Editors’ Note

Dear UVa Community,

It is with enormous pleasure that we present to you the Spring 2011 edition of The Oculus,
the University of Virginia’s multidisciplinary undergraduate research journal. This semes-
ter we received a record number of submissions – in everything from government and psy-
chology to chemistry and philosophy – and were thoroughly impressed with the maturity
and caliber of undergraduate researchers here at UVa.

Our editorial board, composed entirely of undergraduates from a range of disciplines, care-
fully reviewed the submissions. Over the course of eight weeks, our editors discussed and
evaluated each submission in terms of novelty, originality, and writing quality, ultimately
selecting six excellent papers from a pool of nearly 70. This has been our most competitive
semester, and we heartily congratulate the selected authors for their commendable research.

The Oculus could not have been possible without the efforts of a large number of people. We
would first and foremost like to thank our editors, who dedicate several hours each week
out of their busy schedules towards the journal.  Additionally, we greatly appreciate the
extra time and efforts that our new layout editors and cover designer have put into creating
an aesthetically rewarding issue of the journal.  Also, a special thanks to our sponsors at the
Center for Undergraduate Excellence for another year of support, advice, and insight.  Fi-
nally, we would like to thank our authors, their faculty advisers, as well as you, the reader.

We hope that you enjoy reading about the phenomenal work presented in this issue, and
that this journal inspires you to actively engage and participate in UVa’s scholarly com-
munity.

Best,

Jessleen Kanwal David Wu

Co-editor-in-Chief Co-editor-in-Chief
 Guest Letter

Dear Oculus authors,

Congratulations on having your research published in The Oculus, the University of Virgin-
ia’s journal of undergraduate research! The Oculus has a long history of presenting excellent
student work, working with the Undergraduate Research Network to promote a vibrant
research culture among U.Va.’s undergraduates. Publishing your research serves as a fitting
culmination of months, even years, of hard work in the archives, the library, the laboratory,
the studio, or the field. But publication isn’t the end: sharing your work with others can
and should lead to comments and questions about your methods, conclusions, and next
steps. Successful research provokes response, response provokes evolution of your ideas;
the discussion that ensues is a vital aspect of all research and your education. Welcome to
the ongoing conversation!

Now that you have completed your research and hold a copy of this journal in your hand,
I have a request of you. This is your chance to tell other students, especially younger stu-
dents, about how you benefited and learned from your research experience. Share with
them the challenge and thrill of defining a research question and then figuring out how to
answer it. Convey to them the excitement of discovery—even if the going is slow at times.
Advise them on how to get involved in research and on how to find a faculty research men-
tor.

Speaking of research mentors, this is also the perfect time for you to write your mentors a
thank you note. Let them know how much their guidance means to you. And as the years
pass, stay in touch. They will want to know where you go and what you do—and, in many
cases, where your research has led you.

I wish you the very best.

Milton Adams
Professor, Biomedical Engineering
Vice Provost for Academic Programs
 The Oculus
The Virginia Journal of Undergraduate Research

Volume 10, Issue 1

Contents

Around the University: Professors and Their Students 1

Professor Tyler Jo Smith and Katherine Becker
Jessleen Kanwal

The Righteous Mind of the Irrational Voter: Why Good People Choose 3
Bad Policies
Christian Galgano

Money and Media in Modern London: A Comparative Analysis of the 15

Business Models Of The London Evening Standard and The Times
Caroline Newman

The Role of Grace and Shame in Postwar Japanese Attitudes and 22

Historical Blame
Simon Svirnovskiy

The Myth of the Reasonable Man: A Critique of the Postulate of Man 29

as Reasonable, and the Legal Fiction of Rationality that Saturates Our
Justice System
Nicole Brown

Holocaust as Aberration: How Oral Histories Particularize the Holocaust 46

Carrie Filipetti

Cerebral RNA Expression Variation between Inbred Mouse Strains 61

Resistant and Susceptible to Cerebral Ischemia: Testing Novel
Human Candidates
Sean Li

A No-Nonsense Guide to Getting Involved in Research 66

Jessleen Kanwal

Submission Guidelines 67
 Editorial Board

Co-Editors-in-Chief
Jessleen Kanwal and David Wu

Editoral Staff
Tim Allan, Upasana Bhattacharya, Kirsti Campbell, Michelle Choi,
Marina Freckmann, Leah Kim, Steve Kim, Mitchell Leibowitz, Suraj Mishra,
Shaun Moshasha, Shruti Patel, Sharon Rogart, Janet Shin, Sarah Smith, Jason Ya

Layout Editors
Marina Freckmann, Suraj Mishra, and Jason Ya

Photographers
Michelle Choi and Steve Kim

Cover Designer
Steve Kim

The Oculus is published by the Undergraduate Research Network (URN) in conjunction

with the Center for Undergraduate Excellence (CUE). All copyrights are retained by the
authors; URN holds the rights to non-exclusive use in print and electronic formats for all
pieces submitted for publication in The Oculus. The views expressed in this publication
are those of the authors and do not constitute the opinion of The Oculus.
 Around the University: Professors and Their Students
Professor Tyler Jo Smith and Katherine Becker
W hat first comes to mind when a fellow U.Va.
undergraduate tells you he/she is doing re-
search? Is it the stereotypical scientist dressed in a
white coat while conducting experiments in a lab, or
perhaps the studious bookworm who spends days
in the library engulfed by endless stacks of novels?
How about a passionate scholar analyzing various
forms of ancient art in a country half way around the
world? This is the unique path Katherine Becker, a
fourth year Art History major and Biology minor, de-
cided to take as she pursued her undergraduate re-
search interests. Katherine, who is an accomplished
Echols scholar, Raven Fellowship Finalist, and Harri-
son Award recipient, decided to embark on an expe-
dition to Greece in an effort to better understand how
the ancient people of this civilization perceived the
forger god Hephaestus, the only physically imperfect
god in their religion. Instrumental to Katherine’s aca-
demic trajectory and intellectual growth as an under-
graduate has been her mentor and friend, Professor
Tyler Jo Smith. A recipient of the Award of Excellence
in College Teaching, Professor Smith is a classical ar-
cheologist who specializes in Greek vase-painting
and iconography. Together, this student-mentor pair
spent three months during the summer in Greece,
traveling from one museum to another, visiting sev-
eral conservation labs and ancient art sites, as well
as various medical sanctuaries, in order to come to
Spring 2011: Volume 10, Issue 1
conclusions about the impact Hephaestus’s depiction
had on Ancient Greek perception of disabled citizens.
Nearly one year after their amazing experience, we
(members of The Oculus) had the opportunity to sit
down with Professor Smith and Katherine and find
out how exactly their journey began, specifically
what brought them together and what advice they
have for other undergraduates interested in partici-
pating in research.
As an incoming first year, Katherine was pre-med
with the prospect of majoring in biology, but a class
in Greek art soon led her down a new and unantici-
pated path. Through the art course, Katherine dis-
covered an unknown interest that was quickly culti-
vated by her numerous interactions and one-on-one
discussions with Professor Smith, also Katherine’s
academic advisor. So, how does an undergraduate
make the jump from those brief student-professor
exchanges to ones of close camaraderie as well as
stimulating intellectual dialogue? Katherine found
that regularly attending a professor’s office hours is
quite effective because it is a great time for students
to express their interests, share ideas, and ask ques-
tions to a professor. Professor Smith too identifies
the importance of office hours for students, stressing
that no matter how large a class, by attending office
hours students can “cultivate relationships with their
professors... I am looking for students who show that
interest very early on in their career at U.Va. because
as with any research, the longer you work on it, the
better the final product is going to be.” Additionally,
she expresses her enthusiasm for meeting with stu-
dents saying, “I always tell students the first day or
two of class, ‘Come to my office hours, I get lonely,
please come and visit me’… Tell me about yourself
and what you are interested in.” Such excitement is
shared by many professors across the university, who
are eager to interact with undergraduates and help
them succeed. Further, Katherine describes another
benefit to making the effort to meet with professors
and advisors at an early stage, “Professor Smith has
had a chance to read my writing consistently for the
past three years, and writing is a huge element of a
thesis. A lot of the issues I may have come to her with
during my second year, she fixed within that year.”
The question still remains, how did this pair go
from discussing a research question in the confines
of a U.Va. professor’s office to roaming Greece with
the tools and mission to solve the puzzle of Hepha-
estus’s influence on ancient Greek society? The short
answer is that a combination of Katherine’s passion
and desire to conduct research abroad with Profes-
sor Smith’s extensive knowledge and network in the
field made a summer in Greece the perfect solution.
Professor Smith commented that from the perspec-
1
tive of a mentor, “to be abroad with the student is but to know that you are capable of writing in a way
taking it to another level. That is the dream…” She that is organized, in a way that you can communicate
went on to explain that not only did it allow Kath- your thoughts on a subject and that is completely in-
erine to place her research in context, “but it also dependent… I feel like that is the best way to leave
strengthened our relationship… [researching abroad an institution where I spent four years – to show a
is] a shared experience outside of U.Va. and outside culmination of how I’ve learned to write, think, and
of the classroom and one you cannot replace.” analyze the studies that I’ve chosen and to be able
So, what advice do these two have to offer to to put all of that together into this one project that
undergraduates interested in getting involved in re- spans longer than a semester.” Professor Smith adds
search and building a strong relationship with their that “research can come in many forms and it doesn’t
mentors? Katherine suggests that the first step is mean writing a DMP [distinguished majors program
to “think of a general subject you are interested in thesis]…There are abundant opportunities for re-
and then talk to your advisor or a person who re- search and it is a matter of students matching them-
ally knows their field.” From her experiences, she selves with professors who are interested.”
has found that conducting research is a very holis- There are obvious benefits to being involved in
tic process. “You have to do such a broad array of research, but more than that, there is great pride and
readings,” which Katherine explains allowed her to appreciation for participating in the production of
get “a more thorough understanding of the culture, knowledge itself, witnessing paradigm shifts, and
the history, society, and politics.” At the same time, realizing what you are truly capable of. As Aristotle
doing research entails learning how to ask intellectu- once said, “for the things we have to learn before we
ally stimulating questions and determining the meth- can do them, we learn by doing them.”
ods by which you can answer such questions. Often
Katherine would develop her own techniques and Thanks to Upasana Bhattacharya for her contributions to
methods for quantifying the large amounts of data the interview
she collected while in Greece.
Unlike the classroom, which provides tools and
perspective, research presents an opportunity to ac-
tively use those tools and engage in the development
of new knowledge. Both agree that an amalgam of
conducting research and learning in class make for
a much more enriching educational experience. Pro-
fessor Smith explains, “I tell my students that I am
going to give you the skills that we use, teach you the
tricks we use to date these things [archeological find-
ings], identify them, and reassemble them in 3-D. It
is not just about images and pictures and stories and
myths – that is just part of it. Students are also taught
to think of these things holistically.”
Research, however, does come with challenges,
and for Katherine one that was constantly on her
mind was funding. Nonetheless, Katherine took a
very proactive approach in her search for money to
help support her research in Greece. “Any single
grant that we heard of I applied for- whether it was
$500 or $3000! And we had a thorough proposal
for our trip to Greece. It wasn’t just let’s go explore
Greece. Rather it was about visiting specific sites and
talking to specific people,” says Katherine. In over-
coming such obstacles, she suggests it is important
to be structured, strategic, and specific when apply-
ing for funding. Katherine’s head-first attitude was
rewarded with her receipt of the Harrison Award,
which was instrumental in allowing her to pursue a
summer abroad in Greece.
Having juggled regular school work and research,
Kate attests that the rewards far exceed the struggles.
“It is just a sense of triumph to know that you your-
self are capable of doing both,” she says. “When I
first set out, 50 pages sounded like such a hurdle,

2 The Oculus: The Virginia Journal of Undergraduate Research

 The Righteous Mind of the Irrational Voter:
Why Good People Choose Bad Policies

Christian Galgano

Are voters rational? Is the U.S. government? In this paper, I present what I believe is the
most accurate theoretical model of voter motivation in American democracy: the Haidt-Ca-
plan model. I first synthesize the ideas of public choice economist Bryan Caplan and social
psychologist Jonathan Haidt to show that the winner of an American election is the can-
didate who offers the most expressive value to the median voter’s moral matrix. Then, I ar-
gue that a Haidt-Caplan model of voter motivation would behaviorally explain why voters
are “rationally irrational,” why democracy systematically produces ineffective policy, why
Americans vote for their perception of the public interest, and why democracy naturally fa-
cilitates strong partisanship. Remarkably, a Haidt-Caplan model yields suggestive, mod-
ern-day evidence of multi-level selection in human evolution. I follow with a discussion of
reform principles and policies that may bring about more effective governance by limiting
the effects of systematic bias via market mechanisms and constitutional reform. Ultimately,
I conclude that understanding the dimensions of instrumental and expressive value through
behavioral political economy is the key to understanding aggregate-level human activity.

Christian West Galgano is a fourth-year from Rye, New York majoring in Psychology and Economics. In the Fall of
2010, he wrote his paper for Professor Jonathan Haidt’s seminar, The Psychology of Morality and Politics. Since the fall,
he has developed his paper after receiving gracious and insightful feedback from Professor Haidt; Bryan Caplan, Professor
of Economics; Larry Sabato, Professor of Politics; and Kyle Davis and Molly Holmes, his two bright friends and fellow
U.Va. undergraduates. Next year, Christian plans to write a book on his ideas while conducting research on behavioral
political economy. Afterwards, he hopes to become a social psychologist interested in the intersection of the social sciences.

