Writing An Introduction

Writing An Introduction When I think back, my favorite memories and my moments of greatest esteem are not those when I was victorious, but when I was thoughtful. I treasure the philosophical debates I’ve had with friends, the snow days spent reading in bed, the essays I labored over until they were a source of pride. Merriam-Webster defines satire as “trenchant wit, irony, or sarcasm used to expose and discredit vice or folly.” Catch-22 clearly fits within this definition. However, I find this definition lacking, good satire should hold up a fun-house mirror to society to accentuate its problems and perhaps offer hope for the future. I imagine life there will be four years of running out of clean white space. Write down a general description or plan that boils down the main ideas to short statements but doesn’t explain them. I’d become so accustomed to reading the function-focused writings of Locke, Rousseau, Madison, Thoreau, that I found it difficult to see “literature” as anything more than mere stories. I wanted substance that I could actually do something with, and I didn’t expect to find it in AP Lit. When I think about my principles, I think about how I aspire to the humility of Helen Burns and the resolution of Jane Eyre and the stoicism of St. John. But more than anything, I would like to live my life thoughtfully. Any pessimist can simply expose and discredit vice and folly. Even calling something “vice or “folly” discredits it. Satire is an ideological Trojan Horse, and, when used well, a powerful sneak attack on ignorance. A book will occupy my thoughts and conversation for a period of time but Lolita awakened a violent response- this is what I have to do, for the rest of my life. I have to analyze great literature and live in its questioning. My experience with Lolita informed my entire way of thinking. To make a reader care, an author must place an earnest heart within their satire and at least hint that we can do better. This would place satire in the realm of speculative fiction, the genre that includes science fiction and fantasy. When I was a freshman in high school, The Colbert Report debuted. Attending a religious school in rural Missouri, most of the faculty and students were rather conservative. They weren’t stupid; they knew the joke was on them, but it was funny enough that they watched the show and read the books. It certainly wasn’t enough to convince them to abandon their political identities,but it did have them absorbing ideas that they wouldn’t have entertained for a second if those ideas hadn’t been couched in wit. With the increasing division caused by social media’s ideological bubbles, satire has become a necessary means to provoke thought and conversation outside of one’s normal exposure. We have put up walls around ourselves and entrenched our ideas, ready for war. It taught me that there is no ending to a conversation, and no meaning without conversation. Martin Amis described this experience best, in his introduction to and essay on Lolita, “Clearly, these are not a scholar’s notes, and they move towards no edifice of understanding or completion. I thought about these things constantlyâ€"while brushing my teeth, doing chores, and driving to school. Unable to take this beloved course a second time, I chose my senior classes with more than a touch of melancholy. I was skeptical that even the most appealing humanities class, AP Literature, would be anything but anticlimactic by comparison. And I am running out of clean white space.” This is what I wish to be, I do not want to pretend to that kind of edifice, but rather be met every day by surprise. It is that surprise that I can see in the community at St. John’s. I know too many people who want to silence their opponents instead of understanding them. I want a safe space for inquiry, not a safe space for ignorance. I know too many people who are content with limited knowledge and are discontent with limited possessions. I want to expose myself to as many ideas and viewpoints as possible, and I want to be more than a consumer. Maybe not, but I loved the rules, the structure, and the big questions that surrounded organizing a government.