Candide in Six Words

Candide:

Doomed though happy, worked to satisfaction. 

Pangloss:

Uselessly enlightened, was blind to reality.

Cacambo: 

Though moral, victim of humanity's faith. 

Cunégonde: 

Infatuated throughout life, ended doing nothing. 

Martin:

Couldn't really see behind solid pessimism. 

Old woman:

Pushed to death, managed to survive.

Humans are Perfect

At the end of chapter XXI, Candide asks Martin whether he thinks that humans have always fought each other. Martin replies with a question, asking him if hawks have always eaten pigeon, to which Candide answers that they have. Martin says that as hawks haven't changed, neither have humans. Finally Candide responds that the difference is that humans have "Free Will."

I can't say that I completely agree with what Martin said, as humanity has somewhat improved, but I did find Candide's reaction, a very human reaction. People for some reason always tend to believe that the human race is absolutely superior to any other, which quite frankly really bothers me. In terms of dominance, survival, intelligence, or the way we relate to each other humans are certainly superior than other animals, but that doesn't mean we're not animals or that other animals are bad. In a previous blog post I gave my opinion on bull fighting, and I don't mean to sound very insisting but animal cruelty and unfairness towards them is unacceptable.

I'll be brief with this, so to start off, during the last years an increasing number of scientific studies have shown that animals do have feelings, inter-specie relationships, etc (all those obvious things). Animals are not able to make advanced technology, communicate in a very elaborate way, but that doesn't mean people should underestimate them and feel worthier than them. As an owner of four dogs, I can tell for sure that they have personalities, relationships between them, an authority, a family-like structure and understand how humans feel about them. Treating animals badly affects them, even though they can't express them in human words. I don't like humans that are in love with their genetics and feel that evolution gives them perks. People who treat animals badly are highly likely to also be violent with humans. Again, I don't want to sound insistent, or a radical like PETA, but unless people want to be statistically related to criminals, they shouldn't be mean with animals. 

Some links you should check out: 

http://www.humanesociety.org/issues/abuse_neglect/qa/cruelty_violence_connection_faq.html

http://icb.oxfordjournals.org/content/40/6/883.full  (notice how they refer to "non-human animals")

El Dorado: Quechua for Utopia?

When Spanish explorers arrived to South America they soon heard about the legend of El Dorado. Their ambition made them imagine a city made out of gold and jewels, where their wildest dreams would come true from all the money they would get. Many made expeditions to look for the legendary city but, whether in Ecuador, Colombia, or Guyana, were always unsuccessful. Nowadays some people relate it to the tribal ceremonies that took place in Guatavita, where an indigenous chief was covered in gold dust as people threw golden objects into a lake. It is evident that the golden city does not exist, so as I read Candide, that made me question the significance this legend has. Colonizers probably exaggerated the whole story, but the Indians probably did have a myth with this utopian city were everything is perfect.

As seen in the case of El Dorado, societies create their own imaginary paradise. Whether it was in the Old World or the New World, human nature made people create one. People in India created Nirvana, Catholics had Heaven and Indigenous tribes had each their equivalent. This probably happens because people, no matter where, need to look after something, or a reason to be optimistic.


So coming back to Candide, in class we discussed whether the world was just or not, and what Voltaire would've said about that. At first I thought the world was fair if made it that way, but as I've thought further into it, I understand what that question truly mean, and that the world is unfair. The world isn't either completely unfair or fair, but it is more likely for bad things to happen than to be happy and succeed. For example, it is easier to harm someone than to help them. Like the indigenous and many other societies, people are hopelessly optimist, a perfect target for satire. Voltaire mocks how people, as social conflicts were worse than ever, were busy philosophizing, taking about "cause and effect" and still believing in their imaginary wonderlands. Explorers were optimistic about finding tons of gold, indigenous people looked forward to their afterlives, influenced by myths, as Candide, or optimism as its title says, was cheerful about living his miseries,



Note that in the present Colombian society El Dorado is not longer a utopia.

Early Deceptive Marketing

America was with no doubt the land of opportunity. The New World was where Europeans could flee crowded and impoverished cities for unexplored lands, jobs and what they thought would be success. Voltaire's Candide shows how people in Europe saw America as a way of running away from their mistakes or miseries in Europe. Pangloss earlier in the book explains that although he had been infected with syphilis, an American disease, he didn't think it was bad because the fact that colonizers had gone to America and gotten syphilis introduced Europeans with the wonders of the colonies. Voltaire most likely was mocking his illogical reasoning and that people in Europe were tricked into believing that America was great. Later on the book, Candide, Cunégonde and the old woman decided to escape from Portugal to Argentina as they had killed the Issachar and the Great Inquisitor. They not only failed to run away, as the Portuguese authorities caught up with them, but Candide ended up in a worse situation. As a fugitive again, Candide ran away from Buenos Aires to join rebels in Paraguay, and ended up killing Cunégonde's brother. Candide is clearly very unfortunate, but he represents the typical case of a European seeking a better life in the Americas and failing. Through Voltaire's satire I concluded that America, instead of a land with the best of Europe, for many wad a land with the worst of Europe. In Candide case, the wars continue, they couldn't escape their crimes (which is actually good), Cunégonde gets taken away from Candide, and her family's disapproval towards him get worse. Although many of the immigrants to the Americas eventually ended up in a good situation, most of them were victims of what people nowadays would call deceptive marketing.

