I think the statement that there is a reciprocal relation between violence and eroticism could be plausible, as long as you take other factors into account. After all, the United States is one of the most eroticized countries in the world, and yet we still have an alarmingly high crime rate, with murders being committed every day. The US also has the religious repression that Percy mentions in his book, however. Citizens of the US generally feel that their sexual urges are evil and somehow unnatural, which leads some to seek other ways of validating their existence as a self, such as through crime, or any variety of dastardly deed. The strict moral system laid out by the religious authorities of America makes those who engage in healthy sexual activity feel debased, almost sub-human at times. This can lead them to do things they would not normally do. It could be that sex helps the mental health of an individual, relieving the stress brought on by the rigors of daily life in our heavily industrial society. As Percy says in the book, “The peculiar predicament of the present-day self surely came to pass as a consequence of the disappointment of the high expectations of the self as it entered the age of science and technology.” This age of science and technology has bred prime conditions for the kind of repression that leads to normal people erupting into violent rage. With no escape to vent their frustrations, it is easy to see why some people simply lose it, or “go postal.”

Aside from this rather large exception, I think it is safe to say that Percy’s hypothesis is well founded, at least in a general sense. For example, Middle-eastern societies, such as Iraq, are probably the most sexually repressed in the entire world. As a result, they have no real way of releasing their stress, so they lash out against others. Sexually liberated nations, such as the Netherlands, seem to tend towards a more peaceful general image, on the other hand. In a society where sex was not demonized as it is today, there would most certainly be a greater sense of well being, if not a greater sense of brotherly love. While this logic may seem comical, if you look at the big picture, it actually does make sense.

It is normal intuition to assume that there is a reciprocal relationship between violence and eroticism in society. If everyone is “getting some” than there is no reason to stab your neighbor, right? This logic is quite ridiculous to say the very least. We live in one of the most highly eroticized time in the history of the United States and yet, according to the United States Department of Justice, the rate of violent crime in the United States has not dropped in the past ten years. Moreover, the cities with the highest rates of violent crimes are those that have populations between 10,000 to 30,000 residents, meaning not the major cities like New York; these same major cities that are host to such things as Girls Gone Wild and events sponsored by Playboy magazine. Therefore, the idea of a reciprocal relationship has no ground. However, one could say that these two share a different sort of relationship.

If a relationship exists between these two factors it is a direct relationship. For example, the Romans were notorious for their strange sexual practices and they were one of the most violent societies in mankind’s history. Therefore, the more eroticized the society becomes, the greater the exhibition of violence. Rape instances have increase over the past ten years, according to percentage, and this is due to society’s influence on those individual who cannot control their sexual urges. When eroticism is incorporated into a society, the people are subconsciously affected becoming more active and primal. Their instinct is to seek out mates at any costs, which is why most men are liars. This regression to an instinctual mentality is what causes the increase in violence acts because some are not naturally attractive and feel that the only way they could acquire a sexual partner is by force.

Therefore, eroticism is the first step in a sociological breakdown. This is not meant to promote abstinence in any way; in fact sexual expression has produced many great things in the arts. However, we must understand the effects and consequences caused by the eroticizing of our society.

Sagan is a lonely man mainly because the rest of the world just can’t keep up. It seems that he is so knowledgeable about the world and what is beyond that he is unable to be a part of it. As for scientific transcendence, he is doing just that. Obviously people are going to think that they are correct, especially scientists. Their profession is based on facts and theories, so they have no choice but to follow their ideas with their lifestyles. Their world exists only within their mind, and the world and the life happening outside that is only more to know.
Sagan is constantly searching, which is yet another reason for his loneliness. In his mind, there is always more to know and more to see. The universe as we know is so large that we can’t even begin to understand it, thus Sagan’s work will never be done. Percy goes on about how Sagan has written “whole volumes promoting…the existence of intelligent life.” If he can write that much on the small bits we do know about our universe, how long will it take him to write about the entire thing?
There are also the obvious reasons for Sagan to be lonely. There will always be many people doubting his work. Whether there is life outside of our earth is constantly a question in the scientific world, but when it comes to everyday life and everyday people, it is somewhat of a myth or a joke. When someone says that they saw a UFO they’re seen as a lunatic. Sagan does not receive much credibility from anyone because he has no evidence.
As for the choices presented near the end of the chapter, Sagan’s loneliness is most like choice A, mostly because he must feel isolated from this world, not the mention that he has no real connection to the outside one.
Percy says, “Of all the countless bits of data received…why has not a single bit of information been received which could not be attributed to the random noise of the cosmos?” With skepticism like that revolving around his every claim, it would be difficult to not feel a little alone. But then again maybe he isn’t so lonely with all that life in outer space.

