It’s an established fact that life is ridiculous. At one time or another, we all have been privy to such occurrences without prior warning and – often – at the most inconvenient times. Life’s spontaneity might quickly become unbearable to those who beg and plead for stability, while others who don’t have a care in the world might have a more relaxed, “go-with-the-flow” attitude. But you already know this! Why do I have to explain what is painfully obvious? Well, at times, the obvious is ignored or outright forgotten about (look at world politics if you want to make your day), and humans often forget about our propensity to ignore the world.
If you want to make some semblance of the world, take a look at how people innately (or, more often than not, want) to think. Philosophy is the paragon of microcosms as it summarizes the human condition in such unique, varied ways, where what’s “right” is at the behest of the thinker to enforce such “righteousness” through their school of thought. And that’s the thing: people like to care about themselves. But, again, you already knew that.
Yeah, philosophy is self-righteous and imposing and intimidating and outright mean all at the same time, yet when you look at your own life, there’s not much of a difference between the two. It’s how you accept or deny these similarities that changes the course of your life. If one decides to ignore all previous tomes of philosophic and ethical thought, they aren’t going to see life properly or realistically. Philosophy acts as a check to our imaginations and fantasies, reining and hauling them into the real world so as to not become lost within our heads and convince ourselves of things that just aren’t true.
This balance between recognizing truth and falsehood has been the defining characteristic of human thought since we have seen how important finding the truth in the natural world is for our survival. It’s instinctive, something that we use to help us survive in an uncertain world.
As I explained in my last post, we need to recognize this distinction between our connectedness with the world and being lost in our own thoughts since if we lean too much on one side or the other, life gets confusing quite quickly. What is supposed to be accurate, and more importantly, how do we know that to be sure? In fact, why even bother caring about what’s right or wrong when we’re supposed to live our lives? Why am I writing this in the first place? Why are you reading this?
In jest, I also happened to mention that I’m an optimist and like to think about the best possible outcome for things. Well, I argue that that’s “casual” optimism. But I specifically specified that I wasn’t the biggest fan of Leibniz’s optimism. Well, why not? In his Monadology, he posits the following:
“Now as there are an infinity of possible universes in the ideas of God, and but one of them can exist, there must be a sufficient reason for the choice of God which determines him to select one rather than another…namely, that the wisdom of God permits him to know it, his goodness causes him to choose it, and his power enables him to produce it.” (¶ 53 & 55)
In other words, the world we live in is due to the best of all possible circumstances, and because of that, whatever happens in the world—both good and bad—happens for the best of all possible reasons. In other words, this philosophy was just waiting to be picked apart.
Enter François-Marie Arouet (y’know, Voltaire?).
It was (probably) in the middle of his novella-writing career at his château at Ferney that he glanced at Leibniz’s thought processes, reached those aforementioned paragraphs, and riffed on the best of all possible essays within the best of all possible time constraints, of which there exists none. Voltaire had already become known as a sharp-witted, shrewd character within the Salon of Paris, and it was through his most famous work “Candide: Or, The Optimist” that his sharpness cuts deep.
I won’t spend this post simply summarizing the many adventures of Candide (as so many other people do a better job of that as John Green does here), but rather, I’ll spend a short paragraph going over the essential bits (deep breath, everyone):
Candide, the bastard child of Baron Thunder-Ten-Tronckh, falls in love with the Baron’s daughter, Cunégonde, after observing the “experiments” of his mentor, Dr. Pangloss, with a maid-servant Paquette. However, in a moment of intimacy behind a screen, Candide is exiled from the castle and left out in the wilderness. It is here that Candide is found by Bulgarian soldiers – treating him to the follies of war and whips – and escapes with an Anabaptist on their way to Libson via ship, where both a storm and an earthquake strike the city once they arrive. However, by surprise, Candide finds his mentor Pangloss, covered in syphilis sores (I only wonder how) and missing a couple parts. But this reunion does not last long, since “the sages of that country could think of no means more effectual to prevent utter ruin than to give the people a beautiful auto-da-fé.” In short, Pangloss is hanged, but Candide notices someone: Cunégonde, with an old woman! He discovers she was in relations with a merchant Jew, Don Issachar, and the Grand Inquisitor, whom he promptly dispatched. They all fled up to Cadiz but got split up again, Candide leaving with a servant, Cacambo, to South America – specifically to the Jesuit Reductions in Paraguay – where he goes to El Dorado as a sidequest, finds Cunégonde’s brother, Maximilian – who became a Jesuit – and promptly dispatches him. Okay, this is getting pretty long, and I’m already halfway through explaining the book, so Candide went to Suriname, where he met the surly Manichaean Martin, sailed first to France and then to England, only to end up in Venice, where they thought they’d find Cunégonde again, but they’re apparently in Constantinople (for some reason, slavery if I recall), where they eventually all meet – by the way, Pangloss and Maximilian didn’t die by the way. Ultimately, Cunégonde got uglier, Pangloss more annoying, and Candide just wanted to do some gardening. Spoiler alert, by the way.
