"The spirit of Homais: progress, rationalism, science, fraud." Homais epitomizes everything Flaubert abhors about the bourgeois. While I agree with Flaubert on some levels here, I disagree with him on most. I don't fully understand Flaubert's distaste for progress. The way he presents Homais' enthusiasm for scientific progress makes Homais look foolish and rash. For example, he takes many jabs at Homais' hopeful belief in an operation to liberate those with club's foot from their disability. Honestly I think human pretentions are in part what separate us from every other specie on Earth. It doesn't make sense to dismiss our ambition, because ambition is what gives us purpose (or at least a sense of purpose). It's the reason we don't live in caves, the reason we have heated shelters, the reason women can vote. Perhaps Flaubert foresaw that these so called "luxuries" would eventually lead us into self destruction. This may indeed be true, and that's how it currently looks to me. But as far as I can see, they are now our only salvation. In order to pull ourselves out of this pit of self destruction, we need our ambition, our pretentious nature. We need to move past everything we've ruined, and invent a way to fix it. It is ironic, that while societies ‘progress’ has led us into a near state of peril, it is now the only thing that can save us. In the end, progress wins. Or does it?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
I like your aggression. It's admirable, and pretty dead on. I like how you've allowed the Homais experience to bring up those points. I would have never came up with those direct thoughts...good job lad.
I think you need to distinguish between the type of progress you seem to celebrate (those things which make up better humans, better stewards of the environment, etc.), and Flaubert's vision of progress which, in his view, does little to correct what he sees as fundamental human stupidity.
Still, an interesting post. Thanks!
Post a Comment