I believe that there is a reciprocal relationship between violence and sexuality. Every “self” has a certain amount of restlessness inherent in the belief that he is unsure about his existence or his meaning on Earth. Therefore, to transcend this disorienting feeling, one must find a way to rid of this restlessness and escape the world in which the self is placed. Without sex, violence proves to be something that excites people to this said state. While sex is a mutual act of intimacy and human interaction, violence is a parasitic action of human interaction. Therefore, only contact between two “selves” can let one escape the isolation inherent in the mysteries of the self. It is rather ironic that the two things that can accomplish this have almost polar social statuses.

Consider the case of the Kipsigs of Kenya. This tribe serves a symbol for a society not affected by the pains of modernization. They have no mental illnesses and no sexual deviances (using the American psychosocial definition of sexual deviancy). This is due to the incorporation of violence as a release in ritualistic forms in their culture. The Kipsigs will build up all their anger, letting all the suppressed rage come to the conscious as they perform a ceremony to overcome these problems and achieve a sense of transcendence. A group of dancers will server as the symbol for evil spirits, and in an attempt to drive out the inner evil spirits, the tribal custom is to take torches and extinguish them on the bare skin of the dancers. Although this seems barbaric by American standards, it prevents the need for sexual deviancy.

Love is a relative idea. If one were to use sex as a form of transcendence in a compulsive manner, it would no longer give him or her pleasure (which may be a form of satyriasis).Therefore, if love is no longer revered as a sacred practice, people will look to violence to fill this void no longer fulfilled by the physical act of love. Perhaps it is this act of foreign contact with human beings that truly allows humans to temporarily escape the restlessness inherent in the idea of “self.” A Freudian Psychologist will be the first to say that sexual repression is the cause for all kinds of deviancy. Humans yearn for contact with another self, perhaps to remind themselves that they are not alone in their disastrous condition. Therefore, the two most intimate forms of human connection offer a reverse relationship when considering the need for transcendence.

Whenever Percy talks about violence he is usually referring to the more specific act of war as well as technology, and how technology makes war more efficient. He also parallels this with the rise of the sexual revolution. In this same chapter, he also explains how recreation is a distraction from the disappointments from all walks of life: social life, church, work, school and so on. Sex is the cheapest and more pleasurable of these recreations and therefore serves as a distraction from the disappointments from everyday life. As technology advances, it tends to make things such as work, school, travel, less satisfying and more numb and so sex becomes a more popular distraction with the more available recreation time with the efficiency that technology is putting in work.
As technology and recreation time increases however, passion decreases. When someone has to put less effort into work, and sex loses its significance, I think Percy is right when he says people start looking for ways to feel again. Violence becomes a way for people feel important again. As Percy says, people who live in peace may secretly desire war.
Because of these facts that it is obvious that there is not a reciprocal relationship between sex and violence, but rather a complimentary relationship. The complimentary relationship is also in correlation with a rise in technology. As technology increases efficiency, people have much more recreational time. As recreational time increases, there is a rise in sexual activity as it is the cheapest and more pleasurable of recreational activities according to Percy. As relationships and work, start to lose their significance, people starting to undergo a transition into numbness. When this happens they will start to look for ways to feel again. This basic urge to feel complete and un-empty tends to manifest itself in two ways: pain and pleasure, or put an other way, sex and violence. As technology has increased with this feeling of numbness, weapons have made war much more efficient and makes it much easier to kill people. As there is less feeling with efficient weapons, war keeps becoming bigger and bigger to remain satisfactory to those waging it.