Right, now if you skipped that, that’s perfectly fine. The rest of the post will begin again shortly.
When I read through Candide’s misadventures, I couldn’t help but notice the importance of one phase more than any other: “sufficient reason.” Leibniz himself uses that phrase, but Candide follows this as doctrine. He sees this phrase as the absolute arbitrator – apart from God – to determine why things happened in the world and for what purpose they were for. Going back to the fight between Candide and the Grand Inquisitor, Candide thinks:
“If this holy man call in assistance, he will surely have me burnt; and Cunégonde will perhaps be served in the same manner; he was the cause of my being cruelly whipped;”
By the way, Candide has been whipped thousands of times at this point. He continues:
“He is my rival; and, as I have now begun to kill, I will kill away, for there is no time to hesitate. This reasoning was clear and instantaneous; so that without giving time to the Inquisitor to recover from his surprise, he pierced him through and through, and cast him beside the Jew.” (IX)
I especially love how Voltaire highlighted how “clear and instantaneous” Candide’s thoughts were. Such a great oxymoron, to be sure. If the reason is sufficient enough, it must be for the best possible reasons!
In (oddly enough) another moment demonstrating Candide’s thinking skills with Cunégonde’s Maximilian, the following happens:
“[At realizing who he was speaking to] The Baron could not refrain from embracing Candide; he called him his brother, his saviour.
‘Ah! perhaps,’ said he, ‘we shall together, my dear Candide, enter the town as conquerors, and recover my sister Cunégonde.’
‘That is all I want,’ said Candide, ‘for I intended to marry her, and I still hope to do so.’
‘You insolent!’ replied the Baron, ‘would you have the impudence to marry my sister who has seventy-two quarterings! I find thou hast the most consummate effrontery to dare to mention so presumptuous a design!’
Candide, petrified at this speech, made answer:
‘Reverend Father, all the quarterings in the world signify nothing; I rescued your sister from the arms of a Jew and of an Inquisitor; she has great obligations to me, she wishes to marry me; Master Pangloss always told me that all men are equal, and certainly I will marry her.’
‘We shall see that, thou scoundrel!’ said the Jesuit Baron de Thunder-ten-Tronckh, and that instant struck him across the face with the flat of his sword. Candide in an instant drew his rapier, and plunged it up to the hilt in the Jesuit’s belly; but in pulling it out reeking hot, he burst into tears.
‘Good God!’ said he, ‘I have killed my old master, my friend, my brother-in-law! I am the best-natured creature in the world, and yet I have already killed three men, and of these three two were priests.’” (XV)
Ironically, it is through the one doctrine that Candide – the “best-natured creature” – has decided to hold dear to his heart that he suddenly has the capacity to take three people’s lives (well, technically two because of what transpires in parts XXVII and specifically XXVIII).
This proves to be the crux of Voltaire’s argument; the sufficient reason espoused by Leibniz’s optimism is just too vague, and it can be used in basically any situation if you think and convince yourself hard enough. It’s because of being in the best of all possible worlds and coming up with the best of all possible reasons to respond to the best of all possible situations (right, I’m not saying “best of all possible worlds” for the rest of this) that morality has already been long gone. In fact, morality is wholly disregarded in the pursuit of pure reason. Voltaire, being the passionate satirist he’s now forever known for, just couldn’t stand for this. And, as he argues through Candide’s lampooning adventures, we shouldn’t, too.
Voltaire purposefully makes Leibniz’s ideas so preposterous in the most dire of situations that the reader quickly becomes convinced of the primary faults of Monadism. Candide even admits how such logic isn’t always correct (!) when speaking to an elder while in South America:
“Had our friend Pangloss seen El Dorado he would no longer have said that the castle of Thunder-ten-Tronckh was the finest upon earth. It is evident that one must travel.” (XVIII)
To be honest, it is exceedingly easy to fall into the same pitfalls Candide underwent and convince ourselves of things we wouldn’t even fathom believing before we got hooked on it. Humans desire a stable world and to know why things are the way they are, despite our ignorance of things we don’t know about. Reason is a good thing! It’s just how one uses that reason that makes a difference!
I think I need some pistachios. Maybe some baklava… ❧
