March Monthly Blog

My home computer = Nicer font. Good to know. Anyway, for this monthly blog, I wanted to expand upon the idea of the Faustian Bargain, made famous by Christopher Marlow and Johann Faustus. I think that the Faustian Bargain need not necessarily be with a great evil, in fact it could be defined as simply selling one's soul or ideals in the ultimate short term gain, long term loss scenario. Dorian Gray was an example of such a bargain, and it ultimately drove him to commit suicide. Dorian made no pact with the devil, never signed his name in a contract written in his own blood, and yet he was destroyed just as certainly (but perhaps not as infinitely) as Herr Doctor Faustus was. Dorian Gray made the choice of a short term gain of 20-ish years of hedonism in exchange for committing suicide at the end, basically. In Christian religions, those who commit suicide do not go to heaven, so in a sense the Faustian Bargain is exactly what Dorian Gray made, only a more subtle, fine-print-y sort of bargain. The issue I have with this in my modern life is with college loans. I hate the idea of being in debt to somebody, especially in debt for enough money to buy me a very nice car, but it looks like theres nothing I can do about that, and I just have to hope my girlfriend understands we can't have nice things for awhile. Mine is sort of a reverse Faustian Bargain. I am selling myself now to try and obtain a future, instead of selling my soul later to enjoy the now. But that doesn't mean I have to like it. In my opinion, Faustian Bargains are a good way to ask for trouble, whether you want it or not. Unfortunately, our society enjoys making such bargains as necessary as possible, such as with Obamacare (Affordable Care Act to be precise, but both sides of the aisle are quoted as calling it Obamacare, and frankly it's catchier than ACA) and other political movements. We don't get to decide a middle ground anymore in our country, that time is passed. Now it seems like there is no gray area, it's all black and white. I keep coming back in my mind to the story of the young woman in Texas who was denied admission to a college because she was white, and the college had a racial quota to fill for black and/or latino students imposed on them by the government. I have no problem with educating youth, but by picking which youth to educate, we are making a Faustian Bargain as a country. We are selling our citizens of today to try and improve the hopeful citizens of tomorrow, without the say of either party being involved. What happened in Texas is wrong, discrimination is no answer for discrimination, but it seems Faust is at work once again, this time in America rather than an unnamed state in Germany.