Today, I went to go see Dr. Cathleen
Kaveny’s lecture, Prophecy, Civility,
& Truth. This lecture was very interesting and discussed both modern
day prophets and prophets from biblical times. Even though the lecture had many
themes and covered many topics, the biggest thing that I took out of what Dr.
Kaveny was saying is that while prophets aim to help cure a problem, they also
risk being detrimental to society. This idea that Dr. Kaveny discussed about
prophets was interesting and definitely showed striking similarities to Aylmer
in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Birthmark.
In The
Birthmark, Aylmer is so concerned with getting rid of the birthmark on his
wife’s cheek that he puts her life on the line and in the end, kills her. This
is crazy to think about because a birthmark, in the long run, is absolutely not
worth risking one’s life for. At the same time, however, this story and how
Aylmer felt about this birthmark can be directly compared to what Dr. Kaveny
had said about prophets. In her lecture, Dr. Kaveny explained that prophets act
like chemotherapy. She explained that they aim to correct an issue in society,
but can be intense and dangerous. When a patient goes through chemotherapy, he
or she will suffer from some intense side effects and, in some cases, the
patient may even die. Dr. Kaveny said this is what a prophet is like because
even though a prophet aims to fix a problem, they will not always be able to
fix that problem and will often end up being harmful to the people of the
community. When looking at a prophet from this perspective, it can be said that
Alymer is just like a prophet. He, like any prophet, aims to correct a problem
and takes extreme measures in order to do so. In the end, although he does fix
the problem that he aimed to fix, his measures are so extreme that he ended up
killing his own wife.
Another story that could be related to
Dr. Kaveny’s lecture is Perkins Gilman’s The
Yellow Wallpaper. In this story, the narrator is suffering
from a disease and so her husband, who is also her doctor, must take care of
her. Throughout the story, her husband does many things that make the reader
question whether or not he is being civil. The question of civility is brought
up in Dr. Kaveny’s lecture, specifically with her juxtaposition of prophetic
rhetoric and the Just War Theory. Dr. Kaveny explained that, overall, a prophet
can be deemed civil or uncivil by looking at the Just War Theory. The Just War
Theory is a religious theory that can be used to determine whether or not it
would be ethical to go to war. According to this theory, it would be ethical as
long as there is a just cause, competent authority, competitive justice, right
intention, it is the last resort, there is a probability of success, and there
is proportionality. Dr. Kaveny said that this same criteria can be applied to
what a prophet is saying and doing to determine if he or she is in fact being
civil. Being that Dr. Kaveny felt that the Just War Theory could be applied to
both biblical and modern day prophets, it is not unreasonable to say that,
likewise, the theory could be applied to John’s actions in The Yellow Wallpaper.
Dr. Cathleen Kaveny’s lecture was very
interesting and brought up many valid points. Many excellent analogies were
made in the lecture like how prophets are like radicals and how prophetic
rhetoric is like chemotherapy. Dr. Kaveny also tied in the Just War Theory and
today’s government. In many ways, it can be said that the lecture resembled a
few different literary works and had many of the same themes. Two of these
works are Hawthorne’s The Birthmark
and Gilman’s The Yellow Wallpaper.
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