Spring 2011: Volume 10, Issue 1 3

I n 2004, Thomas Frank released two titles. In the
US, he released What’s the Matter with Kansas?
How Conservatives Won the Heart of America, where it
became a New York Times bestseller. In the United
Kingdom and Australia, however, Frank sold for-
eigners the same basic content with a ploy: their book
was titled, What’s the Matter with America?
In both versions, Thomas Frank investigates how
the Republican Party fundamentally transformed
a blue state of left-wing populists into a GOP base
of moderate and far right conservatives. A native of
Kansas himself, Frank explores “what’s the matter?”
with his fellow Mods and Cons who vote for fam-
ily values, but continually elect “[Republican] lead-
ers [who] talk Christ, [but] walk corporate” (6). He
presents a puzzling picture of displaced farmers and
workers like Tim Golba who give up their “ag” sub-
sidies, industry protections and government benefits
in exchange for their party’s laissez-faire economics.
When these conservatives “backlash” at unhappy
outcomes, they blame the liberal elite for the sins of
the world, and, “Kansas screams for their heads!”
(249).
What’s going on here? In my view, the most pow-
erful insight comes from Frank’s exchange with Tim
Golba, but not from Frank himself. With the self-de-
scribed “little old blue-collar worker,” Frank reports:
The other team also fails because what principles
they do have don’t resonate for voters. Sam
Brownback says Kansans don’t care about eco-
nomic issues, that they’re all on fire for culture
war, and Tim Golba seems to agree. “You can’t
stir the general public up to get out the work for
a candidate on taxes or the economy. People to-
day are busy... But you can get people who are
concerned about the moral decline in our nation.
Upset enough to where you can motivate them
on the abortion issue, those types of things.” In
his absolute dedication to principle Golba per-
sonifies one of backlash conservatism’s greatest
strengths. Ignoring one’s economic self-interest
may seem like a suicidal move to you and me…
[but here’s a man] who has transcended the ma-
terial…He defies the men in the great palaces.
He smites their candidates; he wastes their mon-
ey; he ends their careers. “If you’re like me… a
born-again, Bible-believing Christian, the issues
are black and white,” Golba says. “There’s not
much room for gray area. You’ve got to take a
stand.” (168)
This paper argues that Tim Golba is exactly right.
In essence: We limit formal economic analysis to pri-
vate decisions, yet passionately express heart-felt
moral concerns about government and society when
voting. We do not research the net present value of
competing policy proposals because we’re too busy,
we’re too many, and we’re too satisfied with our ob-
4 The Oculus: The Virginia Journal of Undergraduate Research
jective political ignorance. Instead, we vote for the
candidates who intuitively register with our moral-
ity. Perhaps the most significant idea is our morality
does not vote selfishly; it votes for its perception of
the public interest. Once we reach moral judgment,
the issues do become black and white, and others do
take stances with us or against us. This voting behav-
ior causes significantly ineffective resource allocation
(like “economic suicide”), and we backlash at candi-
dates who sin against our morality in the process.
In this paper on behavioral political economy, I
will argue that Jonathan Haidt’s social intuitionist
model of moral judgment and his Moral Founda-
tions Theory of human morality provide the missing
behavioral narrative that completes Bryan Caplan’s
public choice explanation of American voting be-
havior, democratic output, political partisanship,
and possible reform. I will first synthesize the ideas
of public choice economist Bryan Caplan and social
psychologist Jonathan Haidt to show that the winner
of an American election is the candidate who offers
the most expressive value to the median voter’s mor-
al matrix. I will then describe how a Haidt-Caplan1
model of voter motivation would explain why de-
mocracy systematically produces ineffective policy,
why Americans are group-interested ideological vot-
ers, and why democracy naturally facilitates strong
partisanship. Remarkably, a Haidt-Caplan model
of voter motivation also lends suggestive, modern-
day evidence for the social functionalist argument
of multi-level selection in human evolution. To con-
clude my analysis, I discuss general reform principles
and specific measures that may induce more effective
governance by limiting the effects of systematic bias
through market mechanisms and constitutional re-
form.
Inspired by revolutionary findings from behav-
ioral economics, behavioral political economy inte-
grates psychology with political economy to uncover
more accurate explanations of aggregate human ac-
tivity. The leading public choice theory of democracy
comes from one of behavioral political economy’s pi-
oneers, Bryan Caplan. In what economist Tyler Cow-
en, calls, “one of the two or three best books on public
choice in the last twenty years,” Bryan Caplan (2007)
presents a model of “rationally irrational” voter mo-
tivation and exposes the ramifications it holds for
democracy. His book, The Myth of the Rational Voter:
Why Democracies Choose Bad Policies, shows how the
Median Voter Theorem with rationally irrational ac-
tors effectively models American electoral outcomes
and would explain why democracies choose bad
policies.
In 1957, Anthony Downs spawned the classical
school of public choice economics with the concept
1  I say Haidt-Caplan in lieu of Caplan-Haidt because I
think it sounds more active, but that’s just me.
of “rational ignorance.”2 According to Downs, voter
ignorance becomes rational in a democracy when
the odds of casting a decisive ballot are low enough
to yield virtually no payoff for acquiring objective
political knowledge. Nevertheless, because citizens
should know of their knowledge deficits, and would
thus vote with rational expectations, all voter error
should become random on aggregate. Caplan agrees
with democracy’s incentive for rational ignorance,
but adds a behavioral dimension to voter motivation.
In The Myth of the Rational Voter, Caplan deviates
from the orthodoxy of public choice with his claim
that democracy incentivizes not just rational igno-
rance, but “rationally irrational” voting behavior.
Caplan argues that voters actively endorse system-
atically biased political beliefs when the psychologi-
cal benefits of indulging irrationality outweigh the
opportunity cost of voting with rational expectations
for an improbable, tie-breaking vote that demands
sensible policy change. In this scenario, voter error
is systematically biased, and democracy continually
delivers bad policy.
Using metaphors from The Happiness Hypothesis
by Jonathan Haidt, the dynamic of rational irratio-
nality resembles the interplay of the rider and the el-
ephant in the divided self. For every individual, you
feel like a unified person, but the automatic, uncon-
scious processes of your elephant and the controlled,
conscious processes of your rider sometimes conflict.
An elephant will obey a rider’s orders when it per-
ceives that the cost to tuning out brings more harm
than just playing along. But when the coast is clear,
the rider’s orders become irrelevant, as the elephant
will assert its dominance whenever it can. Like the
psychological tenet of social functionalism: your el-
ephant continually asks its rider “can I believe it?” for
what it wants to hear versus “must I believe it?” for
what it does not. Caplan’s economic rationale has the
same basic message: we act with rational expectations
when we perceive that the material costs of error ex-
ceed the intrinsic benefits of irrational intuition; but
when the cost of irrationality begins to fall below an
equilibrium price point, the righteous mind activates
its irrational motivations, with increasing intensity.
For example, imagine someone who holds irrational
racist views: The individual will probably hold his
tongue in front of a boss of the disliked ethnicity if he
wants to keep his job; but, the more the individual is
with like-minded friends on the weekend, the greater
the likelihood he will indulge in racial epithets.
In the introduction, Caplan attests to his book’s
“three conjoining themes”. The first holds that,
“doubts about the rationality of voters are empirical-
ly justified. [Second]: Voter irrationality is precisely
what economic theory implies once we adopt intro-
2  anthony Downs’ famous one-sentence explanation of
voter ignorance in An Economic Theory of Democracy (1957)
was later coined “rational ignorance” by economist Gordon
Tullock in 1967. (Caplan)
Spring 2011: Volume 10, Issue 1
spectively plausible assumptions about human moti-
vation. [Third]: Voter irrationality is the key to a real-
istic picture of democracy” (3). I strongly agree with
his overall picture, but a complete theory requires a
scientific explanation of the introspectively plausible
assumption that we progressively indulge irrational
belief when it becomes more and more rational to do
so. In my opinion, Jonathan Haidt’s social intuitionist
model of moral judgment and his Moral Foundations
Theory offer the most elegant psychological explana-
tions for how and why we empirically exhibit irratio-
nal voter motivation, respectively.
The social intuitionist model of moral judgment best ex-
plains how the righteous mind of the irrational voter ap-
praises the expressive value of voting with good intentions.
In Democracy and Decision: The Pure Theory of Elec-
toral Preference, Brennan and Lomasky (1993) assert
that all decisions offer instrumental and expressive
value. Instrumental value is how much we value
what something does in the physical world (e.g.,
how fast a Ferrari can go from 0 to 60 miles per hour).
Expressive value is how much we value what some-
thing says about us abstractly (e.g., if you buy a Fer-
rari, you buy the image of an adventurous millionaire
with exotic tastes and passions).3 Both types of value
have equal weights in market decisions: For example,
most of us would enjoy the expressive self-esteem
boosts and social reputation gains that come from
owning a Ferrari. But a dollar spent on what a Ferrari
says about us expressively and what a Ferrari does
tangibly (the instrumental value) is a dollar foregone
on buying a dollar’s worth of expressive and instru-
mental value from any other product. Since most of
us can’t pay hundreds of thousands of dollars for
what a Ferrari would say about us and what it actu-
ally does—we don’t. After all, a Ferrari is a rare auto-
3  In my paper, I interpret instrumental and expressive
value like this: Instrumental value is the expected value
of the perceived effects a decision will bring on objectively
measurable outcomes in the material world on net, which
include all perceived instrumental externalities. Expres-
sive value is the subjective value we experience when our
theory of mind perceives what a decision expresses about
us both introspectively and to other peoples’ perceptions of
ourselves, per se. So, expressive value is the intuitive met-
ric used by social intuitionist moral judgment to evaluate
our theory of mind’s “ability to attribute mental states—be-
liefs, intents, desires, pretending, knowledge, etc.—to one-
self and others and to understand that others have beliefs,
desires and intentions that are different from one’s own,” in
any decision (Premack & Woodruff, 1978). Alternatively, ex-
pressive value measures our self-esteem and our perception
of our own social reputation. Along these lines, expressive
value really just reflects the gains and losses to the quality of
life of our “social consciousness” while instrumental value
reflects the gains and losses to our socially-blind self-inter-
est. If humans are the only species with a theory of mind,
we are the only creatures who are capable of appreciating
expressive value on top of instrumental value, and the only
creatures capable of morality.
5
mobile compared to more popular brands that don’t
break the bank but still get us instrumentally “from a
to b.” Yet, in democratic elections, expressive value is
all that matters (Caplan, Class Lecture Outlines). To see
why, consider the following equation:
Total vote value= (Instrumental value) x (Probability of a
vote’s decisiveness) + Expressive Value
In an election, we weigh the instrumental value
of campaign policy by the probability of our vote’s
decisiveness, because if our vote does not break a
tie, the election outcome will not change and neither
will the winning candidate’s policy agenda. Yet, we
do not discount expressive value, because we con-
temporaneously enjoy the psychological benefits of
our expressive decisions as we experience them in
the moment; the expressive value of an individual’s
act cannot be consumed by another or stolen like a
tangible good. For most races, the probability of deci-
siveness is effectively zero, which is why expressive
value is all that matters.4 Therefore, in most elections,
the instrumental differences between competing pol-
icy platforms are negligible, and expressive value is
the decisive ground on which candidates compete.5
In their recent paper, Gelman, Silver, and Edlin
(2009) estimate the probability of voter decisiveness
for the 2008 presidential election. For the average
American voter, the probability of casting a decisive
vote was 1 in 60 million. For the voters in Virginia,
New Mexico, New Hampshire, and Colorado with
the greatest potential influence, the odds were 1 in 10
million. Therefore, a dollar of expressive value was
worth 60 million times more than a dollar of instru-
mental value for the average American voter6. At the
very least, a dollar of expressive value was worth 10
million in instrumental policy in just four states. Ca-
plan considers these enormous relative prices, “the
4  This effectively eliminates the role of formal economic
cost-benefit analysis in voter motivation—not the role of the
economy. Of course the economy intuitively influences the
life of the mind. The point being made here is that people do
not research for elections like they do for the stock market,
because there’s no pay-off.
5  Since the probability of decisiveness varies inversely
with group size, I’d be interested to learn how much ratio-
nal irrationality explains why group productivity increases
with membership at early levels, but decreases at higher
levels. In economics, I learned about group dynamics in
terms of asymmetric information problems, like free-riding
and adverse selection, and resources.
6  Just think about whether a crowd cheers for expressive
value or instrumental value during a political speech. This
is why the impression that President Bush could drink a
beer with an average Joe matters. This is also why President
Obama, Professor Gates, and Sergeant Crowley drank beer
for cameras in the Rose Garden last fall.
6 The Oculus: The Virginia Journal of Undergraduate Research
key asymmetry between politics and markets,”7 and
the first pillar of his argument on behavioral political
economy (Caplan, CLO)8. His crucial distinction is,
“in Brennan and Lomasky’s expressive voting theo-
ry, voters [using rational expectations] know that feel-
good policies are ineffective…in contrast, rationally
irrational voters believe that feel-good policies work”
(139). If voters have good-intentions when they vote
expressively, Caplan’s ideas find an ideal match from
psychology to capture how the righteous mind of
the irrational voter drives good people to choose bad
policies.
Social intuitionist moral judgment is the leading
candidate for how voters evaluate expressive value
for group decisions with good intentions. In his
forthcoming book, The Righteous Mind: Why Good Peo-
ple are Divided by Politics and Religion, Jonathan Haidt
describes how private moral judgment would assess
expressive value:
I embraced a modified Humean model in which
intuition…leads to moral judgment, and then
reasoning follows judgment primarily to con-
struct post-hoc justifications. Moral intuition
refers to the sudden appearance in conscious-
ness, or at the fringe of consciousness, of an
evaluative feeling (like-dislike, good-bad) about
the character or actions of a person, without any
conscious awareness of having gone through
steps of search, weighing evidence, or inferring a
conclusion. Moral reasoning is conscious mental
activity that consists of transforming informa-
tion about people in order to reach a moral judg-
ment. (46)
Just as Caplan emphasizes how rational irratio-
nality should “above all… be conceived as tacit,” social
intuitionist moral judgment is “best understood as
a quick gut feeling—not as a product of reasoning”
(Caplan, 126; Haidt, “What is Wrong with Those
7  Personally, I think the ability to consciously perceive
relative instrumental and expressive prices is also the key
economic asymmetry between the psychology of human
beings and all other life. Interpreting Haidt, I think it is at
least the key asymmetry between normal social behavior
and autism, infancy, and psycopathy. See Exhibit 5 for more
on this.
8  As Westen and Haidt note, Republicans offer much
more effective gut-level appeals than Democrats in presi-
dential elections, which may explain their recently superior
presidential election record, as well as the successful cam-
paigns of FDR Dems. To the extent that Republicans moral-
ize instrumental issues with framing techniques—and spe-
cial interest groups can get Democrats and Republicans to
do the same—they are politically astute.
Tea Partiers?”).9 Furthermore, these evaluations are
“particularly clear in social and political judgments”
(56). As evidence, Haidt cites Todorov’s staggering
finding (2005) that automatic competency judgments
of the photos of unknown congressional candidates
predicted the winner of congressional elections from
2000 to 2004 roughly two-thirds of the time.10 In this
fashion, the automatic processes of moral intuition
likely measure expressive value and irrational voter
motivation. Accordingly, the controlled processes of
reasoned cognition formally measure instrumen-
tal value and sensible voter motivation, as rational
choice theorists would espouse while ignoring ex-
pressive value and voter irrationality.11 Even more, if
instrumental and expressive value exist in all deci-
sions and match our two primary cognitions, they
might be viewed as our cognition’s actual domain.12
Furthermore, Haidt’s Moral Foundations Theory
explains why we evaluate the expressive value of
group decisions with good intentions. Specifically,
in elections, moral judgment will appraise expres-
sive value according to how candidates trigger the
seven moral foundations that reside in our intuition.
With the finest public opinion data on economic
knowledge12, Caplan finds strong evidence of sys-
tematic voter bias after comparing the average be-
liefs of voters and economists, adjusting for demo-
graphics and economic knowledge. The data show
that bias explains one-fifth of the unadjusted lay-
expert belief gap. In fact, “the belief gap between
economists and the public is more than 70 percent
larger than the belief gap between America’s far left
and far right. If that isn’t big, what is?” (“Critical
Review Symposium on My Book”, EconLog). These
staggering results strike at the heart of rational
9  This is psychology’s best counter to the critique that
economists Robin Hanson and Tyler Cowen pose to Caplan,
which asks, “Why isn’t expressive value adjusted for prob-
abilities, too? Ex: You do not feel like a great person when
you donate a penny to charity.  Why would you feel like a
great person when you vote against your financial interests?  Instinct show how selfish iconoclasts who posed
The former is probably a bigger sacrifice than the latter”
(Caplan, CLO).
10  Footnote from The Righteous Mind, “The original study
found no decline of accuracy with a 1 second exposure. The
tenth-of-a-second finding is from a follow-up study, Ballew
& Todorov, 2007{#1874}. This study also addressed the pos-
sibility that incumbency is a 3rd variable that makes politi-
cians look competent and also, coincidentally, win. It is not.
Prediction by facial competence was just as accurate in races
where there was no incumbent, or where the incumbent
lost, as it was when the incumbent won” (59).
11  As cognitive behavioral therapy shows, reasoned cog-
nition has the potential to change intuitive cognition. As
cognitive behavioral therapy shows, this is quite difficult in
practice.
12   The Washington Post, Kaiser Family Foundation, and
Harvard University Survey Project’s Survey of Americans and
Economists on the Economy was the first public opinion study
to ask voters and economists the same economic belief ques-
tions at the same historical time.
Spring 2011: Volume 10, Issue 1
choice theory and serve as the evidence for Caplan’s
first theme, “doubts about the rationality of voters
are empirically justified.” To make up for what was
conceptually lacking from psychology before pub-
lication, Caplan proposes that rationally irrational
motivation follows our “preferences over beliefs”
(which I more easily interpreted as “preferences on
the various beliefs we hold”). He proposes that these
preferences over beliefs include four systematic, eco-
nomic belief biases: antimarket, make-work, antifor-
eign, and pessimistic bias. His second finding—that
lay-expert belief differences go in the directions
these biases predict—points to the systematic influ-
ence of the universal moral foundations that under-
lay social intuitionist moral judgment.
Moral Foundations Theory argues that we pos-
sess innate, moral taste receptors that come pre-
pared in advance of experience and become activat-
ed by our experiences to universally shape the flavor
of our moral intuitions. The theory contends that we
evolved intuitive receptor modules in response to
certain adaptive challenges, such that a proper do-
main of adaptive triggers sparked a specific moral
module’s flash appraisal of right and wrong, lead-
ing to appropriate responses that aided survival. In
modern life, moral modularity can help explain why
social intuitionist moral judgment responds system-
atically to perceived stimuli that resemble adaptive
moral triggers, and why we see cultural variation in
morality that corresponds predictably and robustly
with cultural environment. Haidt has identified
seven moral foundations that predominantly shape
an individual’s moral matrix, which is one’s unique
assembly of the seven modules that vary in relative
sensitivity and intensity.13 In a social domain, a
moral matrix not only appraises perceived stimuli:
an individual matrix interacts with conflicting or
harmonizing moral matrices that exist in the same
realm, for better or for worse. For example, Nicho-
las Wade’s anthropological examples in The Faith
threats to an ancestral tribe’s moral matrix won as-
sassination for the benefit of tribe solidarity, some-
times at the hands of siblings to minimize fallout.
Furthermore, Moral Foundations Theory pro-
vides the best causal explanation for why voter bias
on the economy varies systematically. In my opin-
ion, neither theories of personality, emotion, nor at-
tentive cognitive biases offer equally satisfying sto-
ries for the evolutionary underpinnings of ideology
(the “why”) and have a corresponding psychologi-
cal mechanism like social intuitionist moral judg-
ment (the “how”). Put together, the ideas of Toma-
sello, Wade, Haidt and others thoroughly trace the
gene-cultural co-evolution of morality—the “who,”
13  They are: Care/harm, Liberty/domination, Proportional-
ity/cheating, Ownership/trespass, Loyalty/betrayal, Author-
ity/subversion, and Sanctity/degradation.
7
“where,” “when,” “why” and “how” of the intuitive
force that drives the righteous mind of politics and
religion.14
Moreover, our moral foundations fit the four
biases Caplan uses to explain why voters hold sys-
tematically biased beliefs on the economy.15 Pro-
portionality/cheating explains antimarket bias: the
misperception that payment for goods and services
is a subsidy from exploited consumers to greedy
businesses, instead of mutually beneficial exchange.
Antimarket perception triggers the Care/harm foun-
dation when we respond to the negative outcomes
of capitalism’s “winners and losers” scenario.16 Pro-
portionality/cheating and Care/harm also account
for make-work bias: the belief that the pain caused
by jobs lost to technological progress is bad, because
“an economy grows with jobs, not productivity.” In
economic jargon, make-work views inappropriately
value progress as the “ratio of effort to result,” in-
stead of “result to effort.” Antiforeign bias against the
economic benefits of interaction with foreigners may
trigger the standard foundations of xenophobia: Au-
thority/subversion, Loyalty/betrayal, and Sanctity/
degradation.17 Finally, the fear, anxiety, or paranoia
of pessimistic bias—our tendency to overestimate
economic problems and ignore good trends—were
probably valuable byproducts of our ancestral mo-
rality’s total response to routine existential threats.
Therefore, if expressive value depends on how much
a candidate triggers a voter’s moral matrix of the sev-
en foundations, Moral Foundations Theory explains
why voters hold systematically biased beliefs on the
economy.
Put together, the Haidt-Caplan model of voter motivation
predicts the winner of an American election is the candi-
date who offers the most expressive value to the median
voter’s moral matrix.
According to Caplan and many other researchers,
the Median Voter Theorem most accurately models
American electoral outcomes. The theorem states that
if voter preferences are uni-dimensional in a simple
14  Summarizing Tomasello’s findings on the phylogeny
and ontogeny of human social cognition, Wade’s Faith In-
stinct and The Righteous Mind is not the purpose of this
paper, so buy their books! Yet, impressively, Caplan writes
about the upshot of Nicholas Wade or Jonathan Haidt’s
analysis of modern-day morality: that politics largely re-
placed religion as the primary outlet for the religiosity of
our ancestors’ faith instinct.
15  For an in-depth review of evidence from the SAEE
using Caplan’s biases and Moral Foundations Theory, see
Exhibit 2.
16  Although a market economy creates more winners
than a command or a tradition-based economy (Elzinga,
Econ 201).
17  Caplan’s ideas suggest Proportionality/cheating and
Liberty/domination may be at play if people believe foreign
trade cheats the system with child labor or steals economic
liberty by promoting globalization, outsourcing, etc…
8 The Oculus: The Virginia Journal of Undergraduate Research
majority election between two candidates and both
candidates know voter preferences and want to win;
campaigns will converge at a Nash equilibrium—the
median voter’s bliss point. Given our constitutional
law, Caplan acknowledges, “The Median Voter Theo-
rem, taken strictly, does not predict that the prefer-
ence of the median U.S. voter will prevail under these
circumstances.   Instead: (1) The U.S. president will
cater to the median electoral vote. (2) Senators will ca-
ter to the median voter in their state. (3) Representa-
tives will cater to the median voter in their district. (4)
Supreme Court’s activity depends on the median jus-
tice, who was a compromise between the President
and the Senate at the time of his appointment [pos-
sibly 50 or even 60 years ago!]” (“Empirical Accuracy
of the Median Voter Model”, CLO). Caplan among
others find these assumptions significantly hold in
reality on both state and federal levels. Presumably,
the median voter lived in Dade County, FL in 2000
and in Ohio in 2004. Since the median voter’s intui-
tive appraisal of expressive value is all that matters in
American elections, and moral foundations underpin
our intuitive moral judgment: the candidate who of-
fers the most expressive value to the median voter’s
moral matrix is the winner of an American election.
A Haidt-Caplan model of voter motivation would explain
why democracy systematically produces ineffective policy,
why Americans are group-interested ideological voters,
and why democracy naturally facilitates strong partisan-
ship. Remarkably, the Haidt-Caplan model yields sugges-
tive modern-day evidence of multi-level selection in hu-
man evolution.
By debunking the “Myth of the Rational Voter”
with rational irrationality, Caplan simultaneously
debunks the “Miracle of Aggregation” in democratic
elections. With rational voters, the Miracle of Ag-
gregation (the Law of Large Numbers), chooses the
best candidate with almost any amount of voter ig-
norance. For example, with a 90% rationally ignorant
populace, votes should split equally, as all voter er-
ror is random. This, miraculously, allows the median
voter in the 10% enlightened subgroup to cast the de-
cisive vote, as if all voters were well-informed.18 The
Miracle holds for questions that assign equal weight
to expressive and instrumental value, and thus no
incentive for decision-value bias.19 It explains how
stock market prices and Vegas odds come together to
yield stunningly accurate valuations. Yet, in Ameri-
can elections, the median voter’s moral matrix is
18  Technically, this improbable result requires the as-
sumptions of the Median Voter Theorem.
19  Computer algorithms can answer wholly instrumental
questions much more effectively than humans. But without
shared intentionality architecture and a theory of mind abil-
ity to perceive expressive value (Tomasello), there can be
no artificial intelligence. An interesting behavioral political
economy study would examine where we allow computers
to replace people and where we don’t, and why.
decisive, and holds systematically biased economic
beliefs. Inescapably, biased voters then mandate inef-
fective policies with good intentions that leaders de-
liver in order to get re-elected.20 This is democracy’s
hamartia and the rationale behind most of my Haidt-
meets-Caplan title, “The Righteous Mind of the Irra-
tional Voter: Why Good People Choose Bad Policies.”
So what does the righteous mind look like in
isolation? Voting behavior may provide the modern
day’s best window.
Public opinion studies by Caplan and many others
debunk the Self-Interested Voter Hypothesis (SIVH)
that self-interest drives voting behavior. In Caplan’s
research, he defines self-interest as, “directly valuing
only one’s own material well-being, health, safety,
comfort, and so on.” 21 He, “[draws] on evolution-
ary psychology [to interpret] altruism towards blood
relatives in proportion to shared genes as self-inter-
est” (CLO). What do Caplan and political scientists
uniformly show? “The self-interested voter hypoth-
esis—or SIVH—is false” (149). A review of the overall
findings is really quite “counter-intuitive” and worth
mentioning:
(1) the rich are only slightly more likely to be Re-
publicans than Democrats, (2) the unemployed are
not much more in favor of relief measures, (3) Busing
- Childless whites are as opposed as whites with chil-
dren, (4) Social Security and Medicare- The elderly
are if anything slightly less in favor than the young,
(5) Abortion - Men are slightly more pro-choice than
women, (6) the SIVH fails for government spending,
but has some moderate support for taxes, (7)  The
SIVH fails for potential death in combat!  Relatives
and friends of military personnel in Vietnam were
more in favor of the war than the rest of the popu-
lation.  Similarly, draft-age males support the draft
as strongly as other people... Overall, this body of
evidence can only be described as revolutionary.  It
is very hard to argue against it, and it means that
most of what people think and write about politics is
wrong.  Thousands of articles - and millions of con-
versations - have been a big waste of time because
no one bothered to examine the empirical evidence.
(“Voter Motivation and the SIVH”, CLO)
Unsurprisingly, traditional political economy’s
account of voter motivation is the self-interested
view. er-gatherers who lived in mortal combat with rival
On the other hand, Caplan finds strong evidence
for the Group Interested Voter Hypothesis (GIVH)
20  See Exhibit 3 for Caplan’s overview of the govern-
ment’s policy that voters choose.
21  From The Myth of the Rational Voter, “To be more precise,
they are not selfish in the conventional sense of trying to
maximize their wealth or income. My analysis does assume
that people choose their beliefs based on psychological ben-
efits to themselves, ignoring the cost to society. Thus, my
thesis is that voters are selfish in an unusual but non-tautol-
ogous sense of the word. I would like to thank philosopher
Michael Huemer for highlighting this ambiguity.” (229)
Spring 2011: Volume 10, Issue 1
and very strong evidence for ideological voting. To
test the GIVH, he defines group-interested voting
as choosing policy that hurts your self-interest, but
helps your group. The GIVH data show race is the
strongest determinant of party identification—more
than age, gender, education, job security, income
and income growth. To test for ideological voting,
he examines a factor analysis of public opinion that
shows how U.S. public opinion follows the left-right
political dimension. Even more, the ideological vot-
ing data show that ideological motivation is indeed
sociotropic (ultrasocial), in that voters support the
politics they perceive as best for the public interest—
not one’s own. Consequently, the U.S. ideological
spectrum is really the range of political belief on what
ideas will best serve a government of, by, and—in-
deed—for the people. In other words, good people
choose ultrasocial policies. Moreover, Caplan flat-out
rejects sociotropic voting’s main objection that ideol-
ogy may reduce to personal interests, “No.  The cor-
relation between income and professed ideology is
very low [r=.06].” Accounting for the gene’s eye view
of self-interest and rational irrationality, he finds,
overall, “very strong evidence for ideological voting;
strong evidence for group-interested voting, with
race being the main group of interest; self-interest
plays a marginal role at most…ideology is far from
a ‘mere proxy for self-interest.’” In search of a causal
explanation, he asks “So what then is ideology?  As
far as anyone can show, ideology is an independent
causal force.  Ideology explains a great deal about
people’s beliefs, but nothing we know of does much
to explain ideology.”22
Moral psychology explains why we vote ideo-
logically for our group’s interest. The fourth tenet of
moral psychology sheds light on why moral diversi-
ty parallels political diversity. The social functionalist
principle—“morality binds and builds”— contends that
human evolution was not only shaped by selection
on the individual level, but also by group selection,
or the survival of the fittest groups. Haidt theorizes
how individual and group selection fashioned our
mix of moral foundations by binding compatible
moral matrices that persisted to bind and build fit in-
dividuals and groups. As Wade brilliantly chronicles
in The Faith Instinct, the universal people were hunt-
tribes. In this setting, if an individual’s adaptation
spread such that it helped a tribe’s odds of survival,
but hurt an individual’s self-interest: that adaptation
became an expression of group selection in the pres-
ence of group competition (genocidal warfare). As
Caplan’s definitions reflect, the difference between
individual and group selection is: Individual selec-
tion expressed adaptations that were in the best inter-
22  He follows, “Maybe someone will one day show that
ideology reduces to something else, but given the failure
of all the obvious candidates, I doubt it.” I hope this paper
changes his mind.
9
est of one and one’s own genes’, “material well-being,
health, safety, comfort, and so on,” while group selec-
tion expressed adaptations that were in the group’s
best interest, not one’s own. For example, imagine a
soldier whose moral compass drives him to die for
his country when he can only hope the group will
take care of his family.23 And imagine the assassina-
tion, or even fratricide, of the self-interested ancestral
pacifist who thought he could free ride.24
In contemporary life, democratic incentives pro-
vide a window into the righteous mind of the uni-
versal people. Caplan was the first to point out that
expressive value is all that matters in the very elec-
tions where we vote with righteous, ultrasocial inten-
tions. What I argue is that not only does our intuitive
morality evaluate the expressive component of the
left-right ideological spectrum; our votes follow the
left-right ideological spectrum because the range of
our morality diversity is the intuitive, left-right political
spectrum. The Haidt-Caplan model implies that mor-
al diversity reflects the aggregate distribution and ac-
tivation of our innate moral foundations. In fact, The
Righteous Mind traces how the seven moral founda-
tions vary systematically along the left-right political
spectrum, as the data from YourMorals.org corrobo-
rate. Perhaps the Haidt-Caplan model explains why
Caplan reports, “Remarkably, voting in the U.N. is
also one-dimensional, in spite of the extreme hetero-
geneity of the participants” (“Ideology”, CLO).
Given a universal moral, political spectrum, Ca-
plan’s voter motivation findings may provide fas-
cinating new evidence of multi-level selection from
the modern-day. Evolutionary theory is difficult to
test by its very historical nature. Yet, in the very in-
tuitive, group-interested appraisals of democratic
elections, voter motivation reflects the influence of
group dynamics, while self-interest is marginal at
best. The presence of ultrasocial voter motivation in
the absence of self-interest not only asks the gene’s
eye view and reciprocal altruism to explain, “why
not group selection?” but, “where was individual
selection?” The psychological school of social func-
tionalism, however, maintains enough flexibility
with multi-level selection to maintain the reasonable
view that the relative influences of selfish and ultra-
social motivations change with incentives—neither is
always salient. Moral Foundations Theory is the best
causal story in any social science that can at least pin
down what ideology is in democratic settings.
A Haidt-Caplan model would also explain why
democracy naturally facilitates strong partisanship.
On a macro level, the Median Voter Theorem predicts
23 The following quotation from a reconnaissance marine
in Afghanistan is a powerful example of the same principle.
“A veteran is someone who, at one point in his life, wrote a
blank check made payable to ‘The United States of America‘
for an amount of ‘up to and including my life.’”
24  Imagine it from the pacifist’s perspective, unless the
assassins acted against their self-interest to enforce group
norms.
10 The Oculus: The Virginia Journal of Undergraduate Research
two parties will always find each other racing to the
median voter’s position on a single issue spectrum in
a simple majority election. 25 Since Caplan finds evi-
dence of a single liberal-conservative dimension, we
should expect the continuous gridlock the Theorem
predicts as parties of opponent ideology fight to offer
greater expressive value to the median voter’s moral
matrix.
Moreover, if Caplan’s insight on belief bias re-
veals why democracies choose bad policies, Haidt’s
psychological take on confirmation bias—“morality
binds and blinds”—explains why democracy naturally
facilitates strong partisanship. Moral psychology’s
second principle is, “Moral Thinking is for Social Do-
ing.” On an individual level, we are social function-
alists practicing social intuitionist moral judgment:
We care about society’s evaluations of ourselves. We
manipulate them. We champion the post-hoc justi-
fications of our intuition. We accept rational doubts
when we must, but believe anything irrational when
we can. When motivated by group-interest, we be-
come especially righteous to support our teams and
show commitment. Accordingly, after morality first
binds us into socially valuable groups, it blinds us to
out-group moral challenges that threaten our group’s
solidarity since “Moral Thinking is for Social Doing.”
As artificial intelligence theorist Eliezer Yudkowsky
imagines it, “Politics is the mind-killer. Arguments
are soldiers. Once you know which side you’re on,
you must support all arguments of that side, and
attack all arguments that appear to favor the en-
emy side; otherwise it’s like stabbing your soldiers
in the back. If you abide within that pattern, policy
debates will also appear one-sided to you - the costs
and drawbacks of your favored policy are enemy sol-
diers, to be attacked by any means necessary.”
Caplan finds powerful evidence of confirmation
bias in his public opinion research. First, he finds that
ideology and education—two nearly uncorrelated
summary variables (r = -0.3)—both individually
predict antimarket and antiforeign biases. Then, he
finds how ideology and education interact to predict
bias significantly more as a product than just ideol-
ogy alone. The t-statistic of ideology*education il-
lustrates, “The higher your education level, the more
likely you are to know what your ideology says about
a given topic.  For someone with a grade-school edu-
cation, ‘liberal’ is just a word; for a Ph.D., it is an in-
tegrated worldview” (“Ideology”, CLO). Therefore,
the joint effect of ideology and knowledge points to
how education is fuel for confirmation bias, because
better educated individuals know more information
that supports their ideology. Caplan then extends
the ideology*education t-stat analysis to both micro
individual issues and the entire liberal-conservative
spectrum of ideology. Overall, both micro and macro
beliefs fall prey to confirmation bias. His subsequent
25  For Caplan’s explanations of why platforms do not
completely converge, see Exhibit 4.
review of Zaller’s “mainstream” and “polarization”
effects relays how political awareness would predict
biased knowledge on partisan issues that support
our groups, and only unbiased knowledge for non-
partisan issues. What else but a Haidt-Caplan model
could explain how and why we would see this?
Thus, systematic belief bias not only breeds inef-
fective policy with perverse voter incentives—sys-
tematic confirmation bias facilitates ineffective pol-
icy-making by inspiring group loyalty and partisan
politics. As Haidt writes in The Righteous Mind’s in-
troduction:
I will argue that an obsession with righteousness,
leading inevitably to self-righteousness, is the nor-
mal human condition. It is a feature of our design,
not a bug or error that crept into minds that would
otherwise be objective and rational. I will show how
our righteous minds made it possible for human be-
ings—but no other animals—to produce large co-
operative groups, tribes, and nations that were not
based on kinship. But at the same time, our righteous
minds guarantee that our cooperative groups will
always be cursed by moralistic strife. Indeed, some
degree of conflict among individuals and groups
may be necessary for the maintenance of moral order.
When I was a teenager I wished for world peace, but
now I yearn for a world in which competing ideolo-
gies are kept in balance, accountability systems work
well, and fewer people believe that righteous ends
justify uncivil means. Not a very romantic wish, but
one that we might actually achieve.” (5)
Sadly, education is not the answer, when knowl-
edge is political power.
Interesting new research on how schadenfreude
increases with group size corroborates how democ-
racy naturally facilitates strong partisanship (Anthes,
2010). Multiple researchers have identified a biologi-
cal basis for schadenfreude: the German word for
taking pleasure in someone else’s misfortune. On an
individual level, Takahashi (2009) found that hearing
fictional stories about someone else’s misfortune ac-
tivates a reward processing center in the brain called
the striatum, which produces a feeling of pleasure
akin to “eating a good meal” (Anthes). But research-
ers are now discovering that schadenfreude is “more
potent and insidious” when it is intergroup. Van Dijk
and Ouwerkerk (2009) found participants in an eco-
nomic sharing game experienced more pleasure at de-
feating rival teams than rival individuals. Moreover,
researchers have shown we experience intergroup
schadenfreude even when it is objectively bad for so-
ciety. For example, Smith (2009) documented student
reactions to, “current events in the run-up to the 2004
and 2008 presidential elections and the 2006 midterm
elections” (Anthes). He found Democrats experi-
enced secret happiness in the, “economic downturn
and the deaths of American troops abroad because
they believed these events would bode well for their
party.” As expected, Schadenfreude was increasing
Spring 2011: Volume 10, Issue 1
in Democratic identification. Leach and Spears (2009)
identified how intergroup schadenfreude, at benign
events, predicts the type of prejudice harnessed by
terrorists and dictators to drive violence and geno-
cide. In a series of surveys, Dutch students who ex-
perienced greater schadenfreude at German rivals
losing a soccer match were significantly more likely
to then hold pejorative prejudices about the German
people. Overall, researchers agree that individual
schadenfreude likely evolved to help individuals no-
tice and profit from another’s loss. Yet, new research
illustrates that the more potent and insidious inter-
group schadenfreude was likely an upshot of group
selection to bind, blind and build strong groups for
warfare. Evidently, intergroup schadenfreude helps
drive our propensity for war, religious strife and par-
tisan politics in a two-party democracy. I just wonder
if it’s rational.26
Using Moral Foundations Theory, I expect con-
servatives, more than liberals, do not rest when their
own side is in power. In my opinion, Moral Founda-
tions Theory predicts both liberals and conservatives
will become politically engaged in anti-incumbent
settings. When the other side is in power, the primary
liberal foundations—Liberty/domination and Care/
harm—fire negative signals. In other words, liberals
feel that conservatives abuse the “social contract” of
individual rights and government responsibility, and
cause more harm than good: and so they become mor-
ally outraged and civically engaged. For the right,
liberal rule primes the prominent conservative moral
foundations, which are all seven. Currently, they feel
Obama is: hurting America with socialism (Care/
harm), betraying campaign promises with party-line
legislation (Loyalty/betrayal), subverting the Con-
stitution with the healthcare mandate (Authority/
subversion), oppressing individual liberty with the
healthcare mandate (Liberty/domination), steal-
ing their money with taxes (Ownership/trespass),
rewarding cheaters on welfare (Proportionality/
cheating), and damning the hallowed ground of the
presidency since he is an Islamic socialist born in Ke-
nya (Sanctity/degradation). But, relative to liberals,
conservatives should stay more engaged in incum-
bent settings because they experience significantly
greater in-group moral intuitions from the Author-
ity/subversion, Loyalty/betrayal and Sanctity/deg-
radation foundations. Even if conservatives disagree
with leadership, they obey authority, remain loyal,
and avoid sinning against the church of American
Civil Religion—like many Tea Partiers who withheld
existential threats about the debt, the deficit, and the
26  A Haidt-Caplan model and schadenfreude might also
explain why the 1919 Versailles negotiations after World
War I were so uncivil and unreasonable that John Maynard
Keynes quit in frustration. The German reparations package
was so burdensome it had the intended effect of ruining the
German economy with hyperinflation, paving the way for
Hitler’s nationalism. Yet, the reparations were finally paid
off —on October 3rd, 2010.
11
dreams of the Framers until President Obama came
into power. Relative to conservatives, movement lib-
erals should check out when their leader is in power,
because they have no moral foundation or expressive
value to respond to. When the President is the anti-
Bush, they lose interest in debates on Keynesian vs.
Supply Side Economics, and lose the mid-term elec-
tions.27
If you’re a conservative, did you feel a flash of
anger, contempt or disgust when you read the title
Thomas Frank released to the United Kingdom and
Australia? If you’re a liberal, did it give you a sense
of validation?28 If our morality evolved to allow us
to function within groups and work together against
out-groups: naturally, we derive expressive value
from the political messages that inspire our group af-
finities, which we naturally and vehemently defend
against out-group challenges. Thus, in a moralistic
democracy, rational appeals from both sides should
fall on deaf ears, as voter incentives create two armies
of seemingly irreconcilable ideology.29 As Benjamin
Franklin wrote, “Passion rules…and she never rules
wisely.”
I will now discuss reform principles, as well as specific
measures, that may induce more effective government by
reducing the effects of systematic bias via market mecha-
nisms and constitutional reform.
A Haidt-Caplan model of voter motivation sug-
gests an unconstrained, overarching vision for re-
form and a constrained, strict decision rule for in-
dividual reforms. The overarching vision of reform
seeks to eliminate ineffective bias at all steps of the
government process in order to create the most effec-
tive democratic republic possible. The strict decision
rule for an individual reform that reduces bias is: the
median voter’s moral matrix must either prefer the
reform or be indifferent to it.30 Despite democracy’s
collective action problems and incentives for rational
irrationality, citizens can still elicit desirable behavior
from elected officials by over-punishing (Caplan). If
a majority of voters oppose a political development
on moral grounds, they will righteously backlash at
politicians with the vengeance of hunter gatherers or
French revolutionaries, which serves as an implicit
check on immoral political behavior. If the median
voter is intuitively indifferent to an instrumental pol-
icy like a NASA initiative, lawmakers have the flex-
27  For more analysis of conservatives and liberals using
Moral Foundations Theory, see Exhibit 1.
28  If you’re a libertarian: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/
papers.cfm?abstract_id=1665934
29  Yeats first stanza of “The Second Coming” echoes this
same dynamic.
30  In economics this means the median voter must “strict-
ly prefer” the policy. For more complex analysis on mini-
mum winning coalitions (MWCs) with bicameralism and
division of powers, see this Caplan lecture: http://econfac-
ulty.gmu.edu/bcaplan/e410/pc8.htm
12 The Oculus: The Virginia Journal of Undergraduate Research
ibility to choose good or bad policies. These “mar-
gins of indifference” for instrumental policy may be
democracy’s saving grace, depending on whether
they’re leveraged for good or ill.31
The first policy view holds that market mecha-
nisms should replace government failure as a rule.
Arguably, Caplan makes the leading academic con-
tribution to this school by illuminating why democ-
racies choose bad policies. Unlike voting booths, mar-
kets offer no decision-value bias by assigning equal
weight to instrumental and expressive value, which
meets the overarching reform principle.32 Yet, we of-
ten view markets and government as compliments
instead of substitutes for resource allocation. As Ca-
plan points out, when we say democracy is the better
of all evils, why doesn’t the comparison include mar-
kets? Because his analysis also shows us that market
mechanisms do not meet the strict decision rule of
reform: the median voter’s moral matrix is systemati-
cally biased against capitalism.33 Therefore, whatever
practical opportunities exist for market reform prob-
ably reside along the margins of indifference.
A second view champions constitutional reform
that reduces the disproportional influence of fac-
tions by removing structural bias in our Constitu-
tion. Plausibly, the median voter’s moral matrix may
endorse constitutional reform that limits the inequi-
table power of factions, if the moral intuitions from
our Proportionality/cheating foundation outweigh
our status-quo conservatism.34
31  See Exhibit 4 for a full review of the good, the bad, and
the ugly of democracy according to Caplan.
32  For example, as individuals in the marketplace, we may
expressively value a Ferrari over a more reasonable car, but
most can’t pay for what a Ferrari does instrumentally—so
most don’t. It is not rationally irrational to buy your dream
car and drive it straight from the dealer to bankruptcy court
under normal circumstances. Yet, as voters, we are allowed
to indulge our expressive preferences with little consider-
ation of the instrumental implications, and our government
owes its debtors about 14 trillion dollars—or 26000% more
than the wealth of Bill Gates.
33  See this overview of Bhattacharjee, Dana, and Baron’s
fascinating new paper that shows how Americans “do not
believe in the invisible hand”: http://econlog.econlib.org/
archives/2010/12/the_psychology_1.html
34  Status-quo conservatism is one of Stenner’s “Three
Kinds of ‘Conservatism’” (2009). Put together, the three
may be the most accurate personality definitions of con-
servatism. To my knowledge, there are not similarly sub-
stantive personality definitions for the different types of
liberalism, but I think Jonathan Alter’s distinction between
action and movement liberals (2010) may yield power-
ful definitions: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/24/
books/review/Alter-t.html. That is, until David Brooks,
whom I love, recasts his colleagues’ ideas: http://www.
nytimes.com/2010/12/10/opinion/10brooks.html?_
r=1&ref=columnists.”Perhaps psychologists can explain the
interesting combination: intellectual self-confidence along-
side a political inferiority complex.” Perhaps Haidt, Caplan,
and an undergraduate?
 In A More Perfect Constitution, Larry Sabato pro-
poses three amendments that range in feasibility, but
would make government more effective and propor-
tionallyrepresentative—with little downside. jority’s agenda, which gives disproportional bias to
The first is nonpartisan house redistricting. Sabato
argues that partisan redistricting after each decennial
census is the largest reason parties cannot promote
worthy incumbent challengers to increase political
competition.35 In his opinion, redistricting’s result is,
“geography is destiny in politics,” as evidenced by
Abramowitz’s finding that the majority of states have
partisan redistricting controlled by the largest party
in the state legislature (34). A strong example comes
from the 2006 midterm elections: Democrats won the
Michigan popular vote by 54 to 46 percent, as well as
the races for Senate and Governor—yet, Republicans
lost no house seats. A nonpartisan house redistrict-
ing amendment would create known, unalterable,
compact districts, so candidates would campaign
with rational expectations, face greater competition,
and acquire better ability to represent a more com-
pact constituency. It would employ minimum split
districting software that creates the benefits of com-
pactness without sacrificing minority representation.
Last, states would choose between a few nonpartisan
commission types, like retired judge panels or citizen
commissions, which have worked empirically in all
eight states that have tried.
The second amendment is a line-item veto with
the appropriate legalese to avoid a second uncon-
stitutional ruling. With a line-item veto, a president
can reject an individual piece of pork in an appro-
priations bill without having to veto the bill entirely.
Accordingly, the veto reduces wasteful spending
and redirects savings to pay off the national debt
while improving government productivity. The third
amendment enlarges the Senate, which helps solve
the problem that 17% of the population controlled
the Senate majority in 2008 and 11% could filibuster.
Adding two senators for each of the ten largest states
and one senator for each of the next largest fifteen
would make the Senate and Electoral College fairer
35  If rational irrationality says an expert’s opinions be-
come more trustworthy when they are transparently backed
by bets: “The  Crystal Ball  has been a leader in accurately
predicting elections since its inception. In 2004, the Crys-
tal Ball notched a 99 percent accuracy rate in predicting all
races for House, Senate, Governor and each state’s Electoral
College outcome. In 2006 the Pew Research Center and the
Pew Charitable Trusts’ Project for Excellence in Journalism
recognized the Crystal Ball as the leader in the field of po-
litical predictors, noting that the site ‘came closer than any
other of the top ten potential predictors this cycle.’ 2008 was
yet another banner year, as the Crystal Ball came the closest
of any national prognosticator in predicting the results of
the presidential race, while achieving a 100 percent accu-
racy rating by correctly predicting the result of every single
gubernatorial and Senate race across the country” (http://
www.centerforpolitics.org/crystalball/about/).
Spring 2011: Volume 10, Issue 1
while retaining some smaller measure of minor-
ity protection. President Obama’s recent experience
shows how the Senate can easily impede a large ma-
minority interests.
The barriers to these bias-reducing reforms are
not easily surmountable, but they at least may of-
fer appeal to the median voter, and may therefore be
possible.
At my inquiry, Professor Sabato suggested I put
greater emphasis on how the political process itself
creates the good and bad policies that good people
choose, and he’s right. This paper focuses largely on
voter motivation without tracing its path to policy.
Still I hope my investigation of voter irrational-
ity encourages others to examine all components of
human motivation for their influence on our politi-
cal institutions, as well as the great opportunity that
exists for political economy and psychology to work
together. While discussing moral philosophy and ef-
ficiency, Bryan Caplan—the economist—writes:
Who cares about efficiency anyway?  Does any-
one seriously believe that the right action is al-
ways the one that does the most for Kaldor-Hicks
efficiency?36 ... Efficiency is probably ONE of
many consequences worth thinking. Why then
should economists concentrate on it? Because
they have special training for distinguishing
transfers from dead weight costs, but no spe-
cial training in moral philosophy.  Economic
analysis thus becomes a potentially useful input
into the moral thinking of others. (“Efficiency”,
CLO)
Exactly. Public choice and moral psychology are
compliments to understanding what we value instru-
mentally and expressively—not substitutes.
Caplan’s words remind me of Professor Haidt’s
final lecture in Psych 101, and I’d like to extend his
wisdom on the power of psychology to behavior-
al political economy. When one asks, “What’s the
meaning of life?”: that is an inherently subjective, un-
answerable question. But when one asks, “How can
I lead a happy life?”: that is a question psychology
can answer empirically. And if you ask, “What’s the
purpose of collective life?”: that too is an inherently
subjective question. But when you ask, “How can
government operate more perfectly for its citizens?”:
that’s a question that society can answer with poli-
tics, economics and psychology, among other disci-
plines. If all decisions dissolve into instrumental and
expressive value—or work and love, as Freud might
36  Not I. That’s why I choose “effective” over “efficient”
as my adjective to describe total value. In fact, nowhere else
in the paper do the words “efficient” or “efficiency” appear,
since “effective” and “effectiveness” exclusively encapsu-
late instrumental and expressive value, and rational and
irrational decision-making.
13
say—then, behavioral political economy can tell us 6. Edlin, A. & Gelman, A. & Silver, N. “What is
how society might get the best mix of gross domestic The Probability Your Vote will Make a Differ-
product and gross national happiness. ence?” Economic Inquiry (2009).
So, if Bryan Caplan and Jonathan Haidt’s ideas 7. Frank, L. (2004) What’s the Matter with Kansas?
share a final lesson, it is do not be afraid to go down How Conservatives Won the Heart of America. Henry
the rabbit hole and explore the irrational and the Holt & Co.
righteous. Sometimes the self-described little old 8. Haidt, J. (2006). The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding
blue collar worker has the best insights. When Bryan modern truth in ancient wisdom.  New York: Basic
Caplan opened his mind to rational irrationality, he Books.
discovered how a survey’s lay-expert belief gap on 9. Haidt, J. (in prep)  The Righteous Mind: Why
37 questions, “became the key to a realistic picture Good People are divided by politics and religion.
of democracy.” When Jonathan Haidt wondered if Book under contract with Pantheon/Knopf (USA)
there was more to morality than the liberal ethic of and Penguin (UK), to be completed in 2010 and
harm and fairness, he uncovered the other half of the published in 2011.
country’s moral matrix. Now, Haidt and Caplan’s 10. Haidt, J. (2010). What is wrong with those Tea
ideas should challenge the comprehensiveness of any Partiers? On Larry Sabato’s Crystal Ball, 2/2010
rational choice or individual selection camp that de- Premack, D. G. & Woodruff, G. (1978). Does the
nies the power of irrationality and moral intuition.37 chimpanzee have a theory of mind? Behavioral and
This paper argues that behavioral political econ- Brain Sciences, 1, 515-526.
omy is the rabbit hole to understanding aggregate 11. Sabato, L. (2008) a More Perfect Constitution: 23
human activity. An investigation of the Haidt-Ca- Proposals to Revitalize Our Constitution and Make
plan model of voter motivation led to insight of my America a Fairer Country. Walker & Company.
own: The significance of Haidt and Caplan’s ideas for be- 12. Wade, N. (2009). The Faith Instinct: How Religion
havioral political economy are as awe-strikingly important Evolved and Why It Endures. The Penguin Press.
as it gets, shedding some of the first light from social sci-
ence on the righteous mind of the irrational human being.
Please see our online edition for the full article.
Works Cited
1. Anthes, E. (November/December 2010). “Their
Pain, Our Gain” Scientific American Mind, 21,
38-41. Published online: 28 October 2010 |
doi:10.1038/scientificamericanmind1110-38
2. Brierly, A. B., 2007-04-12 “An Empirical Test of
Duncan Black’s Median Voter Theorem” Paper
presented at the annual meeting of the Midwest
Political Science Association, Palmer House Hotel,
Chicago, IL Online <APPLICATION/PDF>. 2010-
01-24 from http://www.allacademic.com/meta/
p197028_index.html
3. B Caplan. (2009, January 12). Critical Symposium
on My Book. [Web log comment]. Retreived from
http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2009/01/
critical_review.html.
4. Bryan Caplan’s website has class lectures online
where he elaborates on many issues not covered
in his book. I read every lecture for his under-
graduate and graduate Public Choice classes, and
his graduate Public Finance class. (http://www.
bcaplan.com/)
5. Caplan, B. (2007) The Myth of the Rational Voter:
Why Democracies Choose Bad Policies. Princeton
University Press.
37  My first thought was the Realist School of International
Relations. To no surprise, I read this later: http://econlog.
econlib.org/archives/2009/07/whats_wrong_wit_12.html.
Also, realism cannot explain if east-west impasse on is-
sues like the Sino-American currency war and Liu Xiaobo’s
Nobel Peace Prize are fundamentally stalemates between
WEIRD and collectivist morality.

14 The Oculus: The Virginia Journal of Undergraduate Research

 Money and Media in Modern London
A Comparative Analysis of The Business Models of
The London Evening Standard and The Times

Caroline Newman

This paper examines the differing business models of the London Times and the London Evening
Standard, focusing on how those differences illuminate the response of traditional media institu-
tions to the ever-changing dynamic of the digital age. These two institutions took a rather opposite
approach in trying to garner revenue in the modern newspaper industry, with the Times choosing
to charge for its online model, and the Standard opting for a free distribution model for their print
edition. This paper explores the intricacies and philosophies behind each model while also com-
paring their early successes and failures. Its overall aim is to use these two institutions as a small
filter through which to probe and interpret print media’s response to the digital environment.

