Law, Morality, Mortality, the Formal Mentality

In Literature class on Friday we held a very civil conversation about the bigger concepts and ideas we have in this world that can be linked back to the play we just studied: Jean Anouilh’s Antigone. I say “civil” not because we’re absolute savages (though I must admit we get in the good comeback or two in response to some questionable things our book characters do), but because we’re always so rowdy and full of energy that we constantly talk over one each other to get our ideas out. So yes, it was a very civilised, TOK-like conversation with the whole class about law and morality.

Firstly, what is the distinction between law and morality? One of my classmates made a good point that some laws are actually applied morals, like it being illegal to murder, rape, or steal. A lot of law I think is based on emotions and majority of society. Society puts forward a bill that they want the government to take up, the government reviews it and after a while can possibly pass it as a law. Morals however, I think are fluid from person to person (but not too much, or else we’d have a lot more psychopaths in this world than we already do). Every person has a varied outlook on different things and situations, and different ethical constraints that would affect their morals, completely unlike law. Law is (supposedly) solid, whereas morals vary, though I hope only slightly.

So, the big question is, should law be held above morality no matter what? We discussed it lengthily in class, and now I’ve been told to discuss it here. By myself. So there isn’t much discussing really, I’m giving my thoughts out for the world to see (though if you would really like to discuss with me, feel free to leave a comment, though I cannot guarantee that I would reply). So, how does literature play a part in law and morality? Funnily enough, I just did a piece of TOK homework that talked about the ethical constraints regarding pursuing knowledge in the arts, and I came across something that I think may tie in with this conversation.

Art is an emotional outlet.

So in literature, I believe that everything that the writer, poet, playwright or whatever has put down on paper has been done for a reason, and a darn good purpose. In Anouilh’s version of Antigone, he very cleverly twisted the plot of the original Antigone written by Sophocles to fit his time and context of Nazi-occupied France. He wrote it in a way that the German translators would allow for it to be performed because of its ambiguity. It could be a piece where Creon (the main evil guy that we will come back to in a minute) could be idolised or be cast as a psychotic evil madman (which I kind of think he is, in a way). I think that Anouilh portrayed Creon as a man caught in the law who had to act upon the it and kill his daughter-in-law (morbid, I know) for trying to bury her dead brother (which is why I think Creon is psychotic). In Anouilh’s context, it was very cleverly done as the Nazis took Creon’s leadership as something to be idolised, because he stayed true to the law and didn’t let his emotions get in the way. There are different works of literature (or more recent novels, like the Hunger Games) where the law was ignored for morals. In the Hunger Games, two winners aren’t allowed and only one, but the two finalists were willing to put their own lives on the line and commit suicide than kill the other for the sake of what their governing head wanted (which sounds really morbid now that I’ve worded it like this, I never really liked the Hunger Games).

In all, I feel like it’s down to the discretion of the writer to choose how they want to convey their thoughts of Law vs Morality in their works of art and literature and how they then want to influence their readers respectively. Their time and context needs to be taken into account too in order to properly pull apart and flesh out the underlying meaning/s of the text and make an (educated) decision on the writer’s hinted ideas. The writer can use their work to influence their audience and readers, possibly in the hopes that society would lap up their ideas and cause change.