This is a brief analysis of the book "Far From the Tree", by Andrew Solomon. Click here for the link.
Solomon would consider a “good life” one that brings the
most happiness and the least suffering for the greatest number of
people, thus, falling in the utilitarian category.
The author seems to think of acceptance, individualism and autonomy (or
freedom from any self-determined-moral-standard) as virtues.
He believes individuals should be free to connect with any type of
community they want - as long as they do not interfere with or
undermine each other's life choices; and be able to be whoever they
want to be - not who their parents or the community in which they
were born want them to be; also, he believes they should choose their
own moral standards, regardless of any other moral standards, such as
the Catholic Church's rejection of abortion and of homosexual
lifestyle.
Solomon attempts to persuade his readers by, first,
creating one category that includes both biblically reproachable
characteristics (such as “gayness”) and
biblically-non-reproachable characteristics (like dwarfism). He names
that category horizontal identity. The fact that sinful
characteristics were put side by side with non sinful ones might make
readers more prone to forget about the biblical moral standards of
differentiation and, instead, start thinking of both “gayness”
and dwarfism, for example, only as “characteristics that are the
same in their 'immutability', that one can't choose to change”.
This suggests that readers should treat “gayness” and dwarfism as
basically the same thing. Secondly, Solomon uses his own life's story
and emotionally-loaded interviews he'd conducted to show readers how
much suffering people who are “different” have to go through
because of society's cruel treatment to people carrying unusual
horizontal identities.
The author's use of character lies on his belief that a
virtuous society is one whose members displayed acceptance and
diversity (in terms of types of identities). In terms of duty,
people are to hold neutrality as a standard for establishing
relationships, meaning that one should not judge other people's life
choices as right or wrong.
When it comes to results,
that society should work towards this goal: that no individual would
ever be ashamed of their life choices. Finally, the author
suggests that a society has acquired a correct vision about
acceptance, diversity and
neutrality (which,
in his own words, “appears to lie halfway between shame and
rejoicing”) when it no longer
shows a need for identity-affirming-activism.
