Post 1

As I find myself looking at the next four years of higher education, I worry about what paths I’ll take, what acquaintances I’ll make and what things will interest me. Of two things I am certain, however: (1) I want to major in English Literature and (2) I want to major in political science. What then troubles me is how to converge the two interests. For my final high school English essay, I wanted to take on the challenge. I wanted to be able to combine three novels that have stuck out in my mind as statements on constructs of authority and my own perceptions of government in modern day. And for that reason I’ve found myself asking the “big question” regarding the pendulum of—on a grand scale authority—but for the purpose of the essay, governments. Now, this question remained unasked in my mind until reading in Koestler’s novel, Darkness at Noon, he made the comment that “there is a constant pendulum swinging from absolutism to democracy”. And while I am not trying to simply copy his thoughts, I do think that that observation is largely accurate. I have very much enjoyed the government focused novels I’ve been able to read this semester and have found evidence to answer the questions in texts like Cold Mountain, the tale of a man caught between two fighting sides of the Civil War, and Crime and Punishment, that seems to reflect a government in a different stage of the pendulum than in Cold Mountain. And while I’m not arguing that Dostoevsky or ­­­­Frazier wrote their novels to answer such a question, the three novels together do do a grand job of showing that swinging pendulum.
As an avid news follower, I’ve also enjoyed watching the progression of our government even from the time of President Obama’s election. Have we not seen a significant swing towards socialism? And for that reason I then began to question more about the pendulum: must a government swing through specific stages in a specific order or do governments shift between different styles of authority? Either way, I do believe that looking back at Washington’s nation to Obama’s, there’s been a swing in that pendulum. I suppose we’re fortunate to be at one of the poles Koestler identifies as democracy. But, as we see greater and greater tendencies towards socialist programs, are we also seeing a government head stylizing policy that is rather authoritative? Do we fall to an authoritarian state? What are the stages in between—communism? Socialism?
Stories-

Will the REAL "big question" please stand up?

Here it is-the final big question, revised, altered and improved:

Is there a constant pendulum in history swinging from absolutism to democracy?

This is a question Arthur Koestler poses in his novel Darkness at Noon. I was intrigued by his observation and hope to analyze those in between stages on the pendelum in novels like Cold Mountain and Crime and Punishment.