W ith its large population and bustling urban

life, London is a rich market for modern me-
dia, and many of its media institutions are at the
forefront of controversies in the field. The London
Evening Standard rocked the media world when it
decided to change from a paid-for newspaper to a
free distribution one on October 12th, 2009. In an op-
posite but equally controversial decision, the Times
decided to erect a paywall for its online editions in
June 2010. These decisions represent attempts from
the respective institutions to bring their products into
profitability in a media world increasingly dominat-
ed by the Internet. Media outlets have traditionally
been considered a crucial component in fostering a
robust and democratic public sphere, and both insti-
tutions’ decisions have implications for that role. In

Caroline Newman is a third year student from Birmingham AL, pursuing a major in English and a minor in Media
Studies. Following these interests, Caroline hopes to build a career in journalism after her graduation in May 2012.
During her time at the University, Caroline has become involved in many academic and extracurricular activities. She
has served as an Associate Editor for the News section of The Cavalier Daily, and is currently a writer for the Lifestyle
section. She is also a member of Kappa Delta Sorority, serving on the Standards Board and, formerly, as Alumni Re-
lations Chair. Caroline wrote this paper for Professor Michael Levenson after studying abroad in London during the
summer of 2010.
Spring 2011: Volume 10, Issue 1 15
this paper, I explore the effectiveness of both mod-
els in maintaining the integrity and function of news
outlets within the context of often contradictory and
changing relationships between old and new media.
The new business model of the Evening Standard fa-
vors a product easily accessible to a wide range of
people while the Times appears to favor a more ex-
clusive product made sustainable by claims of high-
er quality. The free model of the Evening Standard
would appear more conducive to traditional concep-
tions of a robust public sphere, but both models pres-
ent intriguing possibilities for the future of media in
a digital age.
The rise of the Internet has led to general outcry
about how the newspaper will change in the digital
age. Newspapers have seen declines in readership
and have thus been forced to develop new business
models to better reach current and potential read-
ers. There is no question that the Internet, like every
other major communications technology before it,
has brought about widespread change in media. Ac-
cording to a 2008 article, national daily sales dropped
to 11.6 million from earlier numbers around 14 mil-
lion.1 Declines in readership pose a pressing problem
for newspapers, and the Evening Standard and the
Times have not been immune to this stress. News
Corp, the parent company of the Times, lost L 2.1 bil-
lion in 2009, a year that chief executive Rupert Mur-
doch characterized as “the most difficult in recent
history.”2 Similarly, the Times reported that, prior to
going free, the Evening Standard had been losing L15
million a year. Competition with two freesheets, The
London Lite and thelondonpaper, had reduced the
Standard’s circulation to 116,192 daily copies, as com-
pared to the 450,000 the paper recorded in 2004.3 Like
many papers, the Standard and the Times faced new
competition from a host of Internet news sources,
hurting their circulation numbers and forcing revalu-
ation. Declining readership and revenues prompted
change at each institution as they strove to adapt to
the Internet and the rapid transformation it brought
to the news environment.
Newspapers worldwide are pushing limits in an
effort to come up with business strategies that are
economically viable in an age so used to the World
Wide Web. This push for innovation and reinterpreta-
tion within traditional business models is “a pivotal
moment in the history of newspapers,”4 but it is not
1  Peter Preston, “The Curse of Introversion,” Journalism
Studies; October 2008, 642.
2  BBC News, “Murdoch signals end of free news,” 6 Au-
gust 2009. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/8186701.
stm
3  Dan Sabbagh, “London Evening Standard to become
freesheet,” The Times. 3 October 2009. http://business.
timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/media/
article6858274.ece
4  Bob Franklin, “The Future of Newspapers,” Journalism
Studies. October 2008, 630.
16 The Oculus: The Virginia Journal of Undergraduate Research
necessarily a unique one. As Bob Franklin points out,
“from telegraph to television, newspapers’ ability to
adapt to changing circumstances has always provid-
ed them with a survival strategy and secured their
future.”5 The newspaper will continue to evolve with
the new technology of the Internet; the question is,
as Peter Preston puts it, “what the new model will
turn out to be.”6 That is a question that the Evening
Standard and the Times have tried to answer, albeit
in very different ways.
The new business model of the Evening Standard
represents one approach to the challenges traditional
media face in the digital age. Russian oligarch Al-
exander Lebedev, who owns 75.1% of The Evening
Standard, decided to drastically change the business
model of the paper, and, after more than 180 years
as a paid-for paper, the Standard went free on Octo-
ber 12th, 2009. When the paper transitioned to a free
distribution model, it increased its circulation from
about 250,000 papers per day to 600,000.7 The Stan-
dard follows a basic model for free newspapers, with
a product “aimed at the general public in metropoli-
tan areas” and circulated through the “comparatively
cheap distribution system” of local transportation.8
The paper is distributed through the extensive net-
work of the London Underground System, as well
as at various public places across the city. In addi-
tion to its now free print edition, the Standard main-
tains a freely accessible website. This new business
model allows the Standard to expand its readership
and become a more ubiquitous product throughout
London.
Executives at the Standard identify several reasons
for the switch to free distribution, focusing mostly
economic pressure, opportunities for advertising
growth, and competition for reader attention. The
Standard, according to Managing Director Andrew
Mullins, was “at a point where costs could not be
cut any further.”9 A free distribution model, he said,
could “potentially reduce cost base further” while
also boosting circulation and generating “significant
growth in revenue through display advertising.”10
The goal, Mullins said, was to “own a very large
share of the marketplace,” and thereby create a more
lucrative product for advertisers.11 In order to do this,
the Standard must be able to contend with “many-
5  Franklin, 631.
6  Preston, “The Curse of Introversion” 643.
7  Mark Sweeney, “London Evening Standard to go free,”
The Guardian, 2 October 2009 http://www.guardian.co.uk/
media/2009/oct/02/london-evening-standard-free
8  Piet Bakker, “Free Daily Newspapers- Business Models
and Strategies,” The International Journal on Media Manage-
ment, Vol. 4- No. 3, 182.
9  Mark Banham, “How the Standard’s making money
now it’s free,”. Campaign. Haymarket Business Publications
Ltd. 25 June 2010, 17.
10  Banham, 17.
11  Banham, 17.
competing distractions to potential readers, particu-
larly with new technologies.”12 The average commut-
er on the Tube is much more likely to pick up a free
paper and read it than he is to pay for a paper when
he could distract himself on his phone, iPad, or iPod
for no cost. Mullins’ hope is that being a freesheet
will give the Standard a “large scale and reach [that]
should transform our commercial fortunes.”13 Owner
Lebedev believes that going free is the right choice to
move his paper into the future. “I am confident that
more than doubling the London Evening Standard’s
circulation and maintaining its quality journalism is
what London deserves,” he said, adding that he fully
expects other newspapers to follow the Standard’s ex-
ample.14 The free model allows the paper to increase
its distribution and lower its cost to the consumer,
while boosting revenue through advertising sales.
This strategy works within an older medium but re-
freshes that medium with a new tactic intended to
create more successful competition with other prod-
ucts and media outlets.
The Times took a rather opposite approach to de-
veloping a financially profitable business model in
the age of the Internet. In June 2010, the Times began
charging for its online content at thetimes.co.uk and
thesundaytimes.co.uk. A digital subscription would
give readers access to the sites for L2 per week, and a
24 hour pass could be purchased for L1, with digital
access being complimentary for the paper’s current
paying subscribers.15 For the charged fee, the com-
pany promises readers new features, better photog-
raphy and videos, more interactive elements, and
greater access to Times’ journalists.16 The Times aims
to provide more exclusive, elite content to readers,
for a small fee that is “less than the cost of a cup of
coffee.”17 This model seeks to transpose a more tradi-
tional paid-subscription model onto the newer me-
dium of the Internet.
The Times online business model makes several
assumptions and is perhaps more presumptive than
a free distribution system. The concept of charging
online is grounded in the premise that consumers
will pay for access to a more exclusive product “if the
content is valuable, not freely available elsewhere,
and the payment mechanism is appropriate.”18 As
the Times transitioned to a paying online model, it
was banking on the truth of this assumption and re-
lying heavily on the value of its content. According to
the Times Online, charging online “is more economi-
12  Sweeney.
13  Sweeney.
14  Sweeney.
15  “Frequently Asked Questions” http://www.timesp-
lus.co.uk/welcome/tp_faq_pg.htm
16  “Frequently Asked Questions”.
17  “Frequently Asked Questions”.
18  Jack Herbert and Neil Thurman, “Paid Content Strate-
gies for News Websites,” Journalism Practice. May 2007, 211.
Spring 2011: Volume 10, Issue 1
cally sustainable than giving our content away for
free.”19 Though this would seem to be an economical-
ly viable model, it is dependent upon the exclusivity
of the paper’s content in the online world. Rebekah
Brooks, Chief Executive of News International, called
the Times’ choice “a crucial step towards making the
business of news an economically exciting proposi-
tion. We are proud of our journalism and unashamed
to say that we believe it has value.”20 This statement
assumes a willingness on the part of the reader to pay
for quality content, and this assumption is one justi-
fication for the Times’ model of charging online. The
Standard, on the other hand, assumes that the reader
might not be willing to pay and focuses its distribu-
tion plan on that contingency. Though the Times is
a national daily and reaches a larger audience than
the Standard, a comparison of the theories and as-
sumptions behind their business models generates
an interesting and pertinent debate. Both the Times
and the Evening Standard claim that their respective
choices represent a trendsetting move that others will
follow. It is too early to entirely validate either side of
this claim, but there are some preliminary indications
of how each model is faring.
Since its switch to a free newspaper model, the
Standard has seen increases in both circulation and
advertising, and early reactions indicate some mea-
sure of success. Mark Banham calls the Standard’s
transformation “a media success story,” and the
“newspaper success story of the year,” pointing
out that it took about 18 months for the Standard
to go from being a paid for newspaper that was los-
ing about L20 million a year to being a near profit
freesheet.21 In October 2010, the Standard raised its
circulation by another 100,000 copies, a further in-
dication of the initial success of the freesheet.22 The
Guardian reports that the Standard now has an audi-
ence of about 1.4 million, and that, where the paper
used to sell about 1,600 copies at the Oxford Circus
Tube stop; it can now distribute about 20,000.23 These
numbers seem to indicate that the Standard’s attempt
to broaden its scope has succeeded in some capacity;
being a freesheet has increased its availability and
presence in the city. Faced with the rise of the Inter-
net, the Standard chose to both develop a website
and to reinvent the more traditional print business
model. Though the move met with much skepticism,
19  “Frequently Asked Questions”
20  Alexi Mostrous and Francesca Steele, “The Times
and The Sunday Times to charge for use of websites from
June,” The Times. 27 March 2010 http://business.timeson-
line.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/media/arti-
cle7076987.ece
21  Banham, 17
22  Banham, 17
23  Peter Preston, “Evening Standard almost in profit af-
ter going free,” guardian.co.uk. 13 June 2010, http://www.
guardian.co.uk/media/2010/jun/13/peter-preston-eve-
ning-standard-free
17
some contend, “the power of old fashioned print ad-
vertising has moved [the Standard] to the brink of
profitability.”24 Despite the unorthodoxy, the Stan-
dard’s methods appear to be meeting with success
and certainly present an intriguing reinterpretation
of the traditional news business model.
The short-term success of the Times’ online sub-
scription model has been less definitive, though it is
still too early to delineate complete success or fail-
ure. A few months into its paywall experiment, the
paper reported 105,000 new paying subscribers and
100,000 who had previously subscribed to the print
newspaper.25 However, the website also suffered a
62 percent drop in readership, losing about 4 million
readers.26 Additionally, page views fell by about 90
percent, from 41 million in May 2010 to 4 million in
September 2010.27 The paywall on the Times web-
site appears to have deterred many consumers, and
it remains to be seen if the model can make up for
the costs of this decreased online readership. While
charging for content online may be a viable option, it
is still a fledgling concept that is open to negotiation.
Jack Herbert and Neil Thurman write that “there is
some consensus that most online newspapers have
yet to find a business strategy with which they are
completely comfortable,” and this lack of certainty
leads to a somewhat experimental approach.28 In its
preliminary stages, the business model of the Times
appears to have met with less success than that of the
Evening Standard, but it is much too early to make
any long-term ruling.
Advertising has traditionally been a corner-
stone of newspaper success, and, at least for now,
the broader appeal of the Standard’s free distribu-
tion model appears to have created a more lucrative
advertising market than the paid-for content of the
Times’ websites. The Standard’s decision to go free
seems to have lured many advertisers back to what
had been a struggling paper. Banham’s article re-
ports that after switching to a free model, the Stan-
dard “recorded significant volume growth through
advertisers coming back.”29 Mullins recounts, “ad-
vertisers that haven’t been in the Standard for weeks,
months, years, are coming back” and points out,
“you can’t avoid the fact that Londoners on their
way home read the Standard and that’s what adver-
24  Preston, “Evening Standard almost in profit after go-
ing free”.
25  Erick Schonfeld, “The Times UK Lost 4 Million Read-
ers to its Paywall Experiment” techcrunch.com. 2 November
2010, http://techcrunch.com/2010/11/02/times-paywall-
4-million-readers/
26  Schonfeld.
27  Schonfeld.
28  Herbert and Thurman, 210.
29  Banham, 17.
18 The Oculus: The Virginia Journal of Undergraduate Research
tisers want to hear.”30 In choosing a free distribution
model, the Standard greatly increased the readership
and visibility of the paper, making it a more lucrative
product for advertisers.
On the other hand, the Times’ strategy does not
appeal to as large of a market and thus does not at-
tract as much attention for advertising. In fact, Her-
bert and Thurman describe a trade-off between con-
tent charging and advertising revenues, since content
charging inherently limits the number of users who
see a page.31 One question remaining with the online
charging model is if subscription revenues will make
up for revenues lost in advertising. Erik Schonfeld
writes, “The number of loyal readers willing to pay
for on online subscription to the Times will peak
eventually if it has not already. Once it does, where
will the Times go from there?”32 It is certainly a ques-
tion worth considering. In putting a paywall around
its online content, the Times has limited the number
of views its site gets, and has therefore made itself
vulnerable to losing advertisers looking to reach the
widest range of consumers. The Standard, on the oth-
er hand, is put in the hands of more people because
it has taken down its barriers instead of adding new
ones, and this makes it more lucrative to advertisers
hoping to access the average Londoner.
Early readership and advertising responses do
not appear to favor the Times’ online business model,
and one reason for this could be the dominant con-
ception of the Internet as a free medium. In order
to characterize the decline in online readership sur-
rounding the Times’ change, it is necessary to look
at the expectations surrounding the medium of the
Internet, where there is a “general consensus among
surfers that ‘content is free.”33 The first few years
of the Internet were characterized by the assump-
tion that the web allowed free access to content that
might have otherwise been charged for,34and that be-
lief does not appear to have significantly diminished.
This expectation of free and readily available content
is one obstacle for companies like the Times, which
are seeking to price online content. As the BBC points
out, charging for online content “may alienate read-
ers who have become used to free content and deter
advertisers,”35 especially since, with the wide variety
of information on the web, audiences “do not need to
be as loyal to a particular content provider.”36 The In-
ternet has created a proliferation of free news, and as
such, has generated significant competition for more
30  Banham, 17.
31  Herbert and Thurman, 212.
32 Schonfeld.
33  Koen Pauwels and Allen Weiss, “Moving from Fee to
Free,” Journal of Marketing, May 2008,14.
34  P. David Marshall, New Media Cultures, New York, Ox-
ford UP, 2004, 49
35  BBC News, “Murdoch signals end of free news,” 6 Au-
gust 2009, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/8186701.
stm
36  BBC News, “Murdoch signals end of free news.”
traditional, paid subscription models. The Times at-
tempts to impose this older business model within
the new expectations of the Internet, a transposition
that Jeff Jarvis argues is “simply insane.”37 Though
Jarvis’ opinion might be extreme, charging for news
in a medium with expectations of free content could
alienate potential readers and drive current readers
to sites that are free of charge. The rise of the Inter-
net has led to some changes in public expectations of
news outlets, and the exclusivity of the Times model
could be problematic in a medium that tends to focus
more on wide-ranging accessibility.
Faced with the reality of broad choices on the
web, the Times chose to rely on what it saw as the ex-
clusive quality of its content, hoping that consumers
would pay for content perceived to be above the rest
of the free web. In an interview with the BBC, Ru-
pert Murdoch explained that, in order to retain read-
ers, the online paper would strive to make content
“better and differentiate it from other people.”38 The
Times promoted the enhanced reader experience on
its sites, aimed at generating “a growing base of loyal
customers that are committed and engaged with our
titles.”39 Even with expectations of a free web, the
Times is hoping that “the price of fee content signals
a higher quality to a (potential) subscriber.”40 How-
ever, the numbers show that 66 percent of consumers
did not see enough reason to pay for the site, sug-
gesting that they view free content as an equal al-
ternative to paying for more exclusive content. The
Times’ claim to elite and exclusive journalism does
not appear to be as relevant within the medium of
the Internet, an environment of choice that may be
less conducive to the dominance of old media institu-
tions. The Internet provides “a greater search qual-
ity for information and news by users,” and allows
consumers to be “less dependent on one source and
become more comfortable in finding information
rather than it being provided.”41 In trying to imple-
ment an old media business model within a new me-
dium, the Times might have underestimated changes
in consumer expectations and behavior. The web has
engendered expectations of free information, and the
business model of The Evening Standard seems more
suited for success in that environment.
Free printed newspapers might be a more in-
viting news medium in a culture with shifting ex-
pectations about free content and open sources of
37  Jeff Jarvis, “Rupert Murdoch’s pathetic paywall,”
guardian.co.uk, 26 March 2010 http://www.guardian.co.uk/
commentisfree/2010/mar/26/rupert-murdoch-pathetic-
paywall
38  BBC News, “Murdoch signals end of free news.”
39  Mercedes Bunz, “Times and Sunday Times websites
to start charging from June,” guardian.co.uk, 26 March 2010,
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/mar/26/times-
website-paywall
40  Paulwels and Weiss, 16.
41  Marshall, 51.
Spring 2011: Volume 10, Issue 1
information. Free newspapers have seen growth in
the recent years; Bakker cites sixty free newspapers
worldwide with more than 20 million people read-
ing these papers.42 Free newspapers, he claims, “are
here to stay.”43 In an age where the Internet has cre-
ated expectations of free content, the free newspaper
adheres to the format of an older medium while also
meeting that expectation. In certain markets, as prov-
en by the Evening Standard, the free paper could be
a viable option for change. Bakker writes, “The suc-
cess of free papers is the result of their efficient cost
structure and their ability to reach a new and rela-
tively young audience.”44 Free papers provide news
with no cost and great convenience to consumers,
and as such, seem to have more success in luring an
elusive audience of young professionals. Though
many have argued that the physical newspaper is
becoming obsolete, free newspapers could be one
counterargument to that position. Such a transforma-
tion, if it does come, cannot happen overnight, and,
meanwhile, free newspapers could act as a viable
alternative, or at least a valuable transition tool. By
attracting a new, young readership and proving to be
fiscally successful in metropolitan areas like London,
free sheets have asserted a place in the discussion of
modern media.
That discussion must not exclusively focus on lit-
eral business models, but must also take into account
the effects these new business models will have on
the role of media within society. Traditionally, media
have played an important role in the development of
a robust public sphere, and even in shifting worlds of
new media, it is important to consider the impact of
evolving media on the quality of the public sphere.
The traditional idea of the public sphere is often
credited to Jurgen Habermas, who defined it as “a
realm of our social life where something approaching
public opinion can be formed” and where “access is
guaranteed to all citizens.”45 Habermas’ definition of
a robust public sphere relied on media communica-
tions like newspapers to inform and enable rational
debate among citizens, and thus to enforce the me-
dia’s role as a watchdog for the democratic state. This
concept of the public sphere is still prevalent in dis-
cussions of modern media, where “the internet has
been heralded as a place for a new transformation
of the public sphere.”46 As media evolves with the
Internet, its role in the public sphere is consistently
renegotiated, and the business choices of Evening
Standard and the Times each have implications for
modern interpretations of the traditional Haberma-
sian public sphere.
42  Bakker, 180.
43  Bakker, 186.
44  Bakker, 180.
45  Jurgen Habermas, “The Public Sphere,” New Ger-
man Critique, Autumn 1974, 49 http://www.jstor.org/
stable/487737.
46  Marshall, 53.
19
 The contrary philosophies of the Standard and
the Times and their impacts on the robustness of the
public sphere are coded into their differing mecha-
nisms of distribution. The form of each paper “struc-
tures and expresses the environment” and that en-
vironment can “represent something larger: the
world at large, its economics, politics, sociality, and
emotion.”47 The business models of the Standard and
the Times create physical networks of distribution
that imply differing social and political messages.
The Standard is distributed in a more public environ-
ment; for the most part it is given out and consumed
in public spaces, such as the London Underground.
Additionally, it is free of cost and is thus inherently
more available to a wider range of society. The Times
model of charging online, on the other hand, implies
more private, exclusive consumption - news read in
more individual portals by an audience limited by
subscription fees. The Evening Standard would seem
to fit more the traditional Habermasian model of the
public sphere in that it is consumed in a more public
setting, with no restriction on who can access its in-
formation.
On the other hand, the Times model seems to lend
itself to a more exclusive environment, and perhaps
a more limited public sphere. The website, while it
does provide forums for discussion, is more suited
to individual consumption in private spaces. Though
the Internet as a whole has been heralded as a cham-
pion of the public sphere, the charging model of the
Times website somewhat undermines this praise be-
cause it puts a price on information and limits read-
ership in an environment that is otherwise free and
open. Barnhurst and Nerone write, “The modern
newspaper brought all readers together in the same
common space, but a Web edition directs them all to
discrete rooms. A reader with an interest in sports
need never glance at a public affairs story along the
way.”48 Someone desiring to read a particular article
in the Standard must at least flip past its other ar-
ticles to get there. On the other hand, a Times online
user need only click on the particular article he or she
would like to access. In some sense, the traditional
variety and debate of typical newspapers has been
removed. Barnhurst and Nerone point out, “If the
metropolitan daily encouraged a common space of
general knowledge, then the Web encourages nar-
rower spaces of specialized knowledge.”49 Though
the concept of the public sphere is also in flux with
transitions to new technology, the business model of
the Standard appears to fit more with the traditional
model of a robust and diverse public sphere, a merit
worth noting in an age increasingly worried about
the consequences of the web.
47  Kevin G. Barnhurst and John Nerone, The Form of News:
A History, New York, The Guilford Press, 2001,
48  Barnhurst and Nerone, 290.
49  Barnhurst and Nerone, 291.
20 The Oculus: The Virginia Journal of Undergraduate Research
Media outlets are functions of the society they
represent, and, as these two different media phi-
losophies vie to represent London, it is important to
consider which model could best reflect and serve
the city. It is worth noting that London has consis-
tently chosen to open itself up, to be inclusive, even
to be free. For example, in the face of pressing budget
concerns, the British government considered having
some museums in London begin charging for admis-
sion. However, after much debate, it was decided
that these museums should remain free, even though
their budgets were cut in other ways.50 Free access
could in many ways be considered a cultural value of
the city. Reacting to the Standard’s decision, Mayor
Boris Johnson noted, “The best things in London are
free. Free elections, free museums, free healthcare.”51
Additionally, poet Andrew Motion said, “London
has always been the great city of free spirits and free
thoughts, and it is full of free pleasures as well- free
museums, free libraries, free parks, all overlooked by
free-to-walk-in Hampstead Heath.”52 Rather obvi-
ous propaganda aside, the message is worth noting.
London is a vibrant city that is proud of its public
life and inclusive in its glorious diversity- should its
newspaper not reflect that feeling? It is a question
worth thinking about as each of these media institu-
tions continues to develop its new business model.
Though London is a unique market and not a uni-
versal template for world media,53 the two differing
approaches of the Standard and the Times present an
intriguing contrast and a productive debate as media
continue to adapt to changing technology.
The rise of the Internet has generated great anxiety
about the future of newspapers, and both the Stan-
dard and the Times have made bold changes in an
effort to assure the future of their papers. This small
story is one chapter in the constant rise and fall of old
and new media, a chapter in which Standard and the
Times have taken on leading roles. Like the city that
they represent, these papers have proved themselves
to be bold, innovative, and daring. Could London,
like it is at so many things, be at the foreground of
this rising media debate? Could this energetic and
ever-changing city lead the way in re-imagining me-
dia? It is certainly a possibility, that, just as it always
has, this dynamic city will make an indelible impact
and set a bold precedent for others around the world
to follow.
50  Louise Jury. “Museums to stay free in arts and heritage
cutbacks,” www.thislondon.co.uk, October 20, 2010, http://
www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23889882-muse-
ums-to-stay-free-in-arts-and-heritage-cutbacks.do
51  Geordie Greig, “Finding a copy of your free Evening
Standard,” www.thisislondon.co.uk 4 January 2010, http://
www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23755375-eve-
ning-standard-goes-free.do
52  51 Greig.
53  Peter Preston, “Evening Standard almost in profit after
going free”.
Works Cited 18. Schonfeld, Erick. “The Times UK Lost 4 Million
1. Alexi Mostrous and Francesca Steele, “The Times Readers to its Paywall Experiment.” techcrunch.
and The Sunday Times to charge for use of com. 2 November 2010. http://techcrunch.
websites from June.” The Times. 27 March 2010 com/2010/11/02/times-paywall-4-million-read-
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/busi- ers/
ness/industry_sectors/media/article7076987.ece 19. Sweeney, Mark. “London Evening Standard to
2. Banham, Mark. “How the Standard’s making go free.” The Guardian. 2 October 2009. http://
money now it’s free.” Campaign. Haymarket www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/oct/02/lon-
Business Publications Ltd. 25 June 2010. Issue 25. don-evening-standard-free
3. BBC News. “Murdoch signals end of free news.” 6
August 2009. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/busi-
ness/8186701.stm
4. Bunz, Mercedes. “Times and Sunday Times web-
sites to start charging from June.” guardian.co.uk.
26 March 2010. http://www.guardian.co.uk/me-
dia/2010/mar/26/times-website-paywall
5. Franklin, Bob. “The Future of Newspapers.”
Journalism Studies. October 2008. Vol. 9. Is. 5.
6. “Frequently Asked Questions” http://www.
timesplus.co.uk/welcome/tp_faq_pg.htm
7. Greig, Geordie. “Finding a copy of your free
Evening Standard.” www.thisislondon.co.uk. 4
January 2010. http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/
standard/article-23755375-evening-standard-
goes-free.do
8. Habermas, Jurgen. “The Public Sphere.” New
German Critique. No. 3. (Autumn 1974). http://
www.jstor.org/stable/487737.
9. Jack Herbert and Neil Thurman, “Paid Content
Strategies for News Websites.” Journalism Prac-
tice. May 2007, Vol. 1 Issue 2.
10. Jarvis, Jeff. “Rupert Murdoch’s pathetic paywall.”
guardian.co.uk. 26 March 2010 http://www.
guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/mar/26/
rupert-murdoch-pathetic-paywall
11. Jury, Louise. “Museums to stay free in arts and
heritage cutbacks.” www.thislondon.co.uk. Oc-
tober 20, 2010. http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/
standard/article-23889882-museums-to-stay-
free-in-arts-and-heritage-cutbacks.do
12. Kevin G. Barnhurst and John Nerone, The Form
of News: A History. New York, The Guilford
Press, 2001.
13. Koen Pauwels and Allen Weiss. “Moving from
Fee to Free.” Journal of Marketing. May 2008 Vol.
72 Is. 3.
14. Marshall, P. David, New Media Cultures. New
York, Oxford UP, 2004.
15. Preston, Peter. “Evening Standard almost in
profit after going free.” guardian.co.uk. 13 June
2010. http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/
jun/13/peter-preston-evening-standard-free
16. Preston, Peter. “The Curse of Introversion.” Jour-
nalism Studies; October 2008, Vol. 9 Is. 5.
17. Sabbagh, Dan. “London Evening Standard to
become freesheet.” The Times. 3 October 2009.
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/busi-
ness/industry_sectors/media/article6858274.ece

Spring 2011: Volume 10, Issue 1 21

 The Role of Grace and Shame in Postwar
Japanese Attitudes and Historical Blame
Simon Svirnovskiy
While Germany has borne the brunt of war guilt after the First and Second World Wars,
there is surprisingly little ‘guilt’ levied on America by the Japanese, considering the dev-
astating impact of the Atomic Bombs. After the war, American censorship strict discus-
sion policies stunted the Japanese ability to grieve and get past or overcome the bomb-
ings. This led to an inward resentment at Japanese political leaders, which exacerbated
the military “shame” culture and led to a national “shame” culture that was adapting to be-
ing forced to ‘ignore’ the atomic bombings and forced to move past it without discussion.
However, after censorship restrictions were lifted, Japan was able to publicly grieve and
move past the horrific events. Shame could now give way to grace as the public could turn
to one another get past the event. Indeed, Americans were lucky to ease censorship restric-
tions when they did otherwise they could’ve faced the point where inward shame turns
to collective resentment of the censor. When they did ease censorship, the Japanese had
not only the previous atomic bombings to cope with, but also the palpable threat of an-
other nuclear war. Thus, they turned their collective grief and anger into fighting nuclear
development in general instead of the country that used nuclear weapons against them.

W hile there has been a great deal of scholarship

and discussion over German guilt and respon-
sibility for World War II and the Holocaust, there has
been surprisingly little interest in analyzing Ameri-
can guilt or responsibility after the atomic bombings.
While the allied powers quickly moved to assign
near-exclusive blame to Germany after the war, the
Japanese government has taken almost no diplomatic
action against the United States. Simply put, there is
comparatively very little international outrage re-
garding American use of the atomic bomb.
After the war, the United States maintained occu-
pation forces in Japan and, in effect, ruled the country
until 1952. During this time, America instituted strict
censorship and limited public discussion policies.
These repressive protocols stunted the Japanese abil-
ity to grieve and potentially overcome the bombings.
This, in turn, led the Japanese people to an inward re-
sentment at their political leaders, which exacerbated
the military “shame” culture and led to a national
“shame” culture. The people were forced to ‘ignore’
the atomic bombings and move past them without
discussion.
After censorship restrictions were lifted, how-
ever, Japanese citizens were finally allowed to pub-
licly mourn, express their grief, and move past the
horrific events they endured. Shame could now give
way to grace as citizens could turn to one another to
overcome the devastation of August 1945. Indeed,

Simon Yakov Svirnovskiy is a 3rd year from St. Louis, Missouri, majoring in Sociology and Political Philosophy, Policy
& Law. Simon produced this paper for Professor Jeffrey Olick’s “Trauma, Atrocity and Responsibility” seminar. He has
sung with the Virginia Gentlemen since his first year and has also served as founder and president of ONE at UVA.
Simon would like to thank Professor Olick for spurring his interest in this topic and for his mentoring during research.
This summer Simon will be working in Consulting and hopes to pursue a legal education in the future.