I don’t believe there is a reciprocal relationship between violence and eroticism. In fact, I believe that in an increasingly eroticized society violence increases as well. It seems there’s a clear connection between the “spirit of erotic, technology, and violence”; and that with each new year further into the technological era, as the media and society becomes more eroticized, the violence continues to intensify. Walker Percy explains how this “predicament” came along as “a consequence of the disappointment of the high expectations of the self as it entered the age of science and technology.” He continues to explain how even with all this science and technology around us the self is still disappointed because he can still not find answers and fulfillment in those “very sectors of life which had been [his] main source of ordinary satisfaction in past ages.” Work, marriage, school, politics, churches, even social life is found to be disappointing. However, man can easily find escape in sex because it is the “cheapest, most readily available” means of pleasure as well as an easy way to reenter the cosmos. Looking back at how our society has become more eroticized over the years with the increase in technology, a trend towards more violence is becoming more and more obvious. Percy speaks of a particular phenomenon: “the sudden and unprecedented appearance of florid sexual behavior and the overt and covert practice of violence to the point of rendering cities unlivable” leading to the possibility of us destroying ourselves in the future. Coming from a small Mexican-American town that used to be florid in old traditions and conservative points of view, I’ve been unfortunate enough to witness the incline of the “eroticized self” among my generation along with an incredibly increase in violence during my lifetime. Using my home town as an example, it has become and is becoming more unlivable by the days because people are literally killing themselves and others off; and I agree with Percy that for every nice person, you can find more crazy people. So for the handful of good people that live in that small town, the rest is controlled by their “eroticized spirits” and violence to get there way.

A man that has just been sexually satisfied is by no means interested in, or bothered with violence. A sudden burst of tiredness, followed by a settling of a euphoric haze over the corporeal world leaves no room for thoughts of aggression or hostility- maybe in a few hours after a sandwich and a little nap. Violence, at least in situations like wars and domestic strife, is typically initiated and perpetuated by men. However, an erotic society is no less likely to reject violence than a starving man given a crumb from a loaf of bread and then enticed by the rest. In fact, in an erotic society, violence ought to be even more prevalent, since the populace is bombarded with sexual problems but no solutions.

On the other hand, a “post-erotic” society, one in which every sexual need is satisfied, is locked in an otherworldly state of constant satiation. In many ways, this is an improvement. Rates of sexual violence drop to zero all across the world. Bewildered criminals throw down their guns, innocently pondering the strangeness of their former motives. Policemen quit their jobs. However, the ultimate effect of the institution of a post-erotic society is the cogs of human progress slowing until man’s culture begins to deteriorate while its population dwindles. Without the drive of the erotic, the only basal urge left in man’s reptilian brain is his desire for hunger. With no need for social interaction, since man does not need to go out on group hunts for mammoths anymore, man begins to lose language. The world becomes obese.

I cannot say for certain what would happen in a “post-violent” world, because I’ve never killed anyone, which must be most emotionally powerful and provocative of all violent acts. I have, however, been in several fights. The pleasure associated with actually connecting your fist to someone else’s face pales in comparison to the struggle required to do so. I suppose this is much the same as the struggle for sex and the deed itself, just on a more unpleasant scale. Violence is an acquired vice like caffeine, nicotine, or cocaine consumption. Without a stimulus, like one of your best friends sleeping with your prom date, violence is worthless. Someone that is not addicted to heroin has no pressing need to use it. I would hypothesize that in a post-violent civilization, man desires sex just as much as we do in our own world. Even Tyler Durden has sex with Marla Singer on a regular basis despite the nightly, polytheistic pilgrimage of his face to someone’s fist.

The act of having sex limits man’s urge for violence, but the act of hurting someone has no effect on the craving men have for sex.

Carl Sagan is lonely because he is anxious to establish communication with an ETI and he seems to be the only one in search of its truth. Sagan is a man who is not indifferent to science and believes in its ability to promote life on all soils in the galaxy. From a scientific point of view, Sagan is pondering the possibility that if all the atoms and neurons massed together to form the human race spontaneously, what prevents science from doing the same on another planet? He is lonely because while he believes in the scientific capability of another life form existing, only he is willing to keep believing without extreme proof. In answer to Percy’s question as to why Carl Sagan is so lonely I would say it is answer choice B. Sagan has heard this “random noise” from the cosmos and is lonely because he can’t find who is the interpreter and responder to this cosmic noise. While the chimpanzees, dolphins, and humpback whales do not talk in an understandable form for humans to interpret, they do communicate with their own kind. Sagan holds out hope that this cosmic noise is the signal communication between ETIs. Loneliness grows knowing how unlike the chimpanzees he cannot prove who the interpreter of the signal is. The scientific realm is a lonely world to begin with. Countless scientists search for the truths of the world but fail in their efforts to do so. Sagan is lonely perhaps not only because he cannot solve the question of the cosmic noise but also because never will he be able to prove his faith in ETIs with hard evidence. He is lonely knowing the ultimate outcome of his endeavors will be having a reputation in the science community not as a mind blowing scientist that should win a Nobel Prize but rather just another crazy man with an idea he can never prove.

