suicide at the end of the novel. He is foiled by his young daughter, Ellen. Unlike his other child, the plagiarizer, Ellen is the physical embodiment of youth and innocence throughout the novel, an image which sounds cliché but is in fact painted beautifully by Steinbeck's flowing narrative. In the end, she is the hope which must come with all deviations from moral standards: no player in any field is wholly good or evil.

It is a custom of mine to do some research on books after I read them. I was disappointed but not surprised to find that The Winter of Our Discontent, the last novel he wrote, is often considered a runt among Steinbeck's works; to me, it is the Cinderella of his literary children, though that metaphor partially fails because I do enjoy his other writings. If for anything else, I appreciate Steinbeck's hidden but present optimism regarding the strength of human integrity - it is fallible, but one must never give up.

Darwin and Elections

The upcoming voting process which will eventually lead to the selection of our next president has unsurprisingly captured the undivided attention of the American media. The tight race for the Republican nomination raises questions though. If Mitt Romney, who appears to lack the support of Tea Party conservatives, wins the primary, will hardcore libertarians still support the Republicans' champion in the general election? More broadly, do most Republican voters hate Obama enough to vote for anyone running against him?

Perhaps the broadest question I see here is one which addresses elections everywhere: what are the implications of competitiveness in the electoral process? One perspective which I find interesting is that it's our own form of natural selection - the strongest candidate will survive and lead us. However, this comparison to basic Darwinian principles fails in an essential area, the terms of the competition itself.

Let us observe: if a certain type of butterfly survives by avoiding predators with superior camouflage, it has been selected because it's good at surviving - the objective of competition among species. Similarly, the objective of presidential races is to win, or survive the election when your opponents don't. But as participants in the political process, we expect our candidate to pursue another objective too: serving us well in office. This complicates matters dramatically. Does the current process of epic campaign clashes naturally produce the candidate "fittest" to lead?

In some ways yes, in some ways no. One thing our process does well is emphasizing political views on key issues. Considering that one of the supreme duties an officeholder has is to represent the beliefs of voters, this is an area where the competition "matches" the objective. Another thing our process does is add money to the equation. This aspect of the competition does not match the objective. (A rich president is not more inherently qualified than a poor one.) As discussed in a previous post, campaign financing (and its close cousin corporate lobbying) undermines the democratic process, and various movements have sprung up to fight it.

So what's the conclusion? To be honest, a very small one. The natural selection analogy has been revealed as flawed, illustrating to us once again the ever present dangers of approaching one field of understanding armed only with the terms of a another. Think of it this way: the next time a candidate you vote for loses an election, you'll still have something to say.

And for all those in disbelief: yes, in the second paragraph I did post a link to a biology website probably frequented most often by cramming high school students. Polish off that ancient textbook and have a blast.