The original title of this writing is Dismissing Pangloss. The one seen above is the "MySpace" title met to lore in the flood of curious sheep so that the hit count may reach critical mass [I mean, people know who Leibniz was right?]. However, I don't believe this will truly become "critical" because, I highly doubt others will recommend their peers read a literature analysis of a satire some dead philosopher wrote 250 years ago. Who enjoys reading anyways? You do! That's who! That's why you're here correct [to read]? First off, it's considered a prerequisite that you go through Candide, or Optimism before continuing. It's a short story, you'll be finished reading it within a few hours. Here are some conveniently placed linkys.
.TXT,
.PDF
Another writing I would highly recommend any of you read is An Answer to the Question: What is Enlightenment? by the philosopher Immanuel Kant. I strongly allude to his definition of "minority" in this writing.
.PDF,
.DOC. Take note that some of those documents might have a few words translated a bit differently here or there, but... meh.
A warm thank you goes out to
Kelsey Greenland
who has gladly granted permission for me to use some of her conceptual photography. Can you tell how they seem somewhat relevant to what's being discussed? Hey, art's in the eye of the beholder, and the photos serve as a frame for the thesis: The world is indeed a cruel place we must all find some method to tolerate.
Other Observations:
The in text citations in this writing refer specifically to book ISBN 0-321-16980-8. If you read through any version of Candide, or Optimism, you should be able to catch which chapters these quotations originate from.
I'll also add that at first, I was in danger of writing a summary of Candide as opposed to a literature analysis. It's only natural to think through a story in chronological form. You can see residue of that inclination, and also of the five paragraph-style dogma lingering inside this essay.
No, the current title of the essay isn't misleading. I've reread section 8 of the TOS prior to posting and there are currently no restrictions on vulgar against 17th century philosophers. Yes, the title was intentional. Candide is a essentially a straw man Voltaire wrote up to satire Gottfried Leibniz's views. If you don't know it by now, the character Pangloss is symbolic to Leibniz. Anywhere you read Pangloss in Candide you can pretty much substitute it with Leibniz and the story makes a little bit more sense.
-And now I present to you, an interpretation of Candide.
Dismissing Pangloss
As a child matures, modern society considers it good parenting to educate them in the virtues of self reliance, criticism, and open-mindedness. In Voltaire's Candide, or Optimism the philosopher Maître Pangloss represents the ideal of a silly sort of radical optimism which one of Voltaire's real life critics held. The very last sentence of this story reads, "That is well put," replied Candide, "but we must cultivate our gardens" (Voltaire 526). Voltaire really met to state that human beings do indeed have free will, and ought to take control of our own lives. A number of literary techniques employed by Voltaire, among them aphorism, the introduction of a foil character, and his constant use of satire make this assertion evident.
Candide, the main protagonist, listens to Pangloss's lectures "with all the good faith of his age and character" (Voltaire 467). Here an immature, unenlightened, and teacher dependent child enters into the world. The foundation for the most commonly used aphorism in Candide, or Optimism belongs to Pangloss's philosophy and it states that "everything is connected in a chain of necessity, and has all been arranged for the best" (Voltaire 470). Thus, they live in the best of all possible worlds. At a deeper level, Pangloss's universal reasoning dictates that because everything occurs according to the absolute necessity to comply with this plan "freedom can [only] exist [because of this] absolute necessity" (Voltaire 475); but not the other way around. Therefore, according to Pangloss, human freedom exists only within the parameters by which it's byproducts are compliant with God's marvelous plan. Human freewill cannot change from this course.
Voltaire continually pokes fun at this belief by using satire via a sort of reverse logic to explain why occurrences must occur. People have noses so that spectacles may be placed on them, and the cause for why a sea was created was so that the Anabaptist would drown in it. During the earthquake in Lisbon while Candide was hurt and laying on the ground helplessly, Pangloss's explanation for how the earthquake happened was labeled as "probable". Pangloss stated, "What do you mean, probable? [...] I maintain that the thing is proven" (Voltaire 474). The audience laughs here and likewise also at the radical optimism which he represents. In time, Pangloss supposedly dies, and this becomes a major turning point in the development of Candide, because now in his mind, the only person who has ever helped him make sense of the world disappears. Pangloss's assumed death becomes metaphoric to the start of Candide's slow transition away from his "self incurred minority" (Kant 671).
All good people live through miserable lives, villages get slaughtered, military men die by the tens of thousands by weapons of war, there is barely a female introduced in the story who hasn't had her life devastated with undesired sex, and the governments of each society Candide travels to are tainted with far from perfect leadership. Candide sees the real world as overly cruel, yet somehow he still manages to hold on to Pangloss's philosophy down to the last thread. Then El Dorado came along and this experience sets him up to his eventual rejection of optimism. He comes to realize that all the evil deeds made in the world make it the best of all possible worlds only within El Dorado, the utopia. Candide goes on to define Optimism as the "mania for insisting that all is well when things are going badly" (Voltaire 498). This mania, being another word for dogma, serves to further emphasize the radical idealism Voltaire writes against. El Dorado was only a utopia. The real world cannot compare with it and consequently Pangloss's philosophy does not apply.
The introduction of a foil character a third of the way into the plot puts even more emphasize on Pangloss's character by exhibiting views that are in opposition to his. Martin follows somewhat of a Murphy's Law world view and he is important for two reasons. First, he becomes Candide's new philosopher at the time when he still believes his old lecturer dead. This expanded his boundaries by introducing a new way of thought and making him grow out of his initial state of childhood minority. Secondly, a similarity between Martin and Pangloss exists where the fantasy of freewill to determine an individual's fortune gets shredded by the fundamental principles of their respective philosophies. With Pangloss, everything happens according to a predestined plan, and with Martin human nature makes it so that the only thing one could ever hope for would be disaster. In both views the individual has no choice but to go along with the ride. All the main character have been on this same boat. None have chosen to actually take control of their own lives. All have been part of this bewildering wilderness and screwed by it in one way or another.
The final chapter tells us three times how public figures often live miserable lives. It seems that everybody would prefer to live a life of high rank, luxury, or nobility; but ultimately the characters wine up on a farmland bored, disgruntled, and cursed. Being denied further insight about the world from a dervish philosopher, the reader gets a sense of vagueness. Perhaps going out to seek another man's philosophy wasn't the best way to go about? This assumption parallels with the major theme of the Enlightenment Era. One ought to be their own master and not be childly reliant on the teachings of others. After traveling around the world, having been exposed to numerous thought processes and views, Candide makes his final observation at supper with a Turk farmer, and contemplates about that man's life thereafter. Kant would argue this the point of having reached enlightenment.
Candide states the famous line, "we must cultivate our garden" (Voltaire 525) not once, but twice! The first time being when he cut off Pangloss's sentence while he was in philosophy mode; and the second was done for the same reason, but more respectfully in a sense. Take note that Candide was already cultivating his physical farmland and forcing Cacambo to sell the goods in Constantinople before he had supper with the Turk farmer. This makes the literal interpretation of the quote absolutely invalid. Voltaire wanted to send his message across. Life may not be what we wish it to be, but one ought to dismiss the notion that dogmatic philosophies can reason the mechanics of the universe. Instead they ought to look around a bit and attempt to reason it for themselves.