Suffering

I believe suffering is caused by emotional, physical, and mental pain. Suffering can have several different effects on a vast number of people. In King Lear, his suffering had to do with his own blood betraying him and leaving him (literally) in the cold. Suffering in this case is in the form of betrayal. King Lear is known to be a honorable man and very respected. He believes he holds a lot of power, but it causes him to use his power for the wrong reasons. King Lear finds it almost impossible to recover from what his daughters did to him, which causes him to feel pity for himself. I think the fact that King Lear is suffering shows that just about anyone can suffer or experience some type of betrayal regardless of the amount of power you hold. King Lear was well respected and well taken care of, but he still was blindsided. I think in reality, everyone will experience some type of suffering during their lifetime. Some suffering with be worse than others, but in general we all face problems that we sometimes don't think we can handle. I think its how you recover from your suffering, and how you react to it. Suffering is inevitable.

The Guilt Singer Brings

When I decided to stop eating meat my sophomore year, my older brother told me about Singer. My brother is interested in philosophy, and had read a lot of Singer's work. He told me that Singer wrote a lot about being vegetarian, giving all money you don't need away, and that I may find him very interesting. I never tried to find anything that Singer wrote on my own, but now that we read one of his articles, I am very interested.

What I first noticed after reading Singer's article is that I felt guilty. My first reaction was "this guy is crazy", and realized I probably just thought that because he made a lot of sense. My parents pay for everything I need. I live in a house, I have clothes, and my mom goes grocery shopping pretty much every day. However, I still work and don't give away that disposable income to people in need, I put it in my savings account, buy food out, or go shopping.

Although Singer makes a lot of sense, there is a reason many people feel angry after reading his ideas. Clearly, most people prefer to save their money for themselves, whether they are indulging or making sure they are financially secure in the future. Either way, even if people donate regularly, they want to keep most of their money. This is a common human trait, and even super rich people go to extreme  lengths in order to make even more money. People are greedy.

Singer makes good points and uses a lot of logic. However, I don't think his ideas are completely realistic, no matter how wonderful and ethical they are. It would be interesting to see more people like Singer in the world, who are greedy for doing good and not money. The world would definitely be a completely different place.

Lear's Lesson

Throughout the play, the characters show a range of emotions. Lear, specifically, is characterized as the senile old man is who not to be taken seriously or respected. But, in his monologue in Act III Scene IV with Kent and the fool, I believe that Lear professes some of the more worthwhile sentiments in the entire play. If nothing else, he communicates the idea of empathy - an emotion that has yet to be expressed by any of the characters in King Lear.

Lear not only puts others above himself by insisting that Kent and the fool take shelter before him, but also begins to be truly empathetic when realizing what the lives of the less fortunate in his kingdom are like. Lear states, “Poor naked wretches, whereo’ver you are / That bide the pelting of this pitiless storm, / How shall your houseless heads and unfed sides, / Your looped and windowed raggedness, defend you / From seasons such as these? Oh, I have ta’en / Too little care of this!” (III.iiii.28-24). Lear experiences the brutal forces of nature, really for the first time in this passage, and it is what causes him to feel for the homeless and realize he should have done more for the them as king, because now he knows what it feels like to be one of them.

For me, this monologue by Lear and this realization are one of the most important moments in the play so far. Suffering is a theme throughout the play, but it is not until this speech that Lear makes a concrete statement on how to begin to understand others’ suffering. Lear’s empathy here serves to show that he is still a coherent man worthy of respect, and that he is multidimensional enough to put himself in someone else’s shoes and try and understand how life is for them. Everyone experiences varying levels of suffering in their lives, as shown by the excerpt from Frankl’s book. And, one cannot truly know the magnitude of another’s suffering until they exercise some empathy and try and see the situation through their eyes That is what Lear does here for the first time, in a moment of clarity for both himself and the reader.