According to Percy’s options of reentry into the imminent world, I believe Sagan’s mode would be reentry by disguise. While it may seem odd to think of Sagan’s reentry as disguise I feel it fits well within his scientific background. Percy describes this mode of disguise best as “role-playing” and “behavioral.” Sagan’s loneliness stems from his behavioral tendencies to answer the question of the random cosmic noise. He must change these behavioral tendencies to make it appear as if he questions those who believe in UFOs and ETIs instead of believing in their venture. To make a successful reentry into the world and no longer be a lonely man, Sagan must act as a normal scientific thinker who puts their faith into what is backed with evidence. Only through this act will Sagan’s loneliness disappear. This mode of disguise allows the world to see one Sagan while another Sagan secretly can hope for the discovery of ETIs.

I think it is decidedly so, that eroticism and violence do in fact, coexist. In order for an erotic society to exist, there must be violence. The violence of society is what makes eroticism so utterly enjoyable, an escape from the violence of everyday life. Just as well, violence does have a small dependency on eroticism, in that some erotic efforts may cause violence. There is the case of the husband hitting the wife because the sex is bad, or even a deranged man sexually assaulting a woman because he is desperate for some kind of erotic circumstance. The erotic happenings of today must be worked for in a sense, therefore people have to have motivation to “make a move” at a party, instead of automatically assuming that something will come of the event in which eye contact is made. If there was no motivation and uncertainty in this meeting, then there would be less attraction for that person. It is said that eroticism is all about the “thrill of the chase” and without it, people would turn to a means of getting a new thrill through violence.

Percy asks the question, “…and suppose that then, through the sexual revolution, recreational sex become available to all ages and all classes?” In this instance, if there was to be a sexual revolution, violence would certainly rise. The fact that everyone could be involved in erotic behavior without consequence would cause turmoil in the cities indeed. If the case of eroticism became available to everyone, love could not exist as something that was searched for, and it could not be hoped for. Therefore, everyone would have love readily available to them at all times, and people would have less hope and a nature for more destruction. Also, if ses was available to everyone everywhere, there would be a need for some kind of rush of adrenaline, something to get the inner self exhilarated, the only thing left to turn to would be to violence. The thrill of getting caught after doing a crime, or the consequence of bombing something would cause a reaction of some sort, which the everyday person feeds on. Without the erotic, the world would need something else to excite them, and what easier thing than violence?

Carl Sagan is like many other scientists who are chasing after ideas and hypotheses that may never be discovered. Sagan supports the idea that there is intelligent life somewhere out in the cosmos. This means that in this vast universe, we wouldn’t be alone. I think he is lonely for many reasons related to his inability to find evidence on ETI’s but for the choices Percy gives, I would say it is (B). Science is a difficult world to live in. There are boundaries and limits that science is unable to touch now, and may never be able to touch in the future. Scientists can’t locate an animal that is similar in intelligence to humans, we are at another level, and our scientific world cannot surpass those boundaries. As they say, it’s always lonely at the top. Sagan’s ETI research is one of those topics in which science and its methods cannot be very helpful in these times. In a world where science is a belief as strong as the belief in God for some people, it is difficult to realize its boundaries. Perhaps Sagan is lonely because he is starting to realize science is not all knowing, and perhaps he may never know if there is something else out in the cosmos.
Right now Sagan is in a world of only a few people (which could be another reason he might be lonely) who believe that ETIs exist based on the ‘evidence’ gathered. Following Percy’s idea of reentry into the immanent world, I would suggest at the moment, Sagan is choosing “reentry deferred.” His science is so important to his being right now that it is easier for him to live in his own being, away from everyone else in order to keep his dream alive. He doesn’t want to come back into a world where technology can’t reach where his dreams want to go. Sagan is lonely because science can’t find evidence of ETI, because he can’t relate to the common man, and because he is distancing himself from the world. It would be a lonely universe to live in if all you had to hold onto was the idea that there is intelligent life somewhere out there, and nothing you could do helped in your discovery.