22 The Oculus: The Virginia Journal of Undergraduate Research

Americans were lucky to ease censorship restrictions
in 1952 because the occupiers could have faced the
point where inward shame turned into collective
resentment of the censor. When Americans did ease
censorship, the Japanese turned their collectivegrief
and anger towards fighting nuclear development in
general, rather than at the nation that had actually
used nuclear weapons against them.
Japan – Aggressor or Victim?
After the war’s conclusion, American policymak-
ers needed to determine whether to treat Japan as
global aggressor or victim. Japanese treatment, like
the use of the bomb itself, would be a move of politi-
cal strategy. Indeed, the Soviets were constantly con-
sidered in the rational calculus that the United States
government used to justify the bombings. The bomb
was a ‘card,’ as Secretary of War, Henry L. Stimson
noted, to be played against the Soviets at the most
strategic moment.1
If Japan was “aggressor”, then the bombing could
be justified for ending the “Good War”. The American
narrative has run with this identity as we remember
that the bombs were the final blow against an aggres-
sive and savage foe, which had dragged out World
War II long after it should have ended. President
Harry Truman, in a nationwide radio report, stated
that, “Having found the bomb we have used it… in
order to save the lives of thousands and thousands
of young Americans.”2 American public opinion at
the time also overwhelmingly favored the use of the
bomb. Eugene Rabinowitch, editor of the Bulletin of
the Atomic Scientist, noted that, “With few exceptions,
public opinion rejoiced over Hiroshima and Naga-
saki as demonstrations of American technical inge-
nuity and military ascendance.”3A Fortune magazine
poll taken in late 1945 found that only 5 percent of
respondents opposed the atomic bombings, while a
significant minority would have dropped even more
bombs on the Japanese.4 Even sixty years later the
United States Senate unanimously passed a resolu-
tion in response to the Enola Gay museum contro-
versy, which declared that the nuclear bombing of the
two Japanese cities was “merciful” and stressed the
1  Dower, John W. “Three Narratives of our Humanity.”
In Linenthal, Edward T. and Tom Engelhardt eds., History
Wars: The Enola Gay and other Battles for the American
Past. Metropolitan Books. New York. 1996. p. 82.
2  Clemens, Cyril ed., Truman Speaks (1946; reprint, New
York, 1969), 69. As cited in Bix, Herbert P., “Japan’s Delayed
Surrender.” In Hogan, Michael J. ed., Hiroshima in History
and Memory. Cambridge University Press. Cambridge.
1996.
3  Rabinowitch, Eugene. “Then Years That Changed the
World.” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. Vol. 12. January
1956. p. 2. As cited in Boyer, Paul. “Exotic Resonances.” In
Hogan, Hiroshima in History and Memory. p. 145.
4  “The Fortune Survey,” Fortune, December 1945, p. 305.
As cited in Boyer, Paul. “Exotic Resonances.” In Hogan, Hi-
roshima in History and Memory. p. 145.
Spring 2011: Volume 10, Issue 1
role that the Enola Gay (the bomber that dropped the
bomb on Hiroshima) played in saving American and
Japanese lives.5
There is certainly truth to the claim that the atom-
ic bomb saved American lives. The United States
military wanted to avoid the proposed Kyushu in-
vasion, which was scheduled for November 1, 1945,
and would be, by most estimates, the deadliest battle
in the war.6 However, the bombings, with 200,000
estimated casualties7, undoubtedly took more Japa-
nese victims than the Kyushu fighting ever could.
Additionally, the major difference was regarding
who would have to face the brunt of the casualties –
enlisted fighting men in combat, or civilians in their
homes, offices and schools?
More than anything else, the days of August 6
(Hiroshima) and August 9, 1945 (Nagasaki) epito-
mized the ambiguous identities of victims and vic-
timizers as the allies attempted to win the “good
war” by bombing civilians.8 In 1938 the United States
had publicly condemned the, “inhuman bombing
of civilian populations,” but by 1945, the American
military had proceeded to firebomb Dresden and To-
kyo, and atomically level Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Yet, surprisingly, almost no one ever seriously chal-
lenged this practice on moral grounds.9 Paul Boyer,
agrees, pointing out that, “the atomic bombing was
only the culminating act of a never wholly effective
ethical barrier.”10 In the modern age, there was first
the razing of Atlanta by William Sherman’s soldiers
in the American Civil War. Then the German armies
used nerve gas on enemy soldiers in World War I.
From there, firebombing and, later, atomic bombing
seemed to be logical progressions. Interestingly, the
Manhattan project scientists who were charged with
developing the American nuclear program actually
sped up their work after Germany was defeated in
April of 1945; they were worried that the war would
end before their contribution could be used.11 There
was no strong desire to avoid combat use of the bomb
from anyone in a position of influence and, thus, the
people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were doomed
to their fate, forever to be footnotes in the history of
movable wartime ethics.
5  Dower. “Three Narratives.” p. 73.
6  Bernstein, Barton J. “Understanding the Atomic Bomb.”
In Hogan, Hiroshima in History and Memory. p. 65.
7  “The Atomic Bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki;
Chapter 10 – Casualties.” The Avalon Project – Documents
in Law, History and Diplomacy. The Lillian Goldman Law
Library. Yale Law School. http://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_
century/mp10.asp
8  Dower, “Three Narratives.” p. 71
9  Ibid, p. 95.
10  Boyer, Paul. “Whose History is it Anyway?” In. Li-
nethal and Engelhardt, History Wars. p. 123.
11  Dower, “Three Narratives.” p. 82.
23
Japanese Shame
Historian John Dower points out that Japan has
had a unique relationship to the ‘narrative of victim-
ization’. Their soldiers killed many millions, civilians
included, but they were the only people to face nucle-
ar destruction.12 Today the Hiroshima Peace Museum
contains almost no mentions of anything before Au-
gust 6, 1945, save for an exhibit about the city of Hiro-
shima as it was before the bomb was dropped. There
is no mention of the Rape of Nanking, no mention
of Pearl Harbor or any other pre-war events by the
Japanese. The museum exclusively plays up the ‘vic-
tim’ status of Japan.13 While it was certainly intended,
first and foremost, as a monument to the bombing
victims and as a forum to combat all nuclear weap-
ons, one would also expect more historical balance
out of a museum in order to tell the most accurate
picture possible. Japan has also faced controversy in
acknowledging their treatment of Korean Prisoners
of War. Indeed, the Japanese government ended up
paying war reparations to the Republic of Korea and
also to Burma, Indonesia, the Philippines and South
Vietnam in the 1960s.14
Only the Emperor’s death in 1989 allowed for a
more critical engagement with past events. Discus-
sion of the war and Japan’s wartime responsibility
were taboo under Hirohito’s long rule.15 Interestingly,
the emperor was more or less absolved from prosecu-
tion and was allowed to stay in his post with most of
his privileges because this made it easier for the Unit-
ed States to administer Japan after the war.16 Part of
this absolution may come from the US government’s
interpretation of Hirohito’s role in the war. He was
seen as a figurehead who wielded symbolic but not
actual power; an individual occupying a historical
position that had little real say in Japan’s militaris-
tic government. Barton J. Bernstein, however, argues
that only the bomb was finally able to convince the
emperor to push his government for peace in August
1945. Without Hirohito’s precedent-breaking inter-
cession directly into the military discussions, the mil-
itarists in the Japanese government would have like-
ly pushed onward and fallen only in Kyushu.17 Still,
the emperor was tasked with ending the war but, in
this process, he could not disavow Japan’s war aims
or acknowledge the nation’s war atrocities. He, thus,
tried to absolve himself of blame by painting himself
as the ultimate victim. In his surrender address to the
Japanese people, Emperor Hirohito cried out: “My
12  Ibid, p. 65.
13  Hiroshima Peace Museum Outline. http://www.pcf.
city.hiroshima.jp/outline/outlineTop_E.html
14  Tachibana, Seiitsu. “The Quest for a Peace Culture: The
a-bomb Survivors’ Long Struggle and the New Movement
for Redressing Foreign Victims of Japan’s War.” In Hogan,
Hiroshima in History and Memory. p. 171.
15  Dower, “Three Narratives.” p. 67.
16  Ibid, p. 68.
17  Bernstein, pp. 67, 72.
24 The Oculus: The Virginia Journal of Undergraduate Research
vital organs are torn asunder!” He transformed the
people’s sacrifices into his own agony.18 The emperor
navigated the thin line between accepting practical
defeat while not admitting ideological failure.
Bernstein focuses on this military stubbornness
that the American government thought was handi-
capping the Emperor’s actions. “I was unable to keep
the military from insisting they were not beaten,”
said Foreign Minister Shigenori Togo in July 1945.
The Japanese Army knew they could not win but
they believed they could still ward off an invasion
of their homeland. Togo recalled that, “army chief
of staff, General Korechika Anami, replied that, ‘if
we were lucky, we could repulse the invaders before
they landed’, but that was all he could say with as-
surance as that we could destroy the major part of
the invading army.”19 With the continued American
demands for unconditional surrender, the Japanese
decided on the “Ketsu-Go” war strategy, which relied
heavily on suicide tactics. Japanese military leaders
were prepared, quite literally, to fight to the death.20
In response, Herbert Bix argues that Hirohito was
not at all blameless and that his reluctance to accept
impending defeat and his refusal to act to end hostili-
ties before August 6 certainly contributed to the use
of the bomb. Bix contends that it was the Emperor
who steered Japan toward continued warfare in his
name.21 Indeed, by the time Hirohito may have real-
ized that victory was impossible, he had already in-
vested too much of his personal credibility into the
militarist strategy and he could not give that away.
Bix does agree with Bernstein that the Emperor was
an opportunist of the bomb. The use of the bomb was
the event that gave Japanese leaders the excuse, in
their mind, to end the war.22 Otherwise, the Japanese
would have had to quit the war because of growing
domestic pressures. The bombs were a ‘saving-face’
that allowed the leaders, at least for that moment
in history, avoid shame. President Truman’s staff
agreed, writing that, “The American officers now in
Tokyo [October 1945, just after surrender] are amazed
by the fact that resistance continued as long as it did,”
and that the atomic bombs, “while seized upon by
the Japanese as an excuse for getting out of the war,
18  Dower, John W. Embracing Defeat – Japan in the Wake
of World War II. W. W. Norton & Company, Inc. New York.
1999. p. 36.
19  “Statements” of Togo #50304, As cited in Bernstein,
“Understanding the Atomic Bomb.” In Hogan, “Hiroshima
in History and Memory.” p. 53.
20  Bix, Herbert P. “Japan’s Delayed Surrender: A Reinter-
pretation.” In Hogan, “Hiroshima in History and Memory.”
p. 101.
21  Ibid, p. 112.
22  Ibid, p. 107.
actually speeded surrender by only a few days.”23
Surrender, in itself, spelled doom to most Japanese
Patriots because, as Dower notes, “a country that had
celebrated its mythic ‘2,600-year anniversary’ in 1940,
and prided itself on never having been invaded, was
about to be inundated by white men.”24
Tom Engelhardt wrote of a ‘Culture of Defeat’
that had been cultivating in Japan throughout the
latter half of the war. Interviews just after war’s end
showed the people letting out deeply repressed but
devastating emotions.25 For the Japanese, their year
of victories spanned from 1941- 1942 but after the war
it was almost forgotten and was replaced, instead, by
the overwhelming defeats that came later. Even in
December 1941 after the Pearl Harbor attacks, Ameri-
cans were optimistic that their industrial nation could
win any battle. The Japanese, however, faced a “des-
perate self doubt.”26 As the war continued, this self-
doubt was reinforced, first with the news of military
losses elsewhere in the South Pacific, and then most
dramatically when the American Air Force brought
the war to cities on the Japanese mainland. Still, dur-
ing the war, it remained taboo to speak about the
problem of peace even if the Japanese people wanted
it. The incendiary bombing of Tokyo in 1945 was
crushing enough, but when all of that destructive
power was compressed into a single bomb carried by
a single plane, the defeat was too devastating to even
comprehend. As the country began to come to grips
with the scale of the destruction, the people started to
violate taboos and question their own government.
Seiitsu Tachibana notes that in the years follow-
ing their defeat in World War II, Japanese people
saw themselves as victims, not just of the allied
war, but also of the militarism of their own govern-
ment.27 Soldiers who had left their homes with the
support and love of everyone in their neighborhood
returned home to shocked and unwelcoming societ-
ies. The soldiers came back with the memories of a
stubborn and unforgiving military hierarchy. Dower
notes that superior officers commanded fear and not
respect from their units, and defeat unleashed deep
and previously repressed resentments. Indeed, many
soldiers came home wishing not to take an enemy
but, “one of their officers as a souvenir.”28 Shame also
came with the knowledge of Japan’s true military
inadequacy, and understanding just how seriously
23  Locke, Edwin A. Jr., memorandum for the president,
October 19, 1945, Box 182, President’s Secretary File, Papers
of Harry S. Truman, Truman Library, Independence, Mo. As
cited in Dower, “Embracing Defeat.” p. 44.
24  Dower, “Embracing Defeat.” p. 43.
25  Engelhardt, Tom. “The Victors and the Vanquished.” In
Linenthal and Engelhardt eds. History Wars. p. 224.
26  Ibid, p. 225-6.
27  Tachibana, p. 168.
28  Dower, “Embracing Defeat.” p. 59.
Spring 2011: Volume 10, Issue 1
the people were duped by their military leaders. The
bombs were a symbol of America’s material might
and scientific progress and, in contrast, the Japanese
were encouraged to fight with their bamboo spears
and their lives.29 The Japanese singled out a deficien-
cy in their scientific development as the reason for
their loss and suffering in the war. Japan had lost not
to the enemy, but to the ‘enemy’s science.’ In turn,the
Japanese fueled their frustration with their scientific
deficiency into efforts to invest in scientific capital,
which was, in turn, responsible for the Japanese eco-
nomic boom of the 1980s.
One final area of shame is seen in Japanese reflec-
tion over their treatment of the hibakusha, the victims
of the atomic bombings. American occupiers imme-
diately enacted a policy prohibiting hibakusha from
seeking financial compensation from the US, but this
isolation was compounded by strict ostracism within
Japan itself. This is because psychologically, if not
physically, the hibakusha were, “deformed reminders
of a miserable past.”30 Most Japanese were too busy
and already weary enough, and simply preferred to
put the hibakusha out of their minds. Dower argues
that some of this can be attributed to the enduring
guilt of survivors who, either willing or out of sheer
inability, could not honor the last requests of the dy-
ing hibakusha around them.31
The immediate government reaction after the
bombings was swift and praiseworthy. As stipulated
by the Wartime Casualties Care Law, the rescue and
relief efforts that began just after the bombing con-
tinued for exactly two months. In this time, 105,682
people were taken in at relief stations and 210,048
were treated as outpatients. When the relief stations
closed, however, after two months, people had to pay
for their own care. Those who couldn’t pay were put
under the responsibility of their cities or villages.32
After their two months were up, atomic bomb sur-
vivors received no special treatment, leaving them
covered only by the general welfare system. Many
survivors built huts from burn wreckage and were
forced to live in desperate conditions because of the
constant lack of resources. In addition to the acute ef-
fects that appeared immediately after the bombing,
the nuclear radiation caused a multitude of long-
term health problems. A high percentages of sur-
vivors developed leukemia and other cancers. The
Peace Museum remarks that, “Because the effects of
radiation remain obscure even today, survivors con-
29  Dower, John W. “The Bombed: Hiroshimas and Naga-
sakis in Japanese Memory.” In Hogan ed., “Hiroshima in
History and Memory.” p. 120-1.
30  Ibid, p. 128.
31  Ibid, p. 133.
32  Hiroshima Peace Museum Website. The Second Spe-
cial Exhibition of FY 2002: Hiroshima Testimony – The City
Obliterated, the Aftermath. http://www.pcf.city.hiroshima.
jp/virtual/VirtualMuseum_e/exhibit_e/exhi_fra_e.html
25
tinually fear for their health.”33 Still, facing a lack of
government aid and treatment, bombing survivors
had to unite and stand up for themselves. In 1951 the
Hiroshima Atomic Bomb Victims Rehabilitation Soci-
ety was formed to provide a forum for discussion of
the problems that hibakusha faced and to help them
collectively improve their living conditions. How-
ever, these forums were strictly grassroots based and
were rarely sponsored or even acknowledged under
the taboos of post-war Japan.
While the seeds of self-doubt were sown as the
war turned against them, Japanese shame was cer-
tainly exacerbated by American post-war occupa-
tion; an occupation that was fundamentally rooted
in American’s post-war demands. The United States
required unconditional surrender for two reasons.
First, Hirohito was vilified in the public eye and the
public would demand full surrender. Secondly, Tru-
man feared that anything other than a demand for
complete and unconditional surrender would em-
bolden the Japanese to ask for more lenient grounds.
Ending the war in Japan, then, would be an all or
nothing proposition.34 One of the major tangible
displays of American influence was the censorship
imposed starting in September of 1945. The US occu-
piers did not allow public mourning, healing or dis-
cussion of the bombs for fear that these actions would
incite public unrest.35 Local censorship was the most
brutal, however, as survivors could not grieve pub-
licly and, even worse, psychological traumas could
not be diagnosed. The easing of censorship in 1948
let to a minor publishing boom, which spiked again
when censorship was completely lifted at the end of
American occupation in 1952.36
The transition from public shame to public grace
occurred only after American restrictions and censor-
ships were eased in occupied Japan. It was as if the
public, finally allowed to grieve, could get past their
own and their government’s failings for the first time.
Engelhardt wrote that Japan, as a nation of victims,
formally began on August 6, 1945. This would mark
the beginning of a new national identity37 (which is
seized upon by the Hiroshima Peace Museum). How-
ever, those victims could only move on from their
devastating past when they were allowed to mourn
it, and get over it on their own terms.
There was, undoubtedly, a massive rift in macro
and micro Japan that needed to be addressed. Au-
gust 1945 marked a disjuncture in consciousness. “In
a humiliated country,” remarks Engelhardt, “there
was good reason not to remember the war years.”38
This macro fracturing was also mirrored in individ-
ual hibakusha who wrote of a fracturing of identity.
33  Ibid.
34  Bernstein, p. 51.
35  Dower, “The Bombed.” p. 117.
36  Ibid, p. 128.
37  Engelhardt, p. 228.
38  Ibid, p. 228-9.
26 The Oculus: The Virginia Journal of Undergraduate Research
The break, depending on their home city, occurred on
August 6 or August 9, 1945.39 This description is strik-
ingly similar to Jean Amery’s description of trauma,
noting that the trauma victim lives in the past. He is
stuck and cannot move forward. This is how trauma
operates – it holds one in its grip and keeps her there,
not allowing her to make the past the past. Thus, her
natural temporal order is destroyed.40 In post-war Ja-
pan, the trauma victims did not just have to deal with
their own upset temporality, but also were forced to
remain in that state through artificial barriers set by
their occupiers.
Japanese Grace
Grace does not equate to blind forgiveness, but
forgiveness is certainly part of the process. In April
1993, the Mayor of Hiroshima said that Japan owed
the US an apology for Pearl Harbor, and the US owed
Japan an apology for the atomic bombs.41 Still, when
the Japanese people were turning from shame to
grace, their rage bypassed the American victimizers
and, instead, turned on the weapon that was used
against them. They did so for two reasons.
First, the atomic bombings was so horrific and un-
paralleled that many in Japan could not fathom them
being a result of human actions. Some thought that
the bombings were a natural disaster.42 Other Japa-
nese, however, still see themselves as having been
chosen, almost in a religious sense, to bear witness to
the apocalypse of nuclear war. Recalling the publish-
ing boom after the ease of censorship, one of the most
popular writers was Takashi Nagai. His view of the
bombings was apocalyptically Christian. A young
survivor of the Nagasaki bombings who watched his
wife die in the blast, Nagai, himself, succumbed to
heart failure from leukemia as a result of the bombing
in 1951. In the remainder of his life, Nagai wrote that
Nagasaki must have been the chosen victim, the lamb
of sacrifice, because of its strong Christian tradition.
Indeed, when the US military dropped the “Little
Boy” atomic bomb, they aimed directly at the Nagasa-
ki church in the center of the city. Further supporting
the ‘inhumanity’ of the bombs were the sheer images
around the survivors. Dower notes that the twisting
of traditionally benign symbols gave credence to the
super-natural interpretation of the bombings. Mother
and infant became the symbol of a broken life bond –
mothers attempting to nurse dead babies, or infants
nursing at the breast of a dead mother. These images
were eerily similar to those of another religious tale,
the Buddhist apocalyptic vision, mappo.43
Secondly, because censorship restricted any pub-
lic discussion of the bombings until 1948, the Japanese
39  Dower, “The Bombed.” p. 116.
40  Amery, Jean. At the Mind’s Limits.
41  Linenthal, Edward T. “Anatomy of a Controversy.” In
Linenthal and Engelhardt eds. History Wars. p. 33.
42  Dower, “The Bombed.” P. 119.
43  Ibid, p. 134.
were only able to confront the atomic horrors three
years after the rest of the world. The Japanese public
confronted the bomb at the same time that ‘runways
were being lengthened’ in Okinawa in preparation
for the war with Korea. The Japanese faced the bombs
and the most threatening moments of the Cold War
at the same time. Dower eloquently wrote that, “they
encountered the Cold War, thus, with a deep and per-
sonal concern for the human consequences of nuclear
weapons that ran beyond the abstract American no-
tion of ‘nameless casualties.’”44 By the early 1950s,
fears of a nuclear World War III were evident all over
Japan and the Japanese remained alarmed at the use
of any nuclear weapons. Thus, out of fear of further
nuclear disaster, the Japanese seem to have channeled
their potential anger with the American aggressors
who dropped the bombs into a deep and passionate
struggle against nuclear weapons themselves.
Japanese Grace may also, however, come from
the uncomfortable realization that the much victim-
ized Japanese island was not, itself, without blame. It
wasn’t surprising, however, that after the bombings,
few Japanese had the energy, imagination or desire
to dwell on how many other lives they’d shattered
while carrying out the emperor’s holy war.45 Still,
while they weren’t prepared to deal with this guilt
then, true grace required Japan to acknowledge their
misdeeds before taking further action. True grace,
indeed, is a very recent phenomenon. The Japanese
were glad that Germany assumed, in 1985, full re-
sponsibility for its past and that in 1988 the United
States admitted its ‘mistake’ in creating internment
camps.46 In an effort to bridge their nations’ past his-
tories, representatives from Tokyo and Seoul have
met every two years to revise and update their his-
tory books together.
Slight changes have also been seen in the treat-
ment of hibakusha and in their national legacy. From
1945 to 1952, the Japanese government imposed an
atomic news blackout to try to prevent any news
about the bombings and the hibakusha from getting
out to the rest of the world. After blackout was lifted,
news of the true situation of Japan’s survivors was
made public to the rest of the globe for the first time.
In August 1952, the Atomic Bomb Victims Associa-
tion formed as a forum for the many people who
were looking to proactively collect aid for bombing
survivors and rally against the Atomic bomb.47 After
a women’s group petition collected 30 million sig-
natures, the World Conference against Atomic and
Hydrogen bombs was held in Hiroshima in August
44  Ibid, p. 135.
45  Dower, “Embracing Defeat.” p. 45.
46  Tachibana, p. 173.
47  Hiroshima Peace Museum Website. The First Special
Exhibition of FY 2007: Help from Overseas – Support for
the Survivors and Hope for Rebuilding the City. http://
www.pcf.city.hiroshima.jp/virtual/VirtualMuseum_e/
exhibit_e/exhi_fra_e.html
Spring 2011: Volume 10, Issue 1
1955. At that convention, hibakushua had the oppor-
tunity to speak to the world for the first time about
their experiences, and other participants from non-
bombed cities had their first chance to see the atomic
victims.48 In 1957 the national government estab-
lished the Atomic Bomb Survivors Medical Care Law,
which gave survivors a ‘Survivor Health Book’ that
acted as payment from the government cover sur-
vivors’ medical costs. However, appeals were made
to change the law because lost income due to hospi-
talization would not be compensated.49 And in 1980,
a report from the state health department rebuked
most hibakusha demands, dismissing their claims to a
special status by countering that all individuals had
to tolerate wartime sacrifices. The report concluded
that hibakusha could not seek legal redress because
the state could not be charged with its political acts.50
Since then more focus has been put on the efforts
to ban nuclear weapons worldwide. This effort has
been led by the mayors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
and started as early as 1955 when Nagasaki mayor,
Tsutomu Tagawa, said that, “the renunciation of
atomic weapons and the condemnation of war by the
great scientists made him believe that the dawn of a
lasting world peace would be seen in the near future.”
Mayor Tagawa was referring to “The Russel-Einstein
Manifesto,” which condemned nuclear weapons and
was signed by eleven major scientists in London in
1955. Hiroshima Mayor, Shinzo Hamai, regarded the
partial nuclear test ban treaty of 1963 as a step toward
the total abolition of nuclear weapons. Their succes-
sors continued these mayoral calls for worldwide
nuclear disarmament and in 1973 Mayor Yamada of
Hiroshima issued a condemnation on the countries
that used ‘national security’ concerns to justify con-
tinued nuclear war preparations tests. Soon after, in
1975, Hiroshima and Nagasaki officially partnered as
“peace culture cities.”51
In the 1980s and 90s, the mayors worked toward
the recognition and treatment of the hibakusha. They
asked the health ministry to enact a relief law based
on the principle of state compensation – to give Hi-
roshima and Nagasaki more funds to use on their
afflicted people. Finally, the mayors have also chal-
lenged the Japanese to remember their victimizer
past: Nagasaki Mayor Motoshima asked his fellow
citizens to, “think deeply about the events from the
attack on Pearl Harbor to the destruction of Naga-
saki and reflect with sincerity on the war.” He also
prayed for the souls of the more than twenty million
Japanese and foreign victims of the, “dark chapter in
history.”52 He closed his address by asking all of Ja-
pan to take moral responsibility for their treatment
48  Tachibana, p. 175.
`49  Hiroshima Peace Museum. Help from Overseas Ex-
hibition.
50  Tachibana, p. 177.
51  Ibid, p. 181.
52  Ibid, p. 183-84.
27
and isolation of the hibakusha. With this request, the
mayor asked all Japanese citizens to acknowledge,
fully, what the hibakusha had gone through and to
help pull the atomic victims out of the their temporal,
trauma prisons and into a society that was able and
willing to let them move forward on their own terms.
In the Support for the Survivors and Hope for Rebuild-
ing the City exhibit in the Hiroshima Peace Museum,
there is a great deal of information about American
support and relief aid given after the war. One may
be stunned, indeed, by the forgiveness that this part
of the museum shows and how grateful the exhibit
seems for American aid and sympathy. One may be
left amazed that there is not more outrage from the
Japanese. In fact, the whole museum takes an en-
tirely objective tone and there is no anger anywhere.
The exhibit even references the “moral adoption”
program started by Norman Cousins, which raised
$2,000 for 500 children in Hiroshima. While Cousins’
actions were certainly admirable, the whole exhibit
sounded amazingly grateful in its tone. At the con-
clusion of the exhibit, a small panel summarizes all
of Japanese Grace:
“Our planet still bristles with too many nuclear
weapons. The danger that a nuclear weapon will be
used is actually increasing. Each of us has a more
grave responsibility than ever to take another step
toward the abolition of nuclear weapons.” 53
There is no resentment at state actors but only at
their actions and the weapons they acted with. The
Japanese transition from shame to grace, without
vengeance as an intermediary step, is the reason that
there is not more global outrage against the United
States for the use of the atomic bombs.

53  Hiroshima Peace Museum. Help from Overseas Exhi-

bition.

28 The Oculus: The Virginia Journal of Undergraduate Research

 The Myth of the Reasonable Man:
A Critique of the Postulate of Man As Reasonable, and the
Legal Fiction of Rationality that Saturates Our Justice System

Nicole Brown

I question the postulate of man as reasonable by exploring the traditional definitions of reason in lib-
eral contract theory, and comparing them to how they can be viewed in light of recent discoveries
in moral psychology. Though reason is understood to be an objective mode of analysis that posits
objective conclusions, the cognitive actuality of applied reasoning is complicated by other emo-
tional responses and external stimuli. As a prerequisite to the function of reason, one must take
particular normative principles as truths. Because individuals defer to different principles, even
pure reason does not itself provide a singular response to a moral dilemma. By juxtaposing moral
philosophy’s description of reason against our common legal understanding of “reasonableness”,
I find that our expectations of “rationality” do not correlate to any specific system of principles.
“Thinking rationally,” though it may call us to address a situation with practicality, does not
lead us to specific judgments or decisions. Thus to posit the reasonable man as a standard of po-
litical behavior, does not elicit any particular expectation of convention or moral responsibility.

“On the road halfway between faith and criticism stands the inn of reason.  Reason is faith in what can be
understood without faith, but it’s still a faith, since to understand presupposes that there’s something under-
standable.”

(176, Book of Disquiet, Fernando Pessoa”)

Nicole Brown is a fourth year Government major attending the University of Virginia. She studies Political Theory
and language, specializing in Spanish and Portuguese. Her major inspirations are Fernando Pessoa, a Portuguese exis-
tentialist, and James Baldwin, a political theorist. Nicole hopes to continue to write political theory papers and publish
works of fiction and theory in the future.

