Antigone Comparison Paper

Wesley Vance

5/8/2015

Main Research Paper

        Doing the right thing is difficult in most situations. What one person views as the right thing may be wrong to another person. In the play Antigone the nature of the good is highly debated. Antigone believes in a higher power and must bury her brother to show her love, but Creon has ruled it illegal for anyone to touch the brother’s body so he can use him as an example to show his treachery. Both people what they are doing is the right thing to do because they both have different motives. This relates closely to Wal-Mart and their unethical behavior towards their employees. Wal-Mart has cut health insurance for its full time employees which causes major issues for them and other citizens in the community. The conflict that has arisen between corporate Wal-Mart and the poor working class it employs can be directly connected to the controversial question of the "good," and the ongoing conflict can be seen more clearly through the lack of opportunity for the working class.

Part 1

The problem of the good is much deeper than just doing what is right and wrong. Most people believe that doing the right thing on a daily basis makes them a morally good person, but there are two sides to everything and one person’s idea of the right thing or “good” varies from someone who has a different set of morals. One action can affect an entire community and although that action may have been intended to make a positive change, it can have negative side effects on certain people. For example, Wal-Mart fails to provide health insurance to over half of its employees, which saves the company money.  It was a decision made by corporate, and they decided to implement this because they thought it was a positive change for the company, and would ultimately bring in a significant increase in profit. The side effects, however, hurt many more people than the decision helped. The employees at Wal-Mart can work full time, and will still not receive health care from the company.  As a result, they are driven to seek health care from the government, which comes out of everyday tax payer’s pockets.

The controversial question of the “good” can be directly connected to issues concerning the poor working class citizens of American society. This class of people, as Shipler wrote about in The Working Poor: Invisible in America, are the ones that work forty hours a week and still can’t afford proper health care or a decent living. They work hard at dead end jobs for endless hours with no rewards just so they can put the bare minimum of food on the table or provide the basic needs for their families. It’s a vicious cycle that most people don’t see or hear because of the myth of the American dream that is pounded into their heads from childhood. According to Shipler (2004), “The American Myth still supposes that any individual from the humblest of origins can climb to well-being. We wish that to be true, and we delight in examples that makes it seem so, whether fictional or real” (p. 5). This denotes that anyone can work their way to a successful life regardless of where they come from. Aside from the very rare success stories of people that come from terrible environments, most people don’t have the resources to advance in their life or move away from a terrible neighborhood. It is nearly impossible for someone working forty hours a week at a minimum wage job to find the time to go to school so they can get a better education or earn enough to move to a better neighborhood.  For someone living in this manner, it is often difficult to even put a reasonable amount of food on the table or to pay for a house to sleep in.

The cold truth to the American Myth is that it is not entirely the fault of the poor working class. Shipler (2004) found, “There is an opposite extreme, the American Anti-Myth, which holds the society largely responsible for the individual’s poverty. The hierarchy of racial discrimination and economic power creates a syndrome to impoverished communities with bad schools and closed options” (p. 6). This relates back to the issues Wal-Mart is facing with its employees. The employees are doing their best to work their way out of the poor working class, but aren’t receiving any help from their company or society to get them moving forward. The upper level management lowers the wages of the poor working class and cuts their insurance so they can see an increase in overall profit. Also, nearly every town Wal-Mart opens a new store in, the local grocery stores go out of business which causes a loss of jobs in the area and a loss in spending. A community action such as approving the building of a Wal-Mart, is something the poor working class can’t predict or prevent, and it can drive them further into poverty.

America is meant to be a free country and the land of opportunity for anyone. The biggest problem, however, is America is not always a just society for everyone. There are more opportunities and help for people born lucky enough to be outside of the working poor. The injustice starts with people’s nature of only worrying about themselves and solely doing what they believe to be good without weighing in the consequences for other members in the community. America is mostly an egotistic and individualistic society where most people’s motivation is bettering themselves and their own happiness instead of thinking about the lives of others and the consequences of their decisions.

Part 2 

        Happiness is the goal of every person, and according to Aristotle the good life is the activity of the soul in harmony with virtue. I believe Aristotle is saying that to be truly happy and live a good life a person must be morally excellent and conform to the principles of their community. He also states that in order for someone to live a good life they have to be born into the correct social class, a Greek, and a male among other qualities; which means the good life then relies on external factors that a person can’t control. Aristotle believed it wasn’t about knowing what makes the good, but to become and practice the good. Before Aristotle, Plato once claimed that the good life is a zealous pursuit to know the highest good regardless of social pressures to conform. He believed that the condition of the soul has a direct effect on the condition of the good life.