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The Conversation Between Captain Falcon And Rutherford Calhoun

Decent Essays

The conversation between Captain Falcon and Rutherford Calhoun connects to 3 major points from this year: authority and chain of being, not-absolute greatness of human society, and conflict.

The connection between the conversation and the chain of being along with authority is made when the crew plotted against its captain and the captain refused to trust and maintain peace with his crew. The book tells the plot in early chapters, and during the conversation, Calhoun revealed the plot to the captain. The captain, after hearing the plot, replied: “The peace they want’s impossible, whether Cringle’s at the helm or McGaffin or me.” This sentence suggest that the crew is not in perfect the chain of command which a ship is suppose to be, with officers …show more content…

Lucy’s. Captain claimed that “man is the problem” and “no man’s democratic”. By saying so, he stated one of the nature of human being: struggle for recognition and power, again relating to power and authority. The captain also said that “anythin’ capable of thought [is the problem]”, which contradicts a basic foundation of modern philosophy, Meditation by Rene Descartes, in which Descartes established that thought is the foundation of Human existence. Along with the above statements, it’s clear that Falcon was not optimistic about the human society.

Also, the conversation also shows a struggle between fatalist and humanist. Calhoun was the humanist character, stating that if man believes something is true, the whole world can not suppress it, favoring human power, and Falcon was the fatalist character, stating that “mind was made for murder” and believe that dualism, which separate mind into two contrary parts and could cause consequences such as war and a disrupted chain of being, was born with.

Through the course of this conversation, many themes learned was discussed or hinted, and it ended with Calhoun submitting to Falcon, however not completely agreeing since the conversation ended with “I guess so”, leaving further space for thought and

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