People believed that the New World was a better world, and were wrong, because of many reasons, but one of them, probably one of the most important ones was the first impression they got of it. The Spanish were smart enough to name their colonies in a way that people back Spain would want to go to America. By having more people in their colonies they could further colonize them, by being able to protect their lands and have more power on the region. Places like Rio de la Plata, Puerto Plata, Puerto Rico, Buenos Aires, among many others were clearly a way colonizers tricked the Old World into falling for the idea of a land of opportunity. I guess immigrants imagined Buenos Aires as an inspiring city, inside the viceroyalty of Rio de la Plata, where they could grow rich with silver. Others were simply mesmerized by the idea of a rich island. Other places were named after cities or regions in the Old World. Immigrants thought they were going to a better version of their homelands, like New Spain or New Granada. Instead that found themselves in undeveloped, feudal, violent and isolated jungles.

How they thought live would be:

How it actually was:

Describing the savage circumstances in which executions were into entertainment, and how they shall stop existing

Everyone seems to be debating about the status of bullfighting, and while reading Candide I thought of it, so I might as well just say my opinion. The Romans had fun watching gladiators fight each other or in some cases with animals. Even though it started as a way to humiliate prisoners while the elite had fun, it became an opportunity for these prisoners to move up the social ladder, if they survived. Romans built coliseums all over their territory where, though they had a fancy structure, saw people kill each other in the most sanguinary and savage way. They even brought up exotic animals from their colonies, like elephants, lions, tigers or rhinoceros. The demand for these colossal and imposing grew so much that animals like the European lion became luckily extinct, or near to be in other cases. The Roman Empire ended and its culture dissolved into into its territories as each became its own nation.

Gladiator fighting a tiger in a coliseum

While man-to-man gladiators stopped existing, the culture of watching people or animals die and suffer remains up to the present. Candide and Lady Cunégonde end up living in Portugal while the Inquisition was still strong. They witnessed the death of their friend and teacher Pangloss in an auto-da-fé. The story of how that happened is told in the perspectives of both, Candide and Cunégonde. On one side, Candide saw how innocent people were captured by the Portuguese authorities for the sake of having a killing. He was wounded but Pangloss was killed. On the other side, Cunégonde was invited to an honoring seat at the execution where she could enjoy of refreshments. Anyway, when she realized that Pangloss was being killed, everything changed and she felt horrible. The Spanish and Portuguese Inquisitions were the outcome of a lot of things going on at that time, but what opened up the opportunity for it to happen was the savage foundations of these cultures.

People observing an auto-da-fé in a town's plaza

In an auto-da-fé heretics were burned usually in the town's plaza as everyone watched and enjoyed. Prisoners sometimes held symbols on their clothes to represent the crimes that had committed. People who went to the ceremony had a feast where they celebrated their Catholicism and culture. Thankfully this doesn't happen anymore but bullfighting does. Although these two things are almost incomparable as one includes religious and political persecution to humans while the other only includes bulls, but they do have similar customs and past. Bullfighting has a similar ceremony to that of a gladiator or an auto-da-fé. People gather around a plaza-like structure where they celebrate, socialize and enjoy a passion. The Roman elite yelled with emotion and what they said could influence what the gladiators did. In bullfighting people can ask the bullfighter to let the bull live in a similar way. People defend bullfighting saying that it is an art, a passion, part of their culture. That sounds to me similar to the acts of faith or auto-da-fé of the Inquisitions, where people went to honor their religion and preserve their culture, as the heretics were damaging it. Bullfighting has an overbearing tradition of procedures and symbols or whatever, as did the Spanish Inquisition.

A man fighting an animal in a plaza. Sounds similar? 

Recently the new mayor of Bogota, Gustavo Petro, threatened to make bullfighting illegal. I don't sympathize with many of his ideas, but I do with this one. He won't probably carry out his idea, as since he became mayor all he's done is to threaten to do unconventional things in order to raise attention and, in the biased way I see it, to cause social instability to make him raise in politics as a populist. Bullfighting fanatics come up with a lot of arguments, but all I think is that since the Spanish Inquisition or gladiators were cruel and simply bad, they shouldn't have any heritage. We shouldn't celebrate the killing of an animal, even if that creates an industry and the existence of the animal. Bulls are better off unborn than killed for the sake of entertainment. I don't mean to be offensive but the pro-bullfighting arguments have logic as good as the Inquisition had, where they though killing people would prevent an earthquake, like in Pangloss' case.

Your argument is invalid.

Things Happen Because of Reasons

Voltaire's Candide targets mostly the way of living during the Enlightenment, such as feudalism and the illogical wars, but many of its critiques can be seen in the present world. Pangloss, for example, is portrayed as a great philosopher, but his ideas have no corroboration. Voltaire mocks his "metaphysico-theologo-cosmolo-nigology” as he says all things have been made for a purpose, such as legs, stones, pigs, among others. The philosopher even thinks that it was worth getting infected with syphilis because if it wasn't for Europeans to have gone to America and getting syphilis, they wouldn't have chocolate. He also says that an earthquake not only happens because of the sulphur but also that it is for the best. Other illogical things happen in the book, like accusations to make a war and religious agitations. People laugh while reading this, so Voltaire is a great satirist.
Maybe we think that these are stupid things that don't happen anymore, but these problems still exist and we're not laughing about it. Voltaire covers these problems with satire but in real life you don't get news edited into making people realize how illogical some conflicts are. People get discriminated because of their religion, religion causes people to attack others. People are accused as traitors in wars and required to fight. There's a lot of people who might not be philosophers like Pangloss but they have irrational ideas, like racism, homophobia, or xenophobia. The image below says, "observe that noses were made to wear spectacles," well now, observe that some people are simple inferior because they are. Life would be much more interesting if we satirized it all the time for it to look like Voltaire showed it, as the world has a lot of illogical ideas with a huge potential of satire.