War, Liberty, and the Whole Damn Thing

I will be the first to admit that I am a fan of all of the nerdy fantasy novels that give nerds their reputation. I don't spend my time playing Dungeons and Dragons, but a sit down with a novel involving swords and magic is just my cup of tea. Lately I've been reading this story called Faith of the Fallen by Terry Goodkind. The book hits a lot of interesting themes about reasoned thought, self-interest, capitalism, and social justice, all wrapped up in a fantasy world that makes things interesting. The main conflict is between two different factions: the oppressive Imperial Order and the freedom-fighting D'Haran Empire. The former proposes that Man is inherently bad and that self-sacrifice to a "greater good" is the only way to salvation and that anyone who expresses thought on self-enterprise is branded a selfish sinner and publicly executed. The latter, in opposition to these ideals, tries to bring down the Imperial Order in the name of social justice.

The reason that I find this conflict so interesting is that, if you consider the perspective of a person living on either side, they are fighting to preserve their way of life against a dogma that they think to be evil or unjust. This isn't fictional, this is how it is in every war. Our recent "War on Terror" is a perfect example of this. So logically, because of a difference in ideology, opinions on war are largely subjective.

Derrida gives us an interesting look into this sort of situation. He proposes the idea of the "center." That there is something about X that is at once the core, yet something completely separate. He points out that describing something, really describing it is not really possible. The closest that we can get is with metaphor and metonymy. So how does this relate to my nerdy novel? Here we have two opposing factions, who are both asserting their moral superiority to justify their war. But what the hell is morality? Apart from it being something filled with cultural bias, what is it, really? Try to thing of what morality means, what it is at it's "center." You can think of examples, you can give a beat-around-the-bush generalizations, but you can't really come up with anything concrete, and certainly not anything that is universal. I would be surprised if you could come with with a universal definition for morality that would be agreed upon by everyone in the world.

Let's try another idea. Liberty. What does it mean? As an American, my first instinct is that which has been indoctrinated into me: that I am a free person. I can go where I want, do what I want, and say what I want, all within some societal limits. But is that what Liberty is? For me, perhaps, but that my definition certainly isn't universal, and could not really be said to be the core definition of what the word really entails.

Apart from the lame joke I tried for in the title, we can make this a broader reference by trying to analyze the "Whole Damn Thing" i.e. everything else. While war and liberty might be great examples for this indescribable "center," Derrida points out that we really can't describe anything with any degree of fundamental reality. But I will admit that I don't really like the idea. The whole  "there is this center that is the foundation for something but its not really there, its somewhere else" thing bothers me. So I go back to my fantasy novel. I have this whole world that is made up and follows its own rules and reality. I question why I enjoy reading this geeky stuff. Then it hits me. In this novel, in any story, and even in real life, it doesn't matter if you can describe something at it's core. While Derrida and Lacan point out the problem, for me, it stays on a philosophical level. When I read about the atrocities of the Imperial Order in this book, I don't care about what morality is at a fundamental level. I care simply that it is in conflict with my sense of morality. No ideology will ever be universal, and so why not embrace our subjectivity to do or think what we believe to be the "reality" of something, even if its inexplicable?