Dan Brown’s ‘Inferno’ raises ethical questions

Dan Brown’s ‘Inferno’ raises ethical questions, reminds us to appreciate the humanities

June 14, 2013

Would you be willing to destroy half of humanity in order to save the human species from going extinct? Would it be acceptable to involuntarily sterilize people in an effort to prevent overpopulation? Those are the central questions of Dan Brown’s new novel, “Inferno.”

Brown’s novel is fun summer reading that poses troubling ethical questions. It is also a reminder of the value of the humanities. The villains in Brown’s novels are zealots. In “The Da Vinci Code” the bad guys were religious fanatics. In this novel, the villains are mad scientists. The hero is a tweedy humanities professor who loves art and poetry.

While “Inferno” isn’t great literature, it inspires appreciation for art, poetry, philosophy and history. It celebrates the skills learned in the humanities: to learn to read carefully, to think broadly and deeply and to understand the symbols and cultural artifacts that surround us.

Brown’s villains are coldly inhumane: They think population control can be justified by simple mathematics. There are too many people, so something must be done. This idea is rooted in Machiavelli, the Renaissance theorist who warned that teeming population would inevitably be purged. Terrorists are often Machiavellian in thinking that the end justifies the means. Machiavellian idealists treat human beings as things to be manipulated and quantities to be calculated rather than as persons to be valued and loved.

Study in the humanities teaches us to be wary of Machiavellian schemes. Philosophers have long warned that nothing straight can be constructed from the crooked timber of humanity. We are not wise enough or virtuous enough to engineer reality or impose final solutions.

The humanities remind us that uncritical certainty is linked to hubris. Human beings achieve moments of profound insight and sparkling beauty. But these moments do not last forever. Indeed, they are often undone by the zealots and idealists who insist that they know how to save humankind from itself.

Brown’s novel is set in Italy. It celebrates the art of the Renaissance. Great art reminds us of the power of human genius. But history warns us against taking ourselves too seriously. Before the Renaissance, the Greeks and Romans also created luminous works of genius. The cycles repeat. Saviors come and go. Civilizations rise and fall. Each generation is plagued by its own narcissism, thinking that its creative genius is unique and unprecedented.

But historical awareness should make us wary of that sort of narcissism. A sense of history should make us modest in assessing the value of our own ideals. It should also inspire skepticism toward those who propound simple technological solutions to complex human problems.

So what can we do about the population problem? A solution requires something more than science and technology. Purely technical solutions — such as forced sterilization — would work on a population of rodents or insects. But human beings are not pests to be controlled. We inhabit a world of spirit and ideas. We hope, we dream; and we create art, literature and philosophy. We also love.

Brown’s “Inferno” borrows its title from Dante Alighieri’s famous poem about hell. Dante was a romantic whose poetry was inspired by Beatrice, a beautiful woman he loved from afar. Dante recounts that his love for Beatrice kindled a flame of charity that moved him to forgive everyone, including his enemies. Love transforms us, making us ethical and inspiring work of creative genius.

The population problem is driven by sex. Machiavellian technologists may argue that sex should be subjected to mathematical control. But the humane solution is to find a way to transform sex into love — to broaden and sublimate the sex drive in ways made possible by art, literature, religion and philosophy.

People need to be educated and empowered to control their own bodies and reproductive lives. But we also need to be reminded that there is more to life than mating and reproducing.

Technology without humanity can easily become heartless. The study of the humanities cures that sort of spiritual sterility. And it reminds us to beware of zealots offering quick fixes for deeply human problems. The humanities won’t save the world. But they remind us about those works of love, genius and beauty that make humankind worth saving.

True Love Overpowers Cynicism, Marketing

Ethics: True love overpowers cynicism, marketing

By Andrew Fiala

Thursday, Feb. 14, 2013 | 11:10 AM

Valentine’s Day celebrates the defiant, unruly and awe-inspiring power of love. Love is emotional, unstable and fleeting. But it offers hope, inspiration and a taste of eternity.

When we fall in love, we are overcome by desire for the beloved. We crave the other’s presence and feel incomplete without them. We will break rules and resist authority to be with the beloved. That’s the story of Romeo and Juliet: defiant teenage lovers who cannot stand to live apart.

The legend of Saint Valentine is also connected with the rebellious affirmation of love. Valentine supposedly married Christians in defiance of Roman law. This led to his martyrdom. Love arouses courageous resistance to authority and sacrificial deeds.

Philosophers have long noted the power of love. Plato suggested that love stimulates virtue. Love inspires us to become better, so that we are more deserving of the beautiful presence of the beloved. And Plato hinted that love and beauty were eternal goods.

Kant explained that beauty is a symbol of morality. When we love a beautiful object, we celebrate its inherent worth. True love is for the sake of the beloved. The Romantics extolled the experience of beauty and the spiritual power of love. Emerson explained “all mankind loves a lover.” We love to see people in love. The smiles and glances of those who have fallen in love are hints of joy and magic.

Love is enchanting and beauty is bewitching. Advertisers know this. They use love and beauty to sell us products, filling our screens with enticing appearances and images of lovers. Too much of a focus on beautiful appearances is a problem. It can lead us to see persons as objects. Facebook “friends,” pornography, video games and the icons of popular culture are pixels without personality. Such images are disposable and exchangeable. We use them, discard them, and move on to the next.

There is a risk that we will come to see living human persons this way, if we are too focused on beautiful appearances. The risk is that we will move through relationships and interact with people as if they were merely pictures on a screen. Attraction to beautiful images remains skin deep. Love aims deeper, toward the person who abides beneath changing appearances.

Shakespeare indicated this when he suggested that true love lasts beyond the changes of the seasons. In one of his sonnets, he says to his beloved, “thy eternal summer shall not fade.” Love remains devoted to the beauty of the other, the youthful summer day, even as time moves on. Great and beautiful love affairs are hints of eternity. The Shakespearian lover remains enamored of the beloved even as death approaches.

Some may deny that there is such thing as deep and abiding love. Critics will claim that attraction and appetite rule the day, that love is a flowery façade concealing primal desires. The critic will dismiss love with a cynical wink and a salacious snicker.

The cynic is right that love remains an ideal. It is obvious that we are seduced by appetite and appearance. But ethical love corrects the wandering eye and the hungry heart out of devotion to the beloved. If there is no such thing as true and eternal love, the lover claims that there ought to be.

Our culture celebrates the dazzling heat of young, impetuous lovers. But this ignores the fact that young love dies, as Romeo and Juliet did. Would Romeo still love Juliet as her beauty faded and her hair turned grey? Would Juliet love a pudgy, balding Romeo?

Lasting love requires commitment and care for the concrete reality of an actual person over time. Genuine love happens when you love the other person despite their changing appearance, through hardship, illness and despair. It happens when we see the summer day even in the gloom of February.

It is not always easy to see the beauty in the other. Some days it is quite hard to love ourselves, and even harder to love anyone else. But true lovers look for the ideal, defying the changing appearances and the ravages of time. They keep looking for the summer day. Nothing lasts forever. But true love comes close.

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