May the Capitol Be Ever in Your Favor

Ethical and Political Philosophy in The Hunger Games

By: Patrick T. Adams

I was 16 years old the first time I picked up a dystopian thriller: George Orwell’s haunting vision of a zero-privacy future, 1984. It was unlike anything I had read previously because its content struck me as something that was possible and to some degree already realized, especially since the Patriot Act had recently been signed into law. At the time, my hormonal teenage mind was easily overcome with paranoia that the government was keeping tabs on me, as if my school cafeteria fart jokes and awkward flirtation with girls were enough to pique the interest of U.S. government bigwigs.

Still, teenage melodrama aside, there is some credibility to the genre of dystopian fiction. It brings the abstract concepts of a decaying culture and/or the political state (really, the relationship between the two is reciprocal) to the perceptual level, showing the depravity possible to human beings in the absence of rational values. The genre’s latest popular incarnation is Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger Games, and it is a great example of many philosophical subjects ranging from ethics to politics.

Set in a future North America is the powerful nation of Panem, where its regime, the Capitol, exercises hegemonic dominance over its surrounding districts, 12 in all. As a way of reminding its citizens who is in control, the Capitol annually subjects Panem’s youth to a lottery in which 24 individuals between the ages of 12 and 18 are chosen at random, one male and one female from each district, to compete in the Hunger Games, a brutal gladiator style death match. The Games are broadcasted nationwide, like a violent version of Survivor or American Idol, and watching is mandatory for Panem’s citizens.

When Katniss Everdeen’s younger sister is selected as one of the “tributes” from District 12 to participate in the Games, Katniss volunteers to take her place knowing that her sister is far too weak to survive. As Katniss and the other tributes enter the Hunger Games arena, moral questions begin to surface, especially between Katniss and her fellow District 12 tribute, Peeta, whose romantic affections for Katniss add a further layer of moral complexity.

Since the rules of the game dictate that there be only one winner – or more aptly put, one survivor – the tributes face a contrived (this is important) moral dichotomy between pragmatism (dispense with ethics in favor of what “works”) and death. Some of the stronger district tributes, called the “Careers”, have no problem with taking the pragmatic route, ruthlessly slaughtering the other tributes, and even seem to sadistically relish in doing so. As for the other tributes, some choose to be evasive and non-confrontational, hiding in the woods hoping to simply outlast the others, while Katniss tries to remain resourceful and tactical in her survival.

However, there is a much deeper and more pivotal ethical issue involved with the Games, and that is the principle of the initiation of force (i.e. attempting to gain a value by using physical force or fraudulent means rather than productive or honest means). While the specifics are unclear, the reader can infer that the districts’ widespread economic indigence and social depravity is caused by the Capitol’s brand of rule. What is clear is that the economy is centrally planned, where each of the 12 districts is designated for a particular economic activity. For example, District 12 is coal mining and District 11 is agriculture. Since the means of production seem to be owned by the Capitol, this would suggest some variation of socialism, although it doesn’t appear there is a complete abolition of private ownership.

Such is the case with the Capitol’s totalitarian rule of the Districts: mass starvation and subsistence living. In an abstract sense, the Capitol severs the tie between mind and action, and Collins smoothly ties this to perceptual concretes. Since the Capitol views its citizenry as chattel, it’s not hard to see the culture’s fascination with murderotica, forcibly throwing teenagers into a bloodbath for the vicarious entertainment of Panem. This is what is meant by a contrived ethical scenario. The tributes are coerced into abandoning any rational convictions they might hold about respecting other human life.

As far as human will is concerned, it is divided into two conceptual categories, the latter causally dependent upon the former: thought and physical action. To establish a disconnect between the two categories, by reversing the cause-effect relationship, is anti-reality, but this is precisely what the Capitol’s initiation of force represents. Since reality is absolute, individuals must actively observe the facts of reality and then integrate them into knowledge in order to act according to their needs. When force is initiated against an individual, the mind can no longer carry out this function of translating thought into action as needed. The aggressors also have to abandon the principle that the mind must sustain itself epistemically, thereby burning the bridge between their own minds and reality. When concretized in real life applications, the consequences are disastrous, as depicted in Panem where individuals are in a perpetual do-or-die mode of existence, especially within the Games.

This leads to another theme of the novel: Do the tributes have an alternative to the barbarism of the Games? Collins answers yes, and rightly so. Katniss defies the Capitol in small ways, which appear to be the developmental stages of a rebelliousness to mature later in the sequels. In the Capitol Training Center before the Games begin, Katniss fires an arrow amidst the Gamemakers, a powerful committee of game officials, just to grab their attention. And in the novel’s most poignant scene, Katniss uniquely honors a fallen fellow tribute – just 12 years old – that helped her to survive.