Singer's Silly Solution

The response to "The Singer Solution to World Poverty" from an average reader:
I donate money to charity yearly!
What I do with my money has no affect on poverty on the other side of the world.
No one else gives all their "extra" money to charity, why should I?
How will I know if my money even gets to the planned target?
I deserve a new pair of shoes! I worked hard for my money!
But do the poor people in the world not work hard?
Do they not deserve as much as I do?
They are not inherently better or worse than me.
But how am I expected to give all my extra money away?
What even qualifies money as extra?
Is college extra?
Is law school extra?
Is spending money raising a child extra?
Does this mean I am a bad person?
But I deserve to use that money that I work hard to earn!
There is that word again.
Deserve.
Poor people don't deserve poverty.
But I deserve that new pair of shoes.
What?
I should probably start to give more to charity.
If I can save a life, I am willing to pay that 200 dollars.
But I will not sacrifice my own quality of living.
Yeah.
Maybe I will give a little bit more away.
But I'm still going to buy that new pair of shoes. 

Distribution of Wealth

In King Lear, Lear declares that his surplus of wealth should have been used to lessen the gap between those in poverty and those of wealth. This more even distribution of wealth would thus give every person the equal chance which they deserve. Peter Singer mirrors this ideal in "Singer Solution". He proposes that those who have excess funds, rather than spending it on themselves and luxuries, that have become so common in American's daily lives, they should donate the money that is not spent on necessities to a worthy cause which will save the lives of impoverished children. 

While, in theory, this concept is simple and easily accomplished, it also has faults. These faults lie within the behavioral patterns which our society has so carefully bred. In our modern, materialistic society, having more expensive products within one home is a sign of prosperity which in turn implies favorable social standing. Being programmed with a mantra of "more, more, more" our wallets are open to those items which impress rather than good moral standing. It is often not until someone is put in a position of the less fortunate that they want to help the less fortunate. Just like in King Lear, people are not willing to give up their opportunities to have these extra luxuries until they have already lost it. 

Sing-ing Lear

I'm going to start by saying that I love reading Peter Singer, and I stand with him on moral issues that are a part of my heart. His solution to world poverty, however ideal, is a marvelously optimistic approach to a matter that is more complex than what he says it could be.

In a perfect world, people would give up every luxury and live only on the bare necessities in order to assist famished populations across the world without a problem. But we do not live in a perfect world.

One of the themes of Shakespeare's King Lear is the concept of sight and blindness. Most citizens of first world countries live in "blindness," even if they firmly believe they do not. According to Singer, anyone who doesn't sacrifice all of their luxuries for the good of the Starving Children in Africa are blind. Only those who live on the $30,00 and donate everything else have true sight.

I believe that it's possible for everyone to share in this sight, but what Singer asks is too unrealistic. Sight first requires mutual recognition of the people who need aid and assistance. We live in blindness because that is all we see them as, but they are humans with heads and hearts like us. Once that is achieved, everyone could give a percentage, say 10%, of their income to charity. This would not mean drastically changing one's lifestyle, or drastically effecting the country's economy.

Thanks to Singer, it is evident that themes that are present in Lear are relevant when it comes to the world today.

Singer's Lack of Solution to World Poverty

In Peter Singer’s article “The Singer Solution to World Poverty” he gives to examples of dramatic situations where a person can choose whether to be selfish or selfless. Dora has to choose between a brand new television and a random young boy’s life. Bob has to choose between the car he spent his life savings on and a random child’s life. Singer says that everyone reading these two scenarios obviously agrees with the more ethical decisions. He also says that we have the opportunity to save the lives of children every day by donating all our disposable income to charity, however; most people choose more selfish things like cars, clothes, and other luxuries. Singer says that if we are buying unnecessary luxuries, we are entirely hippocritical.

Although I agree with his principles of selflessness and utilitarianism, his theories are impractical for multiple reasons. First of all, his analogies between the two scenarios and helping kids overseas does not work due to the emotional proximities he described in the scenarios. Humans clearly do not have any sort of emotional connection to people they do not know. We are much more likely to be generous in places where we see the positive outcomes, like giving gifts to our loved ones, to our communities or to local charities.

