THE POWER OF THE DISABLED: FLANNERY O'CONNOR’S “THE LAME SHALL ENTER FIRST”

Flannery O'Connor’s (1925-1964) "The Lame Shall Enter First" (1962) deals with three characters: Sheppard, a widower, his son Norton, a ten years old boy and Rufus, a miscreant teenager, whom Norton dislikes. Rufus has a clubfoot, is very intelligent and fond of violence. Sheppard is a philanthropist and likes to help Rufus inviting him to live with them, contrary to Norton’s wishes. In fact, Rufus despises Sheppard, resists help and is aware of his own evil nature. He makes Sheppard embarrassed and causes Norton’s death deliberately, leaving both of them as victims. O’Connor in this context, de/reconstructs the prejudice against the disabled people; in the American South the disabled are regarded as evil characters. On the other hand, although it is generally accepted that the disabled people are good, she shows them as ordinary people having both good and wicked sides. Moreover, they may refuse help and prove personality despite the fact that non-disabled people are inclined or regard it duty to help them. She problematizes the disabled body as ‘the other/marginalized’ being pitiful and pitied. Thus, it becomes clear that O’Connor acknowledges the disabled people as normal as the non-disabled, or powerful, not physically but spiritually and intellectually. The tenets of ‘Disability Studies’ are insightful to discuss the work. Keywords: Flannery O'Connor, "The Lame Shall Enter First", “Disability Studies”, American South

Destroyer of the Law II

This chapter shows how Christ destroyed the Law from Marcion’s (reconstructed) gospel (the Evangelion). After discussing the Marcionite reading of Luke 23:2 (Jewish leaders accuse Jesus of “destroying the Law”), the discussion focuses on Christ’s concrete violations of the Law. First, Jesus touched lepers in violation of the Law and healed them apart from the Law’s purification rites. Further, he allowed himself to be touched by an unclean woman but did not consider himself to be unclean. Moreover, he controverted the Law to honor parents by requiring a would-be disciple not to bury his father, and in general by requiring his disciples to abandon their families. Christ stated that the Law lasted until John the Baptist (Luke 16:16), indicating its abolition. Finally, Christ violated Sabbath laws numerous times, even claiming to be lord of—or over—the Sabbath. This Jesus who attacked the Law then died by the Law’s penalties. This was proof not only that Christ opposed the Law but that the Law was hostile to Christ. Yet the Law was only the instrument of the Lawgiver who plotted Christ’s death and so proved his evil nature.

Kant on Radical Evil: A Pragmatic Reading

One of the primary concerns of Immanuel Kant in his major works on philosophy of religion is the doctrine of radical evil. He was greatly perplexed by the conundrums of this doctrine. Although Kant claimed it to be a universal trait, he failed to give a formal proof (evidence) supporting it. However, he asserted that the conducts of human beings are enough to demonstrate the nature of radical evil. The complexity of the doctrine is further fuelled by introducing the idea of the need of divine intervention for one to overcome such moral-religious predicament. Critical responses from both Christian and secular scholars reflect interesting take on his ethico-religious discourse. One of the prominent criticisms to Kant’s doctrine of radical evil is its relapse to religious absurdity reflecting the Christian doctrine of the ‘fall of mankind’ as narrated in the first book of the Bible. Consequently, the seriousness of the criticism not only affects the moral maxims but also the portrayal of its strong religious affinity, rendering the doctrine even more allusive and perplexing. The article intends to throw some light on the pragmatic perspective of the doctrine with special focus on the universality of the radical evil nature of human.

The Role of Police Investigators in Treating Criminal Actions of Corruption

To further ensure the implementation of a corruption-free government, Law Number 31 of 1999 concerning Eradication of Corruption Crimes, as amended by Law Number 20 of 2001 concerning Eradication of Corruption Crimes, is in lieu of Law Number 3 of 1971. The birth of the law -this law is expected to accelerate the growth of people's welfare, with a countermeasure against the evil nature inherent in corruption. The author uses an empirical juridical approach, which is an approach that is carried out by studying the law in fact in the form of attitudes, judgments, behaviors, which are related to the problems being studied and which are carried out by conducting research in the field. Based on the results of the research, it can be concluded that the investigation activity is a follow-up to the investigation which has more or less found the construction of criminal corruption incidents that have occurred. Constraints faced with the authority of police investigators are the limited number of Criminal Investigators; information received regarding criminal acts of corruption is still unclear and in detail; operational costs that have not met; lack of public legal awareness. Efforts to overcome the obstacles faced include gradually increasing the number of criminal investigators; accelerate all access so that information related to criminal acts of corruption is quickly absorbed by police investigators; the government needs to increase the budget post for operational costs, in order to facilitate the running of investigative activities; and the need to provide outreach to the public either directly or through electronic media or social media. Keywords: Investigators, Crime, Corruption

