Sharon's Wednesday Post

          In Chp. 7, the narrator takes on a condescending tone in outlining his argument that men will never learn to be better or change their bad habits. In a way, he mocks this idea by claiming it’s only a ‘dream’ for humans to improve and that reason doesn’t exist –if it did, then there would not be so much war. From his references to history, such as figures like Cleopatra and Napoleon, I do understand he is intelligent and learned, yet he continually contradicts himself in the argument. In addition, he seems to view history and humans as hypocritical in the sense that we claim to hate violence, yet indirectly promote it –they are all just examples to demonstrate how reason and science are not as in tune with human nature as we think, and that the laws of nature are only false excuses. They are a way for humans to accept what they did as normal, instead of forcing them to question the reason behind it. While I do agree with the narrator in the sense that man is not expected to always act reasonably or predictably like an equation in accordance with all other ‘advantages’, I don’t feel that man is as ruthless or cold as he seems to imply. It does make me think, however, about why we do the actions that are seemingly against everything that makes sense, and why we repeat them even when we know the consequences; I am starting to fully understand how free will comes into play with the validation argument.