Singer’s argument also does not work due to the way our government and economy works. We live in a country based on capitalism and working hard to get a high paying job so we can be greedy and buy fancy things. I think the more realistic standpoint to have is a push towards socialism in our country. If we have a more equal distribution of wealth and government aid, we can have a culture with less focus on greed and the individual, but greater focus on equality and selflessness within the country. Socialism allows for utilitarianism without individual greed intervening.

I agree with Singer that instead of running to the stores to constantly consume, we should stop and ask ourselves whether we really need the items. However, Singer’s article is ineffective and extremely impractical due to the greed in our culture and the lack of emotional connection with less-privileged people we do not know. It is obvious that those with great wealth should donate money to improve the lives of others, but I don’t think this is a new concept at all.

The Unfortunate Disparities Between Privileged And Poor And What We Should Do

The article by Peter Singer about privilege and priorities in society is one of the most interesting articles I have read in a long time. It is fascinating because it talks about such an important topic of the disparities between the rich and poor in the world. As a society, we tend to recognize and address these gap issues. But what are we actually doing about it? Singer offers debatable insight about it.

Singer dives into the idea that people with stability are obligated to assist children and families who are less fortunate. In his article, he uses an example of a guy named Bob who has saved up for a Bugatti. When Bob sees a young child about to be hit by a train, he realizes if he hits the switch button to stop the train, the train will fall on top of and destroy his Bugatti. Bob doesn't hit the button and the kid dies. This is terrible in my opinion and an example of how people in society have their priorities out of order. A life is far more important than a car. However, I begin to disagree with Singer when he says what Bob did is the same thing as not donating $200 to an organization or charity. Not everyone has the money or ability to give to these organizations, but everyone can save a kid who was in Bob's situation.

Ultimately, I see both sides to Singer's argument. Even a few dollars can help, but not everybody has the extra money to give to organizations and save other lives. I am a strong believer in selflessness and providing for the less privileged. However, the wealthy population of people should be the ones donating if anything. They are the people in the world with money to spare and if they choose to buy themselves things, that's one thing. But I don't think someone is in the wrong if they are caring for their own family first, whether that's going to eat, buying clothes, paying for their school, taking them out, etc. We definitely can be more mindful as a society about how we are spending because Singer is definitely right when he says a good amount of money people spend unnecessarily could go to these impoverished children. He's also definitely right about how it's wrong that people put objects before humans. I can't believe someone would ever choose to save their car over a life. You can replace a car but you can't replace a person. In a perfect world, everyone should donate to the poor. It is however unrealistic considering not every stable middle-class family has that type of money to give to organizations.

I wish poverty wasn't a thing. It's truly unfortunate that society is separated in that sense. In the end, I believe privileged individuals are obligated to spend less on themselves, form more donation groups within their communities, and donate some type of number whether its 200$ or 1$. The problem is that many people indeed do these acts of kindness such as save a kid from being hit by a vehicle or donate to a charity. Yet, we still have disparities and an overwhelming amount of families in destitute. Either more privileged people need to wake up and be selfless or something in the structure of society needs to change.

Obligations and Morality

People who are privileged do have some obligation to help those in need, but not as big of an obligation as Singer believes. Singer's ideas about donating the majority of one's income to charities that help save lives are very sweet, but very unrealistic. He forms his beliefs around utilitarianism, which seems like a very reasonable philosophy on the surface, but in actuality holds humanity to insanely high standards. For example, why should parents pay for their children's college education when the money could be spent saving lives? Why should we even go to college? And consider this scenario: two people you do not know are tied to some train tracks, with a train speeding toward them. You stand next to a switch that can shift the train to a different set of tracks; only one person is tied to these tracks, but she is your mother. According to utilitarianism, you would be morally obligated to kill your mother and save the two strangers.