Spring 2011: Volume 10, Issue 1 29

 Reason writes in.
Reason writes in like a suicide note in the margins of history.
Thinking it can explicate thousands of years of moving matter,
It proposes a new standard. Asserts a vocabulary of certainty.
Assumes its own indelibility.
In its journey through the minds of man,
It has forgotten that it too is of modern manifest;
A matter.
The red clay stains our books,
Forever indicating a reference point,
referencing the masons of its production.
Born is rationality, collapsing our experience of existence into
moments of decision
Until our consciousness fragments. We are sold the idea that the self examples of these standards are “reasonable expec-
and identity are philosophically congruent.
Born is legitimacy, reducing thought to literature
And intentionally erasing that which can not be described so that
Representation carries more weight than
Even the sensual perception through which we realized our selves.
Reason writes out the irrelevant
Because it creates the relevant.
Reason writes out the meaningless
Because it creates the meaningful.
It writes out God
Because it creates God.
At some juncture in time
A Reason wrote in
(probably in large font)
And no one has yet written back.
Written by the author
P olitical theory posits the man as reasonable as
the foundation of a just and stable society. John
Locke uses this postulate as a point of departure in
his explanation of how we exercise moral judgment.
Yet many political philosophers since Locke have
successfully demonstrated that it is the interplay of
intuition, reasoning and various other methods of
analysis that influences judgment. Still, we judge cas-
es on the basis of the apparent “reasonableness” of
behavior. The opinions of the Supreme Court Justices
are an ideal demonstration of how judgment need in-
corporate various principles, and not solely a defer-
ence to objective reason, to resolve a moral dilemma.
By rejecting the idea that man is naturally inclined to
reasoning as a founding political narrative, we can
open our minds to the actual causal determinants of
man’s political behavior and imagine a more tolerant
justice system.
Considered one of America’s founding political
theorists, John Locke was distinguished within the
classical liberalist tradition for his doctrine on the
30 The Oculus: The Virginia Journal of Undergraduate Research
natural rights of man: “The Two Treatises on Govern-
ment.” Locke was fervently opposed to authoritari-
anism and the fatalistic perspective of human nature
that would posit man as innately antagonistic and
war as the natural state of affairs. He proposed that
all men are born free and rational, and that govern-
ment is responsible for uplifting the human person-
ality. According to Locke, the proper function of a
just state is to enforce the law of rationality. It is to
say that reason is so essential to the process of moral
judgment that it manifests into universal moral law.
(Two Treatises, 102) To this day, obeying a Lockean
sense of judicial duty indicates a faith in the moral
certainty of the law. The criminal justice system is
saturated with the language of “reasonableness,”
employed to assess the behaviors of citizens. Some
tation of privacy,” “reasonable doubt,” protection
against “unreasonable search and seizure,” the re-
cent “reasonable woman” standard in cases of sexual
assault, and, of course, the classic “reasonable man”
standard used in tort law to determine how the typi-
cal person ought to behave.
Implicit in the employment of “reasonableness”
is the understanding that an average of behaviors
defines a normal, thus justifiable, response to cir-
cumstance. This would be rather uncontroversial
if an objective standard of reason were employed
uniformly, and if we deferred to objective reason-
ing as our primary recourse in adjudication. Do we
judge with the sincere belief that reason has a par-
ticular claim towards justice? Or do we base moral
judgments on a variety of principal considerations?
In order to explore these questions and observe how
and where we have institutionalized the postulate of
man as reasonable, we should review how Locke, our
founding philosopher, defined reason and applied it
to social contract theory.
The purpose of extensively examining the tradi-
tional definition of reason is so that we can under-
stand how reason’s narrative is implied in political
affairs. Though the importance of exploring this defi-
nition may not be immediately apparent, the inten-
tion of this essay is to emphasize how language can
criminalize and objectify. Thus, in our exploration of
reason, we will see how it acts on the one hand as a
faculty and on the other hand as an absolute value.
Eventually, we will see in what ways we assume the
priority of certain moral criteria in our judgment of
man, and how our expectations of human nature are
based on the belief of the infallibility of reason.
Part I: What is reason?
In “An Essay Concerning Human Understand-
ing,” Locke provides us with a basic description of
how reason functions psychologically. He later de-
scribes what it means to reason with attention to
moral dilemmas. In the context of his chapter on
demonstrative knowledge, he describes reason as
the response to the following intellectual conflict:
“…. when the mind cannot so bring its ideas to-
gether as, by their immediate comparison and, as it
were, juxtaposition or application one to another, to
perceive their agreement or disagreement, it is fain,
by the intervention of other ideas (one or more as
it happens), to discover the agreement or disagree-
ment which it searches; and this is that which we call
“reasoning.”(434) Reasoning, by these terms, is both
deductive and analogical. The problem being the
relation between two ideas, reason determines their
agreement or disagreement by creating parallels with
similar ideas. Critical to this understanding of reason
is the apparent difficulty of determining the relation
by the plain juxtaposition of the two original ideas,
so that the introduction of external concepts and
their relations are necessary elements in resolving the
problem. Reflection external to the immediate situa-
tion is critical.
Throughout the Second Treatise in which Locke
expounds the natural rights of man, the language of
reason has a unique application. Unlike in his essay
on human understanding where reason is used to
contrast intuitive knowledge, Locke discusses reason
here as an enlightened propensity of man, his inheri-
tance, and his birthright. Reason defines the essential
distinction between human and animal. Here he does
not flesh out a psychological description of the fac-
ulty in action, but posits it as the principal element of
freedom and thus a free society: “The freedom then
of man, and liberty of acting according to his own
will, is grounded on his having reason, which is able
to instruct him in that law he is to govern himself by,
and make him know how far he is left to the freedom
of his own will.”(Two Treatises, 126) We are born free
and we are born rational; the two terms being mu-
tually codependent whereby the general liberty of
humanity is in great measure determined by one’s
freedom to exercise reason. (126) More than a deter-
minant of man’s proper course, reason is the tool that
provides man access to the dictate of his own will, it
being unintelligible without the guidance of reason.
The man who varies from “the right rule of reason” is
literally a degenerate, and is rejecting the principles
of his own nature. (104) According to both of Locke’s
interpretations of reason, it seems to be essential to
both complete an understanding of self and to con-
sciously direct one’s actions.
Theoretical and Practical Reasoning
The intention of moral philosophy is to answer
questions about value and obligation. In the justice
system, especially, we are compelled to respond to
significant challenges that question how and where
we should apply our values. Reason is thus invoked
to respond to these questions and itself determine
the application of our values. In the study of moral
theory, there is a critical distinction made between
Spring 2011: Volume 10, Issue 1
theoretical and practical reasoning, based on the na-
ture of the subject matter. Are both typologies of rea-
son relevant to making moral judgments? Theoretical
reasoning, intends to predict what would occur in a
hypothetical situation. Practical reason, by contrast,
begins with a normative question of what one should
do in a present situation, and is used instrumentally
to make a value judgment:
“Theoretical reason…involves reflection with an
eye to the truth of propositions, and the reasons
for [the] belief in which it deals are considerations
that speak in favor of such propositions’ being
true, or worthy of acceptance. Practical reason,
by contrast, is concerned not with the truth of
propositions but with the desirability or value of
actions. …This difference in subject matter cor-
responds to a further difference between the two
forms of reason, in respect of their consequences.
Theoretical reflection about what one ought to
believe produces changes in one’s overall set of
beliefs, whereas practical reason gives rise to ac-
tion; as noted above, it is practical not only in its
subject matter, but also in its issue.” (Wallace,
Practical Reason)
Whilst both forms of reason work to critically an-
alyze and produce normative conclusions, the objec-
tive of practical reason is to evaluate behavior, while
theoretical reason evaluates the belief systems that
support behavior. Although the distinction between
theoretical and practical reason is a significant point
of discussion in the study of moral philosophy, both
forms of reasoning, whether regulating ideas or be-
haviors, are relevant in our observation of the stan-
dards used in the justice system. Both considerations
are employed in a thorough analysis of behavior, and
a normative standard can be produced by both theo-
retical and practical processes of inquiry. Wallace’s
essay goes on to suggest that a critical similarity be-
tween the two types is that reason, in a general sense,
takes on a regulatory position. The difference being
the specific system of norms in question, theoretical
reason regulates belief while practical reason regu-
lates action.
According to Locke’s general definition, reason
also involves a speculation that takes place some-
what external to the situation at hand. That there be
some dispassionate consideration and comparison
beyond the basic understanding of the dilemma, is
critical. By the comparison alongside preconceived
relations, it creates a new understanding and identity
for the new object of knowledge:
“… Reason, therefore, never applies directly to
experience, or to any sensuous object; its object
is, on the contrary, the understanding, to the
manifold cognition of which it gives a unity a
priori by means of conceptions – a unity which
31
 may be called rational unity, and which is of a
nature very different from that of the unity pro-
duced by the understanding.” (Human Under-
standing, 213)
The key concept here is that reason produces a
conception of the object of knowledge, separate from
the actual experience with that object. This idea will
be revisited when we look at studies showing how
judgments are made in consideration of a priori caus-
al theories.
Logic: The Science of Reasoning
Though logic is considered the science of reason-
ing, it is very distinct from the practice of moral rea-
soning, which we can intuit from their distinct aca-
demic niches. Although what is logical is certainly
not the same as what is rational, it is important to un-
derstand what veritable mathematical processes rea-
soning assumes on the most basic level. For this we
should ascertain a basic understanding of different
logical functions. Important to remember, however,
is that logic, unlike moral reasoning, is not interested
in discovering empirical facts. It is only interested in
determining truths. It is mathematical in this sense,
and when it deals with philosophical matters, it only
deals with matters that are not contingent on exter-
nal variables. (Joe Lau and Jonathan Chan, What is
Logic?)
Logical reasoning has been separated into the fol-
lowing types:
Deductive- Deductive reasoning is a top down
approach that forms hypotheses from general prin-
ciples. The observations that come subsequent to
theorizing are then used to confirm previously de-
termined theories. Although this sounds a lot like
simply rationalizing a preconceived notion, this form
of reasoning fits with our common understanding of
utilitarian reasoning. Both Locke and Kant refer to the
“rational unity” that a priori considerations provide
prior to the understanding of the problem at hand.
Inductive- Inductive reasoning is a more explor-
atory kind of reasoning which allows one to observe
the dilemma and determine a pattern. From these
determinations, unmotivated by predictions or pre-
conceived notions, a tentative hypothesis and a the-
ory are derived. This is considered a bottom-up ap-
proach. (William, Deduction & Induction)
The difficulty of using an inductive approach in
our moral dilemmas, however, is the problem of the
amount of time we have. Although we have all of
the time in the world to determine what our reaction
would be if we are given a hypothetical situation, we
do not immediately have access to a variety of similar
circumstances to be able to formulate a response that
would encourage a constructive approach. Inductive
reasoning allows the nature of the object to speak for
it itself, relationships are determined subsequent to
this scientific observation.
32 The Oculus: The Virginia Journal of Undergraduate Research
Although logic is primarily concerned with de-
termining objective truths in a mathematical fash-
ion, we can imagine that either deductive or induc-
tive logic may unintentionally encourage subjective
elements in the process of reasoning. Postulates are
formed by the juxtaposition of chosen axioms. What
is to decide which axioms are relevant to the equa-
tion at hand, and interpret and apply the relationship
between axioms?
Logicians may not concern themselves with the
politics of reasoning as we will, but to understand
the physical processes of reasoning is to better un-
derstand the psychology of it. We may not agree that
either deductive or inductive reasoning is applied in
its pure sense when it comes to moral judgments, but
we can, at the very least, use this to understand the
different ways we critically analyze.
Reason and Rationality
In our discussion of the narrative of reason, we
find that legal standards tend to use the vocabulary
of “reasonableness” while moral philosophers often-
times use reason and rationality interchangeably. Is
there a valuable distinction between reason and ra-
tionality? Encyclopedia Britannica describes ratio-
nality as: “the quality or state of being agreeable to
reason”; and reason as “a rational ground or motive,”
“the power of comprehending, inferring, or thinking
especially in orderly rational ways,” or the “proper
exercise of the mind.” The Encyclopedia also offers
‘intelligence’ and ‘sanity’ as possible synonyms in
the colloquial use of the term reason. (Encyclopedia
Britannica Online) There seems to be little rhetorical
distinction between the two definitions as they are
used colloquially and throughout moral philosophy
and so, though we will encounter different meanings
of reasoning versus rationalizing, there is little valuable
distinction between the concept of the reasonable
man, versus the rational man, or reasonable thought
versus rational thinking. For the purposes of this pa-
per, they will be used interchangeably. However, as
noted above, reasoning and rationalizing have distinct
connotations.
Though in all of these definitions there is the im-
plicit understanding (as there is in Locke’s Two Trea-
tises) that reason comes naturally to man, the defini-
tions themselves do not propose that reason assumes
a particular moral disposition or prioritization of
principles. Thus, although we are led to believe that
the perfect application of reason would advance the
most adequate and universal moral conclusions, we
are not provided with a preconceived procedure of
reasoning. This indicates a tension that we will find
in both Locke’s works and in the modern perception
of reason as used in the justice system: that reason
implies a particular moral telos and universal agree-
ment whilst reasoning is a specific activity of the brain,
a kind of knowledge that directs judgment. Where by
reasoning the thinking man is implicated into deci-
sion making by evaluating the moral significance of
a situation based on his experience with similar situ-
ations, reason appears to be a natural law compelled
by the nature of man. (Human Understanding, 434)
While the latter assumes, the former intends to inves-
tigate and prove.
The idea that reason ascertains certain conclusive
objects of knowledge, advancing the truth of some
over others, works to validate these ideas. In demon-
strating a connection between reason and a particu-
lar object of knowledge, we assume that this connec-
tion speaks to the truth of that object of knowledge.
Through this method, many objects of knowledge,
reasonably explained, become rubberstamped with
the mark of reason and normalized; an assumption
of truth following from the idea that the knowledge
came about solely by the motivation of reason. What
we will see is that what can be rationalized is not
the same as a reasonable conclusion, and that many
things “rationalized” are often motivated by alterna-
tive modes of analysis.
Kant’s Critique of Reason
Locke was not the only philosopher of his time
who defined reason as a tool to access a higher moral
law, and rational unity as the truth that transcends
the physical understanding of the object. Immanuel
Kant also described reason as the key to accessing
objective truths. There is a distinction between mak-
ing situational judgments and determining universal
moral truths, as situational judgments are variant
while a moral determination is permanent. As uni-
versality is the marker of rationality, we should ex-
pect that a conclusion determined by the process of
reasoning would be a truth agreed upon by all other
reasonable beings: “…now from this follows the third
practical principle of the will as the supreme condi-
tion of the agreement of the will with the universal
practical reason, the idea of the will of every rational be-
ing as a will that legislates universally.”(115, Kaufman)
We can see how by this description, law is validated
by real moral truths that are reasonably derived.
The upshot of both Kant and Locke’s descrip-
tions of the application of reason is a belief in the
synchronized morality of humanity. In stark contrast
to moral relativists, philosophers such as Locke, Kant
and Ayn Rand who pose reason as the guide to moral
certainty, are really proposing that the tools we need
to achieve legal perfection are within us. Rand states
famously that: “My philosophy, in essence, is the con-
cept of man as a heroic being, with his own happi-
ness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive
achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his
only absolute.”(William, Thomas. “What Is Objec-
tivism?) What does this suggest in terms of how we
should evaluate our principles? What we can see is
that reason is not only our power, but it is also the
principle to which we should defer in matters of mor-
al law. Because it is the only thing that can be perfect,
Spring 2011: Volume 10, Issue 1
as our specific conceptions of principles such as jus-
tice and equality can be tainted, reason need be our
highest principle upon which we attempt to actualize
all other principles. These philosophers hold that the
actualization of reason in the world is equivalent to
the actualization of man himself. Key to observe here
is the idea that experience and plurality do not alter
what perfect reasoning would advance. Though the
language of both Locke and Kant admits an inexo-
rable marriage between reason and religion, Chris-
tianity in particular, this does not alter the fact that
reason is necessarily objective and dependant upon
the absolute valuation of particular moral principles.
(114, Kaufman) Thus, although reason is meant to
stand as its own absolute, one must determine what
principles are privileged in order to determine the di-
rection of reasoning. We will therefore see that there
is a tension between the idea that reason is completely
objective and the problem of requiring a valuation of
other moral principles in the act of reasoning. The sec-
tion on moral reasoning will elaborate on this issue.
The Marriage of Reason and Religion
Before reason was perceived as secular and as the
binary opposite of faith, it was often viewed as the
intellectual gift of man, endowed to him by God. As
reflection and evaluation were the distinct faculties
of humanity, it is understandable why it would seem
reason defined a kind of higher purpose we were
given. Before scientific objectivism claimed reason,
moral philosophers entertained the idea of coming to
the conclusion that there is a God through reasoning.
In his section on “Faith, Reason and their distinct
provinces,” Locke contradistinguishes faith and rea-
son, showing that reason is the acquisition of knowl-
edge through deduction whilst faith is the assump-
tion of knowledge through revelation. (583, Human
Understanding) Yet, in 1695, Locke authored and
anonymously published an essay titled “The Reason-
ableness of Christianity,” describing through practi-
cal methods of reasoning why God exists. Here he
alludes to an interrelatedness between faith and rea-
son, and explains that reason prescribes an indefinite
moral law: “God out of the infiniteness of his mercy,
has dealt with man as a compassionate and tender fa-
ther. He gave him reason, and with it a law; that could
not be otherwise than what Reason should dictate;
unless we should think that a reasonable Creature
should have an unreasonable Law.” (Parke, Locke,
The Reasonableness of Christianity) Here again, we
note that reason assumes a specific moral telos. Un-
like reasoning, it is not just a method of evaluating a
proposition and determining a truth, it being the gift
of a transcendent deity with a predefined intention,
exposes a specific moral content. Locke does not pre-
tend to omit a bias in his discussion of reason, nor
does he intend to abstract reasonable judgment from
particular moral substance and intention, it being en-
tirely an ability provided by God.
33
 Locke was not the only philosopher of old who
married spirituality to his definition of reason. Ad-
dressed in his passage on matters of the soul, Aris-
totle describes reason as the capacity that organizes
our perception of material phenomena. It is the in-
tellectual power to both compare and distinguish
objects of knowledge, essential only to the human
experience. Distinguished from sensual perception,
reason is a principle that posits objective ideals. Simi-
lar to Locke, Aristotle sees reason as the function of
the human soul, giving it an eternal significance and
introducing it as the mental endowment of God.
Here again is the suggestion that reason comes as
a response to a specific moral intention inspired by
God. Rationality is not only the mark of humanity,
but of an omnipotent intention hoping that, through
its utility, we recognize a specific moral paradigm.
(535, Aristotle)
As we can see, the ancient moral philosophers,
though discussing reason metaphysically, do not
separate reason from a religious context. Although
reason is often understood as secular today, it does
not mean that reason does not inhabit a particular
moral disposition or operate differently in different
contexts. Despite the various typologies of reason,
theoretical versus practical, deductive versus induc-
tive etc., each philosopher includes his or her own
assumption of the upshot of reasoning, positing his
or her idea of its political importance in decision and
judgment.
Moral Psychology
Yet recent psychological evidence supports the
idea that we tend to rationalize what was not origi-
nally motivated by a rational motive or determined
“reasonably.” In other words, we provide a narrative
for the reasons we determine a judgment, which, are
not the true reasons we determine the answer. Rich-
ard Nisbett and Timothy Wilson’s 1977 report pub-
lished in the Psychological Review suggested that we
are generally unlikely to be able to comment on the
cognitive procedures we use to determine a conclu-
sion, thus unable to provide an adequate justification
of why we came to said decisions. (233, Nisbett and
Wilson) Through a series of psychological experi-
ments, they demonstrate a tendency to rationalize
decisions by a priori perceptions of the relationship
between certain stimuli and response:
“We propose that when people are asked to re-
port how a particular stimulus influenced a
particular response, they do so not by consult-
ing a memory of the mediating process, but by
applying or generating causal theories about the
effects of that type of stimulus on that type of
response. They simply make judgments…about
how plausible it is that the stimulus would have
influenced the response. These plausibility judg-
34 The Oculus: The Virginia Journal of Undergraduate Research
ments exist prior to, or at least independently of,
any actual contact with the particular stimulus
embedded in a particular complex stimulus con-
figuration.”(248)
As evidenced by the incorrect responses in the
studies they performed, subjects could never accu-
rately explain the connections they themselves made
to the stimuli, or comprehend what influences actu-
ally motivated their decisions and judgments.
In one particular study, designed specifically to
observe the effects of aesthetics on choice, Nisbett
and Wilson asked a group of fifty-two subjects to
evaluate four identical pairs of stockings and name
their preferences. The results were mostly in favor of
the stockings positioned to the right, winning out by
a ratio of about four to one. (243) Although all of the
stockings were identical, not one consumer realized
this, and an overwhelming majority preferred the
rightmost stockings, denying later that their prefer-
ences were at all influenced by the positioning. The
specific aesthetic or causal theory this may be refer-
encing could be a belief that shoppers, browsing left
to right, should take time to make their decisions. But
the critical discovery of this study was the fact that
none of the consumers understood what primarily
influenced their personal preferences. (243)
What the subjects in these studies lacked was
an understanding of their own cognitive processes.
Many studies have been done on the unconscious ef-
fects of subliminal messages on consumers. Unique
to this particular study, is its emphasis on the nega-
tive consequences of seemingly arbitrary influ-
ences to one’s understanding of self. Without prior
knowledge of the relationship between stimuli and
response, these subjects who had relied on an a priori
causal understanding, were deceived. Studies like
these can shed light on the psychology behind why
we privilege certain moral commitments as well, and
lead us to question what primarily influences many
of our moral judgments.
Moral Reasoning and Moral Dilemmas
The last study addressed our understanding of
the cognitive procedures we ourselves apply to pro-
duce judgments; and it concluded that our rationales
tend to not match up with the truth of how we pro-
cess information. However the problem of determin-
ing which stockings we prefer most and why, is con-
siderably less substantial than an issue that would
advance moral or political implications. In their es-
say on moral reasoning, Joseph Paxton and Joshua
Greene introduce their research by positing an argu-
ment where Person A eventually persuades Person
B to adopt his principles. Without altering person
B’s moral intuitions or emotional response to the
subject, Person A appeals to the intellect of Person
B who eventually concedes to his reasoning. (Paxton
and Greene, 2) What work is being done here? With
the intention of demonstrating the relevance of mor-
al reasoning in judgment, Paxton and Greene pro-
pose that an appeal to one’s intellect, using evocative
language such as ‘be rational,’ can actually affect a
reaction and judgment that is distinguished from
a judgment that would have been made primarily
on moral intuitions. (15) However, whether the re-
sponse or change in opinion can be universally ac-
cepted as the most rational response, we are yet to
be persuaded.
They experimented with the classic “crying baby”
dilemma, where the subject must imagine him or her-
self in a wartime scenario. Hiding under the floor-
boards from the occupation of the enemy with neigh-
bors and family, your child begins to cry hysterically,
threatening the lives of yourself and others. You are
presented with the following moral dilemma: “Is it
morally acceptable to smother your baby to death in
order to save yourself and other villagers?”(11) They
found that for this compelling example, there was a
long delay in response time because of the serious-
ness of the problem-at-hand, and also that the sub-
jects were conflicted between an “emotional response
that opposes “personally” harmful actions and a
more controlled cognitive response that, in utilitarian
fashion, favors minimizing harm.”(12) Observing the
two areas of the brain that are stimulated during an
emotional response and a utilitarian response, they
found that subjects were experiencing a construc-
tive combination of the two processes. Though the
rationale for those who would smother their child
was decidedly utilitarian, both the utilitarian and the
emotional parts of their brain were stimulated. The
similar situation occurred with those who answered
intuitively that said they could not kill their child.
It was found in a Cognitive Reflection Test that
the subjects with a more mathematical intellectual
style tended to defer to the utilitarian principles.
Subsequent to being presented with the moral dilem-
ma, they were asked to answer the following math
question in order to determine their thinking styles:
“A bat and a ball cost $1.10. The bat costs one dollar
more than the ball. How much does the ball cost?”
Interestingly enough, those who responded to the
moral dilemma saying they would not kill their child,
answered intuitively that the ball was 10 cents and
the bat one dollar. The individuals who answered
the math problem correctly (saying the ball was 5
cents and the bat $1.05 dollars) were the ones who
responded to the moral dilemma with a utilitarian
approach. (13)
What about this scenario speaks to our under-
standing of reason as a faculty? Does this propose
that those with more advanced intellectual capabili-
ties will be able to reason more efficiently? By com-
menting that those who applied utilitarian principles
had more “rational” intellectual styles, Paxton and
Greene imply that those who followed their moral
intuitions somehow think less rationally. (13) Because
Spring 2011: Volume 10, Issue 1
they answered the math problem incorrectly, and as
universal truth is the marker of rationality (Kant) this
conclusion may be correct in this particular instance.
However, this finding seems to contradict their obser-
vation that all of the subjects deliberated extensively,
accessing both reason and emotion before making a
judgment. In 2004, Greene contributed to the research
of another psychological experiment that determined
that various cognitive and emotional processes
“play crucial and sometimes mutually competitive
roles.”(Greene et. al, 329) It would suggest that those
who respond “intuitively” also consider a rational re-
sponse, and that those who respond “rationally” also
consider an emotional response. Specifically, they de-
termine based on the relation of these considerations
to specific neural locations in the brain, that abstract
reasoning and cognitive control (described here as
moral intuition or emotional guidance, 396) collabo-
rate to motivate “even a cold, calculating utilitarian”
to decision:
“Reaching an overt judgment on utilitarian
grounds has two processing requirements. First, the
abstract reasoning that constitutes a utilitarian anal-
ysis must be conducted. Second, cognitive control
must be engaged to support successful competition
of the behavior favored by the outcome of that analy-
sis against any incompatible behavioral pressures
(e.g. an emotional response favoring the opposite be-
havior) Thus, we might expect to see neural activity
associated with both of these demands in the results
of the analysis. (Greene, 396)
Although the emotional response may have been
rejected or dismissed as unprincipled or difficult to
present rationally, it still plays its part in the determi-
nation of the “reasonable” response. This fact leads
us to challenge whether reasoning can ever be “ab-
stract.” “Should this account prove correct…it will
have the ironic implication that the Kantian, “ratio-
nalist” approach to moral philosophy is, psychologi-
cally speaking, grounded not in principles of pure
practical reason, but in a set of emotional responses
that are subsequently rationalized.”(398)
This finding forces us to then reevaluate the broad
application of reason as used in the previous study of
the “crying baby” dilemma. Moral reasoning is de-
scribed as an evaluation of a moral judgment to as-
sess it for its inconsistency with other moral commit-
ments (6, Paxton and Greene) and in this study it is
described as an extensive process of deliberating in-
volving abstraction (389, Greene et. al). Though both
descriptions share a certain resonance with Locke’s
understanding of reasoning, and both admit the in-
terplay of practical versus intuitive considerations in
the process of reasoning, neither of the definitions
provide that in the application of reason, there is
always and necessarily a dependence on principle.
While both studies noted this codependence, neither
took it upon themselves to redefine reason accord-
ingly.
35
 These studies suggest that the application of dif-
ferent principles lead to different kinds of reasoning.
If the principle in play is moral absolutism as op-
posed to utilitarianism, would this principle not be
just as justifiable? If the parent, instead of reasoning
with a top down utilitarian approach, looked at the
idea of killing one’s own child as violating a higher
principle, is he or she wrong for reasoning by the
means of another principle? In other words, is it the
conclusion that is the important content of judgment
or is it the process of how we get there? In proposing
these two distinct principles as possible alternatives
for reason, both conclusions seem justifiable and rea-
sonable. It does not answer questions, however, as
posed by responses such as: “I feel it is wrong to kill
my own child.” Whether that is an unacceptable or
unreasonable response by the nature of it being based
on a moral intuition and not utilitarian moral reason-
ing, or because this feeling was not subsequently ra-
tionalized by a “rational argument,” we have yet to
determine. Where, then, does the universal marker
of rationality come into play? It seems that by neces-
sitating a dependency on preconceived principles
and implying their absolute value, the thinkers of old
accurately justified marrying reason to a particular
moral disposition.
How Can Reason Be Contradistinguished
From Other Reflective Modes of Analysis?
How can we determine the difference between
“reason” and reflection, for example, as faculties that
distinguish man from animal? Or “reasoning” and
“analysis” as distinct methods of determining a judg-
ment? Reasoning is not just thinking, comparing, re-
flecting or being introspective. In other words, it is
not simply the sum of its parts. The defining char-
acteristic of reason is that it depends heavily on its
relationship to specific moral principles. The value of
reason is that it produces objective conclusions. Yet
there cannot be universal agreement on the objectiv-
ity if there is not an agreed hierarchy of moral prin-
ciples upon which we can base the moral reasoning.
The difficulty then, when applied to judging the
criminality of a behavior, is that correct reasoning is
dependant on a homogenous commitment to certain
moral principles. As juries are implored to “think ra-
tionally” about a decision, contra rational decisions
that may employ other processes of thought that are
just as reliable or well thought out, are dismissed if
not rationalized. Reasoning and thinking in general
become collapsed, as reason is the assumed expres-
sion of intelligence. Years ago, Jefferson expressed
that the universe was bent towards justice. Progres-
sion was seen as the only possible course of history
as long as the reasonable man was implicated into a
democratic society. The assumption this was based
upon was that perfect reasoning would lead us to
certain inexorable moral truths.
Contrary to this idea that reason is the primary
36 The Oculus: The Virginia Journal of Undergraduate Research
function of the thinking man, the psychological stud-
ies referenced above suggest that moral reasoning is
one of many modes of analysis that we use to deter-
mine and justify conclusions. What it means to obey
the dictate of reason, wants definition. It is not, how-
ever, this author’s intention to criticize reason as if
the process itself is problematic. Nor do I want to say
that reason is an inadequate method of determining a
moral truth. It is in fact a valuable form of analyzing
the moral significance of a situation by comparison
with other familiar situations. Yet when the original
thinkers evoked the language of moral reasoning,
they did not abstract it entirely from moral intuition.
Thoughts and feelings are not so diametrically op-
posed to one another so that reasonable decision can
be deduced to solely its rational components and an
intuitive decision, its emotional components. Addi-
tionally, if we revisit the function of pure reasoning,
we see that it leaves much room for interpretation.
When evoking analogies to determine the relation-
ship between new objects of knowledge, how does
man determine which analogies are most relevant to
the situation at hand? How does he determine how
the past relationships work to furnish a new one?
There is much room for an inherent bias, as the ways
different people interpret will vary.
When we neglect to admit the importance of oth-
er modes of analysis and assume that reason operates
abstractly in the world, we refuse to see the biases of
reason or what moral judgment involves psychologi-
cally. Reason does much work in the world, but it is
necessarily affected by subjective experience. Addi-
tionally, even when we think we are reasoning, we
are often rationalizing an a priori commitment to an-
other principle. My hope is that, by admitting that we
are motivated by various and occasionally conflicting
principles, we can imagine a more forgiving justice
system with a more realistic understanding of the po-
litical psychology of man.
Part II: Reason In The Justice System
“A will that legislates universally”
There is perhaps no better place to observe the role
of moral reasoning and the complex mechanisms of
the American justice system then the Supreme Court
of the United States. The opinions the Justices prof-
fer allow us to glimpse into the minds that produce
and legislate our normative legal precedents. Versed
in the language of reasonable standards and attentive
to the intent and direction of the law, the Supreme
Court Justices have no issue implying or stating out-
right what these normative standards should be.
As it is their obligation to determine precedents,
they must allege objective legal standards that are
durable enough to last the test of time. However, this
does not mean that they never produce controversial
standards or occasionally give definitions that are
too vague to be applied universally. In the 1920’s and
1930’s, a group of “legal realists” who advanced their
philosophy of “liberal legalism,” believed we should
admit that the role of the Supreme Court is not only
to interpret the law, but also to create it. (O’Brien, 71)
Arguing that the only way to really bring the consti-
tution to life in a legal sense is to interpret it by the
perceived standards of the day, the legal realists op-
posed the idea that there could be any such thing as
strict judicial positivism or that a Justice could ever
simply declare the law of the constitution as if it pro-
jected its own moral significance:
“I think one of the evil features, a very evil one,
about all this assumption that judges only find
the law and don’t make it, often becomes the evil
lack of candor. By covering up the law-making
function of judges, we miseducate people and fail
to bring out into the open the real responsibility
of judges for what they do…Here, as else where,
the difficulty comes from arguing in terms of ab-
solutes when the matter at hand is conditioned
by circumstances…Judges as you well know,
cannot escape the finitude of even the most imag-
inative legislation renders inevitable.”(Justice
Hugo Black, O’Brien, 72)
According to Justice Black, the issue is one of full
disclosure, and not an actual point of contention in
the liberal versus conservative interpretation of the
constitution. The Justices who agree to this liberal
description of their role expanded our understand-
ing of judicial legislation and its effects on normative
standards.
Assuming this revised understanding, where
there is no interpretation of law there can be no decla-
ration of it. The existing plurality of judicial opinions
serves to prove that even when extensive delibera-
tion and moral reasoning is employed to make a de-
cision, moral disagreement comes about. How does
this reconcile with the traditional definitions of rea-
son as applied to moral judgment? Does lack of una-
nimity signify imperfect moral reasoning? Or does it
signify that factors other than reason are employed
significantly in the determination of a decision? First,
we will observe what considerations go into an aver-
age decision of the Supreme Court and whether there
are some considerations that are privileged beyond
the scope of reason. We will notice that what we take
to be objective activity, applying the law of the consti-
tution to case law, is influenced by a myriad of other
principal considerations since interpretation itself
opens the gates to subjectivity. Secondly, we will see
to what extent there are expectations of reasonable-
ness implicit in the judgment of ordinary citizens,
and whether these are fair expectations of human
behavior.
Is reason really, as Kant proposes, a will that legis-
lates universally? (Kaufman, 115)
Spring 2011: Volume 10, Issue 1
The Structure of a Supreme Court Opinion
After reviewing a variety of opinions, it is easily
observed that the justices are plagued by various con-
cerns above and beyond assuring the moral sound-
ness of their determinations. These concerns include
consistency with previous determinations and stan-
dards, solidifying new legal precedents that have
been assessed for their potential consequences, the
relevance of analogies employed from other cases,
the general welfare of the nation, the historical con-
text of the case and, what is considered their most
important obligation-the protection of the language
and intention of the constitution. Unlike moral phi-
losophers who have the flexibility to liberally evalu-
ate moral principles and differ in their commitments,
justices are expected to adhere to all legal standards,
unless they find that these standards are incompat-
ible with the constitution. The most recent combined
constitutional and judicial oath that newly ordained
justices must recite, reads:
“I, _________, do solemnly swear (or affirm)
that I will administer justice without respect to
persons, and do equal right to the poor and to the
rich, and that I will faithfully and impartially
discharge and perform all the duties incumbent
upon me as _________ under the Constitution
and laws of the United States; and that I will
support and defend the Constitution of the Unit-
ed States against all enemies, foreign and domes-
tic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to
the same; that I take this obligation freely, with-
out any mental reservation or purpose of eva-
sion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge
the duties of the office on which I am about to
enter. So help me God.” (Supreme Court of the
United States. Texts of the Oaths of Offices for
Supreme Court Justices)
This oath was created under the Judiciary act
of 1789, and was subsequently edited in 1991. It re-
placed the clause “according to the best of my abili-
ties and understanding, agreeably to the constitution
and laws of the United States” with “under the con-
stitution” (Supreme Court of the United States. Texts
of the Oaths of Offices for Supreme Court Justices) This is
a rather consequential edit, as it clearly favors an in-
clination towards the strict interpretation of the con-
stitution. But what does this change signify in terms
of the character of judicial review?
As the justices defer primarily to the constitution,
it is clear that the Supreme Court is meant to privi-
lege their commitment to social contract as the rul-
ing principle in moral judgment. This translates to an
idea that adhering to precedence or law is in itself a
moral end. A layman is at liberty to defer to the com-
pulsion of his heart or mind to determine the moral
righteousness of his decision. However, the Supreme
Court justices must defer to the constitution as if it
37
has prescribed a preconceived morality; they must
determine the reason of the law, the meaning of its
language, and how to best execute its dictate in keep-
ing with its original intentions. They are just as much
responsible for determining the mind of the law, as
they are the heart of it- what it intended to address
and fix, and whether the past context is comparable
to the context in which it is now being summoned.
Everything must be judged for its constitutionality,
for what is constitutional is what is right. They hold
the constitution as an absolute, and most important-
ly, as a moral end in itself.
We can very easily observe how prioritizing the
commitment to social contract theory as a principle
can function by way of moral reasoning. By abstract-
ing the critical components of the case and juxtapos-
ing them against similar cases and their determina-
tions, justices can determine through abstraction
and comparison, what is right. The judicial decision-
making process operates under the assumption that
what was determined as law in the past is always and
already just and reasonable, and thus defers to that
opinion in order to create a new one in the present
situation. The determined result of the past is used
in the present context. But how does this work with
our moral philosophers’ definition of reason as tran-
scendent and rationality as marked by universality?
The mere plurality of opinions seems to suggest that
there is no one way to reason and that it based on the
various interpretations of the judges. Additionally,
decisions of the past that the justices refer to are not
always in the context of their own interpretations and
experiences, but on whichever justice represented the
majority opinion in the past case. This is an interest-
ing instance of collective morality in play here; an
assumption that one can come to a truth by the per-
ceived experience of another.
In order to visualize how reason functions in the
context of the law, we will review one of the recent
Supreme Court cases. I chose Ayers v. Belmontes be-
cause it is a good example of how justices are expect-
ed to work under the auspices of cold, calculating ju-
dicial review even in the most ethically controversial
cases. We will see whether the judgments are genu-
inely calculating, or whether the justices allow their
own personal moral commitments to slip through:
In the 2010 case of Robert L. Ayers (Warden) ver-
sus Fernando Belmontes, the Supreme Court ruled in
favor of a death penalty sentence. Belmontes, the of-
fender, committed a robbery and subsequent murder.
This being his second conviction, the jury was to con-
sider whether his crime merited capitol punishment.
Subsequent to his previous conviction, Belmontes
dedicated himself to the Christian faith and partici-
pated in community service activities for emotional
and spiritual rehabilitation. He provided witnesses,
including the bishop from his church, who attested to
the fact that he was a genuine role model and a posi-
tive contribution to the prison community by advis-
38 The Oculus: The Virginia Journal of Undergraduate Research
ing other prisoners who wanted to be reformed, not
to make the same mistakes as he.
Belmontes’s appealed to the jury not with the
hope that he would be forgiven for his crime, but
rather that his sentence would be lightened due to
the prospect that in the future, he could be produc-
tive. He hoped tohave his sentence lessened to life
in prison, instead of receiving the death penalty. In
spite of his appeal to the court, the jury found him
guilty and sentenced him to death. (Kennedy, Justice.
“AYERS v. BELMONTES.”)
In the 1970’s, the Supreme Court ruled that capi-
tol punishment was not “cruel and unusual punish-
ment,” and that it was constitutional. Subsequent to
this decision, various states legalized capitol pun-
ishment. Today, the death penalty is legal in thirty-
eight states nationwide. (O’Brien, 1170) In 1970, the
Supreme Court held in Lockett versus Ohio, that states
cannot limit the “mitigating factors” that juries can
consider in the determination of a sentence. It then
became a balancing act of weighing the “aggravat-
ing” factors against the “mitigating” factors to de-
termine what punishment was deserved. In the case
highlighted above, (Ayers v Belmontes) the judge gave
the jury the following instruction:
“I have previously read to you the list of aggra-
vating circumstances which the law permits you
to consider if you find that any of them is es-
tablished by the evidence. These are the only ag-
gravating circumstances that you may consider.
You are not allowed to take account of any other
facts or circumstances as the basis for deciding
that the death penalty would be an appropriate
punishment in this case.”   
The above statement was in reference to the “ag-
gravating factors,” the claims against Belmontes in-
volving the murders and other crimes he committed.
The following statement is the judge’s instruction to
the jury about what they should do with the “mitigat-
ing factors,” the claims attesting to his constructive
behavior and his rough childhood that may convince
them to lessen the sentence. After a list of what gener-
al mitigating factors the jury may consider, the judge
continued:
“However, the mitigating circumstances which I
have read for your consideration are given to you
merely as examples of some of the factors that
you may take into account as reasons for decid-
ing not to impose a death penalty or a death sen-
tence upon Mr. Belmontes. You should pay care-
ful attention to each of these factors. Any one of
them standing alone may support a decision that
death is not the appropriate punishment in this
case.” Id., at 185–186
 The defense attorney then appealed to the Su-
preme Court, arguing that the language of the judge
had confused the jurors and disallowed them from
considering all of the “mitigating factors” in the de-
termination of his client’s sentence. Reviewing the
circumstances of the case and the past standards it
brought to view, a majority of the justices concluded
that the jury had indeed considered all “mitigating
factors” and that the appeal was invalid because the
jury had considered all of the evidence.
Here we can see how the Supreme Court Justices
apply Locke’s definition of reason in their juxtapo-
sition of past determinations to present objects of
knowledge. Locke described reason as the interven-
tion of other ideas to determine the agreement or dis-
agreement of the two new ideas. Here we can imag-
ine that one idea is the behavior of the judge whilst
the other idea is the constitutionality of this behavior.
The relationship is determined by the juxtaposition
of the circumstances to the past standards and how
they related to the behavior of other judges. In the
Furman opinion of 1972, it was decided that jurors
must be told to weigh the aggravating factors against
the mitigating factors and that the courts can not
keep them from considering such factors. By proving
that the negligence in Furman is not represented in
Ayers, the Justices reason that the lower court’s judge
was indeed acting constitutionally. The moral prin-
ciple evoked in this reasoning is the same as in most
Supreme Court cases: a commitment to the durability
of legal standards and the constitution. We see here
that legal arguments are more often about how the
extenuating circumstances match up to the language
of the law, not necessarily always the principles of it.
Yet politics is as much what is said as it is what is
not said. In Ayers, the Supreme Court did not decide
to propose a more straightforward instruction to the
jury that would ensure that all mitigating factors were
considered in a case where capitol punishment is in-
volved. Couldn’t they have gone into an explanation
of what ‘considering the mitigating factors’ means,
and questioned whether the jury understood based
on their final sentencing? What if the Justices, con-
sidering the principle of consequentialism, had imag-
ined the potential consequence of not clarifying that
the instructions regarding mitigating factors should
be completely understood by all jurors? The end of
the opinion establishes a virtual checklist to deter-
mine constitutionality, not an assessment of “good
faith,” as is occasionally employed in Supreme Court
cases.
What the justices employ here is what is referred
to as legal reasoning. This involves an assumption
that a respect towards the legal standards is itself a
commitment to certain moral truths, unless they are
found to be otherwise controversial to our interpre-
tation of the constitution. Constitutionality is all we
have of a full description of morality, and the amend-
ments, though difficult to enact and get approved,
Spring 2011: Volume 10, Issue 1
are the only indivisible external addenda to the con-
stitution. Yet the alleged objectivity of “legal reason-
ing” in contrast to “moral reasoning” is deceptive,
and decisions are often made with respect to the vari-
ous moral commitments of different Justices.
As we can observe in Justice Stevens’ dissenting
opinion, some of the Justices based their reasoning on
different principles. As made apparent by their full
presentation of the content of the mitigating factors,
the dissenting Justices showed sympathy in their
judgment. In their dissenting opinion, they reference
Belmontes’ devastating past and current circum-
stances that have negatively affected his character.
His father was an abusive alcoholic who regularly
beat his mother and once attempted to shoot him. He
was committed to a juvenile prison at the age of 16
and his life has only spiraled downward since.
Considering these mitigating factors, which, im-
portantly, were not even mentioned in the majority
Opinion of the Supreme Court, the dissenting jus-
tices believe that: “the testimony afforded the jury a
principled basis for imposing a sentence other than
death.” The Justices claim that the jury may have
been genuinely confused as to whether they were to
include the mitigating factors provided, as a part of
the weighing process. They go on to explain that the
prosecutor said he “did not think” that these factors
were relevant and that the judge did not clarify that
they were. From this perspective, both the prosecutor
and the judge could have kept the jury from includ-
ing the mitigating factors that were presented to the
court.
There are two important concepts that arise from
this dissent that are directly relevant to our discus-
sion of reason. First, although rational arguments
were presented on both sides, the rationale led to two
different judgments. Also, in considering the same
case within the same context, the concurring and
the dissenting judges all reasoned to determine their
respective judgments. There is a major difference in
the presentation and the structure of the two differ-
ent opinions. The first opinion focused primarily on
the legality of the judge’s behavior, offering a straight
legal checklist to eventually determine the judge did
all he had to do. Yet the second opinion was content
heavy. Extensive demonstration of the mitigating fac-
tors and extenuating circumstance of the Belmontes
case leads us to believe that the dissenting judges
were more sympathetic to Belmontes’ circumstance.
They even go so far as to say that if a reasonable
jury sincerely did consider these circumstances, they
would have certainly lessened the sentence (an as-
sumption of what any reasonable jury would have
determined).
How do we know, then, that the dissenting opin-
ion was genuinely motivated by a belief in the ille-
gality of the action of the judge, or whether it was
motivated by feelings of sympathy? As we saw in the
experiments with moral judgments mentioned ear-
39
lier, ideas are often rationalized by reasonable argu-
ments even when they were originally motivated by
moral intuition. The difficulty here is that there is no
way to prove either way whether the conclusion was
determined by the hand of cold calculating reason,
or stimulated by a pull at the heartstrings. The differ-
ence in focus, and the extent of representation of the
rough past of the offender, however, seems to suggest
that these factors weighed heavily on the minds of
the dissenting judges.
The Politics of Legal Reasoning
In his novel “The Politics of Law,” David Kairys
takes up this problem in depth. He presents a series
of papers wherein political theorists from a variety
of disciplines argue the problem of having no deter-
mined theory that defines how to interpret the law.
Picking up from the argument of legal liberalists who
admit the importance of addressing the court’s con-
structive role in legislation, Kairys and other progres-
sive theorists argue that not determining a principle
or legal methodology opens the doors to legal ambi-
guity. He states:
“the lack of required, legally correct rules, meth-
odologies, or results is in part a function of the limits
of language and interpretation, which are subjective
and value laden. More importantly, indeterminacy
stems from the reality that the law usually embraces
and legitimizes many or all of the conflicting values
and interests involved in controversial issues and a
wide and conflicting array of “logical” or “reasoned”
arguments and strategies of argumentation, without
providing any legally required hierarchy of values
or arguments or any required method for determin-
ing which is most important in a particular context.
Judges then make choices, and those choices are most
fundamentally value based, or political.”(Kairys, 4)
Kairys makes a very important point here that
should not be overlooked. At face value, it may not
make much sense to have preordained theory for in-
terpreting the law, for this would fix it to an extent
that a democratically inclined political audience may
not feel comfortable with. However, Kairy is not pro-
posing that the laws themselves remain fixed and
unchangeable. He is proposing that we agree on a
hierarchy of values so that the decision to privilege
some values over others is not the arbitrary choice
of the judge or jury. For example, determining con-
cepts like whether we privilege equality over liberty
or vice versa (a loaded concept and one of the most
controversial theoretical dilemmas between conser-
vatives and liberals) would literally revolutionize
our decisions in the law. Though there would be dis-
agreement, there would also be certain clarity that we
lack today.
But was it not moral intuition that inspired the
justices in cases such as Brown v. Board? Here it was
not so much a commitment to legal precedent, but
rather to principles such as equality and justice that
40 The Oculus: The Virginia Journal of Undergraduate Research
led the court to their decision. Even though they ra-
tionalized their belief with a discussion of the con-
stitutionality of segregation in public places, there
were many other considerations that made it clear
that they meant to make a national statement and af-
fect international esteem. This was a good thing, but
it was not motivated solely by the principles of up-
holding the law. It was very obviously motivated by
extralegal factors as Justice Jackson recognizes in his
memorandum to the court:
“Extralegal criteria from sociological, psychologi-
cal and political sciences are proposed. Segregation is
said to be offensive to the best contemporary opinion
here and damaging to our prestige abroad…These
are disputed contentions which I have little compe-
tence to judge as scientific matters but with which,
for purposes of this case, I shall not disagree…How-
ever that may be…I do not think we should import
into the concept of equal protection of the law these
elusive psychological and subjective factors. They
are not determinable with satisfactory objectivity or
mensurable[sic] with reasonable certainty…”(1411,
O’Brien)
Justice Jackson articulates exactly what Kairys is
concerned with. That without a standard of what ju-
dicial review is allowed to consider and be motivated
by in the interpretation of the law, we are subject to
the capricious nature of the politics of lawmaking.
This is exactly the distinction that is meant to sepa-
rate the judicial and legislative branches of the law.
There is a certain comfort in the idea that the Su-
preme Court will represent the law without preju-
dice, and apply its dictate universally. Yet whether or
not it is actually plausible that legal reasoning can act
abstractly is yet to be proven.
Kairys takes issue with the reasonable standards
as employed by the court because of the vagueness of
their legal definition, and what this allows in light of
their interpretation. Although, for the sake of law, it
seems necessary to determine a hierarchy of morals,
can we say that every American individual should
have homogenous moral priorities? This seems to
undermine the fact that one’s morality is often a re-
sult of their experience with principles and how they
work in the world. We are interested not only in what
work the implication of “reasonable standards” does
in the justice system, but additionally what conse-
quences the postulate of man as reasonable affects in
the judgment of man in a general sense. Not only
should we look at the decisions of the justices, but
we should also break down our perception of man as
reasonable and recognize it as also dependant on his
moral inclination. There are many political instances
when reason was not used to determine what was
right. Even with the assumption of a strict compli-
ance to laws and regulations, if we cannot say that
moral judgments are all made reasonably even when
fully though out and deliberated upon, what sense
does it make to say that man himself is primarily
characterized by his rationality? An undefined com-
mitment to moral priorities and uncertainty about
the moral inclination of man complicate the marriage
between reason and justice.
Part III: Human Behavior
“If you ever get close to a human and human
behavior, you better be ready to get confused…
There’s definitely, definitely, definitely no logic
to human behavior.”(Bjork, Human Behavior)
The most seemingly straightforward and often
quoted right of the Declaration of Independence is
that of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”
Issues involving the protection of these rights, are
brought before the Supreme Court all of the time. We
assume these rights to be inalienable and always pro-
tected, already and always defined. But they are also
subject to the interpretation of the law, and the gen-
eral language used to describe them makes it even
more difficult to understand and protect. Is killing an
unborn child killing a life? How can we protect life
when we are unsure of what it excludes? Is the social
obligation of taxation an infringement on property?
Or is it the inescapable cost of protecting our other
rights? And what is the pursuit of happiness? Some
of the basic rights that we most depend upon for our
personal security, are the most difficult to interpret,
and a reasonable standard may not lead us to a de-
finitive response to these challenging questions.
Since we understand ourselves as individually
defined by these rights and abilities, we are com-
pelled to conceive of the best manner of actualizing
them in our lives. As political beings, we hope to be-
have in a manner that is self-liberating and in concor-
dance with our deepest principles. But the problem is
that Locke’s conception of human nature and natural
rights is not universally agreed upon, the most obvi-
ous disagreement coming from people with different
religious backgrounds who would disagree with its
foundation in Christianity. Though we may be able to
say that there are some people who act to intention-
ally reject their own principles, most people are not
either “principled” or “unprincipled.” As our nature
and our rights are conceived through the context of
our separate experiences, they will necessarily take
on unique textures, and come to be defined in a myr-
iad of ways.
These rights are both metaphysical and political
concepts. If the government is meant to protect man
and his property as a part of his right to life, then we
are advancing the cumulative conception that man
and his property create his “self.” In effect, we con-
ceptualize man and his life in order to know what
the government has jurisdiction over. The Supreme
Court has resided over cases as personal as what
kind of pornographic content man can view in the
privacy of his own home and what substances he can
Spring 2011: Volume 10, Issue 1
legally ingest. The very standard of a “reasonable
expectation of privacy” betrays the fact that there
are a variety of situations where privacy would and
should be breached.
But where do these concepts of “would and
should” come from? If we recognize that people
privilege a variety of principles because of a diversity
of experiences with them, how do we come out with
a general belief about what behaviors are to be ex-
pected? As we have seen from these examples, even
when we are acting “within reason,” we do not al-
ways agree on moral judgments because of inevitable
disagreements in the prioritization of principles.
The law does not only exist to protect the physi-
cal well being of man. It exists to protect the concept
of the reasonable man; an amalgam of opinions on
comportment that produce the political conception of
the citizen. What the law is protecting is man’s meta-
physical conception of himself: his identity. It is be-
cause of this fact that we understand the question of
gay marriage to be of legal importance. People who
oppose gay marriage believe that it would disrupt
the conception of a heterosexual union with God.
Though the physical marriage is not disturbed, the
identity of it is altered. The idea that identity should
be protected by the government gives it an almost
virtual existence, proposing that there should be an
ideal conception of the rational man.
The Unreasonable Man?
To say that humans are inherently unreasonable,
however, takes on a negative connotation and im-
plies that reason and passion operate as perfect bina-
ries. To advance the irrationality of humanity would
undermine the importance of the entire argument of
this essay: that reason does not function abstractly
in this world, that it can not be separated from our
moral dispositions, our prejudices, or our emotions.
Our diverse definitions of reason and of the moral
conclusions that we determine by way of reasoning,
further complicate the assumption of a universal “ra-
tional unity.”
If we were to say that where reason is not evoked
there is no coherent process of deliberation, we un-
dermine the complex behavior of thought and all of
human history that predates the “discovery” of rea-
son. Even if we are influenced to a decision primar-
ily by the motivation of emotion, we are still think-
ing and deliberating to determine the relationship
between these feelings and a response that best ad-
dresses them. It is more meaningful to suggest that
humans are not always reasonable, and that they can
elicit reason in moments of decision when encour-
aged to ‘be rational.’ But even subsequent to this com-
mand, a particular behavioral response cannot be
expected, since humans make connections in many
different manners. In order to address the intricacies
of the animal experience, we must admit that reason
is not essential to all of human activity. Man is not
41
irrational but he is not always and already rational,
as rationality is both a characteristic of behavior and
a means of judging behavior. The very fact that we
must posit the “rational man” to construct social con-
tract theory indicates the preponderance of actions
which are not perceived as rational by definition.
Our moral code is not strictly derived from the
narrative of reason. Religion plays her part and so
does the instinct of emotion. Jean Jacques Rousseau’s
description of the man in nature is naturally repulsed
by the view of another in pain. We do not privilege
reason in this situation for it is irrelevant; the prin-
ciple of sympathy is prioritized here. Despite what
moral certainties we may advance for the sake politi-
cal campaigns, in our minds there are no ideological
absolutes, since individual principles operate on a
situational basis; they do not saturate thought or ex-
ist when they are irrelevant to the instance. For one to
evoke a principle that may not be in complete moral
agreement with another principle does not indicate
a definite disagreement between the two. For when
we are not reasoning, we are not juxtaposing the two
ideas against each other, and we may not even recog-
nize the disharmony. Where the other principle may
not be relevant to the situation, it is not even consid-
ered as an ideological dispute. In our understanding
of man as a political entity, we need to consider that
he is not always thinking politically.
Not using reason as means to determine ends,
does not mean we are not thinking. Reason has been
made to seem as if it and thought are one in the same.
To say that the Supreme Court justices are not rea-
sonable or rational comes across as an insult to their
intelligence. Yet, as we have seen above, reason is
not the mental inclination of human beings. Intellect
behaves way more complexly than to follow the dic-
tate of any one specific moral law. There are many
instances where reason is not necessary. If a man is
to make a dispassionate decision on the life sentence
of another man, why is it necessary for him to exer-
cise rationality if we understand it as an interest in
self preservation? How would it be relevant? In fact,
it is even less relevant in the example of the Justices
because their positions as justices, thus livelihoods,
are not threatened by their decisions. Part of the rea-
son they are guaranteed a life long position is so that
they can comfortably exercise judgment without the
threat of accountability.
Reasoning directs us to make relations, but it
does not set up a system of these relations. Are we
convinced that reflecting on laws that are based on
moral principles is enough to indicate that moral rea-
soning was involved? If it does not define a particular
moral disposition, to say “think rationally” is mean-
ingless. What is not rational is not irrational. What
is abnormal and even cruel or unusual, is not neces-
sarily irrational. It is just not rational. The assump-
tion that everything that is not decidedly rational is
necessarily diametrically opposed to the dictate of
42 The Oculus: The Virginia Journal of Undergraduate Research
reason suggests a binary opposition between reason
and some other avenue of thought that does not ex-
ist. Yet when it is said that man is reasonable, what
is meant is that he is inclined to reason. The impor-
tance of questioning this is that it is the theoretical
basis of human relations and how we view justice;
if we question whether man is naturally inclined to
reason, we are more willing to be forgiving of him if
and when we perceive him to be acting abnormally
by our standards.
The Creation of Criminal as a Perpetual
Identity
In his novel on human understanding, Locke goes
into an extensive description of the various types of
knowledge we ascertain. One type of knowledge,
that I believe directly describes how we apply the
concept of identity in the real world, is his descrip-
tion of “modal” knowledge. In order for reason to
function, we create an abstract identity for an object
that is manifested through our description of it. Like
a metaphysical visualization, we imagine the object
by evoking our perception of it as the full represen-
tation of it. It is only by this method of abstraction
that we can compare ideas and discuss physical ex-
istences and relations. As Lippmann asserts on the
subject: “For the real world is altogether too big, too
complex and too fleeting for direct acquaintance. We
are not equipped to deal with so much subtlety, so
much variety, so many permutations and combina-
tions. And although we have to act in that environ-
ment, we have to reconstruct it on a simpler model
before we can manage it”(Lippmann, 11.) In order for
ideas to interact so that we can produce judgments
of them, we must begin with our subjective under-
standing of things, and subsequently bring them to
life by comparison.
It would make sense for personal identity to in-
corporate just this kind of modal existence. Latent
with descriptions of the self and others, entertain-
ing a concept of identity allows us to understand our
relative character. Indeed, even our “discovery” of
reason comes out of our juxtaposition of the concept
of “human” (thus self) with “animal;” a conceptual
understanding of the significance of both existenc-
es is necessary to subsequently create an identity
and propose a distinction (Uzgalis, William. “John
Locke”.)
(But, as Locke poses: “the real essence of elephants
and gold” is hidden from us because we ascribe them
a descriptive nature)
All political theories begin with a description of
human nature in order to make assumptions about
behavior and posit the most effective political sys-
tem in response. Reason as the assumed identity of
man is just a dialectical conception that is invoked in
order to evaluate action. Theory has so saturated po-
litical reality that identity is judged as if it physically
exists separate from our conception of it. How can
we redress the issue of justice by keeping in mind
that reason is a standard and not the essential char-
acteristic of the material being him or herself?
If there were no issue of philosophical pluralism,
we would not have to judge the moral commitments
of others. If we could not perceive moral disagree-
ment, we would not perceive a distinction between
citizen and criminal in terms of identity. We judge
a man when his identity appears distinguished, not
when he is acting with us. Only when we see his ac-
tions as somehow standing apart, do we judge his
principles. Pluralism then motivates judgment; it is
not so much the moral disagreements themselves,
but of our perception of “the other” as necessarily be-
ing in moral disagreement with ourselves. America
is one of the most diverse countries in the world. It
is also the country with the highest rate of incarcera-
tion. It may be possible that there is a relationship be-
tween pluralism and criminalization.
In his book “Public Opinion,” Walter Lippmann
was primarily concerned about the distance between
our perception of reality and the truth. He worried
that the real pluralism in the world and our inability
to genuinely perceive differences and reason accord-
ingly, leads us to stigmatize and stereotype in order
to make decisions quickly and effectively. In his
chapter on stereotypes, he addresses our dependence
on generalizations to bespeak moral certainties: “For
the attempt to see all things freshly and in detail,
rather than as types and generalities, is exhausting,
and among busy affairs practically out of the ques-
tion…even without phrasing it ourselves, we feel in-
tuitively that all classification is in relation to some
purpose not necessarily our own…”(Lippmann, 59)
Thus although it is the inner workings of our minds
that fashion the relations between objects, we give
these determined relations an existential character,
imagining they point to some transcendent meaning
and have permanent value.
“Criminal” is not just a description of behavior,
but a stigma. The primary idea being the sum of a
man’s actions and the secondary idea being a de-
scription of criminal, we compare this relationship
to our previous conceptions of the relationship be-
tween people and their behaviors. The conception
of criminal as an identity can easily be determined
by reasoning, yet it cannot be reasonable if it is not
universally accepted. Do we all agree that a criminal
is anyone who breaks the law or do we dismiss peo-
ple who commit minor offenses as people who have
simply exhibited some criminal behavior? Is the law
our only factor in the determination of this identity
of criminal, or can the government itself be criminal
when it does something that rubs up against our per-
sonal moral standards?
As valuable as it may seem to compel man to
“think rationally,” in order for him to step outside the
boundaries of his emotional intuitions, his ability to
perceive relationships without the play of experien-
Spring 2011: Volume 10, Issue 1
tial biases is questionable. Even racist theories such
as Social Darwinism were based on the assumptions
of reason, claiming a relationship between the sur-
vival of the fittest between animals to the survival of
the fittest between humans. The creation of a specific
moral significance of Darwin’s studies was the dan-
gerous import of twisted reasoning. Most important-
ly, it was racism and not science that prompted this
reasoning, subsequently rationalized by arguments
Darwin himself denied were relevant to sociological
studies.
So why do we still operate under the assumption
that man is inherently reasonable? Though many
political philosophers have come to reject the idea
that man is always acting within reason, and have
observed the consequence of the assumption of ratio-
nality, the dream of true objectivity that would lead
to a perfect political society has long ago grabbed
hold of this country, and never let go. It is the great
appeal to reason that compels us to believe we can
one day achieve this moral certainty.
The Dream of Absolute Certainty: The
Ultimate bias in the Exercise of Reason
“Every failing that is human, pure humanity
atones” (Kaufman quoting Goethe, 209)
It is ultimately impossible to escape the inevitable
political dogmas that affect our perception of hu-
manity and thus our judgment of man. The idealistic
dream of reason as our ticket to the absolute distorts
reality in the same sense that emotional moods dis-
tort memory. An interpretation by definition is an
alteration of the original truth, thus the idea of “un-
locking the potential” of the Constitution or of the
faculty of reason really translates to creating the most
relevant interpretation of it.
The ultimate bias of reason is that it subscribes
to the dream of absolute certainty. It hopes that its
theory is actualized by the mark of universality, and
thus prescribes itself as its own moral end. The real-
ity of our commitment to objective reason, however,
is questionable. The fact that we do not propose an
overarching theory of moral priorities that would
legislate our interpretation of the law shows that our
commitment to democracy may be more of a priority
than our commitment to reason.
If we understand our political institutions to be
flawed only in how humans execute law and do not
entertain the idea that there may exist some philo-
sophical flaws, then we will continue to believe that
it is possible to reach absolute certainty by the dictate
of reason. The dream of perfect moral justice is the
plague that threatens America’s political conscious-
ness. For because of this assumption that perfect
justice is possible, we believe that unreasonable ac-
tion is perfectly criminal. The upshot of this assump-
tion is as primitive as yin and yang; that right and
43
wrong, crime and justice exist as perfect binary oppo-
sites. This conclusion is dangerous. For most citizens
who are not moral philosophers are not so capable
of abstracting behaviors and causal narratives from
identity’s description of a human being. Media cre-
ates a fragmented representation of ourselves, and
the world around us does not help to keep us from
seeing identity as all encompassing. This prejudice
will ultimately divide us and take us farther from
our understanding of human beings as actors that re-
spond to certain circumstances. It takes us away from
an understanding of the similarity of our souls. As
Lippmann states: “Until reason is subtle and particu-
lar, the immediate struggle of politics will continue to
require an amount of native wit, force, and unprov-
able [sic] faith, that reason can neither provide nor
control, because the facts of life are too undifferentiat-
ed for its powers of understanding”(Lippmann, 261).
There is some beauty in the belief that we can
achieve absolute moral certainty and manifest the
principle of justice to the utmost extent. It was rather
comforting to believe that “the moral arch of the uni-
verse tends towards justice”(Jefferson). As it stands,
our current judicial philosophy has led to mass incar-
ceration and an exaggerated obligation to the polic-
ing of powers around the world. Though this obliga-
tion cannot be deduced solely to our faith in reason,
it can be deduced to the conception of normalcy, pro-
jected and perpetuated by inflexible political ideolo-
gies. Years after the Civil War, it has been said that
Lincoln decided to go to war because of his commit-
ment to the preservation of the Union, and not for
his sympathy towards blacks or his commitment to
equality. Regardless of what principle his decisions
were based on, it was crucial that he preserve the
rhetoric of “saving the Union” in order to rationalize
his decision to the public. As citizens, we are primar-
ily motivated by this ideological rhetoric, even when
these ideologies are often motivated by seemingly
unrelated principles.
To admit that man is not naturally inclined to
reason and that reason does not operate abstractly is
not to take the faculty of reason away from him, nor
to devalue the importance of reason. As we saw from
the interplay of reason and intuition in psychologi-
cal experiments and of reason and sympathy in the
justice system, it is often used to explain the context
and relevance of the judgment. Yet, we should never
take this rationalization as a testament to pure rea-
son, as humans are naturally motivated by a variety
of stimuli. Humans are not unreasonable, but they
are not naturally reasonable by virtue of being hu-
man. It is only the secondary action of man, impli-
cated into political society, to judge. He can only go
so far.
Yet, how can we approach justice without a basic
assumption of justifiable perspectives? Should insti-
tutions be responsible to respond to the capricious
nature of man? If we confront the idea that we do not
44 The Oculus: The Virginia Journal of Undergraduate Research
judge along the lines of pure practical reasoning, and
that even the implication of reasonableness is wholly
dependant on our moral priorities, it still would not
change man’s propensity towards judging others. In
conceptualizing identity and determining abstract
relations, there is a certain economizing effect that
simplifies our thoughts. Yet this effect can have dan-
gerous consequences: if some men are considered
rational and only certain reasonable standards are
legitimate, than everyone who is different is a de-
viant. “Criminal” becomes a perpetual identity and
the moral truths that reason guides us towards are
only applicable to the men who agree with them.
Thus we should consider proposing something sub-
stantial, a particular mode of interpreting the law so
that we do not have to defer to a diverse set of philos-
ophies that produce uncertain judgments. If there is
such thing as absolute moral certainty, we are going
to have to let go of our preconceived expectations of
the export of rational thought, and let experience tell
us how to get there.
Works Cited
1. Anonymous.“Aristotle (384-322 BCE).” Inter-
net Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 11 Apr. 2001.
Web. Winter 2010. <http://www.iep.utm.edu/
aristotl/#H6>.
2. Aristotle. “On the Soul, ”“Metaphysics,” “Nicom-
achean Ethics” The Basic Works of Aristotle (1941)
3. Greene, J. et al,. “The neural bases of cognitive
conflict and control in moral judgment,” Neuron
44(2004):389-400.
4. Kairys, David “David Kairys Introduction” The
Politics of Law (1982): 1-17
5. Kant, Immanuel “Critique on Reason”
6. Kaufman, Walter Arnold. Discovering The Mind.
New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1980.
7. Kennedy, Justice. “AYERS v. BELMONTES.” LII |
Legal Information Institute at Cornell Law School. 03
Oct. 2006. Web. Winter 2011. <http://www.law.
cornell.edu/supct/html/05-493.ZO.html>
8. Lau, Joe, and Jonathan Chan. “[L01] What Is Log-
ic?” HKU Philosophy. 09 Nov. 1993. Web. Winter
2010.<http://philosophy.hku.hk/think/logic/
whatislogic.php>.
9. Lippmann, Walter. Public Opinion. New York:
Free Press Paperbacks, 1922.
10. Locke, John. “The Two Treatise of Government”
The Two Treatises of Government and A Letter Con-
cerning Toleration (2003)
11. Locke, John. An Essay Concerning Human Un-
derstanding. New York: Prometheus Books, 1995.
12. Nisbett, Richard E., and Wilson, Timothy Decamp
“Telling More Than We Can Know: Verbal Reports
on Mental Processes.” Psychological Review (1977)
13. Parke, David. “Locke, The Reasonableness of
Christianity.” Webuus Home Page. Web. 27 Dec.
2011.<http://webuus.com/timeline/Locke.
html>.
14. Paxton, Joseph M., and Greene, Joshua D. “Moral
Reasoning: Hints and Allegations” Topics in Cog-
nitive Science (2010): 1–17
15. Trochim, William. “Deduction & Induction.” So-
cial Research Methods. Research Methods of Knowl-
edge Base, 2006. Web. Winter 2010. <http://www.
socialresearchmethods.net/kb/dedind.php>.
16. United States of America. Supreme Court of the
United States. Texts of the Oaths of Offices for Su-
preme Court Justices. Office of the Curator, 10 Aug.
2009. Web. Winter 2010.
17. Uzgalis, William. “John Locke (Stanford Ency-
clopedia of Philosophy).” Stanford Encyclopedia
of Philosophy. Ed. Edward N. Zalta. 2 Sept. 2001.
Web. Winter 2010. <http://plato.stanford.edu/
entries/locke/#LimHumUnd>.
18. Wallace, R. Jay. “Practical Reason (Stanford En-
cyclopedia of Philosophy).” Stanford Encyclopedia
of Philosophy. Metaphysics Research Lab, Stan-
ford University, 13 Oct. 2003. Web. Winter 2010.
<http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/practical-
reason/>.
19. “What Is Reason.” Generation Online. Arian-
na Bove and Erik Empson. Web. 23 Dec. 2011.
<http://www.generation-online.org/p/fp-
kantreason.htm
20. William, Thomas. “What Is Objectivism? | Ayn
Rand, Objectivism, and Individualism | The At-
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<http://www.atlassociety.org/what_is_objectiv-
ism>.

