Oh, sweet satire. I finished reading Gulliver’s Travels (by Jonathan Swift) last night. That was a fun trip.

Not much has changed since Swift’s time. He describes a humanity continually embroiled in senseless wars, injustice, and dispute, while all the while thinking we’ve had it made. Much of what he describes — the perversions of justice, the foolish workings of politics, the general inhumanity with which man can treat man — all ring true with with our present world. And in the end, we are a bunch of filthy, messed-up Yahoos.

I find it interesting how Swift alternates the way he makes his points. In two of the journeys, to Lilliput (land of little people) and to Laputa (the land of intellectuals), our hero falls in with civilizations which are caricatures what Swift wishes to portray as follies. In Lilliput, we see a circus of a nation, at war over which end of the egg to break, and with its ministers chosen by means of acrobetic contest. Laputa has the absent-minded theoreticians, so embroiled in their thoughts that they must have "flappers," servants whose task it is to strike their masters when they need to speak. On the mainland governed by Laputa, there is the Academy, with its "projectors" (our modern professors) engaged in all manner of worthless academic pursuits (for example, tilling fields with hogs or converting human excrement back to its original food).

In another journey, however, Gulliver is revealed as more of an antihero. On his voyage to Brobdingnag (the 2nd of the four travels), he attempts to defend the ways of Europe (with its politics, laws, religious disputes, etc.) against the simple wisdom and morality of a civilization with no lawyers, laws easily understood by the poorest citizen, and a king ruling with justice and integrity. As Gulliver is frustrated with the king’s ignorance of matters of state and learning, Swift clearly demonstrates that our ways of operating are patently silly.

Finally, Gulliver is marooned on the island of the Houyhnhnms and Yahoos. Here, it is the natives (specifically the Houyhnhnms) which have it right, but at last our hero gets the picture. Humanity is portrayed as filthy brutes, and the Houyhnhnms (a race of rational horses) are the governing species. The horses have no sense of evil or falsehood, and are dedicated to friendship, truth, and poetry. They have no disputes and no illnesses. Simple reason is their guide, and they settle everything amicably in a council every four years, where matters affecting the land are discussed, and material redistributed when districts are in need. Gulliver admires them, loves their honesty and integrity, and develops no small hatred for mankind.

You really have to read it to get the full impact of Swift’s work. The movie/mini-series is good, but it doesn’t do it justice. But I heartily recommend it as an engaging and thought-provoking trip through humanity.