The only people who are morally obligated to give almost all of their money to charities are those who believe in utilitarianism. However, people who are fairly wealthy should certainly consider donating money whenever they can. When people earn more than around 70,000-75,000 dollars per year, their happiness typically no longer rises based on earning more money. After this point, people should have a stronger obligation to donate money to charities, and would probably be far more likely to donate more money anyway. The higher a person's income, the higher their obligation to donate should be. For someone earning one million dollars a year, donating upwards of 250,000 dollars would not hurt them at all, and serve to help a great many people. Someone earning 50,000 dollars a year with two kids, however, might not be obligated to donate anything at all. 

Rationality vs Happiness

After reading Singer's article, I was struck by the simple rationality of his argument. Each point he made was based on what it takes for one person to survive-- the bare minimum. He critiques members of the UN for donating money below the recommended amount of .7% of a given country's GDP. I understood Singer's arguments and logic. It seems good. It seems nice. But how realistic is it?

There must be a way to reconcile a charitable and, by Singer's logic, just lifestyle with a person's everyday happiness. Although living using an absolute minimum amount of resources may be the correct and fair thing to do, it is entirely unlikely that anyone of greater means would consider doing so unless it yielded general happiness or contentedness. Brooks stresses the importance of intrinsic value of one's work. There must be a way to balance the intrinsic and extrinsic value of one's life and work.

Life Lessons From Frankl

I though the parallels between King Lear and A Man's Searching For Meaning powerful yet surprising. Both pieces portray men struggling to find themselves and their power. King Lear is struggling to deal with the fact that he is getting older and his power is vanishing and Frankl describes his experience with a concentration camp. Although the connections between these two individuals are strong, I think Frankl's story deserves all the attention.

After reading his story, I was amazed. Viktor Frankl is incredibly determined and strong willed. He took the worst possible circumstance and still learned from it. I think this is a lesson in itself. Frankl shows that grit and hope can help anyone stay strong through any challenge or setback. Even in the most awful situations, Frankl was able to find things of beauty and I have no doubt that this ability directly attributed to his survival.

If King Lear was a real and alive today, I think he could learn a lot from Frankl. Lear would avoid many of his problems if he approached them with the determination and concentration of Frankl.

Truth and Lies

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Seeing and Blindness

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Women as Monsters

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Is Love all we Really Need?

Frankl’s piece was, undoubtedly, powerful, moving, and profound. His intense descriptions of his experiences in the concentration camp coupled with his revolutionary insights in his search for meaning make for a captivating experience for the reader. However, when he ties together all of his discoveries from his search for meaning, he concludes that it was the thought of his wife that allowed him to accept his suffering as it is and thus keep working as he was supposed to. Now, there is a question to be asked: Does love, or even just the thought of love, help us escape our suffering? The answer might not be as simple as it was for Frankl.

So, while Frankl was working himself beyond his physical limit in the labor camp, he could see and feel the presence of his wife with him. He even uses the phrase “she was there” to describe how he felt in that moment. The thought and sensed presence of his wife brings meaning to his horrible situation. Not to sound blunt, but it’s basically trying to tell us that “all you need is love.”

*Cue John, Paul, George, and Ringo*

I can’t think of a story I’ve come across that doesn’t involve some sort of tacit reference to the concept of love. Moreover, most stories, old and new, incorporate love as the driving force of the meaning of the story; the notion of love is an underlying answer to all problems that must be solved.

In Shakespeare’s King Lear, written several hundred years ago, Lear has a strong emotional attachment to his favorite daughter, Cordelia. Toward the end of the play, Cordelia is the only person Lear loves and truly cares about, and when she dies, he shows immense grief and dies himself shortly afterward. Here, the message is clear: we can’t live without love, we can’t go on. Love works in the same way here as it did for Frankl.