Spring 2011: Volume 10, Issue 1 45

 Holocaust as Aberration: How Oral Histories
Particularize the Holocaust
Carrie Filipetti
Two major interpretations of the Holocaust dominate scholarship on the subject. One views the
Holocaust as an historical aberration; the second understands the Holocaust as an outgrowth of a
natural human inclination toward violence and scapegoating. While Holocaust literature is a sub-
ject rife with historical and literary analysis, none has yet given necessary attention to why these
two interpretations exist, and what they each say about their supporters. The purpose of this pa-
per is to engage with the question of how the Holocaust has been conveyed to the world, how it
has been mythologized and historicized; and precisely who is responsible for that phenomenon.
This study analyzes major works of Holocaust literature and compares the perspective enumer-
ated by the authors, all of whom were themselves survivors, with the perspective offered by
oral histories. The research emphasizes four major points of contention: first, it focuses atten-
tion on the motivations that instigate the individual’s investigation of the Holocaust. Second,
it studies the depictions of Nazi party members, with an emphasis on humanization/homog-
enization versus individuation. Third, it analyzes the portrayal of Jews and their placement
within or outside of an explicit good vs. evil context; and finally, it addresses the particular
approach to chronology taken by both survivors and secondary historians. Ultimately, the pur-
pose of the paper is to demonstrate that the agenda commonly attached to the collection of
oral histories, as well as the themes they choose to underscore, serve to characterize the Ho-
locaust as an aberration rather than continuous development of history. In contrast, the work
of survivors is explicit in the clear thematic and historical continuity between then and now;
that is, the Holocaust is unique, but it does not have to be – and, in all likelihood, will not be.

T he purpose of this paper is to show how oral his-

tories have both particularized and historicized
the Holocaust in a way that contrasts with the work
of survivors. That is, the agenda commonly attached
to the collection of oral histories, as well as the themes
they choose to underscore, serve to further character-
ize the Holocaust as an aberration rather than a de-
velopment of history.
First, we will investigate the motivations pro-
vided by survivors and compare them with the mo-
tivations of oral historians. This will demonstrate
that survivors write with a preventative inclination
whereas oral historians conduct their research with
an informative inclination. Next, we will analyze
the way in which each genre depicts Nazis, showing
that the emphasis on Nazi brutality and the de-indi-
vidualization of Nazi party members is prevalent in
oral histories, contrasts with the focus on daily life
and individualized Nazis that characterize survi-
vors’ works. By representing Nazis as an amorphous,

Carrie Filipetti is a graduating fourth year in Religious

Studies with a concentration in Judaism. Her focus in
undergraduate studies has been Jewish history and Bibli-
cal criticism, with some forays into ritual and philosophy. 
Originally from West Nyack, NY, Carrie will be pursuing
a Fellowship in Israel for two months this summer before
moving to NYC as a Tikvah Fellow for a year.