Since I have not yet read the sequels, Catching Fire and Mockingjay, I don’t know exactly how rebellion against the Capitol plays out, but with the regime’s advanced technology described in the series’ first installment, it’s probably a very onerous task. If there’s a mark against the novel, though, it’s the unlikely technology, from agile hovercrafts to genetically engineered wasps. It’s not that these sorts of things are impossible to human ingenuity, but that they would materialize in Panem where the districts aren’t even free to grow their own food. An application as narrow and complex as genetic engineering takes years of condensing a broad range of scientific concepts. The human mind functions through principles, needing to think long-range, translating thought into action as needed, but this process is substituted and bridled with the immediate dictates of the Capitol.

When I’m reading a novel, I like to become so engaged in the story that I forget I’m reading, but the unconvincing technology served as an occasional reminder that I was just reading a book. Many dystopian novels tend toward this same technological exaggeration, the most notable of which are George Orwell’s 1984 and Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World. Some exceptions that fully show how irrationality disintegrates society include Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged, also demonstrating the happiness possible to individuals, and William Golding’s Lord of the Flies, a literary case study in mob rule.

Making the intellectual concession of “practicality” to totalitarianism only strengthens the false dichotomy between what is moral and what is practical. While the Capitol regime is patently evil, they still seem to make incredible innovations. Metaphysically, this creates a false dilemma between unprosperous, highbrow idealism and amoral, but wealthy pragmatism. Faced with the guns of the Capitol, I’m sure the Districts are left to ask, “But what are we to do?”

Fortunately, Katniss is the answer to this question. Her character coupled with Collins’ suspenseful plot pacing lends The Hunger Games its distinctive ferocity, an embattled retaliation against statism and a declaration of free will. With the context of rising government intervention in the real world, it’s not hard to see why these themes resonate with such a large audience. On that note, may your will be ever in your favor.

Philosophy: Life’s Sober Hand

By: Andrew Deaton

All the time, I’m approached by individuals who ask me, “Why did you major in philosophy?” When I answer, “Because I needed to discover the right way to live,” they often follow up innocently with, “But I thought that philosophy had neither right nor wrong answers? Also, isn’t philosophy supposed to stay above the lowly concerns of real-life applications?” That detached view that modern academics have fully earned for themselves is what is wrong with our culture at large. While I personally invest myself in all of my writing, this piece is going to be more autobiographical than usual, but I take that tone only insofar as is necessary to help shed some firsthand light on principles which you can and, I think, should apply to your own life. Patrick has expressed the same concerns and experiences, so this is also meant to be something like an unofficial manifesto of why exactly Patrick and I do what we do on DEFENESTRATION and just why exactly you should even care.

So much for the appetizer; now for the meat and potatoes.

While walking through downtown Athens, Ga., this past week, I saw two peculiar sights and decided to document them:

The top photo is of a car window decal which displays a stylized “SS”. This is actually the runic insignia of Hitler’s infamous SS, the cadre of elite Nazi servicemen entrusted with the most critical tasks, including the actual execution of concentration camp prisoners. The bottom photo is of a sign outside of the local Ben & Jerry’s shop advertising their belief in “Fair Trade”, as espoused by the organized Fair Trade social movement. There was a line of what I would guess to be a hundred people and counting to take part in the fundraiser to promote that policy.

What is the commonality between these photos? They both represent manifest, deliberate, intricate philosophies whose respective inspirations and implications are kept hidden, yet they impact all of our lives on an everyday basis.
Those instances are not at all exhaustive of just when philosophy has bearing on everyday life. When does philosophy matter? The answer: Every waking moment of your life, from cradle to grave. As Ayn Rand puts it:

You have no choice about the necessity to integrate your observations, your experiences, your knowledge into abstract ideas, i.e., into principles. Your only choice is whether these principles are true or false, whether they represent your conscious, rational convictions – or a grab-bag of notions snatched at random, whose sources, validity, context and consequences you do not know, notions which, more often than not, you would drop like a hot potato if you knew.*

Now, what does all of that mean? It means that every single action you take is necessarily guided by principles, i.e. by your philosophy. Whether it’s deciding to make yourself a meal when hungry, what you want to pursue as a career, or whom you want to date or marry – philosophy is your all-purpose manual. When I say must be guided by principles, I don’t mean it simply in the normative sense that you just should be guided by principles, though that meaning is included. I mean that you must be guided by principles, as in, so long as you are conscious, you are living by some set of principles. Right now, as you are reading this, you are living by principles that you may or may not have chosen, such as: I should increase my knowledge; this is a better use of my time than checking Facebook (I’m flattered if you think that); I have a right to freedom of speech and to choose what speech to hear. All of those are just tiny samplings of all of the principles that you are living by right now. The only way to remove the rule of principles is by literal suicide. We don’t live by instincts like other animals; we live by the use of the mind, our rational faculty.

The analogy that helps bring it home for me is that of driving a car. You are the driver, your life is the car, and reality is the road. You can choose either to be aware of what you are doing by choosing to be ruthlessly sober, or you can drift and risk your life by choosing to be drunk. So long as you are behind the wheel – i.e. alive – you must either be sober or drunk; there is no third alternative. To live by a philosophy which you never question nor choose is to be drunk. To live by a philosophy which you choose based on the requirements of life is to be sober.