But let us not just focus on fictional stories. Frankl’s situation was real, and thus only real situations can be wholesomely compared to his. Love cannot solve all our problems, nor can it physically take us out of suffering. In our comfortable lives, we require more substance to our day-to-day living in order to truly find meaning. We need success, satisfaction, entertainment, and stimulation in order to discover this meaning. But take away all of our comfort, and what do we get? Well, Frankl already told us what we get. And what’s the only thing left in our lives after all of these constructs have vanished and are completely out of reach? Love, love is all that’s left.

So, realistically, love is (sometimes) all we need. We don’t have to change the lyrics to The Beatles’ song, though.

Theory in Agonizing Practice

When Lear and Cordelia are faced with the fate of being sent to prison, Cordelia breaks down into tears.  Lear, however, assures her that prison will be wonderful in each other's company.  He brushes away her tears as he describes the beautiful experience awaiting them.  That piece of father-daughter sentiment makes for a really feel-good moment as the readers in a play that's soon to end quite the opposite.  It almost makes us forget for a moment that we are reading a tragedy.  I mean, Lear is talking about prison!  That's no light topic.  While reading, I couldn't help but think, "Is he maybe being a little naive here?"

Frankl's time in Auschwitz is a real-life tragedy (suspending the fact that he did not prompt his placement there through his own actions).  While it's a very extreme example, Frankl's camp was a prison relatable to the prison Lear and Cordelia were bound to.  Death was experienced in each.  Lear had Cordelia physically, and Frankl had his wife spiritually.  In both cases their female counterpart sustained them through hardship.  Their individual reactions to the removal of that loved one, however, is key.  Lear, after having regained a small bit of lucidness, completely loses it and actually can not continue to live.  Frankl, however, was forced to deal with the physical absence of his wife from the very beginning of his imprisonment and furthermore had to deal with the pain of not knowing whether she was dead or alive.  Nonetheless, he keeps her memory in his heart and even says that had he known she was dead it would not affect the connection he felt with her!

Lear may have started out with an idealistic viewpoint, but he fails to maintain it when the going actually gets rough. His positive anticipation left him vulnerable to the coming reality.  Frankl, however, had no grand expectations and yet was able to achieve that ideal sense of companionship and love that transcended love.  It seems that preparation is key - as they say, hope for the best but prepare for the worst.

Loss of Humanity

Viktor Frankl's "Experiences in a Concentration Camp" is a moving, disturbing description of a prisoner's suffering during the Holocaust. Frankl seems to conclude that fundamentally, life in a concentration camp robbed him of his humanity. The author describes his experiences as a degeneration into a more primitive existence as instinctual desires supersede feelings of empathy for other prisoners and in a more physical sense, his body becomes more like a skeleton than a living being.

It's hard to compare Frankl and Lear due to the disparity of their situations, but Lear, like Frankl, feels that he loses his humanity. Stripped of his men, power, and respect, he empathizes with the poor and unprotected people during the storm. He even attempts to remove his own clothing in order to physically experience how primitive and animal-like he feels mentally and emotionally. Like Frankl, he finds that he has regressed into a more natural, inhuman state.

In a realization quite like Meursault's in The Stranger, Frankl finds that, although his physical, external state deteriorates in the concentration camp, his inner life and imagination intensifies. Lear is less successful in giving meaning to a simpler existence, perhaps because his suffering is primarily mental. However, when he considers the idea of being imprisoned with Cordelia, he too sees the potential to be happy even when living a primitive life in prison. Although Lear and Frankl's experiences are quite different, as they consider what emotionally and physically defines human existence, both discover that mental/internal and physical/external states do not necessarily parallel each other.

Common Themes

The passage “Experiences in a Concentration Camp” from Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl shares many of the same topics and motifs as King Lear. The theme of power is the first to come to mind, most likely because it seems to be very prominent between the two. The topics of weak men and suffering, however, are also present.

On page 32 in the passage, Frankl describes how a colleague of his sneaks into his “block” and gives advice on how to survive: “If you want to stay alive, there is only one way: look fit for work. If you even limp, because, let us say, you have a small blister on your heel, and an SS man spots this, he will wave you aside and the next day you are sure to be gassed.” This not only relates to the motif of weak men, it also falls under the category of appearance vs. reality. The prisoners are disguising their suffering and pain in order to stay alive.