46 The Oculus: The Virginia Journal of Undergraduate Research

semi-corporate machine rather than simple men and
women, the oral historians strip all humanness from
their decisions, thereby removing them entirely from
the experiences of modern generations. Then, we will
study the representation of Jews, ultimately showing
that whereas survivors make them relatable figures
who ferociously struggle with their conditions, oral
historians place them within a larger pure good vs.
pure evil framework that mythologizes the Holo-
caust, once again, serving to further remove the Ho-
locaust from human responsibility. Finally, we will
investigate how the books approach chronology, con-
cluding that because oral historians are so emphatic
on locating the Holocaust in history, it loses the con-
temporary relevance so central to survivors’ works.
In this way, it will be clear that while both survivors
and oral historians view the Holocaust as unique,
only survivors see clear thematic and historical con-
tinuity between then and now; that is, it is unique,
but it does not have to be – and, in all likelihood, will
not be. Oral historians, on the other hand, because of
their motivations for writing, their treatment of Jews
and Nazis, and their stringent linear chronology,
serve to both particularize and historicize the Holo-
caust, stripping it of all relevancy to the modern age.
Before delving into the research, it is first im-
portant to justify my choice of sources. My primary
sources for survivor literature include Elie Wiesel’s
Night1, Imre Kertesz’s Fatelessness2, Primo Levi’s Sur-
vival in Auschwitz3, Paul Steinberg’s Speak You Also4,
and Jean Amery’s At the Mind’s Limits5. My purpose
for choosing these works was three-fold. First, all
of them were produced by survivors of Auschwitz.
Though all of them were at other camps at some
other point – Dachau, Buchenwald, etc. – Auschwitz
was a central part of their lived experience. While
works on other camps can certainly supplement my
thesis, “it is not simple to find a common denomi-
nator for these…camps.”6 With that in mind, I have
selected these books to keep as much consistency
as possible, keeping in mind the vast body of sur-
vivor literature that exists. Second, I choose works
that included a wide range of literary genres; that
is, Wiesel and Levi’s memoirs, Amery’s collection of
essays, Kertesz’s semi-autobiographical novel, and
Steinberg’s writings, best categorized along with Wi-
esel and Levi’s memoirs but is, in actuality, more of
a stream-of-consciousness reflection. Each of these
genres lends itself to different forms of expression, all
1  Wiesel, Elie. Night. Trans. Marion Wiesel. (New York:
Hill and Wang, 2006)
2  Kertesz, Imre. Fatelessness. Trans. Tim Wilkinson.
(Evanston: Random House, 2004)
3  Levi, Primo. Survival in Auschwitz. Trans. Stuart Woolf.
(New York: Touchstone, 1996)
4  Steinberg, Paul. Speak You Also. Trans. Linda Cover-
dale. (New York: Henry Holt and Co, 2000)
5  Amery, Jean.At the Mind’s Limits.Trans. Sidney Rosen-
feld. (Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1980)
6  Ibid., 6.
Spring 2011: Volume 10, Issue 1
of which will be studied in relation to their function
within their particular genre. Third, and finally, all
of the authors hail from a different location: Wiesel
is from Transylvania; Kertesz, Hungary; Levi, Italy;
Steinberg, France; Amery, Austria. Choosing authors
from various regions ensured that I would not be in-
advertently representing the opinions of French Jews,
for example, rather than survivors as a generalized
whole7.
As representative of oral histories, I studied Lu-
cette Valensi and Nathan Wachtel’s Jewish Memories8,
Harry James Corgas’s Voices from the Holocaust9, Rho-
da Lewin’s Witness to the Holocaust: An Oral History10,
the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum’s
(USHMM, henceforth) Oral History Interview Guide-
lines11, Claude Lanzmann’s Shoah12, and Art Spie-
gelman’s Maus I13 and Maus II14. My emphasis will
be on Shoah, Maus I and Maus II, and USHMM. The
purpose of focusing on these works in particular is
because of their prominence in both popular culture
and oral history research. The USHMM is at the fore-
front of conducting oral histories, and both Shoah and
Maus have received uncommon attention. Because I
am studying how oral histories function in the eyes
of their readers/listeners, I have sought to ensure
that the works I have studied have been widely re-
ceived. The other works listed will serve largely to
supplement my investigation into the main sources.
Occasionally, I will also draw in outside sources to
further underscore a particular theme or technique.
A few flaws of my research must be conveyed at
the outset. Firstly, within all of the books and oral his-
tories investigated lies a vastness of opinion and in-
terpretation that, for the purposes of the generalized
study at hand, must be consolidated. Each author
comes from a different socio-intellectual background,
with Jean Amery as a self-identified intellectual15,
Steinberg as a gambler16, Wiesel as a mystic17, etc.,
and all of these “former lives”18 have understandably
7  As much as they can be generalized; see section on
flaws.
8  Valensi, Lucette. Jewish Memories. (Berkeley: California
UP, 1991)
9  Corgas, Harry James. Voices from the Holocaust. (Lex-
ington: Kentucky UP, 1993)
10  Lewin, Rhoda. Witness to the Holocaust: An Oral His-
tory. (Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1990)
11  United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Oral His-
tory Interview Guidelines.(Washington, D.C., USHMM,
1998)
12  Lanzmann, Claude. Shoah: The Complete Text of the
Acclaimed Holocaust Film. (New York: Da Capo Press,
1995) (henceforth, Shoah)
13  Spiegelman, Art. Maus. (New York: Pantheon Books,
1986) (henceforth, Maus)
14  Spiegelman, Art. Maus II. (New York: Pantheon Books,
1991) (henceforth, Maus II)
15  Amery, 2.
16  Steinberg, 3.
17  Weisel, 3.
18  Steinberg, 79.
47
influenced not only their experiences in the camps
but also their reflection and reconciliation of those
experiences. In certain instances, then, my statements
and interpretations will appear overly homogeniz-
ing. Though I do attempt to pay proper respect and
attention to different perspectives, in the interest of
space constraints those viewpoints that are particu-
larly exceptional will have to be relegated to a foot-
note. Secondly, I freely admit to – and embrace – a
lack of complete objectivity in analyzing Holocaust
literature and approaching Jewish themes in general
because of my deep personal identification with Ju-
daism and my personal political affiliation. I, there-
fore, have a natural sensitivity to the idea of particu-
larizing the Holocaust, which I am sure has played a
consequential role in the development of my thesis.
Third – and this is not particular to my research but
rather to the subject at hand – much of what survi-
vors write contradicts other claims they made previ-
ously. This makes it all the more difficult to draw out
an overarching perspective from each work; to com-
bat this, however, I have chosen to be more inclusive
than exclusive. That is, I will include their contradic-
tions as a vital part of their perspective rather than
attempt to gloss over them for the sake of uniformity.
Despite these shortcomings, however, this paper
provides a well-documented and necessary inquiry
into two related genres—the writings of survivors
and the conducting of oral histories—that have a
valuable place among existing Holocaust scholar-
ship, as it engages with the question of how the Ho-
locaust has been conveyed to the world. Moreover, it
focuses on a particular question – how has the Holo-
caust has been mythologized and historicized? – and
precisely who is responsible for that phenomenon.
Survivors and oral historians provide very differ-
ent reasons for their investigation into the Holocaust,
and it is these motivations to which we first turn. Un-
derstanding why each individual has undertaken to
preserve the memory of the Holocaust allows us to
better account for his/her particular thematic choices
later on. It is the motivation for writing that serves as
the foundation for whether or not a work as a whole
historicizes or mythologizes the Holocaust.
Survivors of the Holocaust, as a general rule,
write with the understanding that their stories are
important to tell not merely as a point of history but
rather as a point of prevention; that is, they write
with the underlying assumption that the evil they
experienced, though unique, has at the very least the
potential to be repeated.This is not to say that the sur-
vivors do not struggle with the question of why they
write. In fact, Wiesel indicates the uncertainty with
which he undertakes the project, asking himself:
“Why did I write it? Did I write it so as not to go
mad or, on the contrary, to go mad in order to under-
stand the nature of madness, the immense, terrifying
madness that had erupted in history and in the con-
science of mankind? Was it to leave behind a legacy
48 The Oculus: The Virginia Journal of Undergraduate Research
of words, of memories, to help prevent history from
repeating itself? Or was it simply to preserve a record
of the ordeal I endured as an adolescent?” 19
Similarly, Paul Steinberg is not unclear on why he
is writing, only on “what he want[s] to avoid.”20The
fact that both Wiesel and Steinberg question their in-
tentions is important in two ways. First, it indicates
the importance of understanding why we write, the
task to which we have turned. Second, it hints at the
idea that there is something unexplainable that lies
behind their decision to write, something that Wiesel
ultimately describes as a moral obligation, revealing,
“The witness has forced himself to testify. For the
youth of today, for the children who will be born to-
morrow. He does not want his past to become their
future.”21The use of the term “forced”—along with
the preventative explanation provided— is more tell-
ing of his motivations in writing than his series of
questions are. That is, it plainly points to an outside
driver that compels him to write, despite his person-
al reluctance to do so. What is this force? In his own
words, “moral obligation.”22Steinberg likewise views
his authorship in similar terms; that is, “I’m purg-
ing myself as I write, and I have a vague feeling not
of liberation, but of fulfilled obligation.”23Steinberg,
though ostensibly writing to deliver himself from the
world of Nazi atrocities24, is therefore similar to Wi-
esel in that both view the compilation of their works
as the fulfillment of some sort of moral obligation.
What, then, is the moral obligation? It is here that
the survivors deviate from oral historians in a tan-
gible way, for unlike the historians, who as we will
soon see write largely to preserve history, the survi-
vors are writing to prevent future disasters. By that I
mean that they are, for the most part, explicit in their
attempt to connect the horrors of the past with con-
temporary experiences. For Wiesel, this is done in
three ways, all of which are intimately connected to
what he ultimately settles on as his primary motiva-
tion. First, he connects his past at Auschwitz with his
personal life today. Second, he emphasizes the abil-
ity of man to move back and forth between madness,
thereby indicating that it is not a particularistic trait;
and third, he expresses an interest in preventing simi-
lar things from happening in the future, thereby re-
vealing his belief that these atrocities are not merely
the problems of the past.
Wiesel connects his life in Auschwitz to his choic-
es of today. “If in my lifetime I was to write only
one book,” he states, “this would be the one. Just as
the past lingers in the present, all my writings after
Night, including those that deal with biblical, Talmu-
dic, or Hasidic themes, profoundly bear its stamp,
19  Wiesel, vii.
20  Steinberg, 62.
21  Wiesel, xv.
22  Ibid., viii.
23  Steinberg, 63.
24  Ibid., 14-15.
and cannot be understood if one has not read this
very first of my works.”25 Similarly, he admits, “I
only know that without this testimony, my life as a
writer—or my life, period—would not have become
what it is.”26 Auschwitz, for Wiesel, was not left in the
1940s. It exists not as a distant theory but as a real-
ity that affects his present life no less than it affected
his past. By locating Auschwitz in his present rather
than his past, Wiesel presents a view of Auschwitz as
a modern reality.
Wiesel also implies that madness is not some-
thing that affects only a small segment of the popu-
lation. Instead, he asks, “Did I write it so as not to go
mad or, on the contrary, to go mad in order to un-
derstand the nature of madness, the immense, ter-
rifying madness that had erupted in history and in
the conscience of mankind?”27 Here Wiesel indicates
that it is possible to move into the realm of madness,
and more importantly, that it is unclear where mad-
ness lies. Does madness lie in the investigation into
the atrocities or in the lack of investigation? This
blurred definition of madness, as well as the ease
with which one can traverse its realm, has a clear im-
plication: that which one can call “mad” and, there-
fore, a deviation from nature,is not. Madness is not
contrary to man, it is an aspect of man, into which
one can cross with much fluidity and ease. In such a
way, Wiesel once again locates the Holocaust – and
its cause, insofar as one can accept madness as its
cause—in the present.
Finally, Wiesel ultimately settles on his moti-
vation being the prevention of a similar atrocity;
in such a way, he overtly states that the Holocaust
is not something that can be relegated to history
alone. While it is true that he emphasizes the par-
ticular history of the Holocaust in that he wants “to
try to prevent the enemy from enjoying one last vic-
tory by allowing his crimes to be erased from human
memory,”28he connects the idea of forgetting these
crimes to a repetition of them. That is, recording his
experiences is not meant only to indict the enemy, but
also to prevent him from committing atrocities in the
future. This is obvious in the afore-mentioned pas-
sage, “For the youth of today, for the children who
will be born tomorrow. He does not want his past to
become their future.”29The implication here is that
Auschwitz can become their future; therefore, once
again Wiesel chooses to locate the Holocaust in the
present rather than only in the past. Wiesel’s purpose
in writing, then, is clear – it is to use his reality, what
he calls his “testimony,”30 not merely to inform future
generations of what the Holocaust was but to prevent
those generations from experiencing what it is.
25  Wiesel, vii.
26  Ibid., viii.
27  Ibid., vii.
28  Ibid., viii.
29  Ibid., xv.
30  Ibid., viii.
Spring 2011: Volume 10, Issue 1
Steinberg’s central motivation for writing his book
is for it to serve as a personal deliverance31. Despite
this more introspective spin, however, Steinberg, like
Wiesel,refuses to relegate the Holocaust to a past mo-
ment in history.In his eyes, he writes because “We
live within parentheses, a reprieve that has lasted
fifty years.”32“Parentheses” is a term that implies a
continuation, the lack of an end. The reprieve—the
lack of systemic anti-Semitism— has lasted so far, but
it exists only as a temporary deviation from the norm.
Steinberg articulates precisely this as his reason for
writing his memoir, for “Perhaps this risky expedi-
tion will allow me to give an account—unsettling, no
doubt—of the world from which perhaps I have not
escaped even after half a century.”33 Steinberg is writ-
ing, then, not so much to inform others, as to deliver
himself. That said, Steinberg indicates that he has
“not escaped” Auschwitz, even in the 1990s when he
composed his book. It is for this reason – that Aus-
chwitz has persisted to his present, that he is writing.
Amery is perhaps most explicit of all in his pur-
pose for writing. Unlike Steinberg, who writes for
personal deliverance, he rejects the notion of cathar-
sis34. Instead, he writes for two reasons: first, to locate
the Holocaust within a larger framework of his life,
and second, to make the Holocaust relevant to the
modern world. Both of these motivations can be tied
back to the overarching idea of rejecting the notion of
the Holocaust as a past moment in time.
Amery’s first reason for composing his series of
essays is to connect the Holocaust to something more
than a point of history. As he explains, “At first….I
merely wanted to become clear about a special prob-
lem: the situation of the intellectual in the concentra-
tion camp. But when this essay was completed, I felt
that it was impossible to leave it at that. For how had
I gotten to Auschwitz? What had taken place before
that? What was to happen afterward? What is my
situation today?”35Amery finds it of supreme impor-
tance, then, to connect these experiences of the past to
the present and explain how they have played out in
his present life. His motivation, then, is to reject the
compulsion to relegate the Holocaust to a moment of
history. To Amery, it is more than a moment; it is the
proof of this is the purpose of his work.
Amery’s second reason for writing is to make the
Holocaust a moral reality even for those who them-
selves neither experienced nor perpetuated it. As
he explains, there is a lack of understanding among
those who were neither Nazis nor survivors36. He
writes, then, to “be a witness not only to what real
Fascism and singular Nazism were, but…also [to]
31  Steinberg, 163.
32  Ibid., 14.
33  Ibid., 14-15.
34  Amery, xi.
35  Ibid., xiii.
36  Ibid., ix.
49
be an appeal to German youth for introspection.”37
The intended audience, then, is German youth. While
at first this may seem odd— after all, the youth had
little to do with the Holocaust and thus it seems un-
warranted to hold them morally responsible—Amery
explains that “At stake for me is the release from the
abandonment that has persisted from that time until
today.”38 The importance of having German youth
as the audience is to show that “My resentments
are there in order that the crime to become a moral
[rather than merely factual] reality for the criminal, in
order that he be swept into the truth of his atrocity.”39
The crime, then, is not a past historical fact but a rel-
evant moral dilemma that exists to today. It is for that
reason that he writes to “the Germans…who in their
overwhelming majority do not, or no longer, feel
affected by the darkest and at the same time most
characteristic deeds of the Third Reich.”40 His ulti-
mate goal, then, is to make relevant the actions of the
past to the modern present; to allow non-survivors
to “contemplate a fact that yesterday could have
been and tomorrow can be theirs.”41 In such a way,
he wants the world to understand the Holocaust as
more than a mere accident of history. “‘Hear, oh Is-
rael,’ is not my concern,” he writes.“Only a ‘hear, oh
world’ wants angrily to break out from within me.”42
We have therefore seen through Wiesel, Steinberg,
and Amery that a central motivation for survivor lit-
erature is to make the Holocaust relevant to today;
that is, to locate its legacy within modern times and
not exclusively within the past. This is not to say sur-
vivors don’t view the Holocaust as unique; they do.
After all, Amery views it as “singular Nazism”43and
Steinberg and Levi imply that their experiences are
so unique so as to separate them from the rest of hu-
man-kind44. The point is not to claim the Holocaust
happened before or since the Third Reich, it is simply
to argue that, though it is unique, it does not have to
be unique. The survivors write with a common as-
sumption that what happened once may, if they do
not serve as witnesses, happen again.
Oral historians, however, locate the Holocaust
in a particular moment of history, with the underly-
ing assumption that what happened to them will not
happen again;therefore, their stories are important
only insofar as they preserve as a record of a since
lost world.
LucetteValensi and Nathan Wachtel undertook
an extensive oral history program that ultimately
resulted in the book Jewish Memories.The central mo-
tivation of Jewish Memories is apparent in Valensi’s
37  Ibid., x.
38  Ibid., 70.
39  Ibid.
40  Ibid., xiv.
41  Ibid., 93.
42  Ibid., 100.
43  Ibid., x.
44  See: Steinberg, 85; Levi, 87.
50 The Oculus: The Virginia Journal of Undergraduate Research
opening remarks to her interviewees: “Your his-
tory is important. The society you belonged to no
longer exists. It passed away without leaving any
archives and you were witnesses to an eventful pe-
riod. Tell us about it.”45Within this one statement
one can begin to discern a contrast between Valensi
and Wachtel’s purpose and the purpose articulated
by survivors. First, the emphasis is not on personal
experiences – that is, only one sentence is devoted to
“your history;” the rest is interested in “the society
you belonged to.” When they ask “tell us about it,”
the “it” is not one’s life but rather the “eventful pe-
riod” in which they lived. The motivation, then, is
to get a generalized sense of time and place rather
than of personal experiences—a motivation that con-
trasts with not only the individual words of the sur-
vivors but also with the memoir/novel structure that
has been employed by survivors. Most importantly,
however, Valensi explicitly argues that “the society
you belonged to no longer exists” thus underscoring
the point that oral historians view the Holocaust as
a long-since-passed aberration. Her purpose, then, is
to learn about the Holocaust to inform humanity of
a past age rather than to make that past relevant to
contemporary existence. This emphasis on locating
the Holocaust in a moment in time is obvious in her
framework as well, which is similarly organized by
time and place, including “Salonika between the two
wars”46, “Tripoli between 1908 and 1920,”47 and “Tu-
nis at the beginning of the Century.”48 Therefore, the
purpose of Jewish Memories is to provide an objective
historical record of a bygone era.
Rhoda Lewin, like LucetteValensi and Nathan
Wachtel, similarly decided to conduct an oral history,
the result of which is called Witness to the Holocaust:
An Oral History. In it, her goal “was to create teach-
ing materials…in part to discredit the so-called schol-
ars who were saying that the Holocaust was wholly
imaginary.”49The agenda of her work, then, is not
unlike Valensi’s. She fears that, if a record is not pro-
duced, the world will not only forget what happened
during the Holocaust but will outright deny it. It is
her mission, then, to provide uncontestable evidence
that the Holocaust is a part of human history. Unlike
the survivors, however, there is no overarching sense
that such an atrocity could happen again, there is
only the sense that she must preserve a record of the
events themselves. Therefore, Lewin’s oral history
likewise is motivated by a desire to relate the events
of an historical event with the intent to inform rather
than prevent.
The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
(USHMM) is one of the central foundations that con-
ducts oral histories related to the Holocaust in the
45  Valensi, 1.
46  Ibid., 33.
47  Ibid., 30.
48  Ibid., 25.
49  Lewin, xviii.
United States. Because of its reputation for accurate
and well-researched data, it produced a guidebook in
which it indicates what its purpose is in conducting
such histories; that is, “An individual’s testimony can
supplement those documents by providing a detailed
and personal look at a historical event that may be
underrepresented or even unrepresented in written
works.”50 The goal, then, is to fill the gaps of existing
research on the Holocaust but to do so in a way that
is “accessible and usable for the listener.”51Because
the understanding of the audience is central to the
success of filling the gaps, one must “place the inter-
viewee’s experiences in historical context.”52 Once
again, then, there is an explicit emphasis on histori-
cizing the Holocaust that is intimately tied in with the
motivation for conducting the interview.Once again,
then, the goal is to inform individuals on a past event
– it is the historicity, not the surrounding themes of
evil, humanity, and survival – that is important.
Claude Lanzmann’s film Shoah, however, pro-
vides a take on oral histories that is more in tune
with the survivors than the other oral historians we
have thus far reviewed. That is, his goal is to “some-
how communicate to an audience something of the
degradation and horror experienced by millions of
innocents.”53While this contrasts with Steinberg and
Amery who, as we will see, choose not to explore
Nazi brutality, he is at least responding to the same
problem as the survivors are – that is, a sense of the
Holocaust as an “operational accident of history”54
that bears no weight on modernity. While is he con-
cerned about the “forgetting and rejection of the
Holocaust”55a la Lewin, he is not interested in merely
recounting history56. Instead, “the film is the abolition
of all distance between past and present.”57 As he ex-
plains, “a film devoted to the Holocaust can only be a
countermyth. It can only be an investigation into the
present of the Holocaust or at least into a past whose
scars are still so freshly and vividly inscribed in cer-
tain places and in the consciences of some people that
it reveals itself in a hallucinating timelessness.”58The
promotion of this timelessness—the weaving togeth-
er of past and present – is a precise reflection of the
central motivation of his work: that is, to combat the
current discourse on the Holocaust that “excise[s]
it from history with the pretext that it was only an
50  USHMM, v.
51  Ibid., vii.
52  Ibid., vii.
53 Lanzmann, Claude. “From the Holocaust to
‘Holocaust.’”Claude Lanzmann’sShoah. Ed. Stuart Lieb-
man (New York: Oxford UP, 2007). P. 4
54  Amery, 79.
55  Lanzmann, 33.
56  Ibid., 39.
57  Chevre, Marc. “Site and Speech: An Interview with
Claude Lanzmann about Shoah.” Claude Lanzmann’sShoah.
Ed. Stuart Liebman (New York: Oxford UP, 2007). P. 45
58  Lanzmann, 35.
Spring 2011: Volume 10, Issue 1
aberration.”59 Therefore, Lanzmann’s Shoah stands
out among oral histories as, at least in motivation, the
least particularizing of the oral histories reviewed.
Perhaps, he best sums it up when he says, “I consider
the Holocaust an unqualifiedly historical event, the
monstrous, yes, but legitimate product of the history
of the western world.”60 By creating a film that for-
wards this ideology as part of its motivation, Shoah
is a prime example of an oral history that does not
particularize the Holocaust.
Thus, what informs the survivors in their desire
to record their stories is the assumption that, with-
out their words, mankind would again perpetuate a
similar atrocity. Contrastingly, what informs the oral
historians, other than Claude Lanzmann, is that the
Holocaust is a historical event that must be recorded
so as to preserve a vestige of what is assumed to be
an otherwise deceased world.
While the motivation for writing memoirs and
conducting oral histories helps us better understand
how survivors and subsequent generations view the
Holocaust (and, in a small sense, human nature as it
relates to the Holocaust), the way the two genres treat
particular themes demonstrates that this motivation
is manifested throughout their works; that is, oral
historians, because of their historical bent, continue
to particularize the Holocaust within their thematic
choices. While, survivors reflect their desire to por-
tray the relevance the Holocaust bears on modern
society by creating relatable figures in both Jews and
Nazis, oral historians instead use these same themes
to further characterize the Holocaust as an historical
accident.
In analyzing the depiction of Nazis, we will take
a two-pronged approach. First, we will focus on the
image of the individual Nazi, and second, we will fo-
cus on the magnitude of the violence portrayed.
Survivors, as a general rule, describe Nazis not as
a corporate, faceless machine but rather as individu-
als. As Amery explains:
Many things do indeed happen approximately the
way they were anticipated In the imagination: Gesta-
po men in leather coats, pistol pointed at their victim
– that is correct, all right. But then, almost amazingly,
it dawns on one that the fellows not only have leather
coats and pistols, but also faces: not ‘Gestapo faces’
with twisted noses, hypertrophied chins, pockmarks,
and knife scars, as might appear in a book, but rather
faces like anyone else’s. Plain, ordinary faces.”61
Amery does not, however, provide this human-
quality to the Nazis in order to give them humanity;
rather, in keeping with his afore-mentioned motiva-
tion, he does so to give humanity a sense of the evil-
ness that it can hide under a kindly façade. Amery
describes one particular Nazi—the one who tor-
59  Ibid., 29.
60  Ibid., 28.
61  Amery, 25.
51
tures him— as appearing “gruffly good-natured.”62
Steinberg beautifully encapsulates this dichotomy
between the phenotype of a Nazi and his inner wick-
edness by similarly relaying his experiences with a
particular Nazi, Hauptscharfuhrer Rakasch:
“Absolute evil. Today, with fifty years’ perspective
and experience, I realize he was a deeply depraved
man…Rakasch is dressed completely in black, head
to toe, cap to boots. His black-gloved hands, in sum-
mer as in winter, firmly grip his black leather whip.
All you can see of him is his face, framed by his cap
and the collar of his tunic. The face is androgynous:
delicate features, sharp nose, thin, pale lips. His eyes
are a washed-out blue, and always on the lookout—
nothing escapes them, their all-around vision. They
are perfectly expressionless. His voice is calm, clear,
distinct…I first saw him at work a few weeks after
my arrival. He beat an old Gypsy and then drowned
him in a puddle of water eight inches deep, pinning
the man’s head down with his boot.”63
This particular description of a Nazi is informative
in a few ways. First, it names the Nazi, giving him not
only physical features but also a discernible identity.
Second, it connects Rakasch with a category of per-
sons – that is, the depraved – rather than explaining
his evilness as something entirely outside of human-
ity. Third, though he is showing brutality, he is as-
sociating it with an individual who can be conceived;
that is, one we can imagine “had a mother, a father,
maybe brothers and sisters, that he was perhaps mar-
ried, that he even had children…that he occasionally
laughed, went to the movies.”64 The Nazis in Stein-
berg’s book, then, are “delicate;” and yet, despite this,
they still possess within them the terrifying ability to
“drown [a Gypsy] in a puddle of water eight inches
deep.” Describing Nazis in positive terms is in fact
common to survivor literature, as Kertesz refers to
them as “honest,”65 “pretty friendly,”66 and “unfail-
ingly jovial and encouraging.”67 He, too, touches on
the implications of the absurd assumption that one’s
evilness will be manifested in one’s outward appear-
ance. Writing of a Nazi doctor, he explains, “I imme-
diately felt a sense of trust in the doctor, since he cut
a very fine figure, with sympathetic, longish, shaven
features, rather narrow lips, and kind-looking blue or
gray—at any rate pale—eyes.”68 Here, Kertesz con-
nects outward appearance with our own personal
comfort level. Though the doctor was a Nazi, he was
“kind-looking” and “sympathetic,” and therefore, he
was trusted, despite the reality of his vice. This serves
as a warning to which all can relate – the idea that
one’s outward appearance does not reflect their in-
62  Amery, 32.
63  Steinberg, 108.
64  Ibid., 108.
65  Kertesz, 60.
66  Ibid., 62.
67  Ibid., 94.
68  Ibid., 85.
52 The Oculus: The Virginia Journal of Undergraduate Research
ward personality; therefore, the survivor’s emphasis
on giving individual, and often times positive, char-
acteristics to Nazis is a means to connect to the indi-
vidual experiences of the reader and to give them a
sense of the fact that Nazis were human, even if they
did not behave humanely.
Furthermore, while survivors do indeed depict
Nazi brutality, they are more interested in portray-
ing daily camp life. When they do refer to Nazis,
it is largely to convey a sense of power rather than
viciousness in and of itself. Amery states his lack of
interest in relaying the horrors of Nazi brutality, for
“people have already heard far too much about [the
corpses, death, etc.]; it belongs to the category of hor-
rors mentioned at the outset, those which I was ad-
vised with good intentions not to discuss in detail.”69
Steinberg is similarly intent on not depicting “the
museum of horrors, the litany of atrocities.”70 In-
stead, both choose to connect any brutality with the
dynamics of power rather than to emphasize the
incomprehensible violence itself. Amery describes
Nazi power by asking, “For is not the one who can
reduce a person so entirely to a body and a whimper-
ing prey of death a god or, at least, a demigod.”71This
is an example of the most prominent technique the
survivors use to depict Nazi power – describing them
as gods. Steinberg uses this technique when he refers
to Nazis, along with any of the camp aristocracy, as
gods, saying, “Per chance a dues ex machina – an SS
officer, a Kapo, a block boss—precipitates the finale
with a bullet, a pickax blow, a clubbing.”72 While this
is without a doubt an example of Nazi viciousness,
the purpose is the almost divine status ascribed to the
Nazi members – the atrocities committed are simply
proofs of their nature rather than the focus of the dis-
course. Levi, too, employs this technique, pointing
out, “Some [prisoners], bestially, urinate while they
run to save time, because within five minutes begins
the distribution of bread, of bread-Brot-Broid-chleb-
pain-lechem-kayner, of the holy grey slab which
seems gigantic in your neighbour’s hand, and in your
own hand so small as to make you cry.”73 Combining
this with his earlier characterization of camp life, one
can easily see the prominence of depicting Nazis as
gods while simultaneously emphasizing daily camp
life rather than Nazi brutality:
“The rites to be carried out were infinite and
senseless: every morning one had to make the ‘bed’
perfectly flat and smooth; smear one’s muddy and re-
pellent wooden shoes with the appropriate machine
grease; scrape the mudstains off one’s clothes…in the
evening one had to undergo the control for lice and
the control of washing one’s feet; on Saturdays, have
one’s beard and hair shaved, mend or have mended
69  Amery, 15-16.
70  Steinberg, 62.
71  Amery, 36.
72  Steinberg, 73.
73  Levi, 39.
one’s rags; on Sunday, undergo the general control
for skin diseases and the control of buttons on one’s
jacket, which had to be five.”74
What is given by the Nazis is described as “holy”
and what is performed on a day to day basis are
“rites.” This religious language sets up the Nazis as
gods in the same way that Amery and Steinberg’s
overt characterizations do. Equally importantly,
however, is how Levi chooses to emphasize daily
camp life rather than Nazi brutality. His questions are
not “why are they doing this to me?” but rather “…
when will they distribute the soup tomorrow? And
will I be able to eat it without a spoon? And where
will I be able to find one? And where will they send
me to work?”75 It is daily life and its concomitant
questions, rather than the cases of extreme Nazi bru-
tality that consume the thoughts of survivors. This
is likewise true for Wiesel, whose emphasis lies on
daily life and Jewish experiences rather than the Nazi
imposition upon them. For example, Wiesel admits
“I watched other hangings,”76 rather than saying
“the Nazis hanged more Jews.” In so phrasing, Wi-
esel chooses not to focus on Nazi crimes but rather
Jewish responses.
Kertesz employs a different technique to under-
mine Nazi brutality, though his purpose remains the
same. What the Nazis do, in his eyes, is natural, and
it is the repetition of this justification that pervades
the novel.77Crimes against humanity are considered
“unavoidable”78 or even “understandable.”79 In one
of his more haunting paragraphs, Kertesz writes of an
exchange between the main character, GyörgyKöves,
and a journalist upon Köves’s liberation:
“‘Why, my dear boy,’ he exclaimed, though now,
so it seemed to me, on the verge of losing his pa-
tience, ‘do you keep on saying ‘naturally,’ and
always about things that are not at all natural?’
I told him that in a concentration camp they
were natural. ‘Yes, of course, of course,’ he says,
‘they were there, but…,’ and he broke off, hesi-
tating slightly, ‘but…I mean, a concentration
camp in itself is unnatural,’ finally hitting on
the right word as it were. I didn’t bother saying
anything to this, as I was beginning slowly to
realize that it seems there are some things you
just can’t argue about with strangers, the igno-
rant, with those who, in a certain sense, are mere
children so to say.”80
74  Ibid., 34.
75  Levi, 38.
76  Wiesel, 63.
77  See: Kertesz, 87, 170, 174.
78  Kertesz, 174.
79  Ibid., 224.
80  Ibid., 247.
Spring 2011: Volume 10, Issue 1
Here Kertesz explicitly explains his reasons for
using words like “natural” and “understandable” –
it is not only to focus on daily camp life rather than
Nazi brutality, but is also to explain that, in fact, what
was happening in the camps was natural – natural
in a way that non-survivors cannot understand. De-
scribing the Nazis in such a way is precisely the pur-
pose of depicting them as individuals and emphasiz-
ing their power: while future generations will try to
strip human responsibility from the Holocaust by
viewing it as an accident or aberration of nature, sur-
vivors attempt to combat this image by portraying
Nazis as potentially one’s neighbor or one’s friend;
to them, Nazis are merely the expression of a natural
being corrupted not by being inhuman but merely by
wielding human power.
Such a depiction is visibly absent from oral histo-
ries, which instead serve to locate Nazism within a
larger Good vs. Evil framework. Instead of focusing
on daily life, oral historians focus on Nazi brutality
and the terrifying atrocities committed by the Third
Reich. Moreover, their description of Nazis is over-
generalized and corporate, lending itself to the natu-
ral inclination to deny human responsibility by de-
personalizing the perpetrators of the Holocaust and
mythologize rather than humanize their violence.
To best embody this second aspect, we will first
relate the writings of Cynthia Ozick. Though not an
oral historian, her work impeccably demonstrates the
“otherness” ascribed to the Nazis by non-survivors.
As she explains in her short story The Shawl, “Above
the shoulder [that carried Magda] a helmet glinted.
The light tapped the helmet and sparkled it into a
goblet. Below the helmet a black body like a domino
and a pair of black boots hurled themselves in the
direction of the electrified fence.”81 Here, Nazis are
described not as humans but as a combination of a
helmet, domino, and boots. Ozick’s Nazi, in contra-
distinction from Steinberg’s and Amery’s, is not only
unnamed, he is an object, a machine – at the very
least, he is not human. This, along with the continu-
ous description of Nazis as an unnamed “they,” de-
notes the depersonalization of Nazis in non-survivor
literature.
Maus continues this theme of stripping the Nazis
of any relatable human identity. By portraying Nazis
as cats, Spiegelman implies that all Nazis were snarl-
ing, sharp-toothed, and aggressive. Spiegelman fur-
ther depersonalizes them in his refusal to draw Nazis
differently. Whereas one can easily distinguish Art,
Vladek, and Mala, the Nazis are all homogenized
into a single form82. As in Ozick’s novel, then, Maus,
too depersonalizes the Nazis.
Beyond the depersonalization of Nazis, there is
also the question of how prominent Nazi brutality is
within oral histories. Once again, Maus is an espe-
81  Ozick, Cynthia. The Shawl.(New York: Knopf, 1989). p.
6.
82  Maus, 41.
53
cially useful example, as the artwork is the creation of
the non-survivor and thus provides a welcome indi-
cation of how the words of survivors are envisioned
by those in a culture in which Nazism has become so
paradigmatically evil as to separate it fully from hu-
manity. This is exceptionally clear in those instances
in which the words of Vladek are reinterpreted by
the images of his son. When Vladek simply says,
“Some complained – those that were too old or weak
for such work,”83 Spiegelman draws not a group of
inmates refusing to work but rather a Nazi beating
a mouse with the butt of his rifle. Even when the
words are provided, Speigelman feels the freedom to
reinterpret them through his art – how much more
so, then, in the recorded oral histories, which can be
edited or ignored so as to only include the opinions
of those survivors consistent with the oral historians!
As Valensi admits, “All we had to do was orchestrate
that chorus [of voices], giving up a number of biogra-
phies we had collected, and cutting large fragments
of those we retained.”84
The USHMM, like Maus, emphasizes Nazism as
the fundamental point of inquiry for oral historians,
advising interviewers to “Demonstrate the kind of
life and culture that was interrupted or destroyed by
National Socialism…it is also important to draw out
the interviewees earliest recollections of the Nazis.”85
The problem, however, is that it was not only the
Nazis who perpetuated the crimes of the Holocaust.
Poles and camp leaders like the Kapos are, in Wie-
sel, Levi, Steinberg, and Kertesz’s eyes, responsible
for much of their anguish during their imprison-
ment – yet the USHMM, in its list of suggested ques-
tions, never asks for information on them86. In such a
way, then, the USHMM not only focuses on Nazism,
which in and of itself relegates it to a purely histori-
cal location, but it also fails to reflect reality – a real-
ity in which many individuals, not just a corporate
Nazism, were complicit in the extermination of mil-
lions of people. By emphasizing Nazi brutality alone,
then, not only do oral historians sensationalize and
mythologize the Holocaust, they also reduce it to a
purely “Nazi” phenomenon. Considering the reality
of the complacency of millions, this further removes
human responsibility from the act and continues to
historicize the event.
Perhaps most emphatic of the role of Nazi brutal-
ity is Claude Lanzmann, who, as previously demon-
strated, had the visualization of Nazi brutality as his
central motivator. When an interviewee states “they
burned people here,” he clarifies “to the sky?” in or-
der to underscore the hyperbole87. He continues this
trend of asking questions to accentuate the severity
of what is being said, often times not even question-
83  Ibid., 56.
84  Valensi, 2.
85  USHMM, 26.
86  Ibid., 27.
87  Shoah, 3.
54 The Oculus: The Virginia Journal of Undergraduate Research
ing but rather remarking on the mind-boggling na-
ture of it. When another interviewee mentions Jews
being forced to dig trenches for graves with just their
hands, Lanzmann interjects “with just their hands!”88
Perhaps more importantly, Lanzmann even asserts
answers that the interviewees are not providing so as
to further stress Nazi brutality:
Lanzmann: What did the Germans do?
Interviewee: They forced the Jews to…
Lanzmann: They beat them?89
In such a way, Lanzmann uses an aggressive line
of questioning to underscore Nazi violence. While he
reads this as in keeping with his goal of combating
those who trivialize the Holocaust, in reality, there
is an implication that he seems to ignore; that is, by
emphasizing the supreme horrors committed by the
Nazi regime, he serves to inadvertently particularize
the event. What commonality can one find with the
smell of burning flesh wafting through miles of Pol-
ish countryside?90 What possible humanity can one
find in the gas chambers, or the senseless beating
of an unarmed innocent simply because of his per-
ceived race? By refusing to portray relatable circum-
stances of the Holocaust and instead depicting Nazi
brutality alone, oral histories strip the Holocaust of
any relevancy for the generations in which National
Socialism is not the central component91. In such a
way, the Holocaust becomes effectively historicized.
It should be here noted that it is not that Nazi bru-
tality does not exist in survivor literature – it does,
as it well should, as that was the reality of the Ho-
locaust. This is also not to say that Nazis were not
singularly evil; Amery, in fact, seems to imply that all
Germans bear responsibility for moral awareness92,
and he continues to hold resentment for what was
done to him and others. It is simply that survivors
pay far more attention to more simple matters: mat-
ters of soup, shoes, etc., rather than their interaction
with the Nazis. This is in contradistinction to the
oral histories, which are clear in focusing on Nazi
atrocities as the crux upon which their collected tes-
timonies rest. By focusing on the brutality of Nazis,
however, oral histories lend themselves to particular-
ization of the event. Only the Nazis could have done
this. Particularly when this is combined with a lack of
88  Ibid., 15.
89  Ibid., 47.
90  Ibid., 46.
91  This is to say, the Holocaust and its associated horrors
in and of themselves have a particularizing quality to them.
They are, without a doubt, unparalleled and unimaginable
to those who were not themselves witnesses to the atroci-
ties. That said, survivors strike a balance between portray-
ing this brutality and articulating other aspects of camp life
that are, in fact, understandable and relatable. In such a way,
they serve to de-particularize what is otherwise only further
seen as evidence for the Holocaust being an aberration.
92  Amery, 73.
personalization of the Nazis, it is easy for readers to
understand the Holocaust as perpetuated by some-
thing other than human; and in such a way, the Ho-
locaust becomes the very aberration against which
Lanzmann warns.
Having investigated the depiction of Nazis with-
in both genres, we now turn to the portrayal of Jews.
Like our analysis of Nazis, our study of the Jews will
be two-fold; that is, we will focus on how survivors
and oral historians describe the lifestyle of Jews in
the camps as well as how they describe the necessary
conditions for survival.
As previously mentioned, survivors focus on
camp life rather than Nazi brutality. As part of this
camp life, Jews are portrayed not as men and women
who march dignifiedly to their deaths but rather as
animals struggling to survive. Far from finding ca-
maraderie in their shared fate, Jews in the camps
“had been reduced to vileness and humiliation,”93
with “…scores of prisoners driven desperate by
hunger prowl[ing] around, with lips half-open
and eyes gleaming, lured by a deceptive instinct to
where the merchandise shown makes the gnawing of
their stomachs more acute and their salvation more
assiduous.”94 The animalistic associations continue in
almost all of the survivor literature, with Jews simul-
taneously being sheep95, farm animals96, and cattle97.
Jews had a “…rage to live in spite of all obstacles,
the perfectly irrational hope, the animal instinct that
made us cling ferociously to life without letting go,
not even for an instant, which would have proved
fatal.”98 Beyond the animal associations, however,
Jews are also overtly characterized as self-interested,
irrational, and aggressive. Steinberg argues that Jews
like himself who were able to make it up the camp
aristocracy are a perfect example of human nature:
“You do evil, if you have even the slightest scrap
of power.”99 Here Levi agrees, writing, “…I already
know that it is in the normal order of things that the
privileged oppress the unprivileged: the social struc-
ture of the camp is based on this human law.”100 What
happened in the camps, then, is not contrary to hu-
man nature – Jews were reduced to animals because
it is within human nature to be so. Their behavior as
animals carries with it a further implication, one that
results in heart-wrenchingly brutal segments like Wi-
esel’s description of his time on a train:
“A piece [of bread] fell into our wagon. I decided
not to move. Anyway, I knew that I would not
be strong enough to fight off dozens of violent
men! I saw, not far from me, an old man drag-
93  Steinberg, 27.
94  Levi, 78.
95  Steinberg, 11, 47.
96  Steinberg, 54
97  Levi, 154.
98  Steinberg, 14.
99  Ibid., 108.
100  Levi, 44.
Spring 2011: Volume 10, Issue 1
ging himself on all fours. He had just detached
himself from the struggling mob. He was hold-
ing one hand to his heart. At first I thought he
had received a blow to his chest. Then I under-
stood: he was hiding a piece of bread under his
shirt. With lightening speed he pulled it out
and put it to his mouth. His eyes lit up, a smile,
like a grimace, illuminated his ashen fact. And
was immediately extinguished. A shadow had
lain down beside him. And this shadow threw
itself over him. Stunned by the blows, the old
man was crying: “Meir, my little Meir! Don’t
you recognize me…You’re killing your father…
I have bread…for you too…for you too…” He
collapsed…The old man mumbled something,
groaned, ad died. ..His son searched him, took
the crust of bread, and began to devour it. He
didn’t get far. Two men had been watching him.
They jumped him. Others joined in. When they
withdrew, there were two dead bodies next to
me, the father and the son.”101
Life in the camps, then, was cruel not only be-
cause of what the Nazis were doing to the Jews, but
what the Jews were forced into doing to each other
because of their conditions. Jews played practical
jokes on each other that could have resulted in beat-
ings or worse102, and though technically Jews had a
choice—that is, to sharpen one’s wits and strengthen
one’s will “or else, to throttle all dignity and kill all
conscience, to climb down into the arena as a beast
against other beasts, to let oneself be guided by those
unsuspected subterranean forces which sustain fami-
lies and individuals in cruel times”103 – their answer
was largely the same: to become “the beasts they had
made of us.”104
Following this characterization, those who did
survive provide every reason for their survival other
than being more fit or morally capable; more often
than not, they attribute it to luck, and when they do
not, their next option is to credit it to the complete
moral debasement of man. “…it’s hard for me to
present my behavior in an honorable –let alone glori-
ous—light,”105 Steinberg begins, for his survival, in
his eyes, was purely luck:
“That we won in the end, that the death ma-
chine seized up and by some miracle allowed a
few survivors to slip through the net, isn’t this
reason enough to believe that somehow we were
different?...Yet we are not special in any way, of
101  Wiesel, 101.
102  Levi, 28.
103  Ibid., 92.
104  Steinberg, 151. This is not to claim that there were no
heroes and none who did march with dignity. This is simply
to demonstrate that survival often reduced Jewish inmates
to their very basic instincts, and thus understanding the vic-
tims as pure good serves only to mythologize the Holocaust.
105  Ibid., 11.
55
 course, save for the stubborn, persistent, flaw-
less good fortune that made us the winners of
this unlikely lottery. The proof is that the inde-
structible ones, the iron men, lasted only a few
months, and among the rare survivors are a few
whom none of us would have given the ghost of
a chance.”106
Luck, however, was not the only function that
saved lives – so too was one’s successful eschewing
of all human morality, according to Levi. In describ-
ing particular survivors, Levi argues that “[Elias] has
resisted the annihilation from within because he is in-
sane…if Elias regains his liberty, he will be confined
to the fringes of human society, in a prison or lunatic
asylum.”107 Speaking of “Henri,” who is, in fact the
very same Paul Steinberg we have been investigat-
ing, Levi writes, “He is enclosed in armour, the ene-
my of all, inhumanly cunning and incomprehensible
like the Serpent in Genesis.”108 These are, without a
doubt, not the moral heroes of Holocaust mythology.
The point of the survivors, however, is not to defame
the Jewish people but rather to be explicit in that, un-
der the right conditions, anyone can fall into mad-
ness and depravity. In such a way, survivors keep the
Holocaust relevant to contemporary society in two
ways: first, by refusing to mythologize themselves as
uncommonly heroic, and second, by connecting their
own brutality with the idea that human nature does
not preclude the choice of evil. Under the appropriate
conditions, anyone – even today – can behave with
total moral ruination.
Kertesz and Amery, too, attach something else to
their characterization of Jews: the naturalness of Jew-
ish victimization. As Kertesz writes:
“It was obvious that from now on my lot could
not go on as well as it had up till now, and he did
not wish to make any secret about that, as he was
talking to me ‘man-to-man.’ ‘You too,’ he said,
‘are now a part of the shared Jewish fate,’ and he
then went on to elaborate that, remarking on this
fate was one of ‘unbroken persecution that has
lasted for millennia.’”109
Kertesz, then, sees his initiation into Judaism – a
religion with which he did not previously identify –
as beginning for him the cycle of oppression that had
been felt by the Jewish people since the dawn of time.
Amery agrees, writing, “To be a Jew, that meant for
me, from this moment on, to be a dead man on leave,
someone to be murdered, who only by chance was
not yet where he properly belonged; and so it has re-
mained, in my variations, in various degrees of inten-
106  Ibid., 14.
107  Levi, 97.
108  Ibid., 100.
109  Kertesz, 20.
56 The Oculus: The Virginia Journal of Undergraduate Research
sity, until today.”110 Even after the Holocaust, Amery
“was forced to recognize that little had changed, that
I was still the man condemned to be murdered in
due time, even though the potential executioner now
cautiously restrained himself or, at best, even loudly
protested his disapproval of what had happened. I
understood reality.”111 Survivors, then, depict as nat-
ural not only the fall into madness but also the hu-
man proclivity to oppress in the first place. In such a
way, they further tie together the Holocaust and the
modern age.
In contrast, oral historians attempt to set forth
some sort of logical framework that explains why
some Jews survived and why others did not. That
is, they feel the need to assert Jewish survivors as
heroes, placing them in a hero/villain context that
both glosses over reality and mythologizes the Ho-
locaust, thereby further removing it from human re-
sponsibility. In Shoah, there are no questions on how
one survived within the entire nine-hour production,
nor are there any such questions in USHMM’s sug-
gested list112. Furthermore, the USHMM seems to
assume there is some sort of condition required for
survival, for “If one’s education or background was
not academic (for example, if the person were a trade
or skilled laborer), that factor may have provided
opportunities that saved his or her life.”113 This is in
contradistinction to Amery, who implies that in Aus-
chwitz, while some had a clear advantage in physi-
cal strength, everyone soon came to be at the same
level114. What the USHMM is doing, then, is trying to
promote some sort of logical framework that would
be able to rationalize how some lived and how oth-
ers didn’t – a logical framework that, according to
survivors, did not exist. By assuming that a formula
existed for survival, oral historians make it easier to
trivialize the Holocaust, and by not asking questions
on how one survived, they are able to gloss over
the complex reality of natural survival instinct and
instead lay the groundwork for our next point: the
representation of Jewish inmates as heroes.
Beyond asserting a logical framework to sur-
vival, oral historians also depict Jewish survivors as
heroes. In Jewish Memories, Valensi portrays Jews as
the height of spiritual perfection, insisting that “reli-
gious rituals stand out vividly in memory...everyone
emphasizes the consistency of practice” (emphasis
added)115. Not only is this contrary to most survi-
vors – only Wiesel indicates a strong connection with
Judaism prior to the Holocaust, whereas Steinberg
“didn’t know a thing…about the Jewish religion”116
and Amery “came to realize [I was a Jew only] in 1935
110  Amery, 86.
111  Ibid., 92.
112  USHMM, 31.
113  Ibid., 23.
114  Amery, 59.
115  Valensi, 57.
116  Steinberg, 12.
after the proclamation of the Nuremberg laws”117—it
also lays the groundwork for assertions of heroism
and perfection. Similarly, in Voices from the Holocaust,
Corgas describes survivors as those who “resist[ed]
evil activity.”118 But as Steinberg explains, “I’ve often
wondered if I didn’t choose my fate deliberately. Af-
ter all, a prisoner’s vocation is to escape, even in the
direst situations. I went meekly to the slaughter like
a lousy sheep.”119 The description of Jews as sheep
going “meekly to the slaughter” does not suggest the
same sort of heroic anti-Nazism assumed by Corgas.
As Lanzmann writes in his criticism of the mini-series
Holocaust, “After years of ghetto confinement, terror,
humiliation, and hunger, the people who lined up in
rows of five…had neither the leisure nor composure
to die nobly. To show what really happened would
have been unendurable.”120 Thus, Lanzmann points
to further proof of a romanticization of Holocaust
survivors that, particularly when compared to the
emphatic Nazi brutality of the same works, places
the Holocaust within a mythologized good vs. evil
framework to which humanity simply cannot relate.
One can perhaps best see the difference between
later generational ascription of heroism to survivors
and survivors’ own viewpoints in Maus. Here, like
in survivor literature, Jews are not depicted as the
heroes they are in other oral histories. Vladek de-
scribes being sold out to the Gestapo by a Jew, recall-
ing, “In the morning we gave [a Jew] a little food to
him and left him go to his family…the Gestapo came
that afternoon.”121 Despite this, however, one can see
the reluctance to attach this behavior to the Jews, for
accompanying this narrative is a picture of Nazis
with guns screaming “JUDEN RAUS.” The empha-
sis, then, is not on the Jew who sold out the others
but rather on the Nazis who followed through on
his tip. We see, then, a clear attempt to depict Jews
as wholly innocent—in so far as Vladek’s narrative
allows it. While this is admirable and, likely out of
respect for those who were put in the most unimagi-
nable conditions in which there existed “no moral
law to contravene,”122 there is value in choosing to
portray Jewish immorality; that is, it better prepares
readers to understand that, under the proper condi-
tions, anyone can become an animal. It was not, then,
just a battle between pure evil (as represented by
Nazis) and pure good (as represented by Jews and
other inmates). Relegating it to such serves only to
mythologize it and strip its relevancy to the modern
age; this is precisely what oral historians have done.
Maus II questions the very phenomenon of label-
ing survivors as moral upstarts. While Speigelman
speaks to his therapist Pavel, a dialogue ensues that
117  Amery, 43.
118  Corgas, xiv.
119  Steinberg, 11.
120  Lanzmann, 30.
121  Maus, 113.
122  Levi, 97.
Spring 2011: Volume 10, Issue 1
reflects the non-survivor trend of ascribing heroic
status to survivors:
Pavel: Do you admire your father for surviving?
Spiegelman: Well…Sure I know there was a lot
of luck involved, but he was amazingly present-
minded and resourceful.
Pavel: Then you think it is admirable to survive.
Does that mean it’s not admirable to not sur-
vive?...It wasn’t the best people who survived,
nor did the best ones die. It was random.”123
This sequence is important in two ways. First, it
demonstrates how survivors, like Pavel, understand
luck and randomness to be the key factor in surviv-
al, rather than moral or physical strength. Vladek,
too, understands this, for he interprets even his own
physical condition as a product of luck, pointing out,
“Most were not lucky to still be strong.”124 Second,
it makes clear that Spiegelman, who represents the
later generation, originally ascribes some sort of he-
roic quality to survival that over-trivializes and ho-
mogenizes the reality.
Therefore, by portraying the reality of the Jewish
condition in the camps, survivors assert a terrify-
ing naturalness to brutality and oppression – all it
takes is placing someone in the proper conditions,
and true, brutal, animal nature comes through. Con-
trastingly, by portraying only Nazi brutality and
reading all Jewish victims as walking heroically
and dignifiedly to their death, oral historians place
the Holocaust within a hyper-mythologized Evil vs.
Good framework that serves only to further particu-
larize it and remove it from human understanding.
Pure evil and pure good are not present in the lives
of most, and therefore, the Holocaust becomes some-
thing so far outside imagination that future genera-
tions can only treat it as an aberration. By attributing
survival to luck – or even moral debasement—rather
than heroism, survivors continue their trend of
making the Holocaust relevant. Once again, then,
oral historians further particularize the Holocaust
by reading heroism where there was only survival.
Finally, we turn to chronology. We have seen that
oral historians attempt to place the Holocaust with-
in a logical framework that further mythologizes,
but what about the chronological framework? In a
similar way, oral historians emphasize the history of
the Holocaust – that is, they attempt to place every-
thing within a clearly discernible linear framework
in which 1944 explains 1945, and so on. Survivors,
however, attempt to weave together past and present
in a way that links 1944 with 1993, etc. In such a way,
survivors once again attempt to make the Holocaust
relevant as a timeless moral/philosophical problem
while oral historians relegate it to a historical evalu-
ation of a long-since-passed age.
123  Maus II, 45.
124  Maus II, 84.
57
 Survivors, both in their overt declarations and
more subtle literary techniques, merge together past,
present, and future. While Amery indicates that
chronological order is not a concern125, other survi-
vors are less explicit about their choices to remain
outside a temporally linear framework. Instead,
these authors juxtapose modern experiences with
past ones, use present tense verbs to indicate past ex-
periences, and frame their novel in ways most reflec-
tive of a merger between past, present, and future.
Survivors juxtapose modern experiences with
past ones to indicate both the relevancy of one’s Ho-
locaust experiences on his present and to draw paral-
lels between camp life and post-camp life. While dis-
cussing travelling from Auschwitz to Buchenwald,
Wiesel recalls:
“Dozens of starving men fought desperately
over a few crumbs. The worker watched the spec-
tacle with great interest. Years later, I witnessed
a similar spectacle in Aden. Our ship’s passen-
gers amused themselves by throwing coins to the
‘natives,’ who dove to retrieve them. An elegant
Parisian Lady took great pleasure in this game.
When I noticed two children desperately fight-
ing the water, on trying to strangle the other,
I implored the lady: ‘Please, don’t throw any
more coins!’ ‘Why not?’ said she. ‘I like to give
charity…’”126
Wiesel relates a similar story earlier on when he
describes reuniting with a French woman whom he
met in the camps127, and Steinberg, too, intermittent-
ly reflects on his childhood within the context of his
life at Auschwitz128. By refusing to adhere to a linear
timeline and instead weaving tales of the past, pres-
ent, and future together, survivors imply that the Ho-
locaust can not be relegated to a mere moment in his-
tory; events of the Holocaust – no matter how simple
they are – can continue into today.
Steinberg and Amery further this technique by not
only connecting their past experiences in the camps
with their later experiences post-liberation but also
connecting their Holocaust experiences with other
moments in human history. As Steinberg admits, “I
slapped the old Polish Jew. The Khmer Rouge mas-
sacred their own brothers and sisters. French soldiers
tortured people in Algeria. The Hutus hacked the
Tutsis to death with machetes. And in this concert, I
played my part.”129 By connecting his own decisions
with the decisions of later genocidal regimes, Stein-
berg purports a continuity of action and ideology
that, though perhaps manifested differently in the
Holocaust, persists to today.
125  Amery, xiii-xiv.
126  Wiesel, 100.
127  Ibid., 53.
128  Steinberg, 34.
129  Steinberg, 127.
58 The Oculus: The Virginia Journal of Undergraduate Research
Likewise, Amery associates his experiences with
later events, forwarding this idea of ideological and
actionable continuity:
“Between the time this book was written and to-
day, more than thirteen years have passed. They
were not good years. One need only follow the
reports from Amnesty International to see that
in horror this period matches the worst epochs of
a history that is as real as it is inimical to reason.
Sometimes it seems as though Hitler has gained
a posthumous triumph. Invasions, aggressions,
torture, destruction of man in his essence. A few
indications will suffice: Czechoslovakia 1968,
Chile, the forced evacuation of Pnom-Penh,
the psychiatric wards of the USSR, the mur-
der squads in Brazil and Argentina, the self-
unmasking of the Third World states that call
themselves ‘socialist,’ Ethiopia, Uganda.”130’’
Amery links these events with the same sort of
motivations and inclinations as those that produced
the Holocaust. Again, this is not to say that Amery
does not view the Holocaust as unique; in fact, he
calls the Holocaust “singular and irreducible in its
total inner logic and its accursed rationality.”131 His
point, then, is merely to show that the same factors
that contributed to the rise of Nazism exist today,
including genocidal tendencies. His book serves to
explain how “We had the chance to observe how the
word became flesh and how this incarnated word fi-
nally led to heaps of cadavers. Once again people are
playing with the fire that dug a grave in the air for so
many. I sound the fire alarm…”132
Survivors also use the present tense to make
the story more relevant to the reader. The use of
direct quotes and dialogue is in and of itself a liter-
ary technique to make the past present and is used
in Wiesel’s, Levi’s, and Kertesz’s compositions. Fur-
thermore, Wiesel and Levi use terms of the present
to refer to instances of the past. For example, Wiesel
explains that “By now, I became conscious of myself
again”133 and likewise, Levi “do[es] not know what
I will think tomorrow and later; today I feel no dis-
tinct emotion.”134 The use of words like “now” and
“today” to refer to moments of the past read the pres-
ent into the past, thereby contemporizing rather than
historicizing the events of the Holocaust.
Finally, survivors employ particular framing
techniques that, once again, try to break down the
historical barrier that bars current generations from
relating to the Holocaust. Kertesz, for example,
“reached home at roughly the same time of year as
130  Amery, vii.
131  Ibid., viii.
132  Ibid., x.
133  Wiesel, 87.
134  Levi, 128.
when I had left it.”135 The lack of any profound social
or spatial difference between when he left and when
he returned is a highly poignant commentary on the
lack of discernible change in humanity, even after an
event as paradigmatic as the Holocaust.
Contrastingly, oral historians, because their goal
is to inform future generations of an historical event,
focus their attention on locating the Holocaust with-
in a clear chronological framework. In such a way,
they serve to over-historicize the event by locating
it explicitly in the past, with no attempt to connect
it to modern day experiences. The USHMM encour-
ages oral historians to “organize your questions
chronologically”136 and “encourage [the interviewee]
to anchor his or her experiences in a chronological
and geographic framework.”137 Moreover, the overall
framework of the questioning itself serves to hyper-
historicize the event, as it is ordered into a pre-war,
war, and post-war framework.
Maus II is perhaps most effective in showing the
difference between survivors and oral historians in
their approach to chronology. Despite searching for
the “human dimension of an event unparalleled in
human history,”138 oral historians often care little
about the personal lives of the survivors and fa-
vor, as has already been proven, the brutality of the
Third Reich. While being interviewed, Vladek be-
gins to digress into a personal story, at which point
Spiegelman screams “ENOUGH! TELL ME ABOUT
AUSCHWITZ!”139 This exclamation shows the ten-
sion between survivors, who view the Holocaust
within the larger framework of their own lives, and
oral historians, who see the Holocaust as a moment
unconnected to any other moment. This lack of con-
nection is precisely how the Holocaust is described as
an aberration: if there is no continuity, the Holocaust
must have been a spontaneous accident of nature
rather than an outgrowth of it.
Spiegelman, however, does negotiate the difficul-
ties of time in some ways. He goes back and forth be-
tween 1982, 1979, 1944, and 1987 as he tries to sort out
where his life and Vladek’s life became so intrinsi-
cally merged140. Accompanying his back-and-forth is
an image of a pile of emaciated Jews below his desk,
a skillful representation of how his father’s past has
shaped his present. Likewise, Spiegelman’s conver-
sation with his therapist Pavel continues the dialogue
about how the past has influenced the present141, and
in such a way, it is clear that Spiegelman comes to
understand the inherent continuity between the past
and the present.
135  Kertesz, 237.
136  USHMM, 22.
137  Ibid., 43.
138  Lewin, xx.
139  Maus II, 47.
140  Ibid., 41.
141  Ibid., 44.
Spring 2011: Volume 10, Issue 1
That said, Spiegelman still falls into the same
trap that other oral historians do – that is, he is deter-
mined to place the Holocaust within a clear historical
framework. He becomes frustrated when it is appar-
ent that this may be impossible:
Spiegelman: How long were you in quarantine
teaching English?
Vladek: Maybe 2 months…there I had it good.
I–
Spiegelman: You told me about that. How many
months were you in the tin shop?
Vladek: In this workshop—tin and shoe work
combined—I was about 5 or 6 months.
Spiegelman: So, black work lasted 3 months.
Vladek: Yah…No! I remind myself…after black
work I came again as a tinman with Yidl for 2
months. They –
Spiegelman: But WAIT! That would be 12
months, you said you were there a total of 10!
Vladek: So? Take less time to the black work in
Auschwitz. We didn’t wear watches.142
Spiegelman becomes frustrated because, as an
oral historian, he is attempting to learn about the his-
torical past, of which chronological order is a major
component.
Whereas Maus seems to move back and forth be-
tween the two genres in terms of its treatment of a
chronology, Lanzmann very clearly errs on the side
of the survivors. He condemns historians for tracing
Nazism, claiming that in so doing it implies that par-
ticular conditions must be satisfied for such an event
to occur:
“One must start with the naked violence and
not, as is usually done, with the bonfires, the
singing, and the blond heads of the Hitler Ju-
gend; not even with the fanaticized German
masses, the shouts of “Heil Hitler!” – the mil-
lions of raised arms; nor from the series of anti-
Jewish laws that, beginning in 1933, gradually
made life for German Jews impossible…No, in
creating a work of art, one deals with another
logic, another way of telling the story…the Fi-
nal Solution would not be the culmination of the
story, it would be its point of departure.”143
He understands the importance of “the abolition
of all distance between past and present,”144 an idea
that manifests itself in his “non-sites” of memory in
which he “mingle[d] past and present.”145 By visit-
ing the present-day locations of past atrocities, Lan-
142  Ibid., 68.
143  Lanzmann, 34.
144  Chevre, 45.
145  De Beauvoir, Simone. “Shoah.” Claude Lanzmann’s
Shoah. Ed. Stuart Liebman (New York: Oxford UP, 2007) p.
65.
59
zmann tries to prevent the mythologizing – or, as he the same. Once again, this is not to postulate that the
sees it, to remove the legendary qualities146 – of the Holocaust – or anything ideologically or practically
areas and make it real and relevant to today’s gen- similar – is imminent. It is only to say that survivors
eration. Lanzmann’s use of chronology is therefore seem to connect the Holocaust with something natu-
in perfect keeping with his motivation; a motivation ral – something that exists in some form or another,
that, as previously shown, is inconsistent with that enough to be the moral obligation that compels them
of survivors. Therefore, we see through Lanzmann’s to write. The purpose of the interweaving of past and
work the influence that one’s motivation has on the present, the focus on relatable personalities and indi-
ultimate construction and treatment of particular vidualized enemies – all of these serve as the vehicles
themes. through which they achieve their goal – writing to
We have therefore shown that the motivations, prevent a similar atrocity by bearing witness to the
depiction of Jews and Nazis, and chronological most cataclysmic event in human history.
framework of oral histories serve to particularize and
mythologize the Holocaust in a way that makes it ut-
terly extraneous to post-Shoah generations. Reading
survivors, one sees them not as witnesses to a his-
torical anomaly but as a window to a buried part of
human nature. Reading an oral history, however, one
sees the Holocaust as an important, yes, but outdated
accident of human nature; something that is so be-
yond anything we can imagine so as to make it whol-
ly immaterial to our daily lives. While it is important
to understand the Holocaust as a unique event, sur-
vivors do not read “unique” to mean “aberration.”
There is no conception within survivor literature of
the Holocaust as anything other than, in the words
of Claude Lanzmann, “the monstrous, yes, but legiti-
mate product of the history of the western world.”147
This is not to claim that all survivors view human na-
ture as intrinsically bad, but rather that survivors, be-
cause of their lived reality, understand that humans
have at the very least a distinct potential to become
bad based on one’s conditions – and it is the inter-
est of the survivors to ensure that potential is seen
as neither obsolete nor contrary to human nature. As
Amery states when discussing how victims are often
seen as the irreconcilable ones, “I know that what
oppresses me is no neurosis, but rather precisely re-
flected reality.”148
There are many reasons survivors may feel the
need to make the Holocaust relevant to subsequent
generations; choosing the correct one, then, is out-
side the purview of this paper. Perhaps they want
to create a shared experience – to, as Amery begs,
turn the “antiman” once again into a fellow man.149
Maybe instead they want to ensure that that which
was killed in the Holocaust is not forgotten. Perhaps
they hope their words may stave off the next geno-
cide by providing a history of the victim rather than
the victor. Or perhaps they simply want to hold Ger-
many and other genocidal regimes responsible for
their sins out of some overarching moral compunc-
tion. Regardless of the reasoning, one thing is clear:
survivors understand their plight to be relevant to
modernity, and they write in order to convince us of
146  Chevre, 43.
147  Laznmann, H2, 28.
148  Amery, 96.
149  Amery, 70.