Contrary to popular belief, there are absolutes in philosophy. Just as a sober driver has to use his sobriety to conform to the lay of the road if he is to avoid disaster, so too must you choose your philosophy in accord with the nature of life, the dictates of reality. You can choose to defy reality in any given concrete instance, but you have absolutely no choice regarding what the consequences of that defiance will be. You can choose to drive headlong into a brick wall; you cannot change the fact that great pain or death will follow. Principles in and of themselves are not enough to achieve happiness; you must live by the right principles.

To repeat, so long as you are alive, you are behind the wheel. That means that no matter what you do, ultimately only you can control what you believe. You have free will, but free will – as with everything else – has a particular identity. It’s not whatever you want it to be when it’s convenient. Free will does not allow you to absolve yourself of its awesome responsibility or its correspondingly awesome power. You can’t hand your free will over to someone else and say, “Here, you make my decisions for me for a while.”

That means that you have to think for yourself. Again, here we have a double entendre. You have to think for yourself in the obvious sense that no one else can think for you. But, you also have to think for yourself in the sense that you have to think for your own sake. There is a rampant misconception that it is possible to think on your own while living for the sake of everyone and everything other than yourself. To ask someone to develop his own convictions while ordering him to follow everyone else’s is hypocrisy and, ultimately, is impossible. The ethics that says that you must think for yourself in order to live for your own sake is rational egoism, the ethics developed by Ayn Rand (and since rationality is necessary for egoism, I will henceforth dispense with the adjective “rational” and just say “egoism”).

Egoism is a moral or ethical concept, and it is in the field of ethics where rubber meets road. Ethics is the central focus of philosophy: there is no point to philosophy without ethics. If there is nothing else that you take away from this piece, at least get rid of the notion that there is anything noble about a morality that tells you that you must choose between being moral and being happy; the one leads to the other. You cannot dispense with morality for the sake of “convenience” any more than it is “convenient” for the drunk driver to decide that just this one time he should be fine behind the wheel. In principle, it is the same situation. No matter how tempting it may seem to abandon your principles for the sake of an immediate whim, the sober, safe driver keeps his eyes on the road because he will let nothing stop him from reaching his destination safe and sound. The drunk driver lets up “just this once” – and that is the last decision he makes. The sober driver also does not let himself be distracted from focusing on his path – not distracted by God, not by society, not by the state, not by Mother Earth, not by Nirvana – none of that. On the road of life, your destination is your own happiness. If you focus on anything but your route, you’ll crash. Don’t let your life pass you by because others have convinced you that you’ll get a do-over in some mythical hereafter or that your life doesn’t matter anyway because you are just an irrelevant member of Society.

For all of my own and Patrick’s talk of philosophy, you might be interested to know that neither of us digs into this stuff as our primary pursuit. My overriding passion is the study of and an eventual professorship in military history; Patrick’s love is the printed word. You might also be a bit surprised to know that we are both Objectivists (for those who are unaware, Objectivism is the philosophy founded and developed by Ayn Rand). If you are confused as to why two semi-starved college grads would spend so much time on something that they don’t intend to pursue as a profession, or why you may have never heard either of us mention Objectivism or Ayn Rand – don’t be confused. We are cases in point that living by principles means living by principles. We don’t need to tell everyone we meet that we are Objectivists if it doesn’t come up in conversation. If you know us face-to-face, then I dare say that neither of us gives a first impression of “philosophical” or even “academic” (I once almost got in trouble because a superior at my job thought I was going to lose it when in an early encounter he told me that he didn’t like Arrested Development – true story). Talking about philosophy doesn’t mean a damn thing if you aren’t going to put your money where your mouth is, and that “cash-value” – to borrow the pragmatists’ term (in a very different sense) – is exactly what we’re in it for. Really, that’s the only thing which gives philosophy any value, and I encourage you to cash in.

This happens to be a time when mentioning Objectivism is entirely relevant and proper, and it is here where I recommend that, if your appetite for applying philosophy to life is whetted, then you should read Ayn Rand’s many works, the most encompassing and most famous of which is her novel Atlas Shrugged, though I recommend that you begin with The Fountainhead. Whether you are an Objectivist or not, whether you ever decide to become an Objectivist or not – that is not the primary goal of this piece, though I most certainly do hope that DEFENESTRATION will help set you on the course to becoming an Objectivist. The point is that philosophy by its nature is what provides the sober hand needed for you to reach your waypoints and ultimate destination in life. Just keep your eyes on the road, your hand on the wheel, and don’t let anything slow you down.

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       * Ayn Rand, “Philosophy: Who Needs It,” in Philosophy: Who Needs It, ed. Ayn Rand (New York: Signet, 1984), 5.