This leads me to the next theme: suffering. As mentioned in previous posts, Frankl describes how mental pain can be more scarring than physical pain: “At such a moment it is not the physical pain which hurts the most…it is the mental agony caused by the injustice, the unreasonableness of it all” (36). Lear is also forced to endure a form of mental suffering after his daughters’ betrayal and loss of power.

There are obviously many more thematic links between these two stories, but I thought that these were some of the most dominant.

Lessons for Lear

Although both Lear and Frankl lived tragic lives, Frankl learned how to handle his suffering in ways that Lear could definitely learn from.

Frankl discovers that it is not really the physical suffering of his situation that is the worst but the "mental agony caused by injustice"(36). Lear also discovers the greater suffering of the mind when  his power is taken by his daughters and he is forced out into the storm. But unlike Lear, Frankl develops a way to deal with his mental suffering. Frankl develops apathy to his situation and this allows him to actually ease some of his suffering simply because it was a different outlook. He found that if he focused all his emotions and efforts on one task then his harsh reality dimmed.  If Lear had done the same, he may have saved himself some trouble.

Frankl also discovers that "the salvation of love is through love and in love"(49). Frankl found that if he focused on love this would ease his suffering as well. Frankl would picture his wife in his mind and have conversations with her and this is what saved him from some mental suffering. Lear  actually finds out this as well but not until the end of the play. Lear tells Cordelia that they will be happy to go to jail because at least they will be together and be able to live the rest of their lives with someone they love.

I also think it is very interesting that despite the terrible situation that Frankl went through, in his writing there is no hint of self pity. Frankly, I think as a concentration camp survivor that Frankl is entitled to some self pity but the fact that he does  not is remarkable. Lear on the other hand does have various instances of self pity and that does nothing to help his situation.

Lear could learn from Frankl's tactics of how to limit suffering in a terrible situation where it seems that hope is lost.

 

An Ap(ple)athy a Day will Make the Doctor Okay

Frankl observed that the second emotional phase of the concentration camp inmates was apathy. It was the only they could survive the terrible abuses going on in the camps. He describes how, "Reality dimmed, and all efforts and all emotions were centered on one task: preserving one's own life and that of the other fellow" (47).  They had to put all of their effort into staying alive that they had no time to feel the pain. Being surrounded by so much death and destruction, the inmates developed an indifference pretty quickly.

Similar to Frankl, Lear quickly experienced apathy after the betrayal of his daughters. In fact, he went a bit mad. In the beginning, when Lear was thrust into the storm he was bothered by the storm. However, he soon forgot to feel all physical pain and could just focus on the betrayal. He developed an indifference to the howling storm beating down on him, and kind of emotionally shut down. Frankl described his despair in the camp,"it is not the physical pain which hurts the most (and this applies to adults as much as to punished children) it is the mental agony caused by the injustice, the unreasonableness of it all" (42). Just like Frankl, Lear is preoccupied with the injustice done onto him by his daughters, and thus feels no physical pain. He has discovered that the world is unfair and that he can do nothing about it, so he adopts apathy in the form of mild insanity.

The question is, is this form of apathy healthy for the mind? Frankl says that it was a defense- mechanism for the inmates to survive. While I don't doubt that it was absolutely necessary for them, I have to wonder the long-term effects of such emotional hardness. Obviously any survivor of the holocaust would be terribly scarred, but in applying this emotional response to people today it is important to evaluate the consequences. I believe once apathetic, it is hard to regain the passion and emotions one once held. Lear only had a few moments of clarity after he went "mad." He was sane when he was reunited with Cordelia, but once he allowed himself to feel happy, she was torn from him and he went mad again. Therefore, I must conclude that while apathy was perhaps necessary to save the lives of the Frankl and his fellow inmates, it  does not lead to prolonged psychological health, and thus is not a healthy way of coping with stress.