60 The Oculus: The Virginia Journal of Undergraduate Research

 Cerebral RNA Expression Variation between Inbred
Mouse Strains Resistant and Susceptible to Cerebral
Ischemia:Testing Novel Human Candidates

Sean Li, Elisa Ferrante, Brian Annex, Charles Farber, Bradford Worrall

Background: Inbred mice provide a powerful tool to explore genetic factors in differential pheno-
types. Our review of the literature demonstrated clear strain differences in susceptibility to ce-
rebral ischemia. Recent Genome Wide Association Studies (GWAS) in humans have identified
3 loci, which are specific sites of particular genes on its chromosome, for ischemic stroke with a
number of associated candidates: NINJ2 and WNK1 on chr12p13.3, PITX2 on chr4q25, and CD-
KN2A and CDKN2B on chr9p21.3. Also, we tested candidates from experiments in a hindlimb
ischemia mouse model and identified a quantitative trait locus (QTL) associated with resistance
to ischemia. We tested these candidates in inbred mice with distinct stroke susceptibilities.
Methods and Results: Global gene expression profiles of the whole brain were generated. Ex-
pression quantitative trait loci (eQTL) were identified for our candidate genes. These loci
regulate gene transcription and expression on a genome-wide scale. Cis-acting eQTL were
identified for Ninj2 and Wnk1 with log 10 of the odds (LOD) scores of 101.2 and 10.8, respec-
tively. The LOD score compares the likelihood that these eQTL are significantly different in
the mice strains to the likelihood of observing the same data purely by chance. Thus with a
LOD score of 101.2, the odds are 10101.2 to 1 that this result did not occur by chance. Expres-
sion levels across genotypes support an additive mode of gene action with both genes more
highly expressed in the resistant than the susceptible strain. Cis-acting eQTL was also identi-
fied for Inpp5f with a LOD score of 2.2 and 1110007A13Rik was found to have a fold change
of 0.46. Fold change is how much a quantity changes going from an initial to a final value.
Conclusions: Our data demonstrate differential expression of two candidate genes identified in
human GWAS that are under genetic control. The results for Ninj2 support the hypothetical
mechanism that Ninj2 affects how the brain tolerates ischemic insults. Also, the two genes iden-
tified from the hindlimb ischemia candidates
may also lead to significant discoveries related
to ischemic tolerance. Comparison of response
to a middle cerebral artery occlusion model,
analysis of candidate gene expression before
and after ischemic injury, and parsing the role
of these genes and the pathways by which they
act may allow for the identification of novel
therapeutic targets for cerebrovascular disease.

Sean Li is a fourth year pre-med student majoring in Mu-

sic and Economics. He has been working for Dr. Worrall’s
stroke genetics lab in collaboration with Dr. Annex’s an-
giogenesis lab for the past 2 years on identifying genes re-
sponsible for resistance to cerebral ischemia. He is current-
ly looking at novel gene targets that may be responsible for
protective effect of chromosome 7 of C57BL/6 mice and is
parsing the pathways by which these genes act. After grad-
uation, Sean will continue working on his research during
his gap year between college and medical school.

Spring 2011: Volume 10, Issue 1 61

Introduction
D espite being a high profile and key public health
problem, treatments to limit the devastating ef-
fects of stroke are few. The last few decades have seen
substantial efforts to alter stroke risk through public
and personal health initiatives targeting well known
risk factors. Therapeutic advances, such as those for
hypertension, have led to only modest reductions in
age-adjusted risk of stroke without changes in life-
time risk or stroke severity1. The case-fatality and in-
cidence rates of first-ever strokes have remained con-
stant for decades2. Not only are the immediate effects
of stroke still devastating, up to one-third of all stroke
survivors exhibit dementia within three months af-
ter stroke3. The extent of the contribution of these
nearly 11 million subclinical “events” to age related
cognitive decline and dementia has yet to be fully
characterized4, but there is little doubt that the bur-
den of cerebrovascular disease surpasses that which
is ascribed to clinical stroke. Part of the reason why
there have been such few advances in preventing and
treating stroke is due to the genetic variability among
patients in response to stroke. In order to better un-
derstand this variability, pre-clinical genetic research
may be used. This type of research can identify novel
mechanisms underlying ischemic injury, determi-
nants of stroke outcome, and new therapeutic targets,
although its potential has yet to be fully realized.
To conduct pre-clinical genetic research, we used
inbred mice as our model. This model has been very
well-established for cerebral ischemia experiments
and has yielded data to show high variability among
different mice strains in response to the induced in-
jury5-17. With this model, we set out to test existing
candidate genes from two different sources: Genome
Wide Association Studies (GWAS) in humans18-20 and
experiments in a hindlimb ischemia mouse model
which identified a quantitative trait locus (QTL) as-
sociated with resistance to ischemia21.
In the GWAS, three loci were identified for isch-
emic stroke with a number of associated candi-
dates: NINJ2 and WNK1 on chr12p13.3, PITX2 on
chr4q25, and CDKN2A and CDKN2B on chr9p21.3.
Table 1. Candidate genes from Dokun, et al21.
62 The Oculus: The Virginia Journal of Undergraduate Research
We hypothesized that some of these five etiologic
candidates will be differentially expressed in mouse
models of cerebral ischemia. As for the other source
of candidates, it yielded 37 genes under the peak on
mouse Chr. 7 (Table 1), and we hypothesized that
some of these 37 response modifier candidates will
be differentially expressed in mouse models of cere-
bral ischemia.
Methods
Mice
All of the inbred strains of mice were obtained
from the Jackson Laboratory (Bar Harbor, ME) either
directly or bred locally breeding pairs of each strain.
Mice were age-matched and sex-matched for all ex-
periments. Experiments were performed under pro-
tocols approved by the Animal Care and Use Com-
mittee of the University of Virginia.
Experimental Design
To test our candidate genes, two microarray-
based resources were created. Microarrays consist
of thousands of microscopic DNA spots attached to
a solid surface, allowing researchers to simultane-
ously measure the expression levels of large numbers
of genes. Both microarray-based resources sought to
exploit the strain differences in response to cerebral
ischemia.
Resource #1
F2 mice (N=300) derived from C3H (resistant) and
C57BL/6 (susceptible) inbred mouse strains were
densely genotyped. Global gene expression profiles
of whole brain were generated using Agilent DNA
microarrays. The R/qtl software was used to identify
expression quantitative trait loci (eQTL) for the can-
didate genes. A threshold LOD score of > 2 was set to
identify significant genes.
Resource #2
In this microarray resource, four strains of in-
bred mice were used: DBA/2 and 129/Sv (resistant);
C57BL/6 and BALB/c (susceptible). Gene expres-
Figure 1. Results for CWAS candidates for Resource #1.
The bottom two graphs show the level of expression of the gene in question bassed on the genotypes of the mice.

Figure 2. Results for hindlimb ischemia candidates for Resource #1

sion profiles of whole brain (n=4 per strain) were
generated using an Affymetrix Mouse430 array (Af-
fymetrix, Santa Clara, CA). Then, significant normal-
ized expression fold-change was set at a threshold
of >2; <0.5. Afterwards, a linear model analysis was
run (Linear Models for Microarray Data) to find sig-
nificant genes after grouping susceptible strains vs.
resistant strains. Finally, a Benjamini and Hochberg
correction was used to correct for multiple testing,
and we used a corrected p-value cutoff of p<0.01.
Results
Resource #1
After testing the candidate genes from GWAS,
two genes were found to be significantly differen-
tially expressed: Ninj2 and Wnk1. As for the hindlimb
ischemia candidates, only one gene was found to
be differentially expressed: Inpp5f. Cis-acting eQTL
were identified for Ninj2 and Wnk1 with LOD scores
of 101.2 and 10.8, respectively, and expression levels
across genotypes support an additive mode of gene
action as both genes were more highly expressed in
the resistant than the susceptible strain (Figure 1).
Cis-acting eQTL were also identified for Inpp5f with
a LOD score of 2.2 (Figure 2).
Resource #2
In this microarray database, none of the GWAS
candidates were found to be significant but one can-
didate was from the hindlimb ischemia candidates.
1110007A13Rik had a 0.46 fold change.

Spring 2011: Volume 10, Issue 1 63

Discussion
Our data demonstrate differential expression of
two candidate genes identified in human GWAS that
are under genetic control. The results for Ninj2 sup-
port the hypothetical mechanism proposed in the
original paper, where they theorized that the level
of expression of Ninj2 affects how the brain tolerates
ischemic insults18. Based on our results, our data sug-
gest that higher expression of Ninj2 is associated with
higher resistance to cerebral ischemia. Ninj2 is part of
the ninjurin, or “nerve-injury-induced protein” fam-
ily, and is inducible through nerve injury and pro-
motes nerve regeneration in male Sprague-Dawley
rats18.
Wnk1 mutations have been linked to the sever-
ity of essential hypertension, which is a significant
risk factor for stroke18. It is significant that both of
these genes are from chromosome 12 while the genes
from chromosome 4 and 9 were not differentially ex-
pressed. This might be because the chromosome 4
and 9 genes are related to mechanism, such as atrial
fibrillation and atherosclerosis respectively, while the
chromosome 12 genes are related to injury response.
As for the results from our hindlimb ischemia can-
didates, Inpp5f (LOD score of 2.2) and 1110007A13Rik
(fold change of 0.46), little is known about either one;
although both play a role in imprinting, demethyl-
ation, and chromatin modification, and may also be
co-regulated.
These experiments both support further investi-
gation of the biology and genetic regulation of these
candidates and serve as a proof of concept for this
approach more generally. Exploiting multiple strains
with differential susceptibility to cerebral ischemia is
a promising avenue of research. Comparison of re-
sponse to a middle cerebral artery occlusion model,
analysis of candidate gene expression before and
after ischemic injury, and parsing the role of these
genes and the pathways by which they act may allow
for the identification of novel therapeutic targets for
cerebrovascular disease.
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank Drs. Charlene Edwards,
Yongde Bao, and Michael Black for their help on ana-
lyzing and collecting microarray data.
Source of Funding
This work was supported by the University of
Virginia’s Clinical and Translational Science Award.
Disclosures
None.
64 The Oculus: The Virginia Journal of Undergraduate Research
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Spring 2011: Volume 10, Issue 1 65

 A No-Nonsense Guide to Getting Involved in Research
Find your Passion
What boggles your mind and stimulates you to question and explore? What could you spend hours ponder-
ing and prodding the complexities of? Finding out what you are passionate about and what area of research
you would enjoy pursuing is the first step to a successful research experience. Here are some tips on how to
find your true calling:

• Attend Poster Sessions and Conferences: This is a great way to sample a diverse set of research proj-
ects being conducted in your potential field of interest. Plus, you will have the opportunity to meet
one-on-one with researchers and discuss common areas of interest to further explore.
• Attend Department Seminars: Most departments organize periodic seminars or a lecture series, open
to all students, where you can hear and learn more about the research that faculty and graduate stu-
dents are currently pursuing.
• Communicate your Interests to Professors: Did you find a certain lecture particularly interesting?
Go ask your professor more about the topic and share your enthusiasm with him/her. Professors will
often be able to guide you to the right people who can help further develop your passion and provide
research opportunities in that area.
• Network and Inquire: Whether it is faculty advisors, fellow student researchers, graduate students,
or members of the Center for Undergraduate Excellence, do not be afraid to seek out answers to your
questions and get advice from those with experience.

Choose an Advisor
With so many scholars to choose from, it may seem like a daunting task to sift through them all and find the
ones of greatest interest to you. While this is a necessary task for finding the right fit, here are some things to
remember during this stage:

• Visit the Department Homepage: Every department website has a link to faculty research, where you
can find brief summaries of the current research and questions being asked.
• Email Faculty Members of Interest: Make a list of at least 3 professors you would be interested in
working with and send them an email introducing yourself and requesting to setup a time to meet
with them in person. Often, professors are very busy and may not respond to your email, but don’t
let that deter you. Be polite and persistent, follow up on your emails, and even try calling the profes-
sor or showing up at his/her office. Additionally, remember that you need not have prior research
experience in order to get involved – everyone starts somewhere.
• Shadow Researchers: If possible, shadow another student researcher. Ask to watch experiments in
progress (if applicable) and attend group meetings so that you can get a better feel for the research
environment. For those in the sciences, shadowing in a lab may be anywhere from a few hours to
multiple lab visits, depending on your level of interest. Not all experiences of this nature are equally
rewarding, so sample a few labs until you find what works.

Do your Homework
Now it’s time to meet with the faculty advisor and perhaps even begin discussing a potential project. How do
you prepare for this meeting? Here are some tips that are sure to help:

• Read the Professor’s Published Papers: Reading through at least a few of the professor’s recent pub-
lications will help familiarize you with some of the technical vocabulary and concepts you may hear
about during the meeting.
• Prepare Questions: Having a set of questions in mind will help keep the conversation running
smoothly. You may inquire about the nature of equipment to be used, prior knowledge and skills
needed, recommended courses, flexibility in work hours, or expected time commitment.
• Aim high: Express your eagerness to learn. Inquire about your exact role and level of involvement.
Could you get co-authorship on a publication resulting from your contribution? Either way, Profes-
sors will be delighted by your motivations and professionalism. Lastly, it is never too late to get in-
volved in undergraduate research, but the rewards are often larger for those who begin early!

66 The Oculus: The Virginia Journal of Undergraduate Research

 Submission Guidelines for The Oculus
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Spring 2011: Volume 10, Issue 1 67



The Center for Undergraduate Excellence

The Center for Undergraduate Excellence’s mission is to assist students in find-
ing an inter-connected course of study that challenges preconceptions, builds in-
tellectual curiosity, hones analytical thinking, and prepares students for lives of
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The Undergraduate Research Network (URN) was formed in 2001 to foster an un-
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The Oculus
Volume 10, Issue 1