Evil in Human Nature and its Reflections in Society: With Reference to 'Lord of the Flies' by Golding

The study investigates the fact that man is evil by nature and this evil surfaces itself when it finds favorable circumstances. These favorable circumstances make themselves available in the removal of societal rules and parental control. Golding connects the evil nature of man to the Original Sin, when Adam did something sinful by violating the command of God in the Garden of Eden. When the boys feel that they are free from parental control and there is no check of the teachers, they start to violate rules on the Island and even go to the extent of killing each other and there is a reversion to barbarism. In the beginning, the boys behave rationally as they have recently been coming from a civilized society but with the time they regress to savagery and barbarism, they feel themselves above the law free from societal disciplines. The study is significantly significant in the sense that it familiarizes the readers with the psyche of human beings who will, consequently, be conscious of their actions. The methodology used for the article is qualitative. The framework used for the paper is thematic. The paper finds out that human being is evil by nature as a result of which there is mischief and evil deeds in society performed by man.

Socio-Psychological Alienation in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “Young Goodman Brown”

This paper investigates socio-psychological alienation in Hawthorne’s story “Young Goodman Brown”. It focuses on Brown’s psychological motivations that lead him to leave his village, Salem, on a journey to be taken literally and allegorically along with the inner conflicts thereof. Eventually, the result is a short-lived schism in his psyche. In fact, what urges Brown to step farther into the dark wood is an insistence to discover the whole truth so as to put an end to any vacillation between threatening possibilities suggested by the devil about the Puritan society to which he belongs. Thus, Brown turns into a rejectionist of all the teachings of his Puritan culture. In the end not only does he liberate himself from these cultural shackles, but he also seems to rise above them. So, while he lives among his countrymen he is not one of them. Brown’s new psychological state never allows him to accept the evil nature and the hypocrisy of his ancestry. Moreover, the psychological confusion in Brown’s psyche reaches its peak in a state of depression that we notice at the end of the story, which eventually puts him among those who have come to be called the “dark” romantics of the period, along with Poe, Melville, and Dickinson.

WANG CHONG'S FATALISM

Although Wang Chong has often been categorized as a kind of fatalist, many scholars maintain that his fatalism does not include one's moral autonomy, as he argues that one's inborn moral tendencies can be changed through education. He even acknowledges that a person can live a different life from what one's ming must have dictated. But in this article, I show that even when Wang seems to claim that personal effort is important in life, he soon claims that even the abilities to make efforts or to strive to be a better person are more or less decided at birth. And even when he claims that people born with evil nature can be guided to goodness, nowhere does he suggest that to be good or evil is a matter of our choice. And if there is an occasion where one does not live up to what one's ming has predetermined, it is only because there was another ming, one that is more powerful than that of an individual, that interfered with the realization of one's original ming, not because that one's original ming has changed. In the end, I argue that even though Wang Chong may not be a fatalist in its fullest sense, since fatalism means that every event is necessitated, he comes very close to being one, as he sees that in so many instances of our lives, we are not free to act in any other way than in the way that ming has prearranged.

The Father of the Devil (John 8:44)

This article argues that John 8:44 helped to inspire the early Christian view that the creator was an evil being. John 8:44 has at least four possible readings allowed by grammar. In two of these readings, taken by a variety of early Christian groups (including early catholics), there is indication that the devil has a father. Since the desires of this father are known from the parallel desires of his children, some early Christians inferred the hostility of the devil’s father toward Christ, and thus his evil nature.

The Question of Humanism: A Radical Humanist Reading of The Select Novels of Cormac McCarthy

Cormac McCarthy has often been hailed as a writer’s writer. His writings are difficult to classify as they evoke a complex perspective. A recurring problem in his novels is the ambiguous nature of virtue and violence. It is my aim to look into their dynamics in the context of radical humanism. It will shed light on human nature as presented by McCarthy, with its aspects of virtue and violence. In a world increasingly suffering from violence, where individuals strive for freedom it is important to address the question of radical humanism and its interaction with primal human nature, virtue and violence. A common thread is represented by various questions regarding human nature, free will, pure evil, nature of God, level of morality, language and meaning. The characters have little or no capacity of mind or consciousness and their encounter with the world is not mediated by laws of morality, politics or religion. In other words, the world we are facing “is void of moral meaning”, it is a world that gravitates around a nihilistic core, a “morally nihilistic world.”