Metacommentary on Persuit of Honor

I believe my book Pursuit of Honor legitimized many truths. One of the truths that I want to touch on is the “truth” that the world spirit is around us influencing the way the world works. Throughout the semester we have talked about the “World Spirit”. My book contains many events that were influenced by the “World Spirit”. In class the World Spirit came up during many class periods. Some that stand out in my mind at the moment were when we discuss the movie “Network” when Howard Beale’s body was bring taken over by the world spirit. The World Spirit would take over his body right before he would air on television to tell the viewers how he felt about how the way the world was being run. At the end of each show the World Spirit would leave his body and he would faint on stage. In my book I wanted to show my readers that the world spirit was present in many aspects of the novel. To begin, the World Spirit was present when the al Qaeda attacked and killed 185 public officials and then in Rapp’s body, consuming him with the idea that he needs do anything necessary to kill the men involved and make sure something like this never happens again. This idea also goes well with Hegel’s idea that everything happens for a reason, and bad things have to happen in society in order to move forward. So following up on what I just said, the attack on Washing D.C had to happen in order for society to learn from what happened and move forward. This is where Mitch Rapp comes in. His goal is to make sure an attack like this never happens again.

On page 39 when Hurley is describing the child hood of Adams to Lewis. He tells him that his father was never there and, “his mother was about as affectionate as the desk” (page 39) Lewis states that “It all fits the profile. Adams has an overinflated sense of worth that carries over into a sense of entitlement. The flip flop side is that his self esteem is very fragile.” Lewis was looking for answers to why someone would do such a thing and his answer was found in the way Adams grew up. Another “truth” that can be found in my book was the idea that in order to really understand the actions of a person you have to look beyond the moment they committed the crime. This “truth” was first discussed in class when we read American Assassins by James W. Clarke. We looked at the life of Samuel Joseph Byck before he committed the crime and look into reasons that led him to his actions.

While I was writing the book, in the back of my head I was thinking about the ideas of Strauss and his idea that all great writers give two messages in their text. The two messages are exoteric, meaning the message that is obvious the reader, and esoteric, meaning the message that is hidden or “between the lines”. I used these two forms to legitimize the truths by making the reader look at a deeper level on events and ideas throughout the book.

After reading this book I hope that people understand the truths I'm trying to legitimize. The book was written so the audience understands that everything can be understood my looking deeper to why they might have happened and understanding that everything happens for a reason.