The novel Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, the last selection from this year’s book club, written by Robert Louis Stevenson chronicles a lawyer whose friend splits his two moral halves within two people: the benevolent, original Dr. Jekyll, and the evil Mr. Hyde. The act results in the end of both moral halves–the suicide of Dr. Jekyll. In this way, Stevenson warns of the intense separation that removes a person’s humanity, both men end hollow and as ends to themselves. In this way, Stevenson warns against the oppressive Victorian society filled with unnatural and strict rules and judgment. But while Stevenson wrote the piece as a part of an era, his theme is as timely as ever.
Humans are social beings that long to be accepted and loved. It is what propels us to assimilate and mimic–it secures us with care. Harry Harlow, who conducted the famous experiments on chimpanzees, and countless philosophers like Hannah Arendt, who wrote The Human Condition, have built or structured their theories around the concept. Rejection and disapproval do not come lightly, and in a society with growing isolation, internet usage, and tearing off lockdowns and masking, human beings, at least in the West, crave relationships but find themselves without the tools to interact with each other and therefore, to like each other.
However, one tool has succeeded in creating large communities and strict in and out groups: politics. The two consequences result from solidarity based on symbols and labels as the community is much too large to be built on anything else, while the latter ironically creates an emotional qualifier of exclusivity and fear. The result are groups formed by the opposition. However, it is truly difficult to maintain rigid in and out groups without guidelines and words to label the guidelines. Individuals, so desperate to stay within their groups, clench onto membership and continuously strive to be the most right individual–the most correct person.
But why?
This is the nature of the groups built upon knowledge, convoluted with power and fear. How must one protect themselves from the fear variable? They must be the most knowledgeable . And then they must either shame or prove to the others that they are not as knowledgeable. The cycle continues, and the venture is both spiritually and logically bankrupt. As such, there is always an individual more powerful and you, more inferior; you must always know this to fight against the opposition, the fear.
With such a rigid code and its sole hold in ideological ties the result is merely good and bad, that is, good ideas and bad ideas. So, the members try their very best to have the best ideas and to be patted on the head by their fellow good-idea members instead of being shamed–a powerful alternative.
This act separates the Dr. Jekyll from the Dr. Hyde within us. Our god becomes malleable and palatable while our bad is ruthless and without morals. The result: the death of our whole, and us: entirely submissive or wholly insolent.