Varsity English Discusses Morality

I would say that our discussion in class today was one of the best ones we’ve had all year: it was heated and passionate and contained many a reference to literature and historical events. Mr. Martin would be proud. At the same time, however, it was a bit disturbing. It seemed as though everyone was advocating a somewhat similar point, and yet we were still unable to reach a consensus. Did our failure to agree stem from a flaw in our arguments? I would say not. The problem is that there really is no answer to the question of whether it is okay to disobey laws that are morally wrong. First of all, morality is subjective. As we are learning in Psychology, morals vary from culture to culture, making the moral compass of, for example, a Muslim extremist, very different from that of an American teenager living in Arizona. If this is true, on what should be base morality?

Like Varsity English, Sophocles too explored the differing systems upon which to base one’s decisions. In Antigone, we see the conflicting perspectives of Creon and Antigone. Creon’s values are based on obedience to authority and loyalty to one’s country. He advocates strongly against anarchy, saying “Anarchy, anarchy! Show me a greater evil! / This is why cities tumble and the great houses rain down, / This is what scatters armies!” (42). He speaks of the importance of having a strong central government and asserts that obedience (even blind obedience) is the most necessary of attributes. Creon’s values do not allow room for sympathy towards Polyneices’s soul as Polyneices was disloyal to Thebes. He seems to be making an example out of Polyneices, using his culturally harsh treatment of the corpse as a deterrent for other potential dissenters.

Antigone, the protagonist of the story, lives her life according to different principles. She is loyal to her family, performing the funeral rites necessary to put her brother’s soul to rest, even at great personal risk. She is also loyal to the gods, claiming obedience to a higher power than the king. She says, “You will remember / What things I suffer, and at what men’s hands, / Because I would not transgress the laws of heaven” (78). Antigone is so strong in her convictions that she is willing, even eager, to die for her cause. She represents the Ghandi, the Thoreau, or the Martin Luther King Jr. of Ancient Greek Tragedy, peacefully disobeying a law she sees as immoral and accepting the consequences.

Both Creon and Antigone are unwavering in very their different sets of beliefs. Similarly, both Martin Luther King Jr. and the white supremacists of the 1960s believed they were correct in their morals. For us, there is an obvious right and wrong option when dealing with civil rights; however, in the case of Antigone, there is no clear answer. Both sets of values work in differing circumstances and both can seem reasonable. So the question is, which system does Sophocles advocate? Surely not that of Creon: even the Chorus speaks out against his stubbornness. However, Antigone dies at the end of the play, so her way cannot be the correct one either. Perhaps, like us, Sophocles too struggled with the idea of a universal moral compass. Perhaps the only true way to determine what is moral is on a situational or personal basis: as Ernest Hemingway said, “I know only that what is moral is what you feel good after and what is immoral is what you feel bad after.” (539)