Returning Videotapes
American Psycho Essay Outline
Note that these ideas will be tweaked, not all of these examples may be used, and other examples may be substituted.
Comments I’d like to receive:
- Some of my examples for my second and third reason seem better suited to the other reason, do you think any of my examples fit better with another reason?
- I think I’m going to explore differentiating between Nationalism and Patriotism a bit more. Would this add to my essay?
- Anything else you’d like to comment upon!
Thesis: Patrick Bateman’s violent crimes are in fact acceptable acts of patriotism.
Reason One: All of Bateman’s actions are an accepted part of HIS reality, as well as the reality of those around him.
Example One: Phenomenological Reality
- “On a much broader and more subjective level, the private experiences, curiosity, inquiry, and selectivity involved in the personal interpretation of an event shapes reality as seen by one and only one individual and hence is called phenomenological. This form of reality might be common to others as well, but at times could also be so unique to oneself as to be never experienced or agreed upon by any one else.”
- “One such belief is that there simply and literally is no reality beyond the perceptions or beliefs we each have about reality. Such attitudes are summarized in the popular statement, “Perception is reality” or “Life is how you perceive reality” or “reality is what you can get away with” (Robert Anton Wilson), and they indicate anti-realism – that is, the view that there is no objective reality, whether acknowledged explicitly or not.”
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reality
Example Two: The State of Oblivion (just because they are oblivious to it, doesn’t mean it isn’t happening)
- Novel Example: Oblivion is defined as a state of unawareness. This is the state that many of the people in this novel live in. As Bateman describes his daily activities, he often mentions people approaching him, saying hello, and then calling him by the wrong name.
- It seems many of the key people in the novel do not know who Bateman is, including Paul Owen, a man Bateman works with and of whom Bateman is jealous because Owen has been assigned a coveted project at work. Owen believes, up to the moment of his death, that Bateman is another man named Marcus Halberstam.
Reason Two: Violent actions, thoughts, etc. are indeed patriotic and explore what it means to be nationalist.
Example One: Nationalism divides individuals based on values and principles. A yuppie and a hooker or a yuppie and a homeless person do not share the same principles.
- “Nationalists define individual nations on the basis of certain criteria, which distinguish one nation from another; and determine who is a member of each nation. These criteria typically include a shared language, culture, and/or shared values which are predominantly represented within a specific ethnic group. National identity refers both to these defining criteria, and to the shared heritage of each group.”
- Novel example: Any time Bateman killed a hooker or homeless person…
- Alternate novel example: Bateman going out to kill a Chinese man just because he’s Chinese and murdering ‘the wrong type of Asian’.
Example Two: Patriotism does not require the individual to agree with all aspects of the country, involves an individual responsibility to fellow citizens and can be compared with racism.
- “Patriotism does not require one to agree with everything that his country does and would actually promote analytical questioning in a quest to make the country the best it possibly can be.”[6]
- “In both ancient and modern visions of patriotism, individual responsibility to fellow citizens is an inherent component of patriotism.”
- “Contemporary scholar of ethics, Paul Gomberg, has compared patriotism to racism. He argues that the primary implication of patriotism in ethical theory is that a person has more moral duties to fellow members of the national community, than to non-members.”
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriotism
- Novel Example: Bateman does not agree that certain individuals should be alive in his country, and has a moral duty to the fellow members of America to rid America of them.
Reason Three: Bateman’s actions indeed correlate to those accepted (or ignored) by American society, thus proving that Bateman’s actions are happening and that they are welcomed.
Example one: Moral relativism (I may also go into cultural relativism)
- “moral relativism is the position that moral or ethical propositions do not reflect objective and/or universal moral truths, but instead make claims relative to social, cultural, historical or personal circumstances. Moral relativists hold that no universal standard exists by which to assess an ethical proposition’s truth; moral subjectivism is thus the opposite of moral absolutism. Relativistic positions often see moral values as applicable only within certain cultural boundaries (cultural relativism) or in the context of individual preferences (moral subjectivism). An extreme relativist position might suggest that judging the moral or ethical judgments or acts of another person or group has no meaning.”
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_relativism
- “Cultural relativism is the view that social issues such as morality are not absolute, but at least partially cultural artifact.”
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reality
Example Two: If America can go to war to protect the country why can’t it fight its internal enemies?
- “As an ideology, nationalism holds that ‘the people’ in the doctrine of popular sovereignty is the nation, and that as a result only nation-states founded on the principle of national self-determination are legitimate. Since most states are multinational, or at least home to more than one group claiming national status,[3] the pursuit of this principle has often led to conflict, and nationalism is commonly associated with war (both external and domestic), secession, and even genocide in contexts ranging from imperial conquest to struggles for national liberation.”
- Quote from EX 1… “And/or shared values which are predominantly represented within a specific ethnic group. National identity refers both to these defining criteria, and to the shared heritage of each group.”
- Novel example: Bateman going out to kill a Chinese man just because he’s Chinese and murdering ‘the wrong type of Asian’.
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nationalism
Conclusion:
Because Batemans actions are an accepted part of both reality and culture he is in fact performing a great and noble duty, in killing all that hinder his country (even if that’s